Psychology Exam 2

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  1. what is a synesthete?
    • a person who has "joined sensation"
    • signals that come from the sensory organs go to places in the brain where they weren't originally meant to be, causing the signals to be interpreted as more than one sensation
  2. sensation occurs when?
    when receptors in the sense organs are activated, allowing various forms of outside stimuli to become neural signals in the brain
  3. the process of converting outside stimuli, such as light, into neural activity?
    transduction
  4. the smallest difference between two stimuli that is detectable 50 percent of the time
    • Just Noticeable Differences
    • the amount of sugar needed to add to a cup of coffee
  5. Who was responsible for Just Noticeable Differences?
    • Weber
    • Webers law of JND means the whatever the differences between stimuli might be, it's always a constant
  6. the lowest level of stimulation that a person can consciously detect 50 percent of the time the stimulation is present
    • absolute threshold
    • a candle flame at 30 miles on a clear, dark night
    • one drop of perfume diffused throughout a three-room apartment
  7. who is responsible for absolute threshold
    gustav fechner
  8. stimuli below the level of conscious awareness
    subliminal stimuli
  9. habituation
    • tendency of the brain to stop attending to constant, unchanging information
    • you don't "hear" the air conditioner until it turns off
  10. sensory adaptation
    • tendency of sensory receptor cells to become less responsive to a stimulus that is unchanging
    • garbage odors go away after a time
  11. difference between habituation and sensory adaptation?
    • habituation, the sensory receptors are still responding to the stimulation but the lower centers of the brain are not sending signals to the cortex
    • sensory adaptation differs because the receptor cells themselves become less responsive to an unchanging stimuli and the receptors no longer send signals to the brain
  12. constant movement of the eyes, these are tiny little vibrations people don't notice but keep the eyes from adapting to what they see
    microsaccades or saccadic movements
  13. tiny packets of waves are called
    photons, and they have specific wavelengths associated with them
  14. psychology-speaking, what are the three aspects to our perception of light?
    brightness, color, saturation
  15. brightness is determined by
    amplitude (how high or how low the wave is)
  16. color is determined by
    • the length of the wave (measured in nanometers)
    • long waves at the red end of the visible spectrum, shorter waves at the blue end
  17. saturation is the purity of the color people perceive. A highly saturated red would contain only what kind of wavelengths?
    only red
  18. to see clearly, a single point of light from a source or reflected from an object must travel through the structures of the eyes and end up where and how?
    on the retina as a single point
  19. light bends as it passes through substances of different densities, through a process known as?
    refraction
  20. this protects the eye and focuses most of the light coming into the eye
    • cornea
    • has a fixed curvature
  21. second visual layer, after the cornea, it's a clear watery fluid that supplies nourishment to the eye
    aqueous humor
  22. light from the visual image enters the interior of the eye through a hole called
    • the pupil
    • it's located in a round muscle called the iris, which can change the size of the pupil and let more or less light into the eye
  23. this is behind the iris, suspended by muscles. it finishes the focusing process begun by the cornea
    • the lens
    • in visual accommodation, the lens changes its shape from thick to thin enabling it to focus on objects that are close or far away
  24. the final stop for light within the eye
    • the retina
    • it's a light sensitive area at the back of the eye containing ganglion cells, bipolar cells and the rods and cones
  25. special cells that respond to various light waves
    rods and cones - this is the part of the retina that actually receives the photos and turns them into neural signals to the brain
  26. bipolar cells
    • they get the neural signals from the rods and cones - the signals go on to the ganglion cells
    • called bipolar because they have a single dendrite on one end and a single axon on the other
  27. ganglion cells
    their axons form the optic nerve
  28. the hole in the retina, or the place where all axons of the ganglion cells leave the retina to become the optic nerve
    the blind spot
  29. light travels in a straight line through the cornea and lens, resulting in the image projected on the retina
    being upside down and reversed from left to right as compared to the visual fields
  30. these are found all over the retina except the very center
    rods
  31. these are sensitive to changes in light but not wavelength, so they only see in black, white and shades of gray. they're also responsible for peripheral vision
    rods
  32. dark adaptation
    occurs as the eye recovers its ability to see when going from a brightly lit state to a dark state
  33. these are the cells that help the eyes adapt to low levels of light
    rods
  34. these cells adapt to the increased level of light, through light adaptation
    • cones
    • they're quicker at this than rods adapting to darkness
  35. receptors for visual acuity, responsible for color vision, work best in bright light
    cones
  36. trichromatic theory
    three types of cones: red, blue, green
  37. afterimages occur when?
