Psychology exam

Scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Orderly systematic procedures that researchers follow as they identify a problem, create a study, collect data,draw conclusions, and tell their findings.

General principle or set of principles proposed to explain how seperate facts are related.

Prediction about a relationship between two or more variables.

TO test the hypothesis.

To collect data relevant to the hypothesis.

Repeating a study with different people and different investigator to verify findings.

To describe, explain, predict, and influence.

describe behavior or mental processes as accrately as possible.

To suggest causes for behavior or mental preocesses of interest

Specifying conditions under which behavior or mental processes is likely to occur.

applying a principle or a change of condition in order to prevent unwanted occurrences or bring about desired outcomes. 

Research conducted to seek knowledge and o explore and advance general scientific understanding

Research conducted to solve practical problems and improve quality of life.

Wilhelm Wundt

Involves looking inward to examine one's own conscious experience and then reporting it.

Edward Titchener.

first formal school of thought in psychology, analyzed basic elements of the conscious mental experience.

Both involved a person examining their own conscious state so they were not objective.

It established psychology as a science since they insisted that mental processes could be measured and studied through the scientific process.

Field of psyhcology concerened with how humans and animals use mental processes in adapting to their environment

• Charles Darwin
• William James

She was a psychologist who completed requirements for her Ph.D but had to wait 40 years to get her degree. 

COmpleted requirements for degree but harvard refused to give it to her.

Receved Ph. D from Cornell University

Father of African American psychology, first african american to earn a ph.D

African American who studies inteeligence and occupation

He wrote on influence of racial segregation and helped the Supreme Court to end segregation in schools.

Saw that cultural and language barriers work against hispanic students when taking IQ test.

Native and asian americans

Women

Research observe behavior in natural setting without influencing or controlling it.

• Observer Bias - Observer may see what they want to see
• Must wait for behavior to occur.

A study in a lab that setting that allows more control and use of instrumentation.

The client may behave differently in a lab setting.

A group of people are studied over an extended time using observations, interviews, or psychological testing.

• Causes of behavior are difficult to establish
• Observer bias
• Hard to apply research to a larger group or different culture

Interview or questionnaires used to gather info.

A sample is a piece of the population that is studied in order to research conclusions about the entire population, a representative sample is a sample that mirrors only the population of interest and is proportionate to the population.

• The correlational method
• The experimantal method

• Cell body (Soma)
• Dendrites
• Axons

Contains the nucleus and carries out metabolic functions of the neuron

They are the branchlike extensions of theneuron and receives info and sends it to other neurons.

The slender tail-like extension of the neuron, that transmits signals to the dendrites of other neurons, muscles, glands, and other parts.

Sensory neurons that relay senses to the brain and spinal cord

Motor Neurons that send info from the Central Nervous system to the glands and muscles

• Central nervous system - brain and spinal cord
• Pereipheral Nervous system - connects brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body.
• Spinal Cord - Extension of the brain  that controls simple reflexes and transmits messages

• Pons
• Medulla
• reticular Formation
• Cerebellum

relay info between the cerebellum and the motor cortex and infulence sleep and dreaming

Controls heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure swallowing and coughing

Arousal system and activates the cerebral cortex

• Coordinates skilled movement
• Regulates muscle tone and posture
• Role in motor learning and probably cogntion

• Thalamus
• Limbic System
• Corpus collosum

Relay station between cerebral cortex and lower brain.

Group of structures invovled in emotion, memory, and motivation

band of nerve fibers that connects the two brain hemispheres

• Somatic nervous system
• Autonomic Nervous System
• Sympathetic Nervous System
• Parasympathetic Nervous System

All the sensory and motor neurons that transmit to the brain that make it possible to sense envrionment

Nerves that send involuntary messages between brain and body parts.

Mobilizes body during distress and emergencies, prepares body for action

Brings body back down from to normal after emergency

• Frontal Lobe
• Parietal Lobe
• Occipital Lobe
• Temporal Lobe

Used to treat severe epilopsy, seperates each hemisphere so that the other side of the brain will not be harmed.

