PSYC 2000 Exam 2

A person’s awareness of mental processes and everything going on around them at any given moment

Pain, hunger, thirst, and being aware of our thoughts and emotions

Seeing the light from the sun, feeling the warmth of a room, and hearing the voice of a friend

Wakefulness, sleep, and altered state of consciousness

High level of sensory awareness, thought, and behavior; alert

A state marked by relatively low levels of physical activity and reduced sensory awareness that is distinct from periods of rest that occur during wakefulness

State in which there is a shift in the quality or pattern of mental activity as compared to wakefulness

Ex. Daydreaming, intoxication, anesthesia, medication

An internal cycle of biological activity

Biological rhythm that occurs over approximately 24 hours

• The sleep wake cycle is one of our main circadian rhythms that is linked to our environment’s natural light-dark cycle

Homeostasis center

• Suprachiasmatic Nucleus: the brain’s clock mechanism

Releases melatonin and maintains various biological rhythms

Hormone that regulates sleep-wake cycle

• Stimulated by darkness (sleepy)

• Inhibited by light (wakeful)

The brain’s control of switching between sleep and wakefulness & coordinating this cycle with outside world

• Can be disrupted by jet lag, sleep disorders (insomnia), rotating shift work

Not enough sleep on a chronic basis

Tendency to fall asleep faster during subsequent opportunities for sleep (when in sleep debt or deprivation)

Average of 7-9 hours each night for adults

Adaptive Theory (Evolutionary)

• Sleep is essential to restore resources expended during the day

• Avoid predators in darkness

• WHEN we sleep

Restorative Theory (Cognitive)

• Physical health restoration

  • replenish chemicals and repair cellular damage

• Mental health functioning

  • attention, decision-making, memory, emotions

• WHY we sleep

Rapid-Eye Movement (REM) Sleep

• Eyes move rapidly under the eyelids

• Brainwaves appear similar to those during wakefulness

• Dreaming

Non-REM (NREM) Sleep

• All other stages of sleep, distinguished by brainwave activity

4-6 cycles per night (90-110 minutes each)

Transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep, respiration and heartbeat slow down, and overall muscle tension and core body temp decrease

• Mostly alpha waves

• Easy to wake someone up

Body goes into deep relaxation

• Theta waves

• Characterized by the appearance of:

  • Sleep spindles — rapid burst of high-frequency brainwaves

    • Learning and memory

  • K-complexes — very high amplitude pattern of brain activity

Respiration and heart rate slow down further, important for learning and memory, known as slow-wave sleep

“Deep sleep“

• Delta waves

• Difficult to wake someone up

Important for emotion regulation, creating new synapses in the brain (critical for learning and memory)

• Infants spend HALF of their sleep time in REM stage

Wish Fulfillment Theory, Information Processing Theory, Activation Synthesis Hypothesis

Freud

Dreams preserve our sanity by allowing us to gratify forbidden or unrealistic wishes

Dream content may be so threatening or disgusting that it was disguised in dreams

• Manifest Content — Dream content

• Latent Content — Dream’s true meaning

Rosalind Cartwright

Dreams reflect daily life events that are important to us

• Help us sift through everyday experiences and thoughts

• Help us regulate emotions

Alan Hobson

Dreams are a result of our brains imposing narrative explanations to explain random brain activation

• Synthesize = make sense of

• Activation = neural activity during REM

Cerebral cortex tries to make sense of this random brain stimulation (in pons; brainstem)

Difficulty falling or staying asleep

Multiple bursts of not breathing

Sudden slip into REM sleep

Extreme fear, panic, screaming (Rare; most common in children)

Mechanism that blocks the movements of the voluntary muscles fails

Acting out dreams (Ex. kicking, punching, yelling)

Complex behaviors with eyes open but still asleep

NREM Stage 3 (slow-wave)

A compulsive pattern of drug used despite negative consequences

Involves physical and psychological dependence

• Physical dependence = need to take a drug to avoid changes in normal bodily functions and withdrawal symptoms

• Psychological dependence = emotional need for a drug; thoughts about getting/using a drug

When a person requires more and more of a drug to achieve effects previously experienced at lower doses

• Influences physical dependence

Adverse symptoms experienced when drug use is discontinued

Drugs that increase levels of neural activity

• Dopamine agonists (prevent reuptake of dopamine)

• Associated with reward and pleasure (highly addictive)

Caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, amphetamine (meth, ADHD meds), MDMA (ecstasy, Molly), and cathinone (bath salts)

Drugs that suppress the central nervous system activity

• Acts as agonists of GABA neurotransmitters, which have a “quieting effect“ on the brain

Alcohol, barbiturates (anticonvulsant meds), benzodiazepines (anti-anxiety meds)

