Psych Midterm 1

Behavior changes result from minor brain damage, brain scans show entire activity over the whole brain.

1 billion neurons and 1 trillion connection specialized for communication. monitor our internal/external environment. controls our behavior/create

central region of cell

receive signals from other neurons

delivers signals to other cells

consists of nerves that connect muscles and genes

band of tissue that connects the two hemispheres and allows them to communicate

primary visual cortex, auditory cortex, somatosensoy cortex process specific sensory input

involved in motion and higher order

controls motions, sends signals to motor neurons

is a region of the hominid[1] brain with functions linked to speech production

is an impairment of language ability. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write.

(on top of your head) important for touch sensation, perception, object recognition, number rep. plays important roles in integrating sensory information from various parts of the body, knowledge of numbers and their relations,[1] and in the manipulation of objects

important for auditory sensation, understanding language and autobiography

It is involved in the understanding of written and spoken language.Wernicke’s Aphasia: inability to comprehend speech

inability to produce speech

important for vision:processes visual information (cup the back of the brain)

adjacent portions of cortex controls adjacent body parts

responsible for executing planned actions: implicated in Parkinson’s disease

hypothalamus regulates internal environment of body by controlling autonomic nervous system: controls hormone levels, drives states, hunger, and thirst

controls hormone levels, drives states, hunger, and thirst

component of the limbic system of the brain, responsible for producing emotional responses to physical sensations of pain

: divided into two hemisphere. contra-laterally, information from the right side of the body is processed to the left (like reversing in car)

relay station of the brain, it directs signals passing between body and the brain

modulation of motor activity, modulation of motor actvity subcortial structions

important for balance, coordination, preplanned action (small brain) football throwing action

maintain balance: contains the sleep paralysis center of the brain and also plays a role in generating dreams.

maintain balance, regulate heart rate, and breathing

junction between two connecting neurons

carries signals between central nervous system and muscles in the body that control movement

important for memory and forming new memories

involved for memory and forming new memories

carries signals between the central nervous system and organs. glands that regulate involuntary actions and boy’s internal state

readies body for action: increases heart rate, dialates, pupils, inhibits digestion. fight or flight response

active during rest, slows heart breathing rates, stimulates digestion, responsible for rest and digestion

Carries sensory information to the brain, motor control, commands back to body manages simple reflexes and movements. serves to increase speed of important reflexes.

such as reasoning, planning, and language production: involves mood and personality

famous case of damage: noteable areas: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex, broca’s areas

space between two neurons where neurotransmitter is released

spherical sacs containing nuerotransmitters

chemical messengers specialized for communication and released at teh synapse

Support cells in nervous systems that play roles in the formation of myelin and blood-brain barrier

glial cells wrappers around axons that act as insulators of the neuron’s signal

recovery time when another ap (action potential?) is not possible

hand on fire

make it stop

stops the fire

two halves cannot communicate, people function fairly normally. lateralized: some functions are only functioned by one hemisphere

some functions are only processed by one hemisphere

promoted severing of the corpus collosum: no communication between hemisphere

detection of physical energy by sense organs cells in the eye, nose, ear, skin, and tongue

brain’s interpretation of raw sensory input

a stimulus is stronger when we first sense it after that the sense declines in strength happens are the level of the sensory receptor

the lowest level of stimulus that we can detect 50% hear it 50% of time then you can hear that level

smallest change we can sense stimulus intensity: test change we can sense stimulus intensity.

is a direct translation of sensory input we use more than sensory input to make sense of the world

stimulus is unclear so our brain its best guess

the process by which we perceive stimuli consistency across varying conditions

door : looks different we see as the same thing

checkerboard: darker spot vs. lighter; brain adjusts

holes (the black part, hole: allows light into the eyes)

colored part, muscles that controls the pupil

outside covering that helps focus light

disc that focuses the light on the back of the eyes

membrane on the back of the eye containing: sensory receptors

area on retina where light is focused:

transmit visual to rest of the brain

nearsighted light focuses too soon

farsighted: light focuses too late: the lens inverts the image as it focuses it

visual sensory receptor. located in the retina

sense dim light: rods are working slowly to adjust: concetrated in the periphery

Carries Visual Information to from the eye to the brain: from the optic nerve, blind spot

sense bright light and color: concentrated at the fovea

mix pigments which in turn absorb more light and gets darker (paints work this way)

mixing colored lights which in turn gets brighter (lights work this way )

color is based on 3 primary colors: blue, green, and red. 3 cones respond to blue, green, or red. pattern of activity: between different types: allows us to see all possible colors.

idea that we perceive things as red,green,blue, or yellow, light or dark. color must inhibit each other Ganglion Cells: function as opponent neurons: excited by one color and inhibited by another.

occurs when one cone is missing: called dichromatic vision

processesing drive by sensory input, perceiving and object based on it’s edges. processing can be seen as starting with no knowledge on a subject.It is said to occur when one draws generalizations from particular examples, instances, cases etc. to capture commonalities between them.

process driven primarily by concepts, beliefs, or expectations, objects + contex Top down processing can be seen as processing what one is perceiving using past information.It occurs when someone infers from a generalization,law etc. to conclude something about a particular example, instance, case etc.

objects are made of features we perceive separately: color, shape, etc. the brain detects teh features and integrates them into a whole object.

involves paralel processing, all features can be sense at once

each object must be integrate one at a time.

cues that help us group features or parts into whole objects

: physically close things are grouped

similar things are grouped to form a whole

continuous things are grouped closure: gaps and borders are ignored to form a whole

used to interpet with just one eye. relative size, distant objects, textured gradient, texture of distant objects is less clear, interpretation: closer objects block futher ones, height in plane, light and shadows.

