Psychology Exam notes - I uploaded the exam study sheets I made based upon the launch pad slides PDF

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I uploaded the exam study sheets I made based upon the launch pad slides...

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Psychology Exam notes: Chapter 6: BASIC CONCEPTS OF SENSATION AND PERCEPTION: (with normal circumstances), sensation and perception are parts of one continuous process. Sensation: The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from the environment Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events Bottom-up processing: Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory Top-down processing: Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations Our Senses: - Receive sensory stimulation, often using specialized receptor cells - Transform that stimulation into neural impulses - Deliver the neural information to our brain Transduction: - Conversation of one form of energy into another - In sensation, the transformation of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, smells, into neural impulses the brain can interpret Psychophysics: - Studies the relationships between the physical energy we can detect and its effects on our psychological experiences. Signal detection theory: - Predicts how and when we will detect a faint stimulus amid background noise Individual absolute thresholds: - Vary depending on the strength of the signal and on our experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness Sensory adaptation: - Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation - Increases focus by reducing background chatter - Influences how the world is perceived in a personally useful way - Influences emotions How much of a stimulus does it take to have a sensation?

Absolute threshold: - Minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time - Can see a far-away light in the dark, feel the slightest touch Subliminal: - Input below the absolute threshold for conscious awareness Priming: - Activating, often unconsciously, associations in our mind, setting us up to perceive, remember, or respond to objects or events in certain ways Difference threshold (tiny diff but noticeable) - Minimum difference a person can detect between any two stimuli half the time; increases with stimulus size Weber’s Law: - For an average person to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (not a constant amount); the exact proportion varies, depending on the stimulus Subliminal Persuasion: Subliminal stimuli: - Stimuli that are too weak to detect 50% of the time Subliminal sensation: - Sensation that is too fleeting to enable exploitation with subliminal messages Subliminal persuasion: - May produce a fleeting, subtle, but not powerful, enduring effect on behavior - Experiments discount attempts at subliminal advertising and self-improvement Emotion Adaptation: - Gaze at the angry face on the left for 20-30sec, then look at the center face (looks scared, yes?) - Now gaze at the scared face on the right for 20 to 30 seconds, before returning to the center face (now looks angry, yes?) Perceptual Set: Perceptual set: - A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another What determines our perceptual set? - Schemas organize and interpret unfamiliar information through experience - Preexisting schemas influence top-down processing of ambiguous sensation interpretation, including gender stereotypes Context effects: - A given stimulus may trigger different perceptions because of the immediate context Motives: - Gives us energy as we work toward a goal. Like context, they can bias our interpretations of neural stimuli

Emotions: - Can move our perceptions in one direction or another Terms to Learn: Wavelength: - Distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from the short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmissions Hue: - Dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green and so forth Intensity: - Amount of energy in a light wave or sound wave, which influences what we perceive as brightness or loudness intensity is determined by the wave’s amplitude (height) Retina: - The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, which contains the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information Accommodation: - The process by which the eye’s lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina Sensory and Perceptual Processing in Vision What is seen as light is only a thin slice of the broad spectrum of electromagnetic energy - The portion visible to humans extends from the blue-violet to the red light wavelengths - After entering the eye and being focused by the lens, light energy particles strike the eye’s inner surface, the retina - The perceived hue in a light depends on its wavelength; its brightness depends on its wavelength Light Energy: From the Environment Into the Brain - Waves vary in wavelength, the distance between successive peaks - Frequency, the number of complete wavelengths that can pass a point given time, depends on the length of the wave - Waves vary in amplitude, the height from peak to trough (top to bottom). Wave amplitude determines the brightness of colors (and the loudness of sounds)

Rods and Cones - Cones ad rods provide special sensitivities - Cones are sensitive to detail and color - Rods are sensitive to faint light Vision: Visual Information Processing - How does the brain turn light stimuli into useful information about the world? - Collection and analysis of sensory information

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Linkage of the optic nerve with neurons in the thalamus

Information Processing in the Eye and Brain Color processing occurs in two stages 1. The retina’s red, green, and blue cones respond in varying degrees to different color stimuli, as suggested by the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory 2. Cones’ responses are then processes be opponent-process cells, as Hering’s theory proposed Feature Detection: - Nerve cells in the brain respond to specific features of stimulus, such as its shape, angle or movement. Hubel and Wiesel - The brain’s computing system deconstructs and then reassembles visual images - Specialized occipital lobe neuron cells receive information from ganglion cells and pass it to supercell clusters. Parallel Processing: - Studies of patients with brain damage suggest that the brain delegates the work of processing motion, form, depth, and color to different areas. After taking a scene apart, the brain integrates these subdimensions into the perceived image. Perceptual Organization: Gestalt principles - Gestalt psychologists propose principles used to organize sensations into perception - Form perception - Depth perception - Perceptual constancy Vision: Visual Organization - How do we organize and interpret shapes and colors to create meaningful perceptions? - People tend to organize pieces of information into an organized whole, called a gestalt. Form Perception: - How do we know where one object begins and another ends? - Figure-ground: Organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings - Grouping: Perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into meaningful groups Seeing Gestalts/Wholes:

Depth Perception: - The ability to see objects in three dimensions, although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional - Allows us to judge distance - Is present, at least in part, at birth in humans and other animals The Visual Cliff: - Test of early 3-D perception - Most infants refuse to crawl across the visual cliff - Crawling, no matter when it begins, seems to increase an infant’s fear of heights Seeing Depth: Binocular Cues Binocular cues: - Two eyes improve perception of depth Retinal disparity: - Binocular cue for perceiving depth - The brain calculates distance by comparing images two eyes - Used by 3-D filmmakers Seeing Depth: Monocular Cues Monocular cue: - A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone - Light and shadow - Relative motion - Relative size - Linear perspective - Interposition - Relative height Motion Perception: - Humans are imperfect at motion perception - When large and small objects appear to move more slowly

Phi phenomenon: - An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession Perceptual Constancy: - Objects are perceived as unchanging - having consistent color, brightness, shape, and size - even as illumination and retinal images change. Color Constancy: - Perceiving familiar objects as having a consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object Shape and Size Constancy: - Perception of objects as having constant size even when our distance from them varies - Perception of the form of familiar objects as constant even when the retina receives changing images. Experience and Visual Perception: Perceptual Interpretation Restored vision and sensory restriction: - Effects of sensory restriction on infants cats, monkeys and humans suggest there is a critical period for normal sensory and perceptual development. - Without stimulation, normal connections do not develop Perceptual adaptation: - Ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field. Sound Waves:From the environment into the brain - Sound waves compress and expand air molecules - The ears detect these brief pressure changes Hearing: Sound Characteristics - Amplitude (height) determines the intensity (loudness) of sound waves - Length (frequency) determines the pitch - Sound is measured in decibels (dB) Sound waves are bands of compressed and expanded air - Human ears detect these changes in air pressure and transform them into neural impulses, which the brain decodes as sound - Sound waves vary in amplitude, which is perceived as differing loudness, and in frequency, which is experienced as differing pitch - Sound waves strike the eardrum, causing it to vibrate - Tiny bones in the middle of the ear transmit the vibrations to the cochlea, a coiled, fluidfilled tube in the inner ear - Ripples in the fluid of the cochlea bend the hair cells lining the surface, which trigger

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impulses in nerve cells Axons from these nerve cells transmit a signal to the auditory cortex

Decoding: Transforming Sound Energy Into Neural Messages Hearing Loss: - Sensorineural hearing loss (nerve deafness) - Damage to cell receptors or associated nerves - Conduction hearing loss - Damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea - Cochlear implant: A device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location Place theory in hearing - Theory that links the pitch heard with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated; best explains high pitches Frequency theory (temporal theory) in hearing - Theory that the rate at which nerve impulses travel up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling its pitch to be sensed; explains low pitches Combinations of place and frequency theories - Handle the pitches in the intermediate range How Do We Locate Sounds: Two ears are better than one - Sound waves strike one ear sooner and more intensely than they strike the other ear - From this information, the brain can compute the sound's location The Nonvisual Senses: Touch Sense of touch is actually a mix of four distinct skin senses: - Pressure - Warmth - Cold - Pain - Other skin sensations are variations of the basic four The Pain Circuit - Sensory receptors (nociceptors) respond to potentially damaging stimuli by sending an impulse to the spinal cord - The spinal cord passes the message to the brain, which interprets the signal as pain Controlling Pain Placebo:

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Reduces CNS attention and responses to pain

Distraction: - Draw attention away from painful stimulation - Virtual reality play reduces the brain’s pain-related activity Hypnosis - Social influence theory: Dual-processing state sensory information does not reach areas where pain related information is processed - Dissociation theory: Hypnosis is a special dual-processing state of dissociation - a split between different levels of consciousness - Selective attention - Posthypnotic suggestion Taste: - Involves several basic sensations - Can be influenced by learning, expectations, and perceptual bias - Has a survival function Chemical Sense; - Inside each little bump on the top and sides of the tongue are 200-plus taste buds - Each bud contains a pore with 50-100 taste receptors - Each receptor reacts to different types of food molecules and sends messages to the brain Smell: - A chemical sense - Involves hundreds of different receptors - Involves odors that can evoke strong memories - Information from the taste buds travels to an area between the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain - It registers in an area not far from where the brain receives information from the sense of smell, which interacts the taste Body Position and Movement Kinesthesia; - System for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts - Interacts with vision Vestibular sense: - Sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance Sensory Interaction: - Senses are not totally separate information channels - Examples of sensory interaction