Inability to produce speech sounds or an impairment to produce them.

Contains the somatosensory cortex where touch pressure, temperature, and pain register and is responsible for body awareness and spatial orientation.

Contains the primary visual cortex and is involved in reception and interpretation of visual information

Contains the primary auditory cortex, receives and interprets auditory info.

Person can speak but does not make sense to listener

Capacity of the brain to adapt to changes

As we age the brain gains and loses synapses, in adulthood the losses outweigh the gain

White

Left

They have equal amounts of both white and gray matter in each hemisphere

electroencephalogram, records brain waves with an electroencephalograph.

Mental or physical activity

Deep relaxation

Deep sleep

Computerized Axial Terminal, uses a rotating computerized x-ray tube to process cross sections of the brain.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging, diagnostic scan of the brain that shows structures

Position emission Tomography, reveals activity in various parts based on blood flow, oxygen use, and glucose consumption.

Functional Magnetic ressonance imaging, reveals both structure and activity more precisely and rapidly than a PET.

Superconducting Quantum Interference Device, shows magnetic changes produced by neurons when they fire

Magnetoencephalogram, shows neurons firing and neural activity as it happens.

Process where senses pick up sensory stimuli and send to the brain

Process where sensory info. is organized and interpreted by the brain.

Just Notceable Difference, smallest change in sensation that a person is able to detect half the time.

minimum amount of sensory stimulation that can be detected half the time.

When sensory receptors convert  stimulation into a neural impulse.

When sensory receptors become accustomed to constant levels of stimuli.

Retina, lens, Cornea, pupil, rods, cones, fovea, iris

small opening at center of eye

Protective layer hat covers eye and bends light rays inward.

colored portion of eye that controls how much light is let in

disc shaped structure that changes shape to focus on distant objects

Layer of tissue that's on te inner surface of eye and contains rods and cones

Lender cylinders that allow eyes to respond to low light

enable humans to see color and fine detail but do not function in very dim light.

Small area at center of retina where vision is sharpest

Needs a medium to transmit through, such as liquid, gas, or solid.

How loud a sound is measured in decibels

the pitch of a sound determined by hertz

Part of the ear that contains the ossicles and connects the ear drum to the oval window and amplifies sound waves.

Stirrup, anvil, footplate, and hammer

Cochlea and hair cells

fluid filled snail shaped bony chamber that contains the basilar membrane and hair cells.

They are the receptors for sound

Olfaction

2 one inch squares of tissue at the top of each nasal cavity

Memory

• Sweet
• Salty
• bitter
• Sour
• Umami

Tactile

Skin

• Kinesthetic sense
• Vestibular sense
• Semicircular canals

• Figure-ground
• Similarity
• proximity
• continuity
• closure

• size
• brightness
• shape

• attention
• unattentional blindness
• cocktail part phenomenon
• focus

• Binocular depth cues
• monocular depth cues

everything we are aware of at any given time

changes in awareness produced by sleep, meditation, hypnosis, and drugs

in a 24 hour period, the regular fluctuation from high to low points of certain bodily functions and behaviors

sleep restores body and mind, restores energy and consolidates memory

Sleep evolved to keep humans out of harms way during night time

sleep disturbances where you do things that normally occur while you awake

Sleeper awakens in state of panic

Frightening vivid dreams usually remembered

sleep disorder where timing, quantity, or quality is impaired

Incurable sleep disorder where person is attacked by REM sleep during the day with uncontrollable drowziness

Occurs during sleep when the individual stops breathing and must wake up to continue breathing

difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or sleep is light restless or poor in quality

where one person uses the power of suggestion to induce changes of thousht, feelings, sensations, perceptions, or behavior in another person

behavior of hypnotized is a function of that person's expectation

induces a split between two aspects of the control of consciousness

an authentic altered state of consciouness in which the control over other subsystems of consciousness is weakened