    • a visual sensation persists for a brief time even after the original stimulus is removed
    • explained by opponent-process theory
  38. opponent-process theory
    • four primary colors: red, green, blue and yellow
    • colors are arranged in pairs, and if one member is strongly stimulated the other is inhibited
  39. color blindness is caused by
    • defective cones in the retina of the eye
    • color deficient more accurate - people have two types of cones working and can see many types of colors
  40. wavelengths are interpreted by the brain as
    frequency or pitch (high, medium, low)
  41. amplitude is interpreted as
    volume
  42. the sound version that corresponds to saturation or purity in light is called timbre, which is
    a richness in the tone of the sound
  43. frequency is measured by
    Hertz (Hz) - waves or cycles per second
  44. the visible, external part of the ear that serves as a concentrator, funneling the waves from the outside into the structure
    • pinna
    • it's also the entrance to the auditory canal (the short tunnel that runs down to the tympanic membrane or eardrum)
  45. when sound waves hit the eardrum, they cause which tiny bones in the middle ear to vibrate?
    • hammer, anvil and stirrup
    • the vibration of these amplify the vibrations from the eardrum
  46. the inner ear is a snail-shaped structure filled with fluid called
    the cochlea
  47. this is the resting place of the organ of Corti
    basilar membrane
  48. this contains the receptor cells for the sense of hearing
    • organ of Corti
    • hair cells - the receptors of sound - are located here
  49. when hair cells are bent against the other membrane, it causes them to send a neural message through what nerve?
    the auditory nerve
  50. refers to how high or how low a sound is
    pitch
  51. place theory
    works best for moderate to high pitches
    the pitch a person hears depends on where the hair cells that are stimulated are located on the organ of Corti
  52. frequency theory
    • pitch is related to how fast the basilar membrane vibrates
    • works best for low pitches
  53. volley principle
    groups of auditory neurons take turns firing in a process called volleying
  54. sound vibrations can't be passed from eardrum to cochlea
    caused by damaged eardrum or damaged bones of middle ear (usually from infection)
    can be helped with hearing aids
    conduction hearing impairment
  55. hearing problem that lies in the inner ear or auditory pathways and cortical areas of the brain
    normal aging causes the loss of hair cells
    cochlear implant can help
    nerve hearing impairment
  56. exposure to loud noises can damage
    • hair cells
    • tinnitus - ringing in the hears - can be caused by infections or loud noises
  57. gustation
    sense of taste
  58. common name for the taste receptor cells
    taste buds
  59. olfactory receptor cells each have about a half dozen hairs called
    cilia
  60. somesthetic senses
    the body senses consisting of the skin senses, the kinesthetic sense and the vestibular senses
  61. skin senses
    have to do with touch, pressure, temperature and pain
  62. kinesthetic sense
    location of body parts in relation to each other
  63. vestibular senses
    movement and body position (balance)
  64. three different types of pain?
    • visceral (organ)
    • somatic (skin, muscles, tendons and joints - something is being damaged or about to be)
    • another type of somatic pain (acts as a reminder system, keeping people from further injury)
  65. gate control theory
    pain signals must pass through a gate in the spinal cord
  66. the method by which the brain takes all the sensations people experience at any given moment and allows them to be interpreted in some meaningful fashion
    perception
  67. gestalt principles of perception?
