Psychology Exam Review #2

Front 1

Describe daydreaming.

Back 1

Letting your thoughts wander to another subject while you're doing another task

Front 2

What happens when the circadian rhythm of adults is disturbed?

Back 2

Microsleeps occur, unable to concentrate or perform simple tasks, sleep deprivation, which then leads to general discomfort and emotional symptoms such as irritability and even depression

Front 3

What are sleep spindles, and which stage of sleep do sleep spindles occur?

Back 3

Sleep spindles are bursts of activity lasting only a second or two, and they occur during sleep stage N2.

Front 4

What is the deepest stage of sleep?

Back 4

The deepest stage is in N3. This is when the delta waves (slowest and largest waves) make their appearance.

Front 5

Explain "paradoxical sleep" & when it happens

Back 5

Paradoxical sleep is another name for REM sleep. It occurs during sleep stage R. 90% of dreams happen in REM sleep and they tend to be more vivid, detailed, and longer and more bizarre than the dreams of NREM sleep. The voluntary muscles are paralyzed during REM sleep (known as sleep paralysis). This is why you sometimes have a dream in which you are trying to run or move but can't.

Front 6

Where is our biological clock physically located?

Back 6

The sleep-wake cycle is controlled by the hypothalamus in the brain.

Front 7

When does sleepwalking occur?

Back 7

Deep non-REM stages of sleep

Front 8

What is sleep apnea?

Back 8

Sleep apnea is a condition that occurs when a person stops breathing for 10 seconds or more. When the breathing stops, there will be a sudden silence, followed shortly by a gasping sound as the person struggles to get air. Some people benefit from wearing a nasal opening device, losing weight, or they sleep with a device that delivers a continuous stream of air under mild pressure.

Front 9

What did Freud believe dreams represent?

Back 9

He believed that conflicts, events and desires of the past would be represented in a symbolic form in the dreams.

Front 10

What is the difference between nightmares and night terrors?

Back 10

A nightmare occurs during REM sleep, so the person is unable to move the voluntary muscles. People normally remember tier nightmares the next morning. Night terrors occur in the deep non-REM sleep, so they are able to thrash around and scream. People who have night terrors normally do not remember that they had one.

Front 11

What are the differences between addiction, tolerance and dependency?

Back 11

A person as a physical dependence on a drug when the body becomes unable to function normally without it (this is the same thing as addiction). A drug tolerance is as the person continues to use the drug, larger and larger doses are needed to achieve the same initial effects.

Front 12

What are the risk factors for alcoholism?

Back 12

Alcoholism can cause liver disease, increase the risk of loss of bone density (osteoporosis), and heart disease, psychiatric disorders and depression and anxiety disorders.

Front 13

What is marijuana and it's effects?

Back 13

Weed is a common hallucinogenic drug that comes from a hemp plant. It produces a feeling of well-being, mild intoxication, and mild sensory distortions or hallucinations. It can create a powerful PSYCHOLOGICAL dependency.

Front 14

What type of person can easily be hypnotized?

Back 14

They can be hypnotized easily if they... Focus on what's being said, feel relaxed and slightly tired, accept suggestions easily, and use a vivid imagination. People have to be willing to be hypnotized. A test of hypnotic susceptibility, or the degree to which a person is a good hypnotic subject, often makes use of a series of ordered questions.

Front 15

What are the effects of opiates (aka narcotics)?

Back 15

Opiates, or narcotics, are a type of depressant that suppress the sensation of pain by binding to and stimulating the nervous system's natural receptor sites for endorphins. They are all very addictive.

Front 16

What is a stimulant drug?

Back 16

Stimulants are a class of drugs that "speed up" the nervous system - the heart may beat faster or the brain may work faster if under the influence of a stimulant.

Front 17

What is the most dangerous and addictive stimulant in use leading to the single largest avoidable cause of death in our society today?

Back 17

Every year, nearly 430,000 US people die from illnesses related to smoking.

Front 18

Who is Ivan Pavlov?

Back 18

He was a Russian physiologist (a person who studies the workings of the body) who led the study of the basic principles of a particular kind of learning. He created the salivating dogs experiement.

Front 19

What is the unconditioned stimulus?

Back 19

The stimulus that leads to an involuntary response (the food is the unconditioned stimulus for the dogs)

Front 20

What is the unconditioned response?

Back 20

The automatic, involuntary response to the unconditioned stimulus

Front 21

What is the Conditioned stimulus?

Back 21

A previously un-acting stimulus (such as seeing the dog dish) begins to cause the same kind of involuntary response. It shows that learning has occurred.

Front 22

What is operant conditioning?

Back 22

Operant conditioning is the kind of learning that applies to voluntary behavior. Operant is voluntary behavior.

Front 23

Describe "shaping".

Back 23

Shaping is a process in operant conditioning that takes small steps toward some ultimate goal. The steps are reinforced until the goal itself is reached. (ie, teaching a dog to jump through a hoop step by step is shaping)

Front 24

What are positive and negative reinforcers and how do they affect behavior?

Back 24

A positive reinforcement is a reinforcement of a response by the addition or experience of a pleasurable consequence, such as a reward or a pat on the back.

Negative reinforcement is the removal or escape from something unpleasant that will increase the likelihood of that response being repeated.

Front 25

What is the difference between negative reinforcers and punishment?

Back 25

Punishment is the OPPOSITE of reinforcement; punishment WEAKENS responses, whereas reinforcement STRENGTHENS responses. Punishment can be by application (such as spanking, scolding or other unpleasant stimulus), or punishment by removal (the removal of something pleasurable or desires after the bad behavior occurs).

