Consciousness
Define consciousness and describe its continuum.
Consciousness is our awareness of ourselves and our environment, which exists on a continuum from full alertness to deep sleep.
Distinguish between sensation and perception.
Sensation detects physical stimuli through sensory receptors, while perception organizes and interprets that information.
Sensation = raw input, Perception = interpretation
Define classical conditioning.
A form of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, producing a similar response.
Define observational learning.
Learning by watching and imitating others.
What are the three basic functions of memory?
Encoding, storage, and retrieval.
What role do circadian rhythms play in regulating sleep?
They are 24-hour biological cycles which aligns our sleep-wake patterns with light and darkness.
What is sensory adaptation, and why is it useful?
It’s the decreased sensitivity to constant stimuli, allowing us to focus on changes in the environment.
Identify the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and conditioned stimulus (CS) in Pavlov’s experiment.
UCS: food; CS: bell (after pairing with food).
What are the four processes in Bandura’s social learning theory?
Attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.
Explain the difference between short-term and long-term memory.
Short-term memory holds limited information temporarily; long-term memory stores information more permanently and has larger capacity.
Explain how melatonin influences sleep.
Melatonin is a hormone that increases in darkness and promotes sleep; light suppresses melatonin and keeps us awake.
Describe the difference between rods and cones in the retina.
Rods detect dim light and motion, while cones detect color and fine detail in bright light.
Give an example of positive reinforcement.
Receiving praise for turning in homework on time, which increases the likelihood of doing it again.
Explain vicarious reinforcement.
It occurs when we observe someone being rewarded for a behavior, which increases our likelihood of imitating it.
Define semantic and episodic memory.
Semantic memory is factual knowledge; episodic memory is personal experiences tied to time and context.
Describe one difference between REM and non-REM sleep.
REM sleep involves rapid eye movements and dreaming, while non-REM sleep includes slower brain waves and restorative processes.
Explain the trichromatic theory of color vision.
It states that color perception is produced by three types of cones—sensitive to red, green, and blue wavelengths.
Explain negative reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant to increase a behavior
Describe Tolman’s concept of latent learning.
Learning that occurs without reinforcement and becomes evident when there’s motivation to perform it.
You’re trying to remember how to ride a bike after years without practice. Which type of memory helps you do this?
Procedural Memory
A student pulls multiple all-nighters before exams and struggles to remember material. Explain this using the cognitive function of sleep.
Sleep helps consolidate memories; without enough REM and non-REM sleep, memory and learning are impaired.
During a basketball game, a player doesn’t notice an open teammate because they’re focused on dribbling. What concept explains this?
Inattentional blindness—the failure to notice something visible when attention is directed elsewhere.
A student stops checking their phone during class because they lose participation points when caught. What kind of operant conditioning is this?
A group of children watch a TV character who helps a friend and receives praise. Later, they act kindly toward peers even when unsupervised. Explain how this demonstrates vicarious reinforcement.
The children observed a model being rewarded (vicarious reinforcement), encoded the behavior and its consequence, and later reproduced it using memory and motivation
How do short-term memory and long-term memory work together when you’re studying for an exam?
Information first enters short-term memory where it’s temporarily held and rehearsed; through processes like rehearsal and encoding, it’s transferred into long-term memory for more permanent storage and later retrieval.