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Smell + texture + taste = flavor Vision + hearing

Embodied cognition - Influence of bodily sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments Examples: - Physical warmth may promote social warmth - Social exclusion can literally feel cold - Political expressions may mimic body positions Sensory Interaction - Seeing the speaker forming the words which Apple’s FaceTime video-chat feature allows, makes those words easier to understand for hard-of-hearing listeners Perception Without Sensation? - Most relevant ESP claims - Telepathy - Clairvoyance - Precognition - Psychokinesis - Bem - Nine experiments that suggested participants could anticipate future events - Critics - Methods of analysis viewed as flawed - Most research psychologists and scientists are skeptical CHAPTER 7: NOTES ON LEARNING Basic Learning Concepts and Classical Conditioning: What is learning? - Process of acquiring through experience new information or behaviors How Do We Learn? - Through associative learning: Certain events occur together (classical conditioning); stimuli that are not controlled are associated and the response becomes automatic (respondent behavior) - Though consequences: Association between a response and a consequence is learned (operant behavior) - Through acquisition of mental information that guides behavior: Cognitive learning

Operant Conditioning:

Classical Conditioning Pavlov - Studied digestive system; won Russia’s first Nobel Prize - Demonstrated associative learning via salivary conditioning Watson - Influenced by Pavlov - Believed the theoretical goal of the science of psychology is prediction and control behavior Behaviorism - Psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes - Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2)

Pavlov’s Experiment:

The Basics: Classical conditioning: type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events Neutral stimulus (NS): A stimulus that unconditionally - naturally and automatically - triggers an unconditioned response (UR) Conditioned response (CR): A learned response to a previously neural, but now conditioned stimulus (CS) Conditioned stimulus (CS): An original neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR) Unconditioned response (UR): An unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth) Unconditioned stimulus (US): A stimulus that unconditionally - naturally and automatically triggers an unconditioned response (UR) Acquisition: - Initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response - In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response Higher-order conditioning: - A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus

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An animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learn that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone Also called second-order conditioning

Extinction: - Diminishing of a conditioned response - Occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS) Spontaneous recovery: - Reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response Generalization: - Tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses Discrimination: - Learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus (which predicts the US) and other irrelevant stimuli Generalization: - Pavlov demonstrated generalization by attaching miniature vibrators to various parts of a dog’s body - After conditioning salivation based on stimulation of the dog’s thigh, he stimulated others areas - The closer a stimulated spot was to the dog’s thigh, the stronger the conditioned response Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s Legacy - Most psychologists agree that classical dontionning is basic learning form - Many other responses to many other stimuli can be classically conditioned in many other organisms - Pavlov demonstrated how a learning process can be studied objectively - Classical conditioning is a basic form of learning that applies to all species -

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Pavlov’s principles are used to influence human health and well-being - Areas of consciousness,motivation, emotion, health, psychological disorders, and therapy - Addicts are counseled to avoid stimuli that may trigger cravings - Pairing a particular taste with a drug that influences immune responses may eventually lead to response to taste alone - Pavlov’s work provided a basis for Watson’s ideas that human emotions and behaviors, though biologically influenced, are mainly conditioned responses. Watson and Rayner applied classical conditioning principles in the studies of “Little Albert” to demonstrate how specific fears might be conditioned - A white rat and a frightening noise were paired - After the pairing was repeated 7 times, the 11-month-old child cried at the sight of rat alone

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Five days later, the child’s startles fear reaction was generalized to the sight of a rabbit, a dog, and a sealskin coat

Operant Conditioning: Edward L. Thorndike: - Law of effect: Principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely B. F. Skinner - Operant chamber (Skinner box): A chamber containing a bar or key that an animal con manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar pressing -

Behavior operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli Organisms associate their own actions with consequences Actions followed by reinforcement increase; actions followed by punishments often decrease

Skinner’s Experiments: Skinner: - Expanded on Thorndike’s law of effect - Developed behavioral technology and principles of behavior control - Designed and used the Skinner box for experiments and recorded responses -

Everyday behaviors are continually reinforced and shaped - Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens a preceding response - Shaping: Reinforcers gradually guide behavior t...