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| The scientific study of behavior and mental processes |
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| Claim presented as scientific but lacks supporting evidence. |
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(six major psychological perspective)
Behaviorist Perspective |
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| how the environment and experience control behavior |
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Cognitive Perspective
(six major psychological perspectives) |
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| mental processes in perception, memory, language, & problem solving |
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Sociocultural
(six major psychological perspectives) |
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| social and cultural influences on behavior |
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Psychdynamic Perspective
(six major psychological perspectives) |
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| unconscious dynamics within the individual |
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Humanistic Perspective
(six major psychological perspectives)
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Human potential
(people are inheritably good) |
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| What is eclectic approach? |
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| combination of different perspectives |
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| Five basic tenets of the scientific approach. |
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| Empirical, Replicable, Self-Correcting, Solvable Problems, and Probabilistic |
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| Everything is caused by some identifiable factors |
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| Three characteristics of a good theory. |
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| Testable, Parsimony, and Fruitfulness. |
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| A prediction or statement about the relation between two (or more) variables. |
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A definition of a variable in terms of the actual procedures used by the researcher to measure or manipulate it.
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| What is reliability? Identify two types. |
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Reliability is the consistency or dependability of direct and indirect observations.
TWO TYPES: inter-rater & test-retest |
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| What is validity? Identify two types of validity. |
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Validity is the extent to which information produced by research or testing accurately measures the psychological variable it was inteneded to measure.
TWO TYPES: content and criterion |
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| Understand how to determine the strength and direction of a correlation coefficient. |
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| The sign determines the direction (-/+) and the number determines the strength. |
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| Identify examples of positive and negative correlations |
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positive correlations= /
negative correlations=\
zero correlations= - |
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| Understand fundamental difference between correlation and experimental studies. |
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Correlation implies a relationship between two variables.
Experiments(CAUSE) tend to refer to how the data was collected.
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION! |
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| Difference between random assignment and random sampling. |
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Random assignment increases INTERNAL validity.
Random sampling increases EXTERNAL validity. |
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| Identify the independent and dependent variable. |
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Independent: the alleged cause of events
Dependent:the alleged effect, the outcome, the variable the experimenter measures |
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| Phineas Gage's story; revelance to biological perspective and how is injury affected his psychological functioning. |
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Definition
Gage's story shows how physical and chemical changes in the body are involved in our our behaviors and mental processes.
He had damage to medial prefrontal lobes. Profound negative changes in emotions/personality, reliability/dependability |
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| What is the central nervous system? the peripheral nervous system? |
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CNS: the network of nerves contained within the brain and spinal cord.
PNS:The network of nerves that radiate from the CNS to the rest of the body. |
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Somatic nervous system
(within the peripheral nervous system) |
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| Transmits signals from the sensory organs to and from the CNS to the skelatal muscles. |
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Autonomic nervous system
(within the peripheral nervous system) |
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| Connects the CNS to the internal muscles, organs, and glands. |
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Sympathetic Nervous System
(within the peripheral nervous system) |
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| heightens arousal and energizes the body for action (arousing) |
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Parasympathetic Nervous System
(within the peripheral nervous system) |
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| reduces arousal and returns body to its pre-energized state. (calming) |
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| What is the endocrine system and what are the hormones? |
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| Collection of galnds that regulate aspects of growth, reproduction, metabolism, and behavior by secreting hormones. Hormones are chemical messengers. |
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| Three types of neurons and how they work together. |
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| sensory, motor, and inter- neurons all work together to send signal s to the brain. |
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| What are the glial cells? |
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| Nervous systems cells that provide the structural support, insulation, and nutrients to the neurons |
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| Order with which a neural impulse travels through the neuron. |
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| Dendrites>cell body(soma)>Axon>Myelith Sheath> Terminal buttons |
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| chemical charge inside the neuronal cell membrane when the neuron is at rest, the charge at threshold, and what is meant by action potential. |
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-Neuron at "rest": -70mv
-Neuron at Threshold: -50 mv
-Action potential: an electrical impulse that surges along the axon |
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Three types of neurotranmitters and their primamry function.
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-Acetylcholine: most concentrated in parts of the brain that control motor activity
-Dopamine: Also linked to muscle activity
-Endorphins: A morphine-like neurotransmitter that is produced by the brain |
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Limbic system 1 of 3
(thalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus) |
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| plays a role in motivation, emotion, and memory |
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Brain stem 1 of 3
(medulla, pons, reticular formation, cerebellum) |
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| primitive "inner core" that controls life support functions |
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| outermost covering of the brain, largely responsible for higher-order mental processes |
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| What is absolute threshold? The difference threshold? |
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Absolute threshold: The smallest amount of stimulation that can be reliably detected
Difference threshold: The smallest amount of change or difference between two stimuli that can be reliably detected. |
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Why is signal detection theory an important approach to measuring thresholds?
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| Separates true sensitivity to sensory stimuli(sensation) from the decision process |
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| the process by which raw energy is converted into sensory neural impulses |
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| a transparent structure in the eye that focuses light on the retina |
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| Clear outer membrane that bends light so it is sharply focused in the eye |
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| ring of muscle tissue that gives eyes their color and controls the size of the pupil |
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| the small round hole in the iris through which light passes |
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| the rear multi-layered part of the eye where rods and cones convert light into neural impulses |
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| retina cells that are highly sensitive to light. Responsible for vision at low light levels. |
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retina cells that are highly sensitive to color.
Active at higher light levels |
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| The center of the retina where cones are clustered. |
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| the pathway that carries visual information from the eyeball to the brain. |
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| part of retina through which optic nerve passes. Contains only axons- no rods and cones. Not reposnsive to light. |
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| Order which light passes through the eye. |
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| cornea - aqueous humor - iris - lens - vitreous humor - retina |
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| Two organizational processes in perception |
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Definition
1.Identification
2.Recognition
or
1.Interpretation
2.Mean-making
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| How our attentional processes and the Gestalt laws of grouping influence how we organize stimuli |
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Definition
We automatically focus on some objects in the perceptual field to the exclusion of others.
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| Two identification and recognition procceses in perception under stand the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing |
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Interpreting and making meaning of the stimuli we have sensed and organized.
Bottom-up processing
Interpretation of stimuli based entirely on
the sensory data available in the environment (data-driven)
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| Understand the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing |
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Bottom-up processing:
Interpretation of stimuli based entirely on
the sensory data available in the environment (data-driven)
Top-down processing:
Interpretation of stimuli based upon the context, your past experiences, knowledge, motivation, and cultural background. |
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| How does top-down processing help us to interpret ambiguity? |
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| Top-down processes make use of context and our expectations and our expectations and can helpwith interpretation. |
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