Psych 101 Ch. 1-3 vocab.
Terms
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- motor neurons
- neurons that carry signals from the spinal cord to the muscles to produce movement
- random sampling
- a technique for choosing participants that ensures that every member of a population has an equal chance of being included in the sample
- Stimulus
- Sensory input from the environment
- Philosophical Empiricism
- the philosophical view that all knowledge is acquired through experience
- neurotransmitters
- chemicals that transmit information across the synapse to a receiving neuron's dendrites
- Psychology
- the scientific study of mind and behavior
- parietal lobe
- a region of the cerebral cortex whose functions include processing information about touch
- cognitive psychology
- the scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning
- mode
- the "most frequent" measurement in a frequency distribution
- hypothalamus
- a subcortical structure that regulates body temperature, hunger thirst, sexual behavior
- Gestalt Psychology
- a psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts
- Physiology
- the study of biological processes, epecially in the human body
- self-selection
- the case in which a participant's inclusion in the experimental or control group is determined by the participant
- control group
- one of the two groups of participants created by the manipulation of an independent variable in an experiment that is not exposed to the stimulus being studied
- predictive validity
- the tendency for an operational definition to be related to other operational definitions
- structuralism
- the analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind
- tectum
- a part of the midbrain that orients an organism in the environment
- clial cells
- support cells found in the nervous system
- nervous system
- an interacting network of neurons that conveys electrochemical information throughout the body
- autonomic nervous system
- a set of nerves that carries involuntary and automatic commands that control blood vessels, body organs, and glands
- manipulation
- a characteristic of experimentation in which the reasearcher artificially creates a pattern of variation in an independent variable in order to determine its causal powers. Manipulation usually results in the creation of an experimental group and a control group
- pituitary gland
- the master gland of the body's hormone-producing system which releases hormones that direct the functions of many other glands in the body
- reticular formation
- a brain structure that regulates sleep, wakefulness, and levels of arousal
- population
- the complete collection of participants who might possibley be measured
- cognitive neuroscience
- a field that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity
- sympathetic nervous system
- a set of nerves that prepares the body for action in threatening situations
- evolutionary psychology
- a psychological approach that explains mind and behavior in terms of adaptive value of abilities that are preserved over time by natural selection
- Illusions
- errors of perception, memory, or judgement in which subjective experience differs from objective reality
- tegmentum
- a part of the midbrain that is involed in movement and arousal
- empiricism
- originally a greek school of medicine that stressed the importance of observation, and now generally used to describe any attempt to acquir knowledge by observing objects or events
- neurons
- celles in the vervous system that communicate with one another to perform information-processing tasks
- law of large numbers
- a statistical law stating that as sample size increases, the attributes of a sample will more closely reflect the attributes of the population from which it was drawn
- gene
- the unit of hereditary transmission
- Mind
- our private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings
- case method
- a method of gathering scentific knowledge by studying a single indidvidual
- synapse
- the junction or region between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites or cell body of another
- cell body
- the part of a neuron that coordinates information-processing tasks and keeps the cell alive
- somatic nervous system
- a set of nerves that conveys information into and out of the central nervous system
- Natural selection
- charles darwin's theory that the features of an organism that help it survive and reproduce are more likely than other features to be passed on to subsequent generations
- median
- the "middle" measurement in a frequency distribution. Half the measurements in a grequency distribution are greater than or equal to the median and half are less than or equal to the median
- behavioral neuroscience
- an approach to psycology that links psychological processes to activities in the nervous system and other bodily processes
- Dissociative Identity Disorder
- a condition that involves the occurrnce of two or more distinct identities within the same individual
- reinforcement
- the consequences of a behavior that determine whether it will be more liely that the behavior will occur again
- receptors
- parts of the cell membrane that receive the neurotransmitter and initiate a new electric signal
- thalamus
- a subcortical structure that relays and filters information from the senses and transmits the information to the cerebral cortex
- randomization
- a procedure to ensure that a participant's inclusion in the experimental or control group is not determined by a third variable
- construct validity
- the tendency for an operational definition and a property to have a clear conceptual relation
- social psychology
- a subfield of psychology that studies the causes and consequences of intrerpersonal behavior
- basal ganglia
- a set of subcortical structures that directs intentional movements
- internal validity
- the characteristic of an experiment that allows one to draw accurate inferences about the causal relationship between an independent and dependent variable
- hypothesis
- a specific and testable prediction that is usually derived from a theory
- norpinephrine
- a neurotransmitter that influences mood and arousal
- Functionalism
- the study of the purpose mental processes serve in enabling people to adapt to their environment
- variable
- a property whose value can vary or change
- GABA
- the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain
- reliability
- the tendency for a measure to produce the same result whenever it is used to measure the same thing
- psychoanalysis
- a therapeutic approach that focuses on bringing unconscious material into conscious awareness to better understand psychological disorders
- experiment
- a technique for establishing the causal relationship between variables
- cerebral cortex
- the outermost layer of the brain, visible to the naked eye and divided into tow hemispheres
- response
- an action or physiological change elicited by a stimulus
- independent variable
- the variable that is manipulated in an experiment
- Reaction Time
- the amount of time taken to respond to a specific stimulus
- sample
- the partial collection of people who actually were measured in a study
- endorphins
- chemicals that act within the pain pathways and emotion centers of the brain
- frontal lobe
- a region of the crebral cortex that has apecialized areas for movement, abstract thinking, planning, memory, and judgement
- behaviorism
- an approach tha advocates that psychologists restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectively observable behavior
- operational definition
- a description of an abstract property in terms of a concrete condition that can be measured
- Nativism
- the philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn
- glutamate
- a major excitatory neurotransmitter involved in information trasmission throughout the brain
- hindbrain
- an area of the brain that coordinates information coming into and out of the spinal cord
- action potential
- an electric signal that is conducted along an axon to a synapse
- mean
- the average of the measurements in a frequency distribution
- cultural psychology
- the study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members
- hippocampus
- a structure critical for creating new memories and integrating them into a network of knowledge so that they can be stored indefinitely in other parts of the cerebral cortex
- power
- the tendency for a measure to produce different results when it is used to measure different things
- unconscious
- the part of the mind that operates outside of conscious awareness but influences conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions
- resting potential
- the difference in electric charge between the inside and outside of a neuron's cell membrane
- dendrites
- the part of a neuron that recieves information form other neurons and relas it to the cell body
- medulla
- an extension of the spinal cord into the skull that coordinates heart rate, circulation, and respiration
- validity
- the charactereistic of an observation that allows on to draw accurate inferences from it
- limbic system
- a group of forebrain structures including the hypothalamus, the amygdala, and the hippocampus, which are involed in motivation, emotion, learning, and memory
- Consciousness
- a person's subjective experience of the world and the mind
- parasympathetic nervous system
- a set of nerves that helps the body return to a normal resting state
- heritability
- a measure of the variability of behavioral traits among individuals that can be accounted for by genetic factors
- humanistic psychology
- an approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings.
