Psych Book Notes PDF

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Notes on all reading assignments, all required chapters in textbooks...

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Chapter One 9/5/16 Tuesday, October 18, 2016

8:06 AM

In Leipzig, Germany: 1879, a man called Wilhelm Wundt tried to apply scientific principles to the study of the human mind. He believed that consciousness could be broken down into basic elements. He believed to begin with, students had to be able to think objectively about their own thoughts - and called this practice "objective introspection" and defined it as "the process of objectively examining and measuring one's own thoughts and mental activities". For example, he would place a rock into their hand, and have them tell him everything they were feeling as a result of having the rock in their hands. Because of this, Wundt is known as the father of psychology. One of Wundt's students, Edward Titchener, expanded on Wundt's ideas. He believed every experience could be broken down into emotions and sensations. He called this structuralism. He did agree with Wundt about breaking down consciousness, but he also believed objective introspection could be used on thoughts as well. How experiences, thoughts, and emotions tied together. William James was one of the first teachers of psychology at a school - Harvard University. He believe in the consciousness of everyday life being important, but the scientific study to not yet be possible. He believed once you thought about what you were thinking about, your thought process would change so that it's no longer what you were thinking about. Instead, he studied how the mind allowed people to function in real life. He studied the functional behavior traits found in people. He also believed these traits could be taught to offspring, or may even be heredity. Max Wertheimer and many others contributed to a whole new kind of Psychology: Gestalt Psychology. This focused on whole patterns rather than the individual patterns. They mainly studied sensations and perceptions in this way. Today, this is part of cognitive psychology, and also focusses on; memory, learning, thought processes, and problem solving. However, the basic principles still are taught: and are becoming the basis for a therapeutic technique called Gestalt Therapy. Freud, Pavlov, Watson: Well discussed in class notes, no need for redundancy. Sociocultural is a modern perspective of psychology, which combines social psychology (Groups, social roles, social actions and relationships...) and cultural psychology (cultural norms, values, expectations...). These fields are related in the fact they both concern people's effect on each other. This basically shows that people act differently when alone, depending on who they're with, and many other factors. For example, the bystander effect (a result of diffusion of responsibility) says that when others are present, we believe responsibility falls to someone else. Because of this, the more people around someone who needs help, the less chance one will take initiative. Biopsychology is the study of the biological bases on behavior and mental processes. Also known as physiological psychology, this is a part of the larger field of neuroscience: the study of the physical structure, function, and development of the nervous system. Often, it also overlaps with cognitive neuroscience. Often, human and animal behavior is seen as direct results of events in the body within this field of study. Some of the topics researched include; sleep, emotions, aggression, sexual behavior, learning, memory, and disorders. Finally, the evolutionary perspective focusses on the biological bases for universal mental characteristics that all humans share. It seeks to explain general mental strategies and traits like common fears, lying, or the like of music. Electic perspectives are perspectives that take bits and pieces from all the aforementioned perspectives, in order to form a complete picture. This works well when they have similarities, or to explain specific circumstances.

Psychologist: No medical training, but doctorate degree in psychology. Psychiatrist: Medical degree and specializes in diagnosing and treatment (Like prescriptions). Psychiatric Social Worker: Focus on the environmental conditions that affect mental disorders. Basic Research: Research for the purpose of scientific knowledge. Applied Research: Attempts to answer or solve real world, practical, problems. Scientific Method: If you don't know what this is, you shouldn't be in this class. Naturalistic Observation: Observation done in the natural or normal environment for a realistic picture. Observer effect: When behavior changes due to the knowledge of being observed. Participant Observation: When the observer is a participant in the group. Observer Bias: A disadvantage to naturalistic observation, when the observer has preconceived notions. Laboratory Observation: Observation done under specific circumstances. Case Study: When one individual is studied in great detail. Correlation Coefficient: The direction of a relationship and its strength. It will always be direct, or inverse. Operational Definition: A specific definition used for something in an experiment. Independent variable: An unchanging variable in an experiment Experimenter effect: When the experimenter/observer's behavior causes expectations that result in a change. Single blind: When no patient knows if they're receiving a placebo or treatment.

Double blind: When the patient and experimenter don't know who receives what.

