ap psychology final review

• the study of behavior and mental processes

• seeks answers to question about us (how we think, feel, and behave)

• father of psychology

• performed first psychological experiments in first psychology laboratory at the university of leipzip in germany (1879)

• student of wundt

• introduced structuralism

• discover elements of the mind ("atoms of the mind")

• looking inward

• subjective emotions and objective sensations

• focused on thoughts, images, and feelings

• conscious experience

• thinking about mental processes and then reporting them

• functionalist

• taught first psych class at harvard (1875)

• mentored mary whiton calkins

• wrote first textbook "the principles of psychology" (1890)

• focused on function/purpose of behavior (stream on consciousness)

• emphasized importance of introspection in understanding "self"

• first woman president of the american psychological association

• first woman to get a psych PhD

• studied motor processes (thinking is based on movement)

• the whole is greater than the sum of all parts

• max wertheimer

• focus was not on how we feel, but how we experience/perceive the world

• perception

• sigmund freud

• unconscious mind

• free response and dream analysis to reveal unconscious processes

• freud's theories along with his followers

• john watson

• people ignored how you felt inside and how you acted was all that mattered

• if psychologists could change your behavior, they can change the way you think (classical conditioning)

• variety of behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanistic, biological, social-cultural, cognitive

• psychologists pick which theories/perspectives to use depending on the situation and client

• where we are now

• brain and their functions (neuroscience)

• adaptive value (ex: flight or fight response)

• how genes and environment influence our individual differences

• we may repress some of our true feelings and may not be fully aware of them, so to get "better," we must bring these issues to the surface to confront them

• focuses on observable behaviors while putting feelings to the side

• helping individuals improve their sense of "self"

• focuses on how we think

• how behavior and thinking vary across situations (groups) and cultures

• hindsight bias

• overconfidence

• to believe after learning/observing an outcome, that we would have predicted it

• to think we know more than we do

• watching subjects in their natural environment to see true and natural behavior

• advantage: observing "normal" or natural behavior

• disadvantage: can't show cause and effect relationship, time consuming, no control, difficultly in not attracting attention

• interviews or questionnaires

• requires a representative sample and random sampling

• advantage: efficient, interviews allow more clarity and control, open-ended vs close-ended questions

• disadvantage: low response rate, dishonesty, wording effects, difficult to gain in-depth info

• a way of randomly selecting members of a population to be in the study

• randomly assigning participants to groups in the study with an equal chance in being in either groups to avoid confounding variables and researcher bias

• methods include flipping a coin, drawing names from a hat, assigning random numbers, and computer-generated randomization (best method)

• obtaining detailed information about an individual or group to develop general principles about behavior

• advantages: useful in studying rare disorders or circumstances, can generate new questions/topics

• disadvantage: requires lots of time, effort, and attention to detail

• ex: following a child's lifespan to adulthood

• relationship between two or more variable when researches are not able to manipulate variables

• used to make predictions and analyze descriptive research methods

• cannot be used to determine cause and effect relationships

• CORRELATION ≠ CAUSATION

• variables go in the same direction

• variables go in the opposite directions

• when we believe there is a relationship, we tend to recall and notice instances that confirm our belief

• ex: sugar = hyperactive children

• ex: weather change = sore joints

• assuming certain random outcomes are more likely than other random outcomes

• ex: flipping coins, choosing lottery numbers

• performs research to understand how humans operate physically and psychologically

• investigator manipulates a variable under controlled conditions and observes any changes in the second variable

• only method that determines cause and effect relationships

• experimental

• control

• exposed to the independent variables

• receives the experimental manipulation

• receives no treatment or placebo treatment

• types: single-blind study and double-blind study

• advantage: investigators can control variables in an effort to eliminate alternate explanations, allows conclusions about cause and effect relationships, can determine causation

• disadvantage: cannot be used to explore all research questions because certain variables cannot be manipulated

• subjects are unaware which group they are in

• protects against the placebo effect

• believing you are receiving treatment

• both subjects and researchers are unaware of group placement

• protects against placebo effect and experimenter bias

• table or graph that shows how often different numbers or scores appear in a particular set of scores

• bar graph that shows a frequency distribution

• line graph that shows a frequency distribution

• average

• impacted by outliers

• middle

• not impacted by outliers

• most common

• not impacted by outliers

• scores are symmetrically distributed around the mean

• scores are concentrated at the low end of the distribution with outliers drawing up the mean

• scores are concentrated at the high end of the distribution with outliers drawing down the mean

• scores are concentrated at two high points

• difference between the highest and lowest scores

• average difference between each of the values

• distance from the mean in units of standard deviation

• shows how an individual did compared to the rest of the group

• provides a way to summarize information

• determines whether or not findings can be applied to a larger population from which the sample was selected

• if the sample does not represent the larger population, we cannot infer anything about the larger population from the sample