- myelin sheath
- an insulating layer of fatty material
- axon
- the part of a neuron that transmits information to other neurons, muscles, or glands
- occipital lobe
- a region of the cerbral cortex that processes vissual information
- pons
- a brain structure that relays information form the cerebellum to the rest of the brain
- Introspection
- the subjective observation of one's own experience
- acetylcholine
- a neurotransmitter involed in a number of functions, including voluntary motor control
- dopamine
- a neurotransmitter that regulates motor behavior, motivation, pleasure, and emotional arousal
- third-variable problem
- the fact that the causal relationship between two variables cannot be inferred from the correlation between them because of the ever-present possibility of third-variable correlation
- Behavior
- observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals
- cerebellum
- a large structure of the hindbrain that controls fine motor skills
- informed consent
- a written agreement to participate in a study made by a person who has been informed of all the risks that participation may entail
- interneurons
- neurons that connect sensory neurons, motor neurons, or other interneurons
- Central nervous system
- the part of the nervous system that is composed of the brain and spinal cord
- serotonin
- a neurotransmitter that is involved in the regulation of aleep and wakefulness, eating, and aggressive behavior
- chromosomes
- strands of DNA wound around each other in a double helix configuration
- antagonists
- drugs that block the function of a neurotransmitter
- terminal buttons
- knoblike structures that branch out from an axon
- peripheral nervous system
- the part of the nervous system that connects the central nervous system to the body's organs and muscles
- Phrenology
- a now defuct theory that specific mental abilities and characteristics, ranging from memory to the capacity for happiness, are localized in specific regions of the brain
- double-blind
- an observation whose true purpose is hidden from the researcher as well as from the participant
- experimental group
- one of the two groups of participants created by the manipulation of an independent variable in an experiment; the experimental group is exposed to the stimulus being studied and the control group is not
- psychoanalytic theory
- sigmund freud's approach to understanding human behavior that emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviors
- theory
- a hypothetical account of how and why a phenomenon occurs, usually in the form of a statement about the casual relationship between two or more properties. Theories lead to hypotheses
- measure
- a device that can detect the measurable events to which an operational definition refers
- naturalistic observation
- a method of gathering scientific knowledge by unobtrusively observing people in their natural environments
- correlation
- the "co-relationship" or pattern of covariation between two variables, each or which has been measured several times
- agonists
- drugs that increase the action of a neurotransmitter
- amygdala
- a part of the limbic system that plays a central role in many emotional processes, particularly the formation of emotional memories
- sensory neurons
- neurons that receive information form the external world and convey this information to the brain via the spinal cord
- refractory period
- the time following an action potential during which a new action potential acnnot be initiated
- dependent variable
- the variable that is measured in a study
- method
- a set of rules and techniques for observation that allow researchers to avoid the illusions, mistakes, and erroneous conclusions that simple observation can produce
- Hysteria
- a temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions, usually as a result of emotionally upsetting experiences
- association areas
- areas of the cerebral cortex that are composed of neurons that help provide sense and meaning to information registered in the cortex
- temporal lobe
- a region of the cerebral cortex responsible for hearing and language
- corpus callosum
- a thick band of nerve fibers that connects large areas of the cerebral cortex on each side of the brain and supports communication of information across the hemispheres
- correlation coefficient
- a statistical measure of the direction and strength of a correlation, which is signified by the letter r
- debriefing
- a verbal description of the true nature and purpose of a study that psychologists provide to people after they have participated in the study
- external validity
- a characteristic of an experiment in which the independent and dependent variables are operationally defined in a normal, typical, or realistic way
- demand characteristics
- those aspects of an obeservational setting that cause people to behave as they think an observer wants or expects them to behave
- normal distribution
- a frequency distribution in which most measurements are concentrated around the mean and fall off towared the tails, and the two sides of the distribution
- electromyograph EMG
- a device that measure muscle contractions under the surface of a person's skin
- frequency distribution
- a graphical representation of the measurments of a sample that are arranged by the number of times each measurement was observed