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Psych 107 test 1
Chapters 1-4 and syllabus
Question | Answer |
---|---|
The Scientific study of thought and behavior | Psychology |
Psychology is best defined as the study of | Human thought and behavior |
As a field psychology is | The practice of diagnosing and treating mental illness, a social science, and a biological science. |
The study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak and solve problems | Cognitive psychology |
The study of how thought and behavior change and remain stable across the life span | Developmental psychology |
The study of the links among the brain, mind, and behavior | Behavioral neuroscience |
The study of the relationship between bodily systems and chemicals and how they influence behavior and thought | Biological psychology |
The study of the treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders and the promotion of psychological health | Clinical psychology |
The study of what makes people unique and the consistencies in people's behavior across time and situations | Personality psychology |
The study of how living among others influences thought, feeling, and behavior | Social psychology |
The study of how the role that psychological factors play in regard to physical health and illness | Health psychology |
The study of how students learn, the effectiveness of particular teaching techniques, the social psychology of schools, and the psychology of teaching | School psychology |
The study of psychological factors in sports and exercise | Sports psychology |
Application of psychological concepts and questions to work setings | Industrial/organizational psychology |
Field that blends psychology, law, and criminal justice | Forensic psychology |
Medicine men or women who treat people with mental problems by driving out their demons with elaborate rituals, such as exorcisms, incantations, and prayers | Shamans |
Facilities for treating the mentally ill in Europe during the Middle Ages and into the 19th century | Asylums |
Sigmund Freud developed this form of therapy | Psychoanalysis |
A clinically based approach to understanding and treating psychological disorders; assumes that the unconscious mind is the most powerful force behind thought and behavior | Psychoanalysis |
The view that all knowledge and thoughts come from experience | Empiricism |
The first scientific form of psychology; laboratory studies of the subjective experience of physical sensations | Psychophysics |
Wundt | In 1879 he set up a psychology laboratory in Germany. The birthplace of experimental psychology |
Argued that breaking down experience into its elemental parts offers the best way to understand thoughts and behavior | Structuralism |
The main method of investigation for structuralists; involves looking into one's own mind for information about the nature of conscious experience | Introspection |
Argued that it is better to look at why the mind works the way it does than to describe its parts. Influenced by Natural selection | Functionalism |
Proposed that psychology can be a true science only if it examines observable behavior, not ideas, thoughts, feelings, or motives | Behaviorism |
Focuses on personal growth and meaning as a way of reaching one's highest potential | Humanistic psychology |
Shares humanistic beliefs. Studying, understanding, and promoting healthy and positive psychological functioning | Positive psychology |
Maintains that we perceive things as wholes rather than as a compilation of parts | Gestalt psychology |
The change over time in the frequency with which specific genes occur within a breeding species | Evolution |
Inherited solutions to ancestral problems that have been selected for because they contribute to reproductive success | Adaptations |
Studies human behavior by asking what adaptive problems it may have solved for our early ancestors | Evolutionary psychology |
Things that evolve because they solved one problem and they happen to solve another to | Exaptations |
What science is | Cumulative, a process more than a product, and an attitude |
The procedures by which scientists conduct research, consisting of five basic processes: observation, prediction, testing, interpretation, and communication | Scientific method |
A specific, informed, and testable prediction of the outcome of a particular set of conditions in a research design | Hypothesis |
A set of related assumptions from which scientists can make testable predictions | Theory |
The repetition of a study to confirm the results; essential to the scientific process | Replication |
Claims presented as scientific that are not supported by evidence obtained with the scientific method | Pseudoscience |
Plans of action for how to conduct a scientific study | Research design |
A characteristic that changes. Such as age, gender, weight, intelligence, anxiety, and extraversion | Variable |
The entire group a researcher is interested in. A humans, all boys, all girls, all college students | Population |
Subsets of the population studied in a research project | Samples |
The tendency toward favorable self-presentation that could lead to inaccurate self reports | Social desirability bias |
Study designs in which the researcher defines a problem and variable of interest but makes no prediction and does not control or manipulate anything | Descriptive designs |