• reduce the possibility of error in measurement

• looks for statistical significance

• p value

• extent to which sample differs from population

• how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance

• probability that the difference in groups was due to chance

• must be LESS THAN 0.05 to be real/valid/significant

• all ethical guidelines are established by the american psychology association

• research proposals must be reviewed and approved by ethics board

• must be informed about the experiment and its procedures

• must be protected from any physical or mental harm

• must have their privacy protected

• must freely choose to participate and can withdraw anytime

• must be debriefed/informed after the study

• must explain the study after participant's completion (debriefing)

• keep personal information confidential unless there is harm the participant must know, court asks, or permission granted

• clear purpose needed

• treat animals in a humane way (any harm must be done for greater human good and justified)

• acquire animals legally

• least animal of suffering possible for the animals

• decent living conditions for laboratory animals

composed of the brain and the spinal cord, both of which are composed of neurons and glial cells

• brain true core that interprets info, makes decisions, and sends commands

long bundle of neurons; connects the brain to the body; also responsible for fast, life-saving reflexes

• tissues and organs to brain (afferent)

• motor impulses from brain to body's muscles and glands (efferent motor neurons)

role of neurons in spinal cord that relate to the quick reflex reaction through the relay of info

• understanding written words

• meaning of complex relationships

• translating words into phonetic sounds

• emotional content

• picturing visual descriptions

• structure of story

• artistic writing style

• studied psych and zoology

• human beings are of two minds

• two hemispheres operate independently

• won Nobel Prize (medicine)

• research helped chart brain and led to expansion of field

• worked under Roger Sperry

• understanding of functional lateralization/brain lateralization

• studied how hemispheres communicate

• professor of psych at UC Santa Barbara

oldest/most basic part of the brain

• contains the medulla, pons, and reticular formation

• automatic survival function

• Sends and receives info

• responsible for controlling respiratory and cardiovascular systems

• life-supporting functions: respiration, digestion, heartbeat, blood pressure

links medulla and cerebellum to upper portions of the brain

• coordinate movement, especially left-body influences...

• (deep) sleep

• respiratory functions- breathing rate

• sensory analysis damage could cause movement (thrashing) during deep sleep

controls an organism's level of alertness/arousal impacts state of consciousness

• "little brain"

• helps coordinate voluntary movements, as well as balance and sense of equilibrium

• impacts attention

thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus

• regulate emotion, memory, and motivation

sensory switchboard

• all sensory information except smell can pass through

• contributes to processes (timing, attention, movement, etc.)

• helps regulate alertness and arousal relays info to proper areas of cerebral cortex damage can cause blending of senses ex: synesthesia

controls autonomic functions

• hunger, thirst, body temperature, sexual activity

• fight-or-flight- release of hormones- working with pituitary gland main link between nervous and endocrine system linked w/depression, bipolar, schizophrenia

formation of long-term memories

• helps us create new memories important for spatial navigation

• Greek for "seahorse" damage can cause severe memory loss

responsible for emotional responses, especially fear

• helps recognize facial expression of emotion associated w/anger and aggression damage ex: cannot draw what a fearful expression looks like

largest and most complex part of brain: 2 hemispheres and 4 lobes

• frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital complex mental activities

covers cerebrum- outermost part convolutions allow large surface area to be picked in limited skull 30 billion nerve cells

• gyri (gyrus) are the ridges

• sulci (sulcus) are the fissures

advanced cognitive abilities

• prefrontal cortex, motor cortex, Broca's area

planning, personality, memory storage, complex decision-making and areas devoted to language

output

• controls the voluntary movement of the body's muscles by sending commands to the somatic division of the PNS

• cross-wired pattern (motor cortex in left hemisphere controls right side of body, vice versa)

studied brain lesions and made connection to speech/language left frontal lobe language production- Broca's area Broca's aphasia:

• comprehend speech, difficulty expressing thoughts -right-sided arm and leg weakness/paralysis bc frontal lobe important w/body movement

• may be due to issues related to muscle movement w/speech, syntax, grammar, verbal working memory

devoted to the production of speech

• allows ppl to speak fluently and directs muscle movements involved w/speech damage: short, meaningful phrases produced w/great effort (omits "is", "and", ""the")

sound info processing

• auditory cortex, Wernicke's area

processes sensory info from the ears dominant neural pathways are contralateral

• left temporal lobe- language comprehension

• Wernicke's aphasia: difficulty understanding language; speech is fluent but empty, long sentences, no meaning, add unnecessary words, and even create new "words"

touch and sensory info processing

• also general processing like math reasoning spatial processing language and memory

input

• registers and processes pain (e.g. touch, pain, skin temp, body position in space) cross-wired pattern (left hemisphere receives right side of body info)

visual info processing

• visual cortex

• processes sensory info from the eyes

• not contralateral receives info from both eyes that come from the right field of division

• study of a physical process

• gray matter (neural cell bodies, axon terminals, and dendrites)

• neural connections can be forged and refined or weakened or severed

• changes in the physical brain manifest as changes in our abilities