    • figure ground relationships (people perceive objects or figures as existing on a background)
    • grouping (proximity, similarity, closure, continuity, contiguity)
  68. Necker Cube is an example of
    reversible figure
  69. continuity
    refers to the tendency to perceive things as simply as possible with a continuous pattern rather than a complex, broken-up pattern
  70. contiguity
    the tendency to perceive two things that happen close together in time as being related (ventriloquists)
  71. common region
    tendency to perceive objects that are in a common area or region as being in a group
  72. monocular cues are often referred to as
    pictorial depth cues
  73. linear perspective
    • lines that are actually parallel seem to converge
    • the "ends" of the lines appear farther away
  74. relative size
    objects people expect to be of a certain size appear small and therefore much farther away
  75. overlap
    • if one object blocks another, people assume the blocked object is behind the first one and farther away
    • also known as interposition
  76. aerial perspective
    farther away, the hazier it is
  77. texture gradient
    things closer to you are distinctly textured - farther away, texture becomes smaller and finer
  78. motion parallax
    objects outside a window zip by fast when they're close to the car, but objects in the distance move slower
  79. accomodation
    monocular cue that isn't pictorial, it's a muscular cue
  80. binocular cues
    • requires two eyes
    • convergence (rotation of eyes to focus on a single object)
    • binocular disparity (because eyes are a few inches apart, they don't see the same thing)
  81. Hermann grid
    • matrix of squares with blobs
    • responses of neurons in the primary visual cortex respond best to bars of light of a specific orientation
  82. Muller Lyer Illusion
    • Which line is longer?
    • Right angles, buildings with corners
  83. Moon illusion
    people know objects are farther away and still appear large, they magnify the moon in their minds
  84. autokinetic effect
    small stationary light in a dark room appears to move or drift
  85. stroboscopic motion
    rapid series of pictures seem to be in motion
  86. phi phenomenon
    lights turned on in sequence appear to move
  87. people's tendency to perceive things in a certain way because of previous experiences or expectations influence them
    perceptual set or perceptual expectancy
  88. top down processing
    • use of pre-existing knowledge to organize individual features into a unified whole
    • people who have done puzzle or seen picture of it
  89. bottom up processing
    • analysis of smaller features building up to a complete perception
    • top of puzzle box was lost
  90. any object, event or experience that causes a response
    stimulus
  91. learning to make a reflex response to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces it
    • classical conditioning
    • Pavlov and his dogs
  92. the original, naturally occurring stimulus
    • unconditioned stimulus
    • for Pavlov's dogs, this was the food
  93. the reflex response to the unconditioned stimulus
    • unconditioned response
    • for Pavlov, this was the salivating
  94. stimulus that has no effect on the desired response
    neutral stimulus
  95. stimulus that becomes able to produce a learned reflex response by being paired with the original, unconditioned stimulus
    conditioned stimulus
  96. learned reflex response to a conditioned stimulus
    conditioned response
  97. repeated pairings of neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus is usually called
    acquisition
  98. the tendency to respond to a stimulus that is only similar to the original conditioned stimulus is called
    • stimulus generalization
    • (sound of coffee grinder when anxious about dentist drill sounds)
  99. stimulus discrimination
    • this occurs when an organism learns to respond to different stimuli in different ways
    • coffee grinder, after a few listens, doesn't produce the anxiety of a drill
  100. conditioned response briefly reappears when the original conditioned stimulus returns (though it's usually weaker and shorter lived)
    spontaneous recovery
  101. higher order conditioning
    occurs when a strong conditioned stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus
  102. emotional response that has become classically conditioned to occur to learned stimuli, such as fear of dogs
    conditioned emotional response
  103. conditioned taste aversions, along with phobic reactions, are an example of
    • biological preparedness
    • animals learn certain associations with only one or a few pairings due to the survival value
  104. Pavlov believed that the conditioned stimulus, through its association in time with the unconditioned stimulus, came to activate the same place in the animal's brain that was originally activated by the unconditioned stimulus. he called this process
    stimulus substitution
  105. Rescorla exposed rates to a tone before an electric shock. What did he discover about the relationship between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus?
