PSYCH TEST 1

Scientific study of the mind and behavior

certain kinds of knowledge are innate or in-born

all knowledge is acquired through experience

Environmental factors can alter the way our genes are expressed, making even identical twins different

The controversy whether or not a person's behavior is more controlled by genetics or the environment

• analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind; breaking conciousness down into elemental sensations and feelings
• Wundt
• Titchener

• The study of the purpose mental processes serve in enabling people to adapt to their environment
• James
• Hall

Psychological natural selection; features of an organism that help it survive and reproduce are more likely than other features to be passed on to subsequent generations

• Approach that emphasizes the importance of uncouncioius mental processes in shaping fellings, thoughts, and behaviors
• Freud

• Approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings
• Maslow
• Rogers

• scientific study of objectively observable behavior
• Pavlov and dogs
• Watson and baby

a psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts

• scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning
• Piaget

Links psychological processes to activities in the nervous system and other bodily processes

Field that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity

The study of the caues and consequences of interpersonal behavior

study of how cultures relfect and shape the psychological processes of their members

Set of principles about the appropriate relationship between ideas and evidence

a falsifiable prediction made by a theory

Description of a property in concrete, measurable terms

Extent to which a measure and a property are conceptually related

the tendency for a measure to produce the same measurement whenever it is used to measure the same thing

Aspects of an observational setting that cause people to behavee as they think they should

observation whose true purpose is hidden from both the observer and the person being observed

Describe the central tendency of a frequency distributioin and describe the variability in a frequency distribution

Two variables are correlated only because each is casually related to a third variable

• Technique for establishing the casual relationship between variables
• Manipulation
• Random Assignment

Procedure that uses a random event to assign people to the experimental or control group

the creation of an artifical pattern of variation in a variable in order to determine its casual powers

Manuplated Variable

variable that is measured

the group of people who are treated ina particular way

Group of people who are not treated in a particular way

• Characteristic of an experiment that establishes the casual relationship between variables
• There is a relationship from the defined grounds of the experiment

• Property of an experiment in which variables ahve been operationally defined in a normal, typical, or realistic way
• Representative of the real world

Complete collection of people

Partial collection of people drawn from a population

Technique for choosing participants that ensures that every member of a population has an equal chance of being included in the sample

the extent to which findings (from a study) can be generalized (or extended) to the those in natural settings (i.e., outside the lab)

Written agreement to participate in a study made by an adult who has been informed of all the risks that parcipitation may entail

Verbal desctiption of the true nature and purpose of a study

• new technique of staining neurons
• highlighted the appearance of entire cells
• Saw many threads extending outward toward other neurons
• Threads of neurons did not actually touch

Sensory, Motor, Inter

receive information from the external world and convey this information to the brain via the spinal cord

carry signals from the spinal cord to the muscles to produce movement

connect the sensory neurons, motor neurons, or other interneurons

• The two-stage proces in which communication between neurons occurs
• Conduction of an electric signal over relatively long distnaces within neurons
• Transmission of chemical signals between neurons over the synapse

• Electric signal that is conducted along the length of a neuron's action to the synapse
• 40 millivolts

the difference in electric charge between the inside and outside of a neuron's cell membrane

chemicals that transmit information across the synapse to a receiving neuron's dendrites

Neurotransmitter that regulates motor behavior, motivation, pleasure, and emotional arousal

• Neurotransmitter that influenced mood and arouasal 
• Involved in states of vigilance or heightend awareness

Neurotransmitter involved in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness, eating, and agressive behavior

chemicals that act within the pain pathways and emotional centers of the brain

Drugs that increase the action of a neurotransmitter

drugs that block the function of a neurotransmitter

Interacting network of neurons that conveys electrochemical information throughout the body

Brain and Spinal Cord

• Connects the central nervous system to the body's organs and muscles
• Somatic Nervous System
• Peripheral Neverous System

Set of nerves that conveys information into and out of the central nervous system

Set of nerves that carries involuntary and automatic commands that control blood vessels, body organs, and glands

Set of nerves that prepares the body for action in threatening situations

Helps the body return to a normal state

• Complex cognitive, emotional, sensory, and motor functions
• Cerebral Cortex
• Subcortical Structures

Small in humans: Composed of tectum and tegmentum

• Part of midbrain
• orients an organism in the environment
• receives stimulus and moves organism in a coordinated way towards the stimulus

• Part of the midbrain involved in movement and arousal
• helps to orient organism towards sensory stimuli
• location of neurotransmitters involved in arousal, mood, and motivation

• Continuous with the spinal cord
• Coordinates information coming into and out of the spinal cord
• basic functions of life
• Medulla
• Reticular Formation
• Cerebellum
• Pons

hindbrain; extension of the spinal cord into the skull that coordinates heart rate, circulation, and respiration

Hindbrain; Regulates sleep, wakefulness, and levels of arousal

hindbrain; large structure of the hindbrain the controls fine motor skills

Hind Brain; structure that relays information from the cerebellum to the rest of the brain

Thalamus, Hypothalamus, Pituatary Gland, Hippocampus, Amygdala, Basal Ganglia

Master gland of the body's hormone-producing system, which releases hormones that direct functions of many other glands in the body; directed by the hypothalamus

Subcortical Structure; Limbic System; creating new memories and integrating them into a network of knowledge so that they can be stored indefinitely in other parts of the cerbral cortex

Subcortical structure; limbic system; tip of each horn of the hippocampus and plays role in formation of emotional memories

• Highest level of the brain, most complex aspects of perception, emotion, movement, and thought
• Raised part- Gyrus
• Indentations-Sulcus

Connects large areas of the cerbral cortex on each side of the brain and supports communication of information across the hemispheres

Language Processing