Ch.1
The scientific study of the behavior of individual organisms and how environmental, physiological, mental, social, and cultural events influence these behaviors.
What is psychology?
A systematic, organized approach to understanding the physical world through direct observation and measurement
What is science?
Located behind the forehead, this lobe is responsible for higher-level functions like planning, decision making, and voluntary movement.
What is the frontal lobe?
This is the mental experience of sensory information.
What is perception?
These five interacting influences—biological, psychological, social-cultural, cognitive, and behavioral—help psychologists explain why we think, feel, and act the way we do.
What are the five interacting influences of behavior?
The environmental conditions that the researcher manipulates during the experiment.
What are independent variables?
An example would be an SSRI, these types of drugs enhance the effectiveness of a neurotransmitter.
What is an agonist?
The “projection screen” of the eye that transforms the light energy received from the outside world into an electrical signal that is passed to the brain.
What is the retina?
From structuralism to humanistic, these six major perspectives guide psychologists in explaining behavior and mental processes, each offering a different lens of understanding
What are the 6 major perspectives of psychology?
The study of behavior in non-human species
A drug that causes a muscle fiber to contract when released into a neuromuscular junction
An area in the eye without any photoreceptors because of the optic nerve.
What is a blindspot?
Noting at least 10 of them, like biopsychology and evolutionary psychology, these ten areas are the branches where psychologists apply their knowledge and skills
What are the subfields of psychology?
A statement that clearly explains what is being measured and how to measure it
What is an operational definition?
Damage to this brain structure often leads to difficulty forming new long-term memories, while older memories usually remain intact
What is the hippocampus?
This theory states that people who are color-deficient have one or more photoreceptors that are different from people with normal color vision
What is trichomatic theory?
What is Wundt's Lab?
Psychologists aim to do these four things with behavior—observe what happens, explain why it happens, predict when it will happen, and influence outcomes.
What are the four goals of science?
Found in the parietal lobe, this strip of cortex processes touch, pressure, temperature, and pain sensations from the body.
What is the somatosensory cortex?
The methods of grouping disconnected sensory fragments to form a coherent whole.
What are Gestalt grouping principles?