Introduction to Psychology
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
What is psychology?
A testable prediction about the relationship between variables.
What is a hypothesis?
The basic cell of the nervous system that communicates information.
What is a neuron?
The process by which sensory receptors detect information from the environment.
What is sensation?
A relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge resulting from experience.
What is learning?
This perspective focuses on how the brain, nervous system, hormones, and genetics influence behavior.
What is the biological perspective?
The variable that a researcher changes or manipulates in an experiment.
What is the independent variable?
These chemical messengers allow neurons to communicate with one another.
What are neurotransmitters?
The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.
What is perception?
Learning that occurs when an association develops between two stimuli.
What is classical conditioning?
This perspective focuses on how thinking, memory, beliefs, and problem-solving influence behavior.
What is the cognitive perspective?
When two variables are related, but one cannot necessarily be said to cause the other, this relationship exists.
What is correlation?
This part of the brain is strongly associated with planning, decision-making, and voluntary movement.
What is the frontal lobe?
The smallest amount of stimulation needed to detect a stimulus about 50% of the time.
What is the absolute threshold?
In operant conditioning, this consequence increases the likelihood that a behavior will happen again.
What is reinforcement?
The debate over whether behavior is primarily influenced by genetics or environment is known as this.
What is nature vs. nurture?
Before participating in many psychological studies, participants must agree to participate after being informed about important aspects of the study. This is called this.
What is informed consent?
The nervous system responsible for the body's fight-or-flight response.
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
Stimulus → Receptor → Transduction → Brain → Perception
How does sensation work?
A student studies because their teacher removes a previously assigned extra homework assignment. The removal increases studying behavior. What type of consequence is this?
What is negative reinforcement?
A psychologist studying how rewards and consequences influence a student's behavior would most likely use this psychological perspective.
What is the behavioral perspective?
A researcher finds that students who sleep more tend to earn higher grades. Explain why the researcher cannot automatically conclude that more sleep causes higher grades.
What is correlation does not equal causation? Other factors could explain the relationship.
A person experiences difficulty forming new memories after damage to a particular brain region. This example demonstrates that different areas of the brain can have specialized functions. Name the brain structure most associated with forming new explicit memories.
What is the hippocampus?
The process of converting physical energy into neural signals that the brain can process.
What is Transduction?
Negative does NOT mean bad. It means something is removed.
Positive does NOT mean good. It means something is added.
Operational Learning Misconceptions