Psych Exam 1

Front 1

introspection

Back 1

reporting on sensations and other elements of experience in reaction to stimuli. it sucks and is unreliable.

Front 2

functionalism

Back 2

studied thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. asked what function might they serve and how might they have helped our ancestors survive?

Front 3

william james

Back 3

founder of functionalism and wrote "the principles of psychology"

Front 4

Mary Whiton Calkins

Back 4

memory researcher and the first female president of the APA. was denied a PhD from harvard.

Front 5

margaret floy washburn

Back 5

PhD, 2nd female president of the APA. wrote "the animal mind". was barred from titcheners experiemental psychologist organization.

Front 6

psychology

Back 6

the science of behavior and mental processes

Front 7

nature vs nurture

Back 7

are people born a certain way or is it due to their environment growing up?

Front 8

natural selection

Back 8

useful in psychology because it explains animal behaviors as well as their structures.

Front 9

hindsight bias

Back 9

"i knew it all along"

Front 10

overconfidence

Back 10

mistakenly perceiving order in random events. "dice is fixed because you rolled 4 6's in a row"

Front 11

scientific attitude

Back 11

1. ask questions 2. be skeptic 3. be humble

Front 12

naturalistic observations

Back 12

range from watching chimps in the jungle to videotaping parent child observations.

Front 13

neurons

Back 13

nerve cells. each consists of a cell body

Front 14

dendrite

Back 14

fibers recieve information and connect it toward the cell.

Front 15

axon

Back 15

fibers pass the message through its terminal branches to other neurons or muscles or glands.

Front 16

myelin sheath

Back 16

fatty tissue that insulates the axons and speeds their impulses

Front 17

action potential (neural impulse)

Back 17

brief electrical charge that travels down the axon.

Front 18

threshold

Back 18

if the excitatory signals minus the inhibitory signals exceed a minimum intensity or threshold, the combined signals trigger an action potential

Front 19

synapse and synaptic gap

Back 19

•meeting point between neurons.
•gap between the axon and the receiving neuron. (dendrites and axons don't quite touch)

Front 20

neurotransmitters

Back 20

chemical messengers that are released when the action potential reaches the terminal ends of an axon. they cross the synaptic gap and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron.

Front 21

reuptake

Back 21

the sending neuron reabsorbs excess neurotransmitters.

Front 22

sensory neurons

Back 22

carry messages from the bodys tissues and sensory receptors inward to the brain and spinal cord for processing.

Front 23

motor neurons

Back 23

carry instructions from the central nervous system out to the bodys muscles

Front 24

interneurons

Back 24

forwards the message between the sensory input and motor output. the interneurons process the information in the brain

Front 25

EEG

Back 25

researchers present a stimulus repeatedly and have a computer filter out brain activity unrelated to the stimulus.

Front 26

PET scan

Back 26

positron emission tomography. depicts brain activity by showing each brain area's consumption of glucose. the patient recieves temporarily active glucose and the pet scan picks up the gamma rays as the patient preforms the given task.

Front 27

MRI

Back 27

aligns atoms, then allows atoms to return to normal which provides the scientists with an image of soft tissues including the brain.

Front 28

fMRI

Back 28

shows the functioning of the brain as well as its structure.

Front 29

brainstem

Back 29

begins when spinal cord swells slightly after entering the skull

Front 30

medulla

Back 30

the slight swelling of the spinal cord right after entering the skull

Front 31

thalamus

Back 31

egg shaped structures that receives all senses except smell and sends them to the brain.

Front 32

reticular formation

Back 32

lies between your ears. as the spinal cord's sensory input flows up to the thalamus, some of it travels through this which filters incoming stimuli and relays important information to other brain areas. also enables people to wake up.

Front 33

cerebellum

Back 33

enables nonverbal learning and memory, coordinates voluntary movement, helps to judge time, modulate our emotions and discriminate sounds and textures.

Front 34

amygdala

Back 34

aggression and fear

Front 35

hypothalamus

Back 35

helps the body maintain a steady internal state

Front 36

cerebral cortex

Back 36

cover's the cerebral hemispheres. body's ultimate control and information processing center

Front 37

glial cells

Back 37

support, protect, and nourish neurons

Front 38

frontal lobe

Back 38

lies behind the forehead, involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgments.

Front 39

parietal lobe

Back 39

lies at the top of the head towards the rear, receives sensory input for touch and body position

Front 40

occipital lobes

Back 40

lies at the back of the head, includes areas that receive information from the visual fields

Front 41

temporal lobes

Back 41

lies roughly above the ears, includes auditory areas, each receives information primarily from the opposite ear.

Front 42

sensory cortex

Back 42

at the front of the parietal lobes, registers and processes body touch and movement sensations

Front 43

association areas

Back 43

areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions. involved in higher mental functions such as learning remembering thinking and speaking.

Front 44

plasticity

Back 44

the brains ability to change, especially during childhood by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.

Front 45

corpus callosum

Back 45

large band of neural fibers connecting the 2 brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them.