    the CS must provide some kind of info about the coming of the UCS in order to achieve conditioning
  106. cognitive perspective
    consciously expecting something to occur
  107. the kind of learning that has to do with voluntary behavior
    • operant conditioning
    • deals with the effects of pleasant and unpleasant consequences
  108. law of effect
    • if an action is followed by a pleasurable consequence, it will be repeated. If unpleasant, will tend not to be repeated.
    • Thorndike developed this
  109. example of a primary reinforcer?
    • food, liquid, touch
    • it satisfies a basic need
  110. example of a secondary reinforcer?
    • cash
    • it's associated with primary reinforcers
  111. reinforcement of a response by the addition or experience of a pleasurable consequence such as a reward or a pat on the back
    positive reinforcement
  112. the remove or escape from something unpleasant increases the likelihood of a response being repeated. this is called
    negative reinforcement
  113. fixed interval schedule of reinforcement
    • a reinforcer is received after a certain, fixed interval of time has passed
    • ex: a paycheck every two weeks
  114. variable interval schedule of reinforcement
    • interval of time after which an organism must respond in order to receive a reinforcer changes from one time to the next
    • ex: pop quizzes
    • dialing a busy phone number
  115. fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement
    • the number of responses required for reinforcement is always the same
    • sandwich shop punch cards - 10 punches for a free sandwich
  116. variable ratio schedule of reinforcement
    • the number of responses changes from one trial to the next
    • slot machines
  117. punishment by application
    • occurs when something unpleasant is applied
    • spanking
  118. punishment by removal
    • removal of something pleasurable or desired after the behavior occurs
    • grounding a teenager
    • time out, fines for disobeying the law
  119. any stimulus, such as a stop sign or a doorknob, that provides the organism with a cue for making a certain response in order to obtain reinforcement
    discriminative stimulus
  120. small steps toward some goal are reinforced until the goal itself is reached
    shaping
  121. successive approximation
    the small steps rewarded during shaping
  122. tendency for an animal's behavior to revert to genetically controlled patterns
    instinctive drift
  123. behavior modification
    • use of operant conditioning techniques to bring about desired changes in behavior
    • (gold stars for reading books)
  124. the modern term for a form of behavior modification that uses both analysis of current behavior and behavioral techniques to mold a desired behavior or response
    applied behavior analysis
  125. biofeedback
    using feedback of a person's biological information (such as heart rate) to create a state of relaxation
  126. insight
    • rapid perception of relationships
    • (Kohler's chimpanzee Sultan fitting sticks together to retrieve a banana)
  127. learned helplessness
    • tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation because of a history of repeated failures in the past
    • Seligman's dogs
  128. observational learning
    • learning of new behavior through watching someone else
    • bandura's bobo doll
  129. Bandura's four elements of observational learning?
    • AMIM
    • Attention
    • Memory
    • Imitation
    • Motivation
  130. the process of getting sensory information into a form that the brain can use
    encoding
  131. information processing model - like a computer - why?
    three different systems of memory: encoding (like typing); storage (save); retrieval (opening a file)
  132. parallel distributed processing model
    memory processes are proposed to take place at the same time over a large network of neural connections
  133. levels of processing model
    info that is more deeply processed will be remembered more efficiently and for a longer period of time
  134. iconic memory
    • visual sensory memory
    • its capacity is everything that can be seen at one time
  135. eidetic imagery
    ability to access a visual memory over a long period of time
  136. echoic memory
    • the brief memory of something a person has heard
    • its capacity is about 2-4 seconds
  137. selective attention
    • the ability to focus on only one stimulus from all sensory input
    • cocktail party effect
  138. short term memory v. working memory?
    short term is a thing or place into which information is put. working memory is more like an active system that processes the info in short term memory
  139. short term memory usually lasts how long without rehearsal?