Front 26

What is generalization in regards to classical conditioning?

Back 26

The tendency to respond to a stimulus that is similar to the original conditioned stimulus is called stimulus generalization. You generalize the similar stimulants. (ie, if a person is afraid of the dentist and reacts with anxiety to the sound of a dentist's drill, they might react with some anxiety when they hear a similar-sounding machine, such as a coffee grinder)

Front 27

What is extinction in regard to classical conditioning?

Back 27

Extinction is a process where the conditioned stimulus was repeatedly presented in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus; this lead to the conditioned response to "die out" and sop occurring when brought to the attention of the conditioned stimulus.

Front 28

What is the recency effect?

Back 28

People tend to start to ramble off the "freshest" info (the stuff they just heard) if they are asked to recall a list of something. Normally the first items that were said are moreso correct than the rest of the items in the middle of the list

Front 29

What is maintenance rehearsal?

Back 29

When people say something over and over again in their heads so they remember it longer

Front 30

What is elaborative rehearsal?

Back 30

A way of transferring info from short term memory into long term memory by making that info meaningful in some way (like adding a joke or another term you already know to the unknown word).

Front 31

What's the difference between maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal?

Back 31

Maintenance rehearsal isn't as successful as elaborative rehearsal when it comes down to long-term history

Front 32

What is "chunking"?

Back 32

You cut down big masses of info into smaller "chunks" (like a phone number - 419-306-2109)

Front 33

What are retrieval cues?

Back 33

A retrieval cue is a stimulus for remembering. The more cues stored with a piece if info, the easier the retrieval of that info will be.

Front 34

What is the role of the hippocampus in memory?

Back 34

The hippocampus is a part of the limbic system, and it is a part of the brain that is responsible for the formation of new long-term declarative memories

Front 35

What is procedural memory?

Back 35

The long term memory that helps you remember how to do things, like walking, riding a bike, or tying your shoes.

Front 36

What is semantic memory?

Back 36

One type of declarative memory (declarative memory is all the thifs people can know, like 2+2=4 and what they are for breakfast) that is general knowledge that anyone ha the ability to know. Most of this info is learned in school (semantic refers to meaning).

Front 37

What is Episodic memory?

Back 37

Episodic memory is the other type of declarative memory that is PERSONAL knowledge that each person has of their personal history, a kind of autobiographical memory. Memories if what has happened to people each day, birthdays, and childhood vents are called episodic memories because they represent EPISODES from their lives.

Front 38

What is discrimination in regard to classical conditioning?

Back 38

Stimulus discrimination occurs when an organism learns to respond to different stimuli in different ways. (ie, although the sound of a coffee grinder might produce a little anxiety in the dental-drill-hating person, after a few uses that sound will no longer produce anxiety because it isn't associated with dental pain.

Front 39

What are the two types of interferences that results in forgetting?

Back 39

Proactive interference is the tendency for older or previously learned material to interfere with the learning (and retrieval) of new material.

Retroactive interference is the opposite - this is when newer info interferes with the retrieval of older info.

Front 40

What are the characteristics of short-term memory?

Back 40

It an incoming sensory message is important enough to enter consciousness, that message will move from sensory memory to the next stage, called short term memory. Short term memories last up to 30 seconds or more. The capacity of STM is 5 to 9 bits of info.

Front 41

What are the characteristics of long-term memory?

Back 41

Long term memory is the system into which all the info is placed to be kept more or less permanently. Just because memories are available doesn't mean they are accessible. Long term doesn't mean that all memories are stored forever.

Front 42

What are flashbulb memories?

Back 42

Memories that contain emotionally charged events

Front 43

What is state-dependent learning?

Back 43

Memories formed during a particular physiological state that will be easier to remember while in a similar state

Front 44

What is the tip-of-the-tongue phonemenon?

Back 44

People may be able to say how long the word or name the letters that start or end the word but can't retrieve the sound or the spelling of the word to allow it to be fully retrieved

Front 45

What is eidetic imagery?

Back 45

THe ability to access a visual sensory memory over a long period of time (also known as a photographic memory).

Front 46

What is a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement?

Back 46

A reinforcer is received AFTER a certain, fixed interval of time has passed. A scheduled test would be an example of a fixed interval.

Front 47

What is variable interval schedule of reinforcement?

Back 47

The interval of time after exhibit the individual must respond in order to receive a reinforce changes from time to the next. Unpredictable pop quizzes are a good example of variable interval.

Front 48

What is a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement?

Back 48

The number of responses required to receive each reinforce will always be the same number. Any worker that has to finish a certain number of items before pay is a fixed ratio.

Front 49

What is a variable ratio schedules of reinforcement?

Back 49

The number of responses hangs from one trial to the next. People using slot machines are an example of a variable ratio; they don't stop trying again and again in case the "next one" might be the jackpot

Front 50

What is spontaneous recovery?

Back 50

The recurrence of a conditioned response after extinction.

Front 51

Explain the social cognitive learning theory.

Back 51

The social cognitive learning theory focuses on the roles of cognition, or thought processes, on learning.

Front 52

How was aggression affected in children who saw an adult model punished vs. rewarded for hitting an inflated doll in Bandura's Bobo Doll Study?

Back 52

The children who saw the model beat up the doll and be rewarded after also beat up the doll when they were with it. The children who saw the model beat up the doll but get punished after did not beat up the doll until they were offered a reward.

Front 53

Define memory.

Back 53

Memory is an active system that receives info from the senses, puts that info into usable form, organizes it as it stores it away, an then retrieves the info from storage