Psych. Exam #1
Terms
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- Medulla
- Part of "old brain", the HINDBRAIN. Responsible for regulating largely unconscious functions such as breathing and circulation
- Pons
- Part of the "old brain" or HINDBRAIN. Connects the two halves of the cerebellum. Involved in sleep and arousal
- Cerebellum
- Part of the "old brain" or HINDBRAIN. Controls bodily balance.
- Reticular formation
- part of the "forebrain". Can activate other parts of the brain immediately to produce general bodily arousal. Can heigten awareness or block out noise when we sleep.
- Thalamus
- In "forebrain", acts as a relay station. Messages from senses get sent here then to higher parts of the brain.
- Hypothalamus
- In "forebrain", is responsible for regulating basic biological needs: hunger, thirst, and temperature control.
- Pituitary gland
- "Master" gland that regulates other endocrine glands
- Spinal cord
- Responsible for communication between brain and rest of body; involved with simple reflexes
- Corpus callosum
- bridge of fibers passing information between the two cerebral cortexes
- Limbic system
- part of "new brain" - pleasure centers, controls eating, aggression, and reproduction. Consists of amygdala, hippocampus, and fornix. Involved with self-preservation, learning, memory, and the experience of pleasure. "Animal brain"
- Cerebral cortex
- "new brain". Ability to think, evaluate, and make complex judgments. Contains four major lobes. (frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobes)
- Motor Area (Frontal Lobe)
- MOTOR AREA. Responsible for the bodys voluntary movement. Movement is produced through the coordinated firing of a complex variety of neurons in the nervous system.
- Sensory Area
- Includes 3 regions: one that corresponds primarily to body sensations (touch & pressure); one relating to sight; and a third relating to sound.
- somatosensory area
- encompasses specific locations associated with the ability to perceive touch and pressure in a particular area of the body.
- auditory area
- located in the temporal lobe, responsible for hearing
- visual area
- located in the occipital lobe
- association areas of the cortex
- the site of higher mental processes such as thinking, language, memory, and speech.
- apraxia
- occurs when an individual is unable to integrate activities in a rational or logical manner. "master planners"
- Aphasia
- problems with language
- Broca's aphasia
- speech becomes halting, laborious, and often ungrammatical
- Wernicke's aphasia
- difficulties in both understanding each others' sppech and in the production of language.
- neuroplasticity
- when the brain continually reorganizes itself. changes in the brain that occur throughout the life span relating to the addition of new neurons, more interconnections between neurons, and reorganization of information-processing areas.
- lateralization
- the dominance of one hemisphere of the brain in specific functions
- split-brain patients
- a patient in whom the corpus calosum has been surgically cut and in whom the two halves of the brain function independently so that the two sides of the body work in disharmony
- biofeedback
- a procedure in which a person learns to control through conscious thought internal physiological processes such as blood pressure, heart and respiration rate, skin temperature, sweating, and the constriction of particular muscles
- Official beginning of psychology
- 1879 - William Wundt set up the first laboratory. Considered psychology to be the study of conscious experience, and developed STRUCTURALISM
- Structuralism
- Wundt's approach, which focuses on the fundamental elements that form the foundation of thinking, consciousness, emotions, and other kinds of mental states and activities.
- introspection
- A kind of structuralism - HOW do basic sensations combine to produce our perception of the world? Subjects are asked to describe in detail what they are experiencing when they are exposed to a stimulus
- Functionalism
- replaced structuralism. it's an early approach to psychology that concentrated on what the mind does - the functions of mental activity - and the role of behavior in allowing people to adapt to their environments. How does behavior help people adapt and satisfy their needs?
- Gestalt psychology
- Another reaction to structuralism. An approach to psychology that focuses on the organization of perception and thinking in a "whole" sense rather than on the individual elements of perception. How people consider individual elements together as units or wholes.
- The neuroscience perspective
- Views behavior from the perspective of biological functioning. How individual nerve cells are joined, heredity influences behavior, how functioning of body affects hopes and fears, which behaviors are instinctual. Includes study of heredity and evolution.
- Psychodynamic Perspective
- Believes behavior is motivated by inner, unconscious forces over which person has little control. Behavior is motivated by unconscious inner forces. Dreams and slips of tongue are viewed as indications of what a person is truly feeling. FREUD.
- Behavioral Perspective
- Focuses on observable behavior that can be measured objectively. WATSON and SKINNER. People's behavior is because of their environment.
- Cognitive Perspective
- Examines how people understand and think about the world. How people comprehend and represent the outside world within themselves and how our ways of thinking about the world influence our behavior.
- Humanistic Perspective
- All individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control of their lives and behavior. ROGERS AND MASLOW. Free will. people have the ability to make their own decisions rather than relying on societal standards.
- scientific method
- the approach through which psychologists systematically acquire knowledge and understanding about behavior and other phenomena of interest. 3 steps: identifying questions of interest, formulating explanation, carrying out research
- theory
- broad explanation and prediction concerning phenomena of interest
- hypothesis
- a prediction, stemming from a theory, stated in a way that allows it to be tested
- operationalization
- the process of translating a hypothesis into specific, testable procedures that can be measured and observed.
- 6 types of research
- archival, survey, correaltion, case study, naturalistic observation, and experimental
- experimental manipulation
- the change that an experimenter deliberately produces in a situation
- treatment
- the manipulation implemented by the experimenter
- experimental group
- any group participating in an experiment that receives a treatment
- control group
- a group participating in an experiment that receives no treatment
- random assignment to condition
- a procedure in which particiaptns are assigned to different experimental groups of "conditions" on the basis of chance and chance alone.
- significant outcome
- meaningful results that make it possible for researchers to feel confident that they have confirmed their hypotheses
- replication
- the reptition of research, sometimes using other procedures, settings, and other groups of participants, in order to increase confidence in prior findings.
- Gestalt laws of organization
- a series of principles that describe how we organize bits and pieces of information into meaningful wholes. Closure, proximity, similarity, and simplicity
- feature analysis
- a theory of perception according to which we perceive a shape, pattern, object, or scene by reacting first to the individual elements that make it up. Then, we use these individual components to understand the overall nature.
- Top-Down processing
- perception that is guided by higher-level knowledge, experience, expectations, and motivations
- Bottom-Up processing
- perception that consists of recognizing and processing information about the individual components of stimuli.
- perceptual constancy
- physical objects are perceived as unvarying and consistent despite changes in their appearance or in the physical environment
- motion parallax
- the change in position of an object on the retina caused by movement of your body relative to the object
- relative size
- if one object is farther away, it will look smaller
- texture gradient
- things that are far away are less distinct
- visual illusions
- physical stimuli that consistenly produce errors in perception
- subliminal perception
- the perception of messages about which we have no awareness.
- Extrasensory perception (ESP)
- perception that does not involve our known senses