A study design in which a psychologist, often a therapist, observes one person over a long period of time | Case study |
Examines in detail the lives of historically important people and provides an example of the richness and value of case studies and studying individual lives over time | Psychobiography |
A study in which the researcher unobtrusively observes and records behavior in the real world | Naturalistic observation |
A research sample that accurately reflects the population of people one is studying | Representative sample |
Studies that measure two or more variables and their relationship to one another; not designed to show causation | Correlational designs |
A statistic that ranges from -1.0 to 1.0 and assesses the strength and direction of association between two variables | Correlation coefficient |
A research design that includes independent and dependent variables and random assignment of participants to control and experimental groups or condition | Experiment |
A property that is manipulated by the experimenter under controlled conditions to determine whether it causes the predicted outcome of an experiment | Independent variable |
In an experiment, the outcome or response to the experimental manipulation | Dependent variable |
The method used to assign participants to different research conditions so that all participants have the same chance of being in any specific group | Random assignment |
A group of research participants who are treated in exactly the same manner as the experimental group, except that they do not receive the independent variable or treatment | Control group |
A substance or treatment that appears identical to the actual treatment but lacks the active substance | Placebo |
A group consisting of those participants who will receive the treatment or whatever is predicted to change behavior | Experimental group |
Variable whose influence on the dependent variable cannot be separated from the independent variable being examined | Confounding variable |
Studies in which participants do not know the experimental condition to which they have been assigned | Single-blind studies |
Studies in which neither the participants nor the researchers administering the treatment know who has been assigned to the experimental or control group | Double-blind studies |
Result that occurs when the behavior of the participants is influenced by the experimenter's knowledge of who is in the control group and who is in the experimental group | Experimenter expectancy effects |
A statement that affects events to cause the prediction to become true | Self-fulfilling prophecy |
A research and statistical technique for combining all research results on one question and drawing a conclusion | Meta-analysis |
A measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables or the magnitude of an experimental effect | Effect size |
Experimental design must have | Random assignment of participants to conditions and manipulation of an independent variable |
Written or oral accounts of a person's thoughts, feelings, or actions | Self-reports |
Measures based on systematic observation of people's actions either in their normal environment or in a laboratory setting | Behavioral measures |
Measures of bodily responses, such as blood pressure or heart rate, used to determine changes in psychological state | Physiological measures |
The use of several measures to acquire data on one aspect of behavior | Multiple measurement |
Collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of numerical data | Statistics |
Measures used to describe, organize, and summarize research data | Descriptive statistics |
The arithmetic average of a series of numbers | Mean |
The score that separates the lower half of scores from the upper half | Median |
A statistic that represents the most commonly occurring score or value | Mode |
A statistical measure of how much scores in a sample vary around the mean | Standard deviation |
The rules governing the conduct of a person or group in general or in a specific situation. Standards of right and wrong | Ethics |
Guidelines for ethical research | Informend consent, respect for persons, beneficence, privacy and confidentiality, and justice |
The explanation of the purposes of a study following data collection | Debriefing |
Organizations that evaluate research proposals to make sure research involving humans does not cause undue harm or distress | Institutional review boards |
Research method similar to an experimental design except that it makes use of naturally occurring groups rather than randomly assigning subjects to groups | Quasi-experimental design |
The most rigorous study design that can be used to study the effects of enrichment on brain development in humans | Quasi-experimental design |
A living situation that provides ample opportunity for play and activity | Enriched environment |
A large molecule that contains genes | DNA |
Small segments of DNA that contain information for producing proteins | Genes |
All the genetic information in DNA | Genome |
Different forms of a gene | Alleles |
Genes that show their effects even if there is only one allele for that trait in the pair | Dominant gene |
