Psych Exam #1: Thinking Critically and Neuroscience
Terms
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- Aristotle
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Knowledge grows from the experiences stored in our memories.
Events experienced under strong emotion are better recalled than unemotional ones.
We recall memories through a network of associations among stored experiences.
Mind and body connected. - Descartes
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Mind and body are distinct.
Spirits flowed from the brain through nerves to the muscles, provoking movement. - Bacon
- Interested in the failings of the human mind. i.e. hunger to percieve order in random events.
- Locke
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The mind at birth is a blank slate.
Essay Concerning Human Understanding - Wundt
- Established first psychology laboratory at the University of Liepzig, Germany.
- Titchener
- Structuralism - used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind.
- Darwin
- Influenced James/Functionalism with Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection
- James
- Functionalism - instincts and how they enable organisms to adapt, survive, and flourish
- Calkins
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Harvard woman - earned a PhD but was denied it by Harvard because she was a woman.
Became a memory researcher and APA president in 1905. - Washburn
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First woman to recieve a psychology PhD
Second female APA president - Functionalism
- instincts and how they enable organisms to adapt, survive, and flourish
- Structuralism
- used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind
- Introspection
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looking inward
"the rose is smooth-petaled, sweetly aromatic" - Natural Selection
- Those with better traits will survive and reproduce more.
- Nature vs. Nurture
- Are humans shaped solely by genetics or through experience?
- Neuroscience
- how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences
- Evolutionary
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How the natural selection of traits promotes the perpetuation of one's genes
Ancient adaptations to environment - Behavior Genetics
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How much our genes and our environment influence our individual differences.
Relationship between genes and behavior - Psychodynamic
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How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts
Unconscious mind/unresolved conflict - Behavioral
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How we learn observable responses
Role of environment and learning - Cognitive
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How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information
language, thinking, problem solving, memory - Social-cultural
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How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures
influences of interactions with others - Critical Thinking
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Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions.
Examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions - Theory
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Explains observations more or less well.
An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations. - Hypothesis
- Testable predictions.
- Operationalize
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A statement of the procedures used to define research variables.
Allows for replication of data. - Descriptive
- describe psychological phenomena - doesn't explain, only describes/observes
- Descriptive Examples
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Case study
Surveys
Naturalistic Observations - Correlational
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Identify strength of relationships between observations
Show relationship on scatter plot
Quantify relationship - Correlational Examples
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Height/Weight Chart
Percieving order in random events
Korsakoff's Syndrome - Experiment
- Test for effects of one factor in isolation of many others
- Experiment Examples
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Korsakoff's Syndrome
Evaluating Therapies
Need for:
control conditions
random assignments
double-blind - Hindsight Bias
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The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it
"I knew it all along" - Illusory Correlation
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the perception of a relationship where none exists
(Korsakoff's Syndrome) - Random Sample
- a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion
- Making Inferences
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Broad samples better than selective samples
More cases better than fewer
Statistics does not "prove" something is true - Statistics
- Statistics help determine the likelihood that result could have been obtained by chance.
- Central Tendency
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Mode - most commonly occurring
Mean - average
Median - middle
Ways of analyzing can make a difference, especially when data is asymmetric. - Measures of Variability
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Range
Central Tendency - Nervous System
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1. Peripheral 2. Central
A.Autonomic B. Somatic
a.Sympathetic
b. Parasympathetic - Central Nervous System
- Brain and spinal cord
- Autonomic
- controls self-regulated action of internal organs and glands
- Sympathetic
- arousing
- Parasympathetic
- calming
- Somatic
- controls voluntary movements of all skeletal muscles
- Sensory Neurons
- Neurons that carry incoming information from the sense receptors to the central nervous system
- Motor Neurons
- neurons that carry outgoing information from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands
- Interneurons
- central nervous system neurons that internally communicate and intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs
- Hypothalamus
- controls maintenance functions such as eating; helps govern endocrine system; linked to emotion and reward
- Thyroid Gland
- affects metabolism, among other things
- Testis
- secretes male sex hormones
- Pituitary Gland
- secretes many different hormones, some of which affect other glands
- Parathyroids
- help regulate the level of calcium in the blood
- Adrenal Glands
- inner part, called the medulla, helps trigger the "fight or flight" response
- Pancreas
- regulates the level of sugar in the blood
- Ovary
- secretes female sex hormones
- hormones
- chemical messengers, mostly those manufactured by the endocrine glands, that are produced in one tissue and affect another
- Dendrite
- receive messages from other cells
- Axon
- passes messages away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands
- Terminal Branches of Axon
- form junctions with other cells
- Cell Body
- the cell's life-support center
- Neural Impulse
- electrical signal traveling down the axon
- Myelin Sheath
- covers the axon of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses
- Resting Membrane Potential
- -70 mv resting potential
- Action Potential first generated at...
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axon hillock
Pumps positive ions in and out of membrane - Refractory Period of Neuron
- a resting pause when the neuron pumps the positively charged sodium atoms back outside
- Excitatory Neuron Signals
- like pushing accelerator
- Inihibitory Neuron Signals
- like pushing the brake
- Acetylcholine
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Enables muscle action, learning, and memory
Curare: Ach blocker; antagonist
Nicotine: Ach substitute, Agonist - Dopamine
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influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion
Cocaine: dopamine reuptake inhibitor
L-DOPA: dopamine precursor; Parkinson's treatment - Serotonin
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affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal
Zoloft, anti-depressants
Ecstacy: Enhances release of serotonin - Norepinephrine
- Helps control alertness and arousal
- GABA
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Major inhibitory neurotransmitter
Valium: Enhances binding of GABA; Agonist - Glutamate
- Major excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in memory
- Antagonist
- interferes - blocks neurotransmitter
- Corpus Callosum
- axon fibers connecting two cerebral hemispheres
- Thalamus
- relays messages between lower brain centers and cerebral cortex
- Hippocampus
- a structures in the limbic system linked to memory
- Amygdala
- neural centers in the limbic system linked to emotion
- Medulla
- controls heartbeat and breathing
- Cerebellum
- coordinates voluntary movement and balance
- Spinal Cord
- pathway for neural fibers traveling to and from brain; controls simple reflexes
- Reticular Formation
- helps control arousal
- Visual Cortex
- receives written words as visual stimulation
- Angular Gyrus
- transforms visual representations into an auditory code
- Wernicke's Area
- interprets auditory code; controls language reception
- Broca's Area
- controls speech muscles via the motor cortex
- Motor Cortex
- word is pronounced
- Brain Study
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Lesion: tissue dissection
Electroencephalography
CT Scan
PET Scan
MRI
fMRI