Psychology Notes PDF

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Notes taken throughout the semester...

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In Class Psychology – scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of humans and animals  Science  Behavior  Mental processes  Humans  Animals Use of animals  Understand animal life o Don’t treat animals like humans  Simpler model o Learn the nervous system  Greater control  Readily available  Cost  Ethics o Very strict  Genetics o Can see effects over generations Goals of Psychology 1. Description  Describe exactly what you're doing, be very detailed 2. Understanding/Explain 3. Predicting 4. Controlling Know – careers in psychology, Clinical and counseling psychology is not the same Clinical – research of mental illness and therapy Counseling – grief Careers  Clinical/Counseling – assessment and treatment of messed up peeps  Social – group behaviors  Developmental – development one has throughout their life  Experimental  Biological – research changes that occur during stress  Cognitive – how we process, how this influences behavior  Psychometrics – measurement of peeps skills  Industrial/Organizational – work environments

Psychologist vs Psychiatrist Psychiatrist  Can prescribe drugs  MD  Medical Model (biology)  Sigmund Freud technically a psychiatrist, started therapy  Shortage of psychiatrist ever since the war – 55,000 short Psychologist  Military, states of Louisiana, new mexico, Illinois, iowa – now can prescribe drugs (clinical psychologists) has to be trained  Ph.D. – doctor/teacher  Biopsychosocial Model  Research Training – created IQ tests Plotnik – “It is a good thing for tyrants that people do not think for themselves.” “It is important to know how to think as it is to know the content of a course.” Research Methods Observation  Lots of info  First hand info  Naturalistic  Generalizability o Observer bias o Lack of control Case Study  Specific/Detailed  Study effects over time  Study rare disorders o Lack of control o Self report bias o Poor generalizability Survey  Short (saves time)  Easy/Less expensive  Anonymous  Get more subjects o Lack of flexibility – cant adjust, get what you get o Self report bias

Experiment  Control  Cause and effect relationship  Random assignment o Artificial setting o Ethical limitations o Have to control every extraneous variable  Population  sample Exp group and control group  choco bar and placebo  caffeine in bar = independent variable  test results = dependent variable  Independent variable = thing that is different between your two groups Coefficient of Correlation  +1.00 to -1.00 (0.0 = no correlation)  Scatterplots show if the relationship is linear or curvilinear  Limitations o Correlation does NOT = causation o Correlation does Not show directionality o Correlation does Not reveal a potential third variable o Correlation does Not reveal a potential interaction Parts of the Nervous System  Central NS o Brain and spinal cord  Encased in bone, doesn’t heal  Peripheral NS o Autonomic and Somatic  A  Parasympathetic and Sympathetic  S  Fight or flight  P  Brings back balance, calm Types of Neurons  Afferent (sensory)  Efferent (motor)  Association (interneurons) Parts of the Neuron  Dendrites o Dendritic spines (root hairs)  Where signals register  Cell body  Nucleus  Axon hillock o Connects nucleus to long string (axon)

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Axon Telondendria o Terminal buttons – nobs at end of telondendria

Cell Communication (Electro-Chemical) 

Electrical Communication o Resting Potential – polarized state -70 millivolts  Cells always trying to maintain -70 millivolts  RP maintained by  Semipermeable membrane  Sodium-potassium pump o Graded Potential  Excitatory – opens up  Summation to axon hillock  +50 disperses or weakens o Action Potential  All or nothing at hillock gate, fires or doesn’t  Stays +50 all the way down the axon to the terminal buttons  One directional  At the peak it cant fire again o Ions  Sodium Na+  Potassium K+  Chlorine Cl Organic An-

Refractory Periods  Absolute R.P. o Right at the peak of the action potential o Cant fire  Relative R.P. o The part that goes below the line o Can fire again  Recovery o Once it has recovered from the relative point Neuron - +50 or nothing Intensity  Number of neurons  Rate of fire Speed of Transition  Size of axon o Fatter travels faster

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Saltatory Conduction o Jumping segments of the axon, 50 all the way down o Neuroglial cells – myelin sheath o Nodes of Ranvier – spaces between myelin sheath