The scientific study of the role of heredity in behavior | Behavioral genetics |
the hereditary passing on of traits determined by a single gene | Monogenic transmission |
The process by which many genes interact to create a single characteristic | Polygenic transmission |
The extent to which a characteristic is influenced by genetics | Heritability |
Twins that develop from two different eggs fertilized by two different sperm | Fraternal twins |
Twins that develop from a single fertilized egg that splits into two independent cells | Identical twins |
Research into hereditary influence comparing pairs of fraternal and identical twins | Twin studies |
Research into hereditary influence in which adopted people are compared to their biological and adoptive parents | Adoption studies |
Research into hereditary influence on twins, both identical and fraternal, who were raised apart and who were raised together | Twin-adoption studies |
A method of studying heritability by comparing genetic markers that allow researchers to assess how genetic differences interact with environment to produce certain behaviors in some people but not in others | Gene-by-environment interaction research |
Concerns changes in the way genes are turned on or off without a change in the sequence of DNA | Epigenetics |
The part of the nervous system that comprises the brain and spinal cord | Central nervous system |
The part of the nervous system that comprises all the nerve cells in the body outside the central nervous system | Peripheral nervous system |
Transmits sensory information to the CNS and from there to the skeletal muscles | Somatic nervous system |
Controls all actions and automatic processes of the body | Nervous system |
Serves the involuntary systems of the body, such as internal organs and glands | Autonomic nervous system |
The branch of the autonomic nervous system that activates bodily systems in times of emergency | Sympathetic nervous system |
The branch of the autonomic nervous system that usually relaxes or returns the body to a less active, restful state. | Parasympathetic nervous system |
CNS cells that provide structural support, promote efficient communication between neurons, and serve as scavengers, removing cellular debris. Glue that holds the CNS together | Glial cells |
The cells that process and transmit information in the nervous system | Neurons |
Chemicals that transmit information between neurons | Neuro-transmitters |
The cell body of the neuron | Soma |
Long thing that transmits electrical impulses toward the adjacent neuron and stimulates the release of neurotransmitters | Axon |
Fingerlike projections from a neuron's soma that receive incoming messages from other neurons (looks like crab claws) | Dendrites |
Fatty substance wrapped around axons which insulate them making the impulse travel quicker | Myelin sheath |
The junction between the axon and the adjacent neuron where information is transmitted from one neuron to another | Synapse |
Little knobs at the end of the axon that contain tiny sacs of neurotransmitters | Terminal buttons |
Nerve cells that receive incoming information from the sense organs | Sensory Neurons |
Nerve cells that carry commands for movement from the brain to the muscles of the body | Motor neurons |
Nerve cells that are active when we observe others performing an action as well as when we are performing the same action | Mirror neurons |
Neurons that communicate only with other neurons. The most common kind of neuron in the brain | Interneurons |
The impulse of positive charge that runs down an axon | Action potential |
Chemically charged particles that predominate in bodily fluids; found both inside and outside cells | Ions |
The difference in electrical charge between the inside and outside of the axon when the neuron is at rest | Resting potential |
The span of time after an action potential has been generated when the neuron is returning to its resting state and the neuron cannot generate an action potential | Refractory period |
The idea that once the threshold has been crossed, an action potential either fires or it does not; there is no halfway | All-or-none principle |
Point of no return; once the charge inside the neuron exceeds this, the action potential fires and it is always fired with the same intensity. | Threshold |
Tiny sacs in the terminal buttons that contain neurotransmitters | Synaptic vesicles |
A way of removing excess neurotransmitters from the synapse and sending them to the presynaptic neuron for storage in vesicles and future use | Reuptake |
A way of removing excess neurotransmitters from the synapse, in which enzymes specific for the neurotransmitter bind with it and destroy it | Enzymatic degradation |
Small changes in membrane potential that by themselves are insufficient to trigger an action potential | Graded potential |
A neurotransmitter that controls muscle movement and plays a role in mental processes such as learning, memory, attention, sleeping, and dreaming | Acetylcholine |
A neurotransmitter released in response to behaviors that feel good or are rewarding to the person | Dopamine |
Also known as adrenaline, a neurotransmitter that arouses bodily systems (such as increasing heart rate) | Epinephrine |