• Alcohol: decreases reaction time and visual activity, lower levels of alertness, reduces behavioral control, can result in complete loss of consciousness, disrupt sleep

Serve as analgesics (decrease pain) through their effects on the endogenou opioid neurotransmitter system; highly addictive

Heroin, morphine, methadone, codeine

Causes changes in sensory and perceptual experiences, vivid hallucinations, vary regarding the specific neurotransmitter systems they affect:

• Mecaline and LSD (serotonin agonists)

• PCP and ketamine (NMDA glutamate recepetor antagonists)

• Cannabis

Extreme focus on the self that involves suggested changes of behavior and experiences

• Bringing people into a “state of suggestibility“

• Clinicians may use relaxation and suggestion in attempts to alter the thoughts and perceptions of a pt

• Uses include pain management, treatment of depression and anxiety, and quitting smoking

Dissociation Theory

• Divided consciousness

• One stream of mental activity occurs outside of awareness and control

• Ex. Not remembering act of driving

Social-Cognitive Theory

• People are playing the role expected of them in the situation

• Not an altered or dissociative state, but fulfilling social expectations

Focusing on one “target” to increase awareness and mindfulness of the present moment

Achieve a state of relaxed awareness and focus

Beneficial for stress management, sleep, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, pain management

Sleep Debt

Consciousness

Circadian

Complex behaviors while asleep, but with eyes open

Melatonin

Adaptive/Evolutionary;Restorative/Cognitive

Tolerance

An individual focuses on one thing and can help reduce anxiety

Being classically conditioned to have a fear of snakes

essentially limitless

Cerebellum; Hippocampus

All of the above

Retroactive interference

Making the material you are trying to memorize personally meaningful to you

Construction; reconstruction

Eyewitnesses can be influenced by suggestibility (misinformation effect)

Classical conditioning

neutral stimulus

stimulus generalization

continuous

shaping

To take something away

It decreases behavior

Studying hard for Exam 2 after Dr. Brossoit praises you for acing Exam 1

variable ratio

A set of processes used to encode, store, and retrieve information over different periods of time

Converting sensory information into a form that is usable in the brain’s storage system

Holding onto information over time

Retention

Using information in storage

Getting information out of memory and into awareness

Encoding of details like time, space, frequency, and the meaning of words

• Usually done without conscious awareness

Encoding of details that takes time and effort

• Learning new skill

Encoding words and their meanings

• Most effective encoding

• Deeper level processing

• Effective if there is meaning or personal relevance; self-reference effect

Encoding images

• Words that create a mental image, such as car, dog, and book (concrete words) are easier to recall than words such as level truth, and value (abstract words)

Encoding of sounds

Easy to retrieve memories that were created in similar states of consciousness

• State of consciousness

• Mood/emotion

Easier to retrieve memories that were created in similar contexts

• External environment

• Location

Information passes through three distinct stages in order for it to be stored in long-term memory

• Sensory memory → short-term/working memory → long-term memory

Storage of brief sensory events, such as sight, sounds, and tastes

• Stored for a couple of seconds

A temporary storage system that processes incoming sensory memory

• Lasts about 15-30 seconds

• Memory consolidation = Transfer of short-term to long-term memory

• Rehearsal = The conscious repetition of information to be remembered

7 ± 2 or 4 ±1

The continuous storage of information

• No time limit / permanent

Memories of facts and events we can consciously remember and recall

• Semantic

• Episodic

Knowledge about words, concepts, and language; facts

• Ex. Who was the first Black President of the US?

Information about events we have personally experienced

• The what, where, when of an event

• Autobiographical memory

• Ex. 5th birthday

Memories that are not part of our consciousness

• Procedural: stores info about how to do things; skills and actions

• Priming: stimulus affects response to another stimulus

• Emotional conditioning

  • Ex. Fear of spiders, songs that evoke an emotional response

Being able to access information without cues

• Used for an essay, short, answer, fill-in-the-blank test

Identify info that you have previously learned after encountering it again

• MC tests, remembering a face but not a name

Learning info that you perviously learned

• Relearning different languages

Involved in emotion-based memories (Ex. fear)

Encoding is deeper when an even is emotionally arousing

Strong emotional experiences can trigger the release of neurotransmitters and hormones that strengthen memory

• Flashbulb memory = An exceptionally clear recollection of an important event

Associated with explicit/declarative memory

• Recognition memory and spatial memory

Involved in memory consolidation

Processing implicit/procedural memories (Ex. How to play the piano)

Involved in remembering semantic tasks

Encoding: left frontal lobe activity

Retrieval: right frontal lobe activity

The loss of long term memory that occur as the result of disease, physical trauma, or psychological trauma

Retrograde and Anterograde

Formulation of new memories

Process of bringing up old memories

• When we retrieve memories, we tend to unintentionally alter and modify them, resulting in inaccuracies and distortions