Cephalo-Caudal Proximo-distal Development  Takes time to develop myelin sheath  Babies Chemical Communication  Synaptic vesicles – little packages in terminal buttons  Neurotransmitters – have specific shapes  Synapse o Presynaptic membrane – bottom of button o Synaptic cleft – space between o Postsynaptic membrane – top of receiving cell body  Receptor sites o Receptor molecules have binding sites the neurotransmitters fit in o When neurotransmitter binds to receptor, ions enter Excitatory and Inhibitory Postsynaptic Potentials  Excitatory o Acetylcholine (Ach) o Norepinephrine  Inhibitory o Curare o Dopamine o Serotonin o GABA o Endorphins _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Above is Test 1 Phrenology (Franz Gall)  Thought the brain was a muscle and could grow and shrink  Localization  Phineas Gage – survives a rod thru the head, severed frontal lobe  Charles Witman – shot people, large tumor in amygdala Reflex Arc Parts of the Brain  Medulla – life saving functions o Heart rate, breathing

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Pons – bridge o Between cerebellum and cortex o Sleep wake cycles Cerebellum – muscle coordination Reticular Formation – arousal, alertness, concentration Thalamus – most sensory info goes here Hypothalamus – motivating behaviors o Eating, drinking, sex drive, sleep Hippocampus – memory Amygdala – fear and aggression

Cortex  Longitudinal fissure – divides the two hemispheres  Central fissure – perpendicular to longitudinal fissure  Lateral fissure – thumb part of boxer glove Frontal Lobes – logic, personality, decision making, planning, executive functions o Inhibition – hold on, personal filter  Primary Motor Cortex (purple strip) – controls the opposite side of the body  Broca’s Area – production of speech and language o Only in one hemisphere, usually left Parietal Lobes –  Somatosensory cortex – touch for opposite side of body Occipital Lobes – in the back  Primary visual cortex – all visual info initially registers here Temporal Lobes – learning, memory, sound  Auditory cortex - sound  Wernickes Area – gives meaning to speech and language o Interpret sounds o Only in left hemisphere  Amygdala – fear and aggression/emotional context Corpus Callosum – Major connection of two hemispheres  Seizers occur in the front thumb tip part of boxer glove Memory Processes  Encoding – giving meaning, organizing. Major part of memory  Storage  Retrieval Sensory Memory/Registers  Iconic Memory (Sperlings test of sensory memory) – visual memory

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o AR64 0.3 sec Echoic Memory – sound o 20 sec Tactile Memory – touch o Stays longer

Short-term Memory – 7 +/- 2  1.5-2 sec window, rehearsal speed  Can keep it for about 20 sec without rehearsal  Stored by how it sounds, not how it looks Long-term Memory - store by meaning  Procedural – how you do things, stays longer o Tennis, riding a bike  Declarative – easier to acquire, things you say o Semantic – formula, definitions, facts o Episodic – events in your life, timeline  Flashbulb – highly significant memories o Broken leg, prom, first kiss o Episodic, declarative, long-term  Implicit – easily remembered without really trying  Explicit – work to pound it in o Procedural, semantic  Eidetic – Spencer Reid o Children have higher capacity for this o A gift, cant be developed Memory Theories  Association Network Theory – explains hierarchy o Links things you know o Priming – activates those connections and links  Red  color  Flashcard memory – one route Elizabeth Loftus  Most memories are reconstructed, have to rebuild it every time  Misinformation Effect o Change one word in a question and it changes your answer Schemas  Categorizes/Organizes info and the relationships among them  Stereotypes  Helps process info quickly though often wrong  Assimilation – tweak to make some thing fit o Fast food restaurant with no drive up window

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Accommodate – make a new schema to adjust to your life

Why We Forget  Decay of memory trace  Interference o Retroactive – new info interrupts old learning o Proactive – old stuff interrupts learning new things  Sleep prevents both of these from happening  Poor encoding/retrieval failure  Motivated forgetting  Organic causes – biological o Disease – Alzheimer’s o Amnesia – head trauma  Retrograde – forgetting events prior to the injury  Anterograde – forgetting events after the injury  Old age (organic) o Speed of rehearsal slows down  Affects short-term memory FOOD Vegetable  Green and yellow o Broccoli, peas, beans o Carrots, squash, rutabaga Fruit  Small and large o Cherries, berries, grapes o Apple, orange, melon Meat  Beef and pork o Ground, o Loin, Memorization Methods  Clustering – putting things into categories  Chunking – helps remember lots of info by grouping together  Narrative Story  Method Loci (peg word)– go down your body with the line of nouns o Creates a route  Acrostics – first letter of each word that makes a sentence  Acronyms – remember a word where every letter stands for something o Good for essay exams #stellar  Serial positioning – remember the begging and end only  Von Restorff Effect – tenancy to remember things of high emotional value o ‘sex’ in middle of nouns

