CH1 + CH2
What is confirmation bias? Relate it back to psychology research.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to remember information that supports our own personal biases more than the ones that contradict them. This is a common issue when consuming research as we tend to remember conclusions that support our agenda despite the presence of contradictory information, despite the fact that they are more supported at times.
What are the differences between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems? What mechanisms do you see happening in each?
Sympathetic: Activated by stress and fear, and is also known as the "fight or flight" system. Increased heart rate, pauses digestion, converts more glycogen to glucose to increase energy expenditure, and responds to stimuli faster.
Parasympathetic: Known as the "rest and digest" system, it is involved in maintaining the body's homeostasis after stressful situations. Promotes digestion, relaxes muscles, and is slower in nature.
What is the difference between sensation and perception?
Sensation: The input of sensory information through our body's receptors
Perception: Our brain's mental representations or interpretations of sensory input.
What are the 3 steps that occur when you convert information you receive into memory?
1) Encoding: Process of acquiring information
2) Storage: Process of storing information in the brain
3) Retrieval: Process of retrieving that information from its storage place
Define Cooperation, Altruism, and Reciprocal Altruism
Cooperation: Working together to benefit all members of a community
Altruism: Sacrificing your personal interests to benefit another
Reciprocal Altruism: Sacrificing something expecting that they might do the same for you at some point in the future
Who founded the field of experimental psychology? What was his contribution to psychology?
Wilhelm Wundt worked on sensory physiology and psychophysics
What are concordance rates? Hint: it has something to do with heritability and twins
Concordance Rates are the probability that a trait observed in a person will be seen in another. They provide estimates of the heritability of a condition, particularly in psychological disorders.
What are the 2 most "dispensable" senses to humans?
Olfaction: Sense of smell
Gustation: Sense of taste
What is the name of the laboratory apparatus that Skinner put his rodents in to study Operant Conditioning?
Skinner Box
What is the vestibular system? Where is it mainly located?
Vestibular system: Provides information about body movement and position, including balance. It is mainly located in the inner ear.
What are the differences between cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs? Examples?
Cross-sectional: Collect data from a diverse population at a single point in time
Longitudinal: Sample data from a specific group of individuals over a long period of time
Describe what happened to Phineas Gage and what was damaged as a result of this incident. What effects were observed afterwards?
An iron rod went through his skull, damaging his left frontal lobe. He survived but became prone to angry outbursts and impulsivity. His incident helped scientists realize that the frontal lobe is important in inhibition of impulses and controlling desires.
What is the Absolute Threshold and how is that different from the Difference Threshold?
Absolute Threshold: The smallest possible stimulus that can be detected at least 50% of the time
Difference Threshold: The smallest difference between two stimuli that can be detected at least 50% of the time
What are factors that can affect how increase the effectiveness of classical conditioning?
Temporal contiguity: The faster you present the intended CS after the UCS, the more effective the conditioning will be
Stimuli contingency: the more salient the CS and UCS are, the more effective
Element of surprise: in earlier trials of conditioning, it is easier to induce learning (because of how surprising the association between the CS and the UCS appears), but the animal learns this relationship and less learning occurs.
Categorize the following neurotransmitters as inhibitory or excitatory:
ACh, Glu, GABA
ACh - excitatory
Glu - excitatory
GABA - inhibitory
In hypothesis testing, what is the null hypothesis, the alternative hypothesis, and the significance level?
Null Hypothesis: Usually denoted as H0, it hypothesizes that there is no significant difference between your groups (i.e., no effect of treatment that differs from the no treatment group). It tends to be the baseline hypothesis that you attempt to "prove wrong" or reject.
Alternative Hypothesis: Usually denoted as HA, it is the alternative to H0. But remember that you can't ever prove a hypothesis to be true ("accept HA"), the closest you can get to it is by rejecting the H0.
Significance Level: Also known as the p-value, it is the probability that the observed effect is due to chance rather than the X (driving) variable. Therefore, the lower it is, the effect is more likely to be driven by the independent variable of interest.
What is genome-wide association studies (GWAS) or whole-genome sequencing (WGS)?
It is the process of looking at all the genes in an organism (genome) rather than one specific gene that "causes" a trait (candidate gene). This helps combat the idea that one gene can be responsible for a complex behavior.
What are the waveforms for the following states of wakefulness?
Awake --> Starting to fall asleep --> Deeper Sleep --> REM
Alpha --> Theta --> Delta --> Beta
What is aversion therapy? What about systematic desensitization? What are these 2 methods helpful for?
These are methods used to overcome fears via counterconditioning
Aversion Therapy: Replacing "unwanted" positive reactions to a "bad" stimulus with negative reactions.
Systematic Desensitization: The gradual introduction of what you fear in small increments during a state of relaxation, and can either be through its actual physical manifestation or via guided imagery.
What is Albert Bandura known for?
Fun fact he is from a small town in Alberta. Canadian icon!
He worked in the field of observational learning, specifically of aggression. He put forth the idea that exposing children to violent media can lead to them observationally learning these habits.
What is Humanistic Psychology and how is that different from Behaviorism?
Behaviorism: Focuses on how people learn through their interactions with their environment (i.e., our behavior is driven by our external environment)
Humanistic Psychology: Focuses on looking at an individual as a whole (i.e., we are more than our behaviors)
What 3 structures make up the Hindbrain?
Medulla: functions essential to life (e.g. heart rate and breathing)
Pons: Responsible for autonomous functions such as sleep and arousal.
Cerebellum: Making mental and motor skills more automatic (i.e., posture, balance)
What network is activated during a state of "mind-wandering"?
Default Mode Network (DMN). Areas in this network include the mPFC, lateral temporal cortex, lateral and medial parietal cortex. The DMN is thought to maintain a high level of unconscious, background activity of the brain.
What area stores procedural memories? What about declarative memories (Semantic and Episodic)?
Procedural Memories - Basal ganglia
Declarative Memories - Semantic in Hippocampus and Cerebral Cortex, while Episodic memories seem to be linked to Insula and Temporal Lobe more)
What are the 2 theories of visual color processing? Explain them.
Trichromatic Theory: the retina perceives color by combining the wavelengths of three primary colors (red, green, and blue)
Opponent Process Theory: The existence of a red–green channel and a blue–yellow channel that "compete" such that activity in one color group in a channel inhibits activity in the other color group. This accounts for the afterimage effect.