Sense And Behavior Psychology Study
In this chapter we discuss Sense And Behavior Psychology Study
Psychology
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Behavior
All outward or overt actions and reactions.
Mental Processes
Internal, covert activity of the mind.
Description [what is happening?], Understanding [why is it happening?], Prediction [when will it happen again?], Control [how can it be changed?]
Willhelm Wundt
The “father of psychology”, a physiologist, who attempted to apply scientific principles to the study of the human mind.
Objective introspection
the process of examining and measuring one’s own thoughts and mental activities
Edward Titchener
A student of Wundt and created structuralism.
Structuralism
Focus of the study is the structure or basic elements of the mind.
William James
Discovered functionalism.
Functionalism
The focus of study is how the mind allows people to adapt, live, work and play. Influenced the modern fields of educational, evolutionary and industrial/organizational psychology.
Gestalt Psychology
Started with Wirtheimer, the “good figure” psychology. Now part of cognitive psychology and not only focuses on perception but learning, memory, thought processes and problem solving.
Psychoanalysis
Theory and therapy based on the work of Sigmund Freud. Believed that nervous disorders were caused by suppressed urges and that early childhood experiences were significant.
John B. Watson
Proposed behaviorism, “the science of behavior” that focuses on observable behavior.
Humanistic perspective
People have free will, the freedom to choose their own destiny.
Correlation
a measure of the relationship between two variables
Independent variable
Variable in the experiment that is manipulated.
Variable in an experiment that represents measurable response or behavior of the subjects in the experiment.
Experimenter effect
tendency of the experimenter’s expectations for a study to unintentionally influence the results of the study.
Single-blind study
study in which the subjects do not know if they are in the experimental or the control group
Double-blind study
study in which neither the experimenter nor the subjects know if the subjects are in the experimental or control group
Acetylcholines
mood learning, memory, muscle contraction, Alzheimers disease [when there is not enough]
Dopamine
attention, learning, movement, cocaine, schizophrenia
eating, alertness, wakefulness, depression [too little]
Serotonin
mood, sleep, appetite, aggression, depression [too little]
Endorphines
pain relief, pleasure
Thalamus
part of the forebrain that relays information from sensory organs to the cerebral cortex
Hippocampus
plays a role in learning, memory and ability to compare sensory info to expectations
Frontal lobe
emotions; personality, decisions, memory, planning, inhibition
Occipital lobe
process visual info; identifies and makes sense of usual information
Parietal lobe
contains the somatosensory cortex, controls sense of touch, receive info from skin cells
Amygdala
motivation, emotion control, fear response, interpretation [nonverbal emotion of expressions[
Hypothalamus
fever, flight, fear, sexual drive [four F’s]
HM
surgery in the temporal lobe in the hippocampus due to having frequent seizures. Now can’t transfer short term to long term.
Nuclear structure
Unique because it makes up the nervous system. Receives and send information.
Neurons
soma has the dendrites around it which receives information and send it to the synaptic knobs and turns it into a chemical message
Rods
dark light. back of retina.
Cones
color. back of retina.
Blind spot
in the back of the eye that receives no information
Dark adaptation
recovery of the eyes sensitivity to visual stimuli in darkness after exposure to bright lights
Light adaptation
to recovery of the eyes sensitivity to visual stimuli in light after exposure to darkness
Auditory canal
short tunnel that runs from the pinna to the eardrum
Eardrum
thin section of skin that tightly covers the opening into the middle part of the ear
Cochlea
snail-shaped structure of the inner ear that is filled with fluid
Organ of corti
rests in the basilar membrane; contains receptor cells for sense of hearing
Auditory nerve
bundle of axons from the hair cells in the inner ear; receives neural message from the organ of Corti
Taste buds
taste receptor cells in mouth; responsible for sense of taste
Five basic tastes
sweet, sour, salty, bitter, brothy
Olfactory bulbs
areas of the brain located just above the sinus cavity and just below the frontal lobes that receive info from olfactory receptor cells [atleast 1,000 olfactory receptors]
Somesthetic senses
the body senses consisting of the skins senses, the kinesthetic sense and the vestibular senses
Gate-control theory
pain signals must pass through a “gate” located in the spinal cord
Kinesthetic sense
sense of the location of body parts in relation to the ground and each other
Vestibular senses
sensations of movement, balance and body position