A neurotransmitter that plays an important role in the sympathetic nervous system, energizing bodily systems and increasing mental arousal and alertness | Norepinephrine |
A major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain that tells postsynaptic neurons not to fire | GABA |
A major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain that increass the likelihood that a postsynaptic neuron will fire; important in learning, memory, neural processing, and brain development | Glutamate |
Part of the brain that regulates breathing, heart rate, arousal, and other basic functions for survival | Hindbrain |
A hindbrain structure that serves as a bridge between lowerbrain regions and higher midbrain and forebrain activity | Pons |
A hindbrain structure that extends directly from the spinal cord; regulates breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure | Medulla |
A hindbrain structure involved in body movement, balance, coordination, fine-tuning motor skills, and cognitive activities such as learning and language | Cerebellum |
Inborn and involuntary behaviors-- such as coughing, swallowing, sneezing, or vomiting-- that are elicited by very specific stimuli | Reflexes |
The midbrain, the medulla, and the pons | Brain stem |
Controls the eye muscles, process auditory and visual information, and initiate voluntary movement of the body | Midbrain |
A network of nerve fibers that runs up through both the hindbrain and the midbrain; it is crucial to waking up and falling asleep | Reticular formation |
Controls cognitive, sensory, and motor function and regulate temperature, reproductive functions, eating, sleeping, and the display of emotions | Forebrain |
A forebrain structure that receives information from the senses and relays it to the cerebral cortex for processing | Thalamus |
Important to emotion and motivation. Contains the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the cingulate gyrus | Limbic system |
A limbic structure; the master regulator of almost all major drives and motives we have, such as hunger, thirst, temperature, and sexual behavior; also controls the pituitary gland | Hypothalamus |
A limbic structure that wraps itself around the thalamus; plays a vital role in learning and memory | Hippocampus |
A small, almond shaped structure located directly in front of the hippocampus; has connections with many important brain regions and is important for processing emotional information, especially that related to fear | Amygdala |
A beltlike structure in the middle of the brain that plays an important role in attention and cognitive control | Cingulate gyrus |
A collection of structures surrounding the thalamus involved in voluntary motor control | Basal ganglia |
Each of the large halves of the brain that are covered with convolutions or folds | Cereburm |
The thin outer layer of the cerebrum, in which much of human thought, planning, perception, and consciousness takes place | Cerebral cortex |
The fact that one side of the brain controls movement on the opposite side | Contralaterality |
Lobe that holds attention, holds things in the mind while we solve problems, abstract thinking, control of impulses, creativity, and social awareness | Frontal lobe |
Top and rear sections of the brain. Play a role in the sensation and perception of touch | Parietal lobes |
Directly below the frontal and parietal loves and right behind the ears. Main function is hearing | Temporal lobes |
In the rear of the brain. The optic nerve travels from the eye to the thalamus and then to these. Visual information is processed in the visual cortex. | Occipital lobes |
A small structure inside the cerebrum that plays an important role in the perception of bodily sensations, emotional states, empathy, and addictive behavior | Insula |
The nerve fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain | Corpus callosum |
Deficit in the ability to speak or comprehend language | Aphasia |
An area in the left frontal lobe responsible for the ability to produce speech | Broca's area |
An area deep in the left temporal lobe responsible for the ability to speak in meaningful sentences and to comprehend the meaning of speech | Wernicke's area |
The brain's ability to adopt new functions, reorganize itself, or make new neural connections throughout life,as a function of experience | Neuroplasticity |
The development of new neurons | Neurogenesis |
The growth and formation of new dendrites | Arborization |
The formation of entirely new synapses or connections with other neurons | synaptogenesis |
A method for measuring brain activity in which the electrical activity of the brain is recorded from electrodes placed on a person's scalp | Electroencephalography |
A special technique that extracts electrical activity from raw EEG data to measure cognitive processes | Event-related potential |
Brain imaging technique that uses magnetic fields to produce detailed images of the structure of the brain and other soft tissues | Magnetic resonance imaging |
Brain imaging technique that uses magnetic fields to produce detailed images of activity in areas of the brain and other soft tissues | Functional magnetic resonance imaging |
Brain imaging technique that measures blood flow to active areas in the brain | Positron emission tomography |
System of glands that secrete and regulate hormones in the body | The endocrine system |