    12-30 seconds
  140. maintenance rehearsal
    • continuing to pay attention to the information to be held in memory
    • not the most efficient way of putting info into long-term storage because to get the info back out, you have to remember exactly how it went in
  141. elaborative rehearsal
    • make information meaningful in some way
    • easiest way is to connect new info with something that is already well known
  142. procedural memories
    • memory for skills
    • tying shoes, riding a bicycle
    • Alzheimer's patients retain their procedural memories
  143. declarative memory
    facts and information
  144. semantic memory
    anyone has the ability to know this, it's often learned in school or by reading
  145. episodic memory
    memories of what happened to you during the day, special events, etc.
  146. explicit memory
    • memories that are easily made conscious and brought from long term storage into short term memory
    • episodic and semantic memories are forms of this
  147. semantic network model
    assumes that info is stored in the brain in a connected fashion with concepts that are related to each other stored physically closer to each other than concepts that are not highly related
  148. the tendency for memory of any kind of information to be improved if the physical surroundings available when the memory is first formed are also available when the memory is being retreived
    • encoding specificity
    • this would help us do well on a test taken in our classroom, if we actually learned anything in that classroom
  149. memories formed during a particular physiological or psychological state will be easier to remember while in a similar state
    state-dependent learning
  150. recall
    memories are retrieved with few or no external cues, such as filling in the blanks on an application form
  151. recognition
    • involves looking at or hearing information and matching it to what is already in memory
    • word-search puzzle
  152. serial position effect
    information at the beginning and end of a list, such as a poem or song, tends to be remembered more easily and accurately
  153. recognition tends to be very accurate for
    images, especially human faces
  154. false positive occurs when
    someone thinks that he or she has recognized something or someone but in fact does not have that something or someone in memory
  155. example of automatic encoding?
    you may not know how many times cars have passed down the street but when asked can give an answer of often, more than usual or hardly any
  156. example of flashbulb memory?
    where you were when JFK was shot, 9/11, Challenger explosion
  157. constructive processing view of memory retrial, memories are built from pieces stored away at encoding. example?
    people, upon learning details of an event, knew it all along
  158. the tendency of people to falsely believe that they would have accurately predicted an outcome without having been told about it in advance is called
    hindsight bias
  159. misleading information can become part of an actual memory, affecting its accuracy. that's known as the what effect?
    misinformation
  160. false memory syndrome refers to?
    the creation of inaccurate or false memories through the suggestion of others, often while the person is under hypnosis
  161. can false memories be created for any kind of memory?
    no, they have to at least be plausible
  162. implausible events could be made more plausible by have experimenters provide what kind of feedback to participants?
    false feedback
  163. encoding failure
    • failure to process information into memory
    • your friend may have said something to you as he walked out the door, you may have heard him, but if you weren't paying attention, it would not get past sensory memory
  164. memory trace
    • some physical change in the brain which occurs when a memory is formed
    • if the traces aren't used over time, they may decay
  165. proactive interference
    • tendency for older or previously learned material to interfere with the learning and retrieval of new material
    • you get a new cell phone number and confuse it with the old when giving your digits to friends
  166. retroactive interference
    • recently learned information interferes with older information
    • trying to program your old vcr after having the new one for a year
  167. retrograde amnesia
    loss of memory from the point of injury backwards
  168. anterograde amnesiz
    • you can't form new memories
    • HM
    • this is most often seen in people with senile dementia

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Author:
 jenmuz
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 239250
Filename:
 Psychology Exam 2
Updated:
2013-10-07 20:56:37
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PSY121 Exam chapters MSU
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Intro to Psych Exam 2. Chapters 3, 4 and 5
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