This approach to understanding human behavior focuses on the INTERACTION between three types of causal factors.
What is the Biopsychosocial Model?
[Let's say a person gets really good grades in English classes. What might be some biological factors that contribute to this outcome? What might be some psychological factors that contribute to this outcome? What might be some social factors that contribute to this outcome? How might any of these factors interact?]
A split-brain patient sees a cup in his left visual field and a ball in his right visual field. What will he say he saw?
He'll say he saw a ball.
[Why? How will he be able to demonstrate what his left visual field picked up? Starting with visual stimuli, can you follow the path from sensation to perception? Can you do the same for auditory stimuli?]
This feature of an experimental research design helps to reduce the effects of possible confounding variables by "spreading them out" across participants.
What is Random Assignment? [Why do we want to reduce confounds -- what does that help us know about our other variables? What is a Quasi-Experiment? What is Random Sampling? What is the value of random sampling?]
These are the 3 parts of the brain stem that we learned about in this class.
What are the Medulla, the Thalamus, and the Hypothalamus. [What do each of these brain structures do? What brain structures are part of the limbic system, and what do they do? What is the cerebellum? What are the lobes of the cerebral cortex, and what do they do?]
A baby falls down. He then looks at his mother and notices that she is still smiling at him. As a result, he picks himself up and keeps playing (even though the fall kind of hurt). Picking up on his mother's cues is an example of this.
What is Social Referencing? [How is social referencing different from Theory of Mind? How does something like Theory of Mind promote the development of a Conscience?]
What (hopefully) happens to information you encoded while you are sleeping?
It is turned into a memory trace via consolidation.
[What types of interference can prevent consolidation? How can cues be useful for triggering a memory? When do cues fail to bring up a memory? What is the misinformation effect?]
As we age, we get better in terms of this -- an ability to strategically use the knowledge we have acquired and stored over our lifetime.
What is Cognitive Efficiency? [What are some of the things that decline, decrease, or worsen as we age?]
In a longitudinal study, researchers follow a group of people who use opioids. They assess them (1) before entering rehab, (2) halfway through rehab, (3) when they leave rehab, and (4) 6 months after leaving rehab. At time 4, the researchers find nearly all of the people have begun using again. According to classical conditioning, what phenomena explains why this probably occurred?
The renewal effect -- which says that learning will re-emerge if a person goes back into a context in which they learned an association.
[What is spontaneous recovery? What types of theories lead developmental psychologists to use longitudinal studies?]
Explain how Sexual STRATEGIES Theory differs between men and women.
Men are interested in youth and physical health/attractiveness, and they seek mates for short-term sexual opportunities. Females are interested in resources and the likelihood that the mate will stick around and share those resources; they are interested in longer-term commitment opportunities.
[What is Sexual Selection Theory? What is Gene Selection Theory? What is Error Management Theory?]
Explain 3 ways that I can make a divided attention task HARDER. Give an example of a hard divided attention task -- tell me 2 things that it would be hard to do at the same time.
Make the tasks similar to each other. Make both tasks difficult, even on their own. Make both tasks require conscious effort and attention. Make the tasks "new," as opposed to already well-learned. Examples will vary.