Chemicals secreted by glands that travel in the bloodstream and carry messages to tissues and organs all over the body | Hormones |
The master endocrine gland that controls the release of hormones from glands throughout the body | Pituitary gland |
Endocrine structures that release hormones important in regulating the stress response and emotions | Adrenal glands |
Chemicals released from the adrenal glands that function as hormones and as neurotransmitters to control ANS activation | Catecholamines |
A hormone released by the adrenal glands; responsible for maintaining the activation of bodily systems during prolonged stress | Cortisol |
The process by which our sensitivity diminishes when an object constantly stimulates our senses | Sensory adaptation |
The conversion of physical into neural information | Transduction |
The study of how people psychologically perceive physical stimuli such as light, sound waves, and touch | Psychophysics |
The lowest intensity level of a stimulus a person can detect half of the time | Absolute threshold |
The viewpoint that both stimulus intensity and decision-making processes are involved in the detection of a stimulus | Signal detection theory |
The smallest amount of change between two stimuli that a person can detect half of the time | Difference threshold |
The finding that the size of a just noticeable difference is a constant fraction of the intensity of the stimulus | Weber's law |
The effect of frame of mind on perception; a tendency to perceive stimuli in a certain manner | Perceptual set |
The opening in the iris through which light enters the eye | Pupil |
The clear hard covering that protects the lens of the eye | Cornea |
The muscle that forms the colored part of the eye; it adjusts the pupil to regulate the amount of light that enters the eye | Iris |
The structure that sits behind the pupil; it bends the light rays that enter the eye to focus images on the retina | Lens |
The process by which the muscles control the shape of the lens to adjust to viewing objects at different distances | Accommodation |
The thin layer of nerve tissue that lines the back of the eye | Retina |
Cells in the retina (called rods and cones) that convert light energy into nerve energy; they are transducers | Photoreceptors |
Photoreceptors that function in low illumination and play a key role in night vision; responsive to dark and light contrast | Rods |
Photoreceptors that are responsible for color vision and are most functional in conditions of bright light | Cones |
Process of adjustment to seeing in the dark | Dark adaptation |
The ability to see clearly | Visual acuity |
Spot on the back of the retina that contains the highest concentration of cones in the retina; place of clearest vision | Fovea |
Structure composed of the axons of ganglion cells from th retina that carry visual information from the eye to the brain | Optic nerve |
The point at which strands of the optic nerve from half of each eye cross over to the opposite side of the brain | Optic chiasm |
Neurons in the visual cortex that analyze the retinal image and respond to specific aspects of shapes, such as angles and movements | Feature detectors |
The ability to see things in three dimensions and to discriminate what is near from what is far | Depth perception |
Aids to depth perception that rely on input from both eyes | Binocular depth cues |
A binocular depth cue: the way in which the eyes move inward as an object moves closer to you | Convergence |
Aids to depth perception that do not require two eyes | Monocular depth cues |
The ability of the brain to preserve perception of objects in spite of changes in retinal image when an object changes in position or distance from the viewer | Perceptual constancy |
The Gestalt tendency to group like objects together in visual perception | Similarity |
The Gestalt tendency to see points or lines in such a way that they follow a continuous path | Continuity |
The Gestalt tendency to group objects together that are near one another | Proximity |
The Gestalt tendency to see a whole object even when complete information isn't available | Closure |
Assembling a perceptual experience | Bottom-up processing |
Perception of the whole based on our experience and expectations, which guide our perception of smaller elemental features of a stimulus | Top-down processing |
The theory that all color that we experience results from a mixing of three colors of light | Trichromatic color theory |
Visual images that remain after removal of or looking away from the stimulus | Afterimages |
The theory that color vision results from cones linked together in three opposing pairs of colors so that activation of one member of the pair inhibits activity in the other | Opponent-process theory |
The eardrum | Tympanic membrane |
Structure of the inner ear involved in maintaining balance | Semicircular canals |
A bony tube of the inner ear, which is curled like a snail's shell and filled with fluid | Cochlea |
A membrane that runs through the cochlea; contains the hair cells | Basilar membrane |
Inner ear sensory receptors that transduce sound vibrations into neural impulses | Hair cells |
The nerve that receives action potentials from the hair cells and transmits auditory information to the brain | Auditory nerve |