Chapter Two 9/6/16 Tuesday, October 18, 2016

8:11 AM

Neuroscience: A branch of life science that deals with the structure and functioning of the nervous system. Dendrites: the part of the neuron that receives messages. Looks like branches. Soma: The part of the cell that contains the nucleus. Means body. Axon: A fiber attached to the soma that carries messages to other cells. Axon Terminal: communicate with the nerve cells.

Glial Cells: Primary cells which serve a variety of functions such as structure, getting nutrients, cleaning up neutron remains, communicating, and providing insulation. They also may be a part of disorders such as major depression or schizophrenia. Oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells are types of glial cells that produce myelin. Myelin: a fatty substance that wraps around neurons and provides insulations and protection. It allows nerve fibers to repair themselves and speeds up communication. Diffusion: Ions moving from areas of high concentration to lesser concentrations. Resting potential: The state of electrical potential when a cell is in a resting state. Means it's ready to fire. Action potential: The electrical potential in action. No going back, it does fire. Neurons can only "fire", or send messages, when they're at full potential. Neurotransmitters: Lie inside the synaptic vesicles and transmit messages. Receptor sites: Proteins that allow only certain molecules of a certain shape to enter. Excitatory synapses: turn cells on. Inhibitory synapses: turn cells on. Antagonist: blocks or reduces the effect of a neurotransmitter. Agonist: mimics or enhances the effects of a neurotransmitter. GABA: Produces inhibition in the brain, very common. Alcohol is an agonist for GABA. Reuptake: Reuse and cleanup of neurotransmitters. Enzymatic Degradation: a process that clears the synaptic gap very quickly. The three type of Neurons are afferent (sensory), efferent (motor), and interneurons (connect the two). Efferent sends to spinal cord, efferent take from the spinal cord to the muscles and glands. This speeds

up the process of stuff like pain, and is called a reflex arc. Peripheral Nervous System: Everything not contained in the brain or spinal cord. It's made up of the somatic system (voluntary) and autonomic system (involuntary). The somatic system is made up of a sensory pathway (afferent), and a motor pathway (efferent). The autonomic system is made up of the sympathetic division and parasympathetic division. The sympathetic division acts to deal with stress caused by emotions, it is "sympathetic" to our feelings - and regulates the body to help, and also inhibits unnecessary functions. However, the parasympathetic controls the body under normal functioning conditions - instead of only when in an extreme emotional state. 4 f's: Flight, Fight, Freeze, Faint Endocrine glands: secrete chemicals directly into the bloodstream, these chemicals are called hormones. The pituitary gland is the "master gland" which controls or influences all the other endocrine glands in the body. Oxytocin is a hormone that controls various aspects of pregnancy. Pineal Gland: helps regulate biological rhythms by secreting melatonin. Thyroid gland: regulates growth and metabolism. Pancreas: controls the level of blood sugar. Gonads (Including ovaries and testes): regulate sexual behavior and reproduction. Adrenal glands: Connected to the kidney. The Adrenal medulla helps with stress and aids in sympathetic arousal. The adrenal cortex produces corticoids which deal with; regulating salt intake, initiate and control stress reactions, and produce sex hormones. Lesioning: An electrical current strong enough to kill off target neurons. Deep Brain Stimulation: The process of sending electrical impulses to stimulate specific areas of the brain. Limbic System: contains thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and the cingulate cortex. Thalamus: Acts as a relay station for incoming sensory information. Hypothalamus: Regulates body temperature, thirst, hunger, sleeping, walking, sexual activity, and emotions. Amygdala: Works with fear responses and memory of fear. Cingulate Cortex: Plays a role in emotional and cognitive processing. Occipital Lobes: Processes visual information. Parietal Lobe: Contains somatosensory cortex, which processes touch, temperature, and body.

Temporal Lobe: Controls auditory and auditory association. Frontal Lobe: Works with higher functioning. Contains motor cortex and mirror neurons.

