AP Psychology Study Guide

Cerebellum

"Little brain" coordinates habitual muscle movement for stabilization and precision

Describe the normal curve and percentages

Bulge is in middle-median score is 100. 1st rectangle= .1% 2nd rectangle=2% 3rd rectangle=14% 4th rectangle=34%

Sampling error

Extent to which a sample differs from the population

Case studies

Follows in detail one person or a group of people with a rare condition

Reticular formation

Group of cells with ability to focus attention

Standard deviation

How far a score is from the mean Square root of variant

Range

Largest # minus Smallest #

Line of best fit/regression line

Line that goes through the majority of data points to create a correlation out of a scatter plot

SAME acronym

Sensory/afferent Motor/efferent

Correlational coefficient

Strong positive correlation: +1.0 Strong negative correlation: -1.0 No correlation: 0

Peripheral nervous system

Transmits info to and from central nervous system Not encased in bone

Axon

Wire-like structure extending from cell body that transmits messages

CAT scan

creates detailed 3D picture of brain structure

Introspection

study of the mind by looking into oneself

Wilhelm Wundt

1. Introduced structuralism (Bell experiment) 2. Set up the first psychological laboratory

Positive Correlation

A direct relationship in which both variables are increasing or both are decreasing

Type 2 error

Accepting null hypothesis when you should have rejected it

PET scan

Active brain scan using radioactive sugar (glucose) to show most active areas during a task

Negative Correlation

An inverse relationship in which one variable increases and the other decreases or vice versa

Debriefing

Any information withheld from subject prior to or during experimentation must be reveled

Inferential statistics

Applying data to the larger population

Lesions

Area of abnormal tissue due to removal or injury

Sympathetic

Arouses and alerts for "fight or flight" response

Pavlov

Behaviorist-Classically conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell

Watson

Behaviorist-In his Little Albert Experiment he conditioned Albert to fear white rat by associating it with loud noises

Skinner

Behaviorist-Proposed theory of operant conditioning with skinner box experiment, reinforcing rats behavior with rewards or punishments

Terminal button

Branched end of axon that contains neurotransmitters

Parasympathetic

Calms to maintain homeostasis

Excitatory

Causes next cell to fire

Independent Variable

Changed by experimenter-what is being controlled

Dependent Variable

Changed by independent variable

Hypothalamus

Controls biological rhythms 4Fs-Fight or flight, food, Fahrenheit, fortification

Medulla

Controls blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing

Pons

Controls facial expressions Plays role in sleeping, waking, and dreaming

Demand characteristics

Cues that subject picks up on and uses in order to respond appropriately

Limbic system

Deals with emotion and memory

Operational definition

Defining how something is measured in an experiment: help to easily replicate

Target Population

Demographic experimenter wants to study

Descriptive statistics

Describes a set of data

p-value

Determines statistical significance: want number to .05 or lower

Survey Method

Easy to distriubute to large population and inexpensive, but can't control who sends it back, and has other confounding variables

Humanistic Perspective

Emphasized the human capacity for free-will and individual choice (Rogers & Maslow)

Random assignment

Equal chance of anyone in sample population to be placed in either control or experimental group

Evolutionary Perspective

Examines how behaviors help a species survive from on generation to the next, focus on natural selection

Biopsychology

Explains human thought in terms of the relationship between biology and psychology

Psychoanalytic Theory

Focus on past childhood experience, repressed memories, and study of the unconscious mind (Freud)

Behaviorism

Focus on stimuli and response-study only observable behavior (Watson)

Representative Sample

Group that resembles target population

Naturalistic Observation

Has high ecological validity (acts normally in natural habitat) but can't control variables and therefore does not show cause and effect

Z-score

How far a score is from the mean in standard deviants (score - mean) / standard deviant

Hindbrain

Includes medulla, pons, and cerebellum Life support system

Midbrain

Includes reticular formation Coordinates movemnet with sensory information

Forebrain

Includes thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, and limbic system Controls thought and reason

Acetylcholine

Involved in arousal, attention, memory and controls muscle contractions Lack of=Alzheimer's

Amygdala

Involved in fear and anger responses

Dopamine

Involved in mood, sensations of pleasure, control of movemnet Lack of=Parkinson's High levels=Schizophrenia

Serotonin

Involved in mood, sleep, and appitite Lack of=Clinical depression

Basic research

Just because

Inhibitory

Keeps next cell from firing

Measures of central tendency (3)

Mean-add all points, divide by # of points Median-middle # Mode-most frequent

Validity

Measures what experiment is supposed to

Hawthorne effect

Merely observing an experiment changes its outcome

Double blind

Neither experimenter nor subject knows which group subject is in

Outliers

Numbers that are much greater or much less than the other numbers in the set

All or nothing principle

Once action potential reaches threshold, either fires or doesn't

Null hypothesis

Opposite of hypothesis being tested

Endorphins

Pain control, associated with addictions, natural opium

Freud

Personality theorist who created psychoanalysis

Hippocampus

Processes and sends memories to other parts of the brain

Random selection

Randomly gathering a representative sample for a study by identifying a population and randomly selecting people from that population

Spinal reflex

Reaction occurs before signal reaches brain Sensory neuron to spine to motor neuron

Thalamus

Receives sensory signals and directs them to appropriate areas of the brain

Type 1 error

Rejecting null hypothesis when it is true

IRB

Review board for ethical standards

Dendrite

Roots coming from cell body that allows entrance of messages from other cells

Reliability

Same result every time

fMRI

Shows function of active brain through magnetism of oxygen-depleted areas

Matched pairs

Similar people for different conditions of a study

Applied research

Solving a problem

Synaptic gap

Space between terminal button of one neuron and dendrites of another

Single blind

Subject does not know which group (control or experimental) they are in

Stratified Sample

Takes specific criteria (race, gender, %) into account

Placebo effect

Taking a drug that has no pharmacological effects produces similar results as the real medication

Hindsight bias

Tendency to believe, once the outcome is already known, that you would have foreseen it (Also "I-Knew-It-All-Along Phenomenon)

Social desirability effect

Tendenecy to give the politically correct answer

Central nervous system

The brain and spinal cord Encased in bone

Somatic

Voluntary movements

Receptor site

Where neurotransmitters bind

Autonomic

automatic body functions: regulates glands, internal organs and blood vessels, digestion

Histogram

bar graph

Social-Cultural

behavior varies by culture

EEG

detects brain waves used in sleep studies

Myelin sheath

fatty tissue that speeds up transmission of messages

structuralism

identifying components of the mind: combined subjective emotions and objective sensations (Wundt) "the whole is equal to the sum of the parts"

Frequency Polygon

line graph

MRI

shows density and structure only, not function no x-ray

Refractory period

time between action potential transmittions

Experimenter bias

when experimenter treats people differently because of his/her expected results

Positive Skew

when the outlier is higher than than the bulk of the data

Negative Skew

when the outlier is lower than the bulk of the data