Scientific Foundations
What is a placebo effect?
The placebo effect is when experimental results are caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to be an active agent
How does retinal disparity help driving home?
ex) Retinal disparity helps determine the distance between your car and the car in front. Therefore, you can keep a safe distance.
What is a superordinate goal?
Superordinate goals are shared goals that override differences between people and require their cooperation.
Give an example of selective attention.
What is the effect of myelin sheath?
Myelin sheath enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next.
What is the purpose(effect) of random assignment?
Random assignment minimizes preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups
What is an example of a teratogen?
Alcohol, smoking, cacaine, etc.
Which disorder recurs usually during the winter months in the northern latitudes and could be treated with light therapy?
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Explain Thorndike's Law of Effect.
Behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and those followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.
Which chromosomal abnormalities involve 3 copies of the 21st chromosome?
Down syndrome
Who started Functionalism?
William James
In what stage of the sleep cycle are the muscles relaxed?
REM sleep
Hitler blaming Nazis for their defeat in WWI is an example of _____ theory.
Scapegoat Theory
What is source amnesia?
Source amnesia is when someone attributes to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined (aka source misattribution).
What is the difference between crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence?
Crystallized: knowledge accumulated over time; holds steady or increases as one ages.
Fluid: our ability to solve abstract problems and pick up new info and skills; decreases as one ages.
WHO focused on unconscious internal conflicts to explain behaviors and WHY was he/she criticized?
Sigmund Freud / for being unscientific and unverifiable
What is the difference between the absolute threshold and difference threshold?
Absolute threshold: the smallest amount of stimulation needed for a human to notice it.
Difference threshold: the smallest amount of change in stimulation for a human to notice.
What should be prescribed to patients in the manic phase of bipolar disorder?
Lithium
What is the difference between phonemes and morphemes?
Phonemes: smallest units of sound
Morphemes: smallest unit of meaningful sound; not necessarily a word
What are type A and B personalities?
Type A: high achievers and competitive; more likely to get stressed out and have a heart attack.
Type B: more relaxed and calm.
Which percentage of the population falls in one/two/three standard deviations in the normal model?
68.2 / 95.4 / 99.7
List Erikson's 8 stages of development.
1. Trust vs. Mistrust
2. Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt
3. Initiative vs. Guilt
4. Industry vs. Inferiority
5. Identity vs. Role Confusion
6. Intimacy vs. Isolation
7. Generativity vs. Stagnation
8. Integrity vs. Despair
What are the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Positive: delusion (grandeur / persecution), hallucination
Negative: flat effect, social withdrawal, apathy, inattention, lack of communication
Rats explored the maze with no food reward. However, once they were given a reward, they ran the maze quickly. Which learning process does this rat experiment by Tolman support?
Latent Learning
How does PET (positron emission tomography) visually show brain activity?
PET detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task.