further things pass by slower

binocular disparity: difference in retinal images: slight difference in the view from each eye

difference in visual angle

• 5 months: were willing to crawl
• 6-14 refused to cross cliff:depth perception:develops with age and experience

blending of the senses: believed to be result from connections in the brain between certain areas

brain using things around to gage: moon illusion

change blingness: pay attention:

everything you sense goes into sensory memory: hold information long enough: pay attention to it.

filter information: priming

showed 12 letters for less than a second: no one could write all of them.

told you what to write down. it was easier

visual sensory memory, last <1 second.

auditory sensory memory, last a few seconds, cocktail party effect, predisposed to things important to you

working memry, attention transfers info from sensory memory to short term memory, area of consciousness, separate divisions

auditory short term memory

visual short term memory

coordinates the mind’s activities and brign new info into the short term memory

fade away

loss of information due to competition with other information

new info prevents old information

old information preventrs new information Magic Number

combining bits of info into meaning groups

experts chunked location into meaning patterns.

maintenance rehearsal: repeating info to keep it in short term memory

ink info in a meaningful way to improve short term model

the more deeply we process information the better we remember it

our permanent store of information: includes facts, skills, experiences. long duration, and unlimited capacity.

tendancy to remember wods from the beginning of the list words. words get encoded into our LONG TERM memory.

tendency to remember words from the end of the list: stored in our short term memory.

knowledge of facts, episodic memory, autobiographic memory.

conscious memory we recall intentionally.

unconscious memory we do not reflect on deliberately

memory of how to do things: including motor skills or habits

mechanism that transfers info from short term to long term: maintenance, rehearsal, elaborate rehearsal

we remember info better under conditions present at learning (sit in the same seat you were sitting in)

state dependant learning; we recall information better in the same place we learned it

scubadivers learn lists of words either on land or under water: they test them either in the same or opposite enviornment

we recall information better in the same congitive state we learn it in: psychological state, physiological state

memories of events that never happened: case Elizabeth Loftus: recovered during therapy. can be damaging.

creating false memories by providing misleading info after the event.

asked people to estimate teh sppe of the car who smashed or contacted (infect memories) Lost in the mall experiment: not really lost

poor when people are stressed. presence of gun lowers reliability, culprit is not there in sequential line up.

loss of episodic memory: implic and semantic memories remain intactAnterograde amnesa: specifically an inability to form new explicit memories implicit memories stay in tact

Hippocampi removed to prevent seizures: severe anterograde amnesia uanble to form new memories, no explict memory, but his procedural memory remained in tact.

hippcampi was damaged by viral infection: severe antegrade amnesia

• change in behavior
• resulting from experience.

• •
• anything in the environment to which an organism
• might react.

• any behavior resulting
• from a stimulus.

• decrease in reaction to
• a repeated stimulus
• Habituation is the
• simplest form of learning.

• •
• Early field of psychology that focused only on
• observables

• •
• usually changes in behaviorism

• •
• treated the mind as a black box

• •
• A new stimulus begins to elicit the same
• response as another stimuli, when they occur together.

• •
• Elicits an automatic response (reflex)

• Discovered by Ivan Pavlov, a pyshiologist
• interested in digestion.

• •
• learning occurs when the CS is paired reliably
• with the UCS.

• decrease or diappearance
• of the CS when it is no longer paired with UCS

• when stimuli similar to
• the CS elicit a CR (Baby Albert experiment - white rabbit and white santa claus
• beard)

• Advertising conditions
• consumers to associate a product with positive feelings.

• •
• Acquiring behaviors as a result of the outcome
• or consequence of those behaviors

• •
• behavior results from reqard and punishment

• •
• Different from classical conditioning

• •
• Organism's response is generally voluntary

• •
• Rewards are dependent on organism's response

• •
• if a response, in the presence of a stimulus, is
• followed by a satisfying state of affiars, the bond between stimulus and
• response will be strengthened.

• •
• According to Throndike and others, learning
• involves an association between a stimulus and response, with the reqard
• stamping in this connection.

• •
• famous behaviorist

• •
• Developed a highly efficient conditioning
• chamber called the “Skinner Box”

• •
• Reinforcement and punishment

• •
• pleasant stimulus is given to increase a
• certain behavior.

• unpleasant stimulus is removed
• to increase a certain behavior (cutting the crust off a sandwich, getting
• braces off)

• unpleasant stimulus is given
• to decease a certain behavior (shock collars on dogs, spanking)

• pleasant stimulus is removed
• to decrease a certain behavior (grounded and losing privledges, prison)

• •
• reinforcing behaviors occasionally, rather than
• always

• is harder to extinguish because you
• don't expect to get rewarded everytime (gambling).

• – reinforcement after a
• fixed number of responses (6 quarters for 1 soda)

• reinforcement after a
• fixed amount of time (paycheck every 2 weeks, watched kettle never boils)

• reinforcement after a
• varying number or responses (lotto scratchers and slot machines)

• reinforcement after a
• varying amount of time (unpredicable weather, waiting in line)

•

• •
• Shaping – rewarding behaviors that come closer
• and closer to a target behavior (fetching)

• •
• Applied behavior analysis and autism

• the things you learn on
• your own)

• •
• Preschool children watched actors behave
• aggressively toward a “Bobo doll”.
• Children were then allowed to play with Bobo themselves. Children who watched other people behave
• aggressively toward Bobo also behaed aggressively – proof of observational
• learning. The children also invented new
• ways to attack Bobo.

• •
• No reward or punishment, just learned through
• watching.

• •
• a conditioned disgust reaction to certain foods
• after sickness

• •
• taste aversion differs from classical
• conditioning!

• •
• Needs only one pairing of CS and UCS