State Dependent Memory – will do better on a test if taken in the same spot you learned the material  Brain makes connections with things around you SQ3R – (Scan Question Read, Recite, Review)  Question the content to make it more interesting Spaced Practice – space out studying time  Always works better _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Above is Test 2 Sensation & Perception  Selective Attention – my name Savana is registered but only I make the perception 

Sensation – neurological event o Transduction – physical energy into electrochemical energy  Lets you make sense of things  Brain can only make sense of electrochemical energy o Sensory Adaptation – notices change  Cant notice bad breath – used to it

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Perception – cognitive event o Gives meaning to sensations o Illusion created by the brain  Naïve Realism – what you see you believe is there  Stars in the sky, podium in front  Seeing is believing  Whatever you sense, exists  NOT TRUE o Only celestial eyes can see atoms o Absolute Threshold – will only pick up 50% of the things you sense o Difference (JND) Threshold – least amount of energy your can register between two energy sources 50%  Which object is heavier  Weber’s Law – difference threshold is a constant fraction of original stimulus o Ex. Adding 10 lbs to 30lbs vs 300lbs. o Signal Detection Theory – biological and psychological factors  Ex. Same photo, different vocab words led to different perception

Sensation  Past experience, Ongoing motive, Current emotional state  Perception, Judgment  Emotion The Human Eye  Back o Optic nerve – everything is backwards and reversed, with shadow o Fovea – in retina, get sharpest vision o Retina – rods (black and white) and cones (color) o Blind Spot - where optic nerve is exiting the eye  Dot on paper disappears  Front o Lens – flexible, focusing structure o Ciliary muscles o Iris – flexible, determines the size of pupil o Pupil – opening o Cornea – fixed covering of eye Brightness – intensity Hue – color, frequency wavelength Saturation – purity of wavelength Dark Adaptation – adjustment to darkness  Takes cones 10 min  Takes rods 30 min Light Adaptation – adjustment to light  Takes rods and cones 1 min Subtractive Color Mixing – primary colors  Happens in the pigment o Black reflects nothing o White reflects everything Additive Color Mixing – red, blue, green  Happens in your eyes o Perceive yellow with red and green pixels Trichromatic Theory  Argues that you have 3 different types of cones in your eye that respond to 3 different colors o Red, green and blue o Doesn’t explain why we can do the flag test thingy

Color processing Theory  You have structures beyond your rods and cones that respond to pairs of colors o Red/green o Blue/yellow o Black/white Loudness – amplitude/intensity Pitch – frequency Timbre – overtones  Middle c on piano vs a trumpet The Human Ear  Outer ear  Middle ear o Eardrum, hammer, anvil, stirrup  Inner ear o Oval window, cochlea (fluid filled), nerve impulses to the brain Place Theory  Depending on where the hair is placed on the membrane, it will determine info depending on frequency o Certain signals cause certain hairs to respond o Hairs closest to the window respond to high frequency Frequency Theory  The rate of which a hair can fire Volley Theory  Group of hairs firing at different frequencies that combine together o Combo of multiple hairs Auditory Localization – locating where a sound is coming from  Monaural cue – loudness, one ear  Binaural cues – loudness, two ears o Time tells the difference Hearing Loss – men tend to loose hearing first  High frequency, low intensity  the human voice  85 decibels will start to damage ear  Hearing loss is cumulative o You will continue to lose hearing until you're deaf. Hearing does not regenerate. Umami – delish Flavor – is a combo of taste and smell

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Spicy food is a pain signal Girls pick up on smell first Smell and taste have pathways that combine before going to the brain

Body Senses Kinesthetics – allows you to know what your bodies doing without seeing.  Hands behind back Equilibrium/Balance – semi-circular canals  Hair cells attached  Rotation – fluid wants to stay so it bends the hair cell as you turn your head  Gravity – vestibular sacs, otolith organs Receptors  Pressure  Temperature o Hot and cold  Paradoxical heat – body gives priority to heat signals because heat will damage faster.  Pain o Myelinated and Unmyelinated  Myelinated is faster = ow!  Unmyelinated is aching pain Techniques to Deal with Pain  Distraction/Selective Attention o Hypnosis  Drug o All drugs have side effects  Preparation o If knowing when pain is coming makes you tense up it makes it hurt worse, being relaxed lessens pain  Reinterpretation o Make it a positive ting instead of bad. Can endure being sore from gym easier if thought of as a good thing.  Sensory Gating o One signal blocks another o Pinch yourself before a shot Vision  Binocular Cues o Convergence – going cross-eyed, tells brain something is close o Retinal (binocular) Disparity – Far away objects land in the back of the eye, where close objects land along the backside of eye.