Chapter Three 9/11/16 Tuesday, October 18, 2016

8:12 AM

Sensation: Occurs when special receptors in sense organs are activated. Transduction: The process of converting outside stimuli into neural activity. Weber's Law: Just noticeable differences or the difference threshold. Defined as the smallest difference between two thresholds that can be detected 50% of the time. Subliminal stimuli: Stimuli that occur under the conscious level. Habituation: Processing something sensory without paying attention to or realizing it.

Sensory adaptation: When a constant sensory object is ignored. Habituation versus Sensory Adaptation: In habituation, you ignore the sense. In adaptation, your body stops processing the sense.

Brightness: Determined by height of light wave. Color: Determined by length of light wave. Saturation: Determined by purity of light wave. Visual Accommodation: When the thickness of the lens changes to enable focus on near/far objects. Rods/Cones: Special receptor cells that respond to various wave lengths of light. Cones: Responsible for color. Rods: Responsible for brightness. Dark Adaptation: Adapting from less to more dark places. Light Adaptation: Adapting from less to more bright places. Hertz: Sound measurement, waves per second. Humans can hear between 20 and 20k. Pinna: Part of the outer ear, serves as a funnel. Auditory canal: Short tunnel that runs to eardrum. Ossicles: The bones in the ear. Cochlea: The liquid filled part of the ear.

Auditory nerve: Contains all the axons of the receptor neurons. Pitch: How low or high a sound is. Place Theory: Pitch depends on which hairs are activated.

Frequency Theory: Pitch is related to how fast the basilar membrane vibrates. Volley Principle: Groups of auditory neurons take turns firing. Gustation: Sense of taste. Kinds of taste: Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and brothy. Brothy sometimes referred to as umami. Umami is caused by glutamate. Olfaction/Olfactory sense: The ability to smell. Olfactory bulbs: Located on top of sinus cavity beneath the frontal lobe. Somesthetic senses: "body senses" or touch. Somesthetic sense systems: Skin senses(touch, pressure, temperature, and pain) kinesthetic senses (location of body parts relatively), vestibular senses (Movement and body position). Sensory conflict theory: When two senses have contradictory results. Such as being in a plane: Your eyes see the ground below you, but the vestibular organs know it's far below. Perception: The brain's interpretation of senses into something meaningful. Shape Constancy: When we perceive something as the same shape from different angles. Brightness Constancy: Viewing the object's brightness as the same even when lighting conditions change. Reversible figures: When the background and foreground can switch positions. Similarity: Tendency to perceive visually similar things as part of the same group. Closure: Tendency to complete figures that are incomplete. Continuity: Tendency to perceive things as a flowing pattern instead of individual parts.

Contiguity: Perceiving things that happen near (time or distance) each other to be related. Depth Perception: Ability to see the world in three dimensions. Monocular clues: Only one eye is required. Also referred to as pictorial depth cues, can be used in pictures/drawings/paintings. Examples; linear perspective, relative size, overlap, interposition, aerial perspective, texture gradient, and motion parallax. Binocular clues: Two eyes are required. Examples; Convergence and Binocular disparity. Perceptual Expectancy: People expecting certain movement because it was present in the past. Top down processing: When people process how something should look because of preconceived notions. Bottom up processing: When people take small parts and build it into a larger picture.

Chapter Four 9/11/16 Tuesday, October 18, 2016

8:12 AM

Consciousness: The awareness of everything going on around you, and inside your own head. Waking consciousness: Clear, unaltered, alert consciousness. Altered state of consciousness: When there's a shift in the quality or pattern of mental activity.

Circadian Rhythm: Means about a day. Adaptive theory: Prey sleep during the night to stay safe from predators. Restorative theory: Sleep is necessary for physical health. Beta waves: Show when wide awake/mentally active Alpha Waves: Appear when drowsy or relaxing. Theta Waves: Eventually replace Alpha Waves. Delta Waves: The slowest of brain waves. Rem Rebound: Lack of rem results in more the next time. Rem: For emotional purposes. Nrem: For physical purposes. Rem Behavior Disorder: When the voluntary muscles are not properly paralyzed during rem sleep. Insomnia: Inability to get sleep, stay asleep, or get quality sleep. Sleep apnea: Stopping breathing for 10 seconds or more during sleep. Narcolepsy: "Sleep seizure", suddenly slipping into REM sleep during the day. Manifest Content: The literal content of a dream. Latent Content: The symbolic content of a dream. Activation-synthesis hypothesis: When the brain synthesizes information from memories into dreams/hallucinations. Activation-information-mode model: Information accessed during the day has an effect on synthesis of dreams. Gender, culture, upbringing, and surroundings can all affect dreams. IE: Men tend to have more violence in their dreams, women are more often victims of violence in their dreams. Hypnosis: A state of altered consciousness in which people are more suggestible. Social-cognitive theory of hypnosis: People who are hypnotized are not actually in an altered state, but

