Psychology Midterm review

Psychology and Psuedo-Psychology

100

What is the Difference between Psychology and Psuedo-Psychology?

Psychology is scientific, psuedo-psychology can be thought as information with no scientific basis.

200

What is Empiricism in Psychology?

the belief that real knowledge comes from the sense or experience

300

What are phrenology, palmistry, and astrology. What type of psychology are they examples of?

Phrenology- systems of measuring a person's character + intelligence by feeling the bumps and depression on his skull Palmistry- basically palm reading Astrology- (Horoscopes) that claim to explain aspects of a persons life or personality based on planetary positions at their time of birth

400

What are the 6 major current approaches to Psychology, describe

1. Phychobiological 2. Cognitive 3. Behavioral 4. Psychoanalytic 5. Humanistic 6. Cross- Cultural

Scientific Method

100

What is the Scientific method

a body of techniques used for investigating phenomena, acquiring knowledge, or correcting previous work

200

Define each component of the scientific method. Why are operational definitions essential to this method?

1). Problem-- What is the question that you are trying to answer? 2). Hypothesis-- An educated guess/answer to the problem (often) 3). Research-- facts, inferences, observations done previously 4). Experiment-- List all of the materials 5). Procedure-- What steps are you going to follow during the experiment that are detailed enough so that someone else could pick up the lab report and do it. 6). Conclusion-- Restate the hypothesis, restate the results, what you learned Operational definitions are important to get similar results.

300

What steps would you use to evaluate a piece of scientific research.

Did they follow the Scientific method? Were there any variables that could be changed? Would you get the same result each time? How well did the experiment go/ how many times was the experiment done?

Brain

100

What is the cerebral cortex and what does it do?

Cerebral cortex is a layer of the brain that plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, as well as consciousness.

200

Do all animal species have a cerebral cortex? How are humans unique with regard to this brain structure?

All mammals have a cerebral cortex

300

Describe the major areas of the cerebral cortex. What are the general functions of these areas?

Frontal Lobe- associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, and problem solving Parietal Lobe- associated with movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli Occipital Lobe- associated with visual processing Temporal Lobe- associated with perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech

400

What are the ways the brain can be studied? Explain both invasive and non-invasive techniques.

For Invasive: Accidents, Lessions Non-Invasive: EEG, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), CAT Scan (Computerized Axial Tomography), PET Scan (Positron Emission Tomography), Functional MRI

500

What is the corpus callosum? What is its function?

The function is to connect the left and right side of brain (hemisphere) The two hemispheres are physically separate. The corpus callosum, a thick white band of nerves deep within the brain, is one of the connects that allow the two hemispheres to communicate and coordinate their activities.

More Brain

100

What is the hippocampus and for what function is it specialized?

Hippocampus- the elongated ridges on the floor of each lateral ventricle of the brain, thought to be the center of emotion, memory, and the autonomic nervous system.

200

What are Wernike’s and Broca’s areas of the cerebral cortex? Describe the aphasias caused by damage to these areas.

Broca's area is one of the main areas of the cerebral cortex responsible for producing language (Damage to this area would mess up your speech) Wernicke's area is the region of the brain that is important in language development (Damage in this area can make it hard to learn language)