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Monocular Cues – must learn how to see, not automatic o Height on a plane o Overlap o Linear perspective o Texture gradient – leaves on trees

o Relative motion o Motion parallex – light poles moving fast by you and slow far away o Perceptual Constancies  Shape Constancy – brain tells you that the text book is rectangular even if is tilted  Size Constancy – far away objects appear to shrink, have to learn o Perceptual Organization – vase/two faces  Cant see both at the same time  Things in close proximity are processed as units  You perceive things in a natural flow  Closure – brain fills in gaps – see triangles – blind spot _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Above is Test 3 Classical Conditioning  Conditions reflexes  Ex. “relax” story  Pavlov – bell & dogs o Meat = unconditioned stimulus o Salivation = unconditioned response  conditioned response o Bell = neutral  conditioned stimulus Lightning Story  UCR – jump  CR – jump  UCS – thunder  CS – lightning John Watson – Raymor  Little Albert o White rat + noise  cries Stimulus Generalization  Little Albert generalized to white and furry  Extinction – CS + (without) UCS  Spontaneous Recovery Stimulus Discrimination  White rat + Noise

White rabbit + No noise Operant Conditioning  Conditions voluntary behaviors  Ex. Killer whale splash is not a reflex  B.F. Skinner o Positive reinforcement +  Increase likelihood of behavior happening again  Add a like  Ex. Kiss cheek when he opens the door o Negative reinforcement – same def as positive reinforcement  Take away a dislike o Positive punishment +  Decreased likelihood of behavior happening again  Add a dislike o Negative punishment  Take away something we do like Primary Reinforcer – things you need  Food  Shelter Secondary Reinforcer – conditioned with primary reinforcers  Much more powerful  Ex. Money Perspective Schedules of Reinforcement  Continuous – every time the rat touches the bar the food comes out o Once food doesn’t come out they quit  Intermittent – (Resistant to Extinction) The bar only sometimes releases food o Keep pressing the bar o Fixed Interval – (Post Reinforcement Pause)  Time – food comes out every ten minutes if bar is pressed o Variable Interval – Time change varies  Rat periodically checks it o Fixed Ratio – 3:1  3 presses equals 1 food o Variable Ratio – ratio changes  Constantly hitting the bar  Ex. Gambling Shaping – process of getting rewards closer to the target goal  Positive reinforcement is much stronger than positive punishment

Statistics  50% play lottery  33% frequent casinos  74-91% have gambled at least once  84% accept/endorse gambling  75% church goers accept gambling  D&C 89:4 Make $  Short Run o Yes if lucky o Never gamble again  Long Run o No Curiosity  Concept of placing milk in back of grocery store Social Learning – Alfred Bandura  Vicarious Observation – learn something without doing it yourself o Slot machines put together o Sister getting grounded for coming home late, you don’t want the same punishment For Social Interaction  Groups split up – don’t want your buddy’s to see you lose  Close tables down so that one gets crowded – peer pressure causes higher bets For Entertainment  Losing money isn’t fun  If money is taken away, its not fun To Win  They want you to win, it hooks you  Give you free tokens to start For the Excitement/Rush Addiction  Variable ratio – most addictive form of reinforcement  More addictive than drugs  75% commit felonies to continue gambling  17% commit suicide  85% will steal from employers

Ability to adapt Ability to communicate Self-awareness Speed of learning Application of knowledge Inherent performance Psychometric Theory  Argues your intelligence is genetic o You are born with a certain ability or capacity – size of basket  Reliability – consistency o Want IQ tests to render the same score time after time o R = +0.85 correlation  Intelligence hasn’t changed, environment has  Ex. Might be sick the first time, well the next  Achievement – measures what you’ve learned o Not intelligence – what you put in your basket Alfred Binet  First to make an intelligence test  Mental Age – however many items correct on the test determined this  French wanted to help these children and bring them up to speed  Terman – brings test to U.S. o Standford Binet – IQ Test o Mental Age/Chronological Age x 100 Cognitive Developmental Theory– Piaget  Kids of different ages got different kinds of questions wrong  As their brains develop their way of thinking changes  Says IQ does change over time – wet basket stretches until it dries o Last stage plateaus Wechsler  IQ test measure what that IQ test is measuring  3 IQ scores o Verbal abilities o Performance abilities o Full Scale  Deviation IQ scores o One standard deviation = 34% of population, average 68% o Each standard deviation = 15 IQ points o Mean = 100 o IQ 130 = gift...