rather playing a part. Psychoactive drugs: Alter thinking, memory, perception, or some combination of those. Benzodiazepines: Minor depressants used to lower stress or anxiety.

Chapter Five 9/15/16 Tuesday, October 18, 2016

8:13 AM

Definition of Learning: Any relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience or practice. While there is no actual proof, it is theorized that once something is learned, it's present in memory in physical form. In a way, learning is a form of conditioning. Not all change is brought by learning, some is caused by the process of maturation in which the biological factor causes people to "learn" something without any actual experience or practice. It was Ivan Pavlov who first started to turn psychology into an empirical form of science. He built a device that could accurately measure the amount of saliva in a dog's mouth. When he realized that the dogs were salivating before the food arrived, due to specific stimuli in individual cases, he switched the focus from physiological means to pioneering the field of classical conditioning - and was the one whom coined the term. Conditioned can be simplified as learned, and unconditioned can be simplified as unlearned. Unconditioned stimulus: The normal, non-learned stimuli. Unconditioned response: The normal, non-learned response. Conditioned stimulus: The stimuli which is brought about by conditioning or a learned behavior. Neutral stimulus: Something that has no effect on the response. Conditioned stimulus: A previously neutral stimulus that now produces a response. Conditioned response: The response given to the conditioned stimulus. Acquisition: The pairing of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to create association. Basic principles of classical conditioning: CS must come before UCS, the CS and UCS must be close together in time (The time between is referred to as inter-stimulus interval),acquisition must occur numerous times, the CS must usually be distinctive. Stimulus generalization: When people respond to similar, general stimuli. Stimulus discrimination: When similar stimuli don't produce the same effect, so the subject learns to discriminate between the stimuli. Extinction: When the learned response is unlearned due to stopped association. Spontaneous recovery: When an "extinct" response can temporarily come back, though usually weaker and lasts a short amount of time. Higher order conditioning: When a second stimulus is associated with the first conditioned response. Conditioned emotional responses: An easy form of classical conditioning, such as creating phobias (See Little Albert).

Vicarious conditioning: When one is conditioned by viewing another's conditioning/response to a certain stimulus. Conditioned taste aversion: When side effects become associated with a taste, so you no longer seek that taste. Stimulus substitution: When the CR has the same effect in the brain as the UCR. The CS must predict the UCR. Cognitive perspective: Consciously expecting something to occur. Operant conditioning: The kind of learning that applies to voluntary behavior. Law of an effect: If a behavior has a favorable effect, it will be repeated. Operant: voluntary behavior. Reinforcement: "What's in it for me?" association. A pleasurable response. Primary reinforcer: Fulfills a basic need, like hunger. Secondary reinforcer: Is associated with a primary reinforcer, like you can use money to fulfill the need of hunger. Positive reinforcement: A good consequence leads to repeated behavior. Negative reinforcement: When something negative is removed to reinforce a behavior. Partial reinforcement effect: Reinforcing occasionally takes longer to have effect, but it also creates a longer lasting and often times more effective response.

Continuous reinforcement: Reinforcing every time. Fixed interval schedule of reinforcement: A reinforcer is received after a certain, fixed, time period has passed. Does not produce a fast rate of response

Variable interval schedule of reinforcement: The time between reinforcement is changed each time. Fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement: When the number of responses (The number is constant) determines the reinforcement. Variable ratio schedule of reinforcement: When the number of responses needed to create reinforcement changes each time. Punishment is the opposite of reinforcement (Not negative reinforcement). Punishment by application: Occurs when something unpleasant is added to the situation. Punishment by removal: When the behavior is associated with something negative being added to it. Effectiv...