Psychology 105

8/2/2019 Psychology 105

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Psychology is:

The study of the soulo Psyche= soul or mindo Logos, Word, study

The systematic study of individual behavior and experience Science

Biological Psychology:

Biological factors in behavior (genes, brain structures, neuro transmitters)o What parts of the brain are responsible for coordinating movement?o Is personality genetic?

Cognitive Psychology:

Explains how info about the world is acquired, retained, and usedo How do we perceive color?o Are our memories always accurate?

Learning and memory gaining and keepingDevelopmental Psychology:

How thought and behavior change as people age and whyo When do children understand that other people have minds?o Do we become disagreeable as we age?

Theory of mindknowledge that my thoughts are different from my neighborsSocial and Personality Psychology

What determines our behavior? The situation or our personality?

o Why do we help people?o Am I an extrovert or introvert?

Ex: 1. Familiarity breeds contempt or 2. The more you know someone, the more you like them

Ex: 1. Birds of a feather flock together or 2. Opposites attract

Clinical Psychology:

Tries to understand and treat abnormalities in thought and behavioro What kind of therapy is most effective for people suffering from bipolar disorder?o How much anxiety is normal?


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Hot Topics:

Emotions (what role do they play in our everyday life?) Evolutionary psychology Cultural psychology (how do cultural values, language, institutions etc affect our behavior etc) Positive psychology (counterpoint to abnormal psychology) Neuroscience and imagining work

Major Philosophical issues:

Free-Will vs Determinism: Are the causes of behavior knowable, and is behavior predictable? Mind-Body and Mind-Brain Pattern: How is experience related to the organ system that we call

the brain?

o What is consciousness? Nature vs nurture: How do differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity (genes) v.

environment (parents, culture, resources) or an interaction of the two?

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Scientific Methods in Psychology

Scientific method harder to apply to concepts like love, but its still worth a tryScientific Methods in Psychology

The scientific methodo What makes good science?

Research methods in Psychologyo Correlationalo Experimental

What are the goals of Science?

Descriptiono What are the characteristics of the behavior?o EX: can look at different characteristics of love

Predictiono How likely is it that the behavior will occur?o EX: How often does depression happen in the population? Do men or women

experience it more?

Explanationo What causes the behavior? (not just what we do, but why we do it?)

Ex: behaviorism (if I poke you, how do I respond)


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Today: if I poke you, what do you think and how do you respond?

Controlo Can we make the behavior happen/not happen?o Ex: clinical psychologyo Can be messy: in what situations is it okay to interfere?

Ex: forcing autistic people to conform to our societyTheory vs. Hypothesis

Theory broad and bigo Based on broad observations/readings: explanation or model deduced from a great

many observations and capable of making valid predictions

o Ex: Freudian theory Hypothesis is more specific and falsifiable: testable prediction of what will happen under certain

specific conditions (based on a theory)

o if this, then thatWhat makes a good theory?

Falsifiableo What evidence would count against the theory?o Can we test it?o You will encounter new challenges in your travels this weektoo vague to be

falsifiable

o On date, you will meet blankwho will offer you blankyes, falsifiable Parsimony

o Start with fewest assumptionso Consistency with other theorieso Ex: Freudian theory: Id vs. ego; one has to win out. Why cant it be just one thing

happening?

Freudian Theory:

Not falsifiableo The unconscious mind is constantly producing sexual thoughts, which the conscious

mind represses and denies

o How can we falsify this? Not parsimonious

o Assumes an unobservable unconscious driven be sexual, aggressive motives (no way tosee/measure thiswhy do we need this?)

o Doesnt fit with what we know of human cognition from other studies


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Cognitive Association Theory (Conceptual Networks)

Falsifiableo If two objects that are repeatedly paired with one another do not prime one another,

this does not support the theory

o Clear what supports and what refutes Parsimonious

o Fairly simple explanationo Consistent with other theories of neural structure

The Scientific Method:

1. Form the theory/hypothesis2. Test the hypothesis (Method)3. Analyze the results

Theory versus Measurement

Operationalization: How we measure theoretical variableso Theoretical variable: intelligence

IQ, GPA, reaction timeo Theoretical Variable: Love

Self-report, eye gaze, intrusive thoughts, time spent together, brain mapping,word recognition

Two ways to test a hypothesis

Correlational method (different from correlational statistic)o Measure the correlation, or relationship between the two variables of interest without

controlling them

Experimental methodo Manipulate one variable to measure its effect on the other variable

Correlational designs:

Naturalistic: assess behavior in everyday life Observational: study variables that cant be manipulated (gender, ethnicity, culture)

First step (just establishing that a relationship exists)

Advantages of experimental designs

Random assignment Manipulate variable Control extraneous variables (reduces compounds) Identify causation


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Experimental designs

Independent variable (IV)o Variable that we manipulate

Dependent variable (DV)o Variable that we measure to determine effects of the IV

Design a study

Hypothesis: Psych knowledge is good for relationshipso IV: psychology knowledge; DV: relationship health

How will you measure this?o Knowledge: grade in class, Relationship health: number of friends (CORRELATIONAL)

Correlational or experimental? Need a control group

o Ex: a group of non-psych studentsCentral Tendency

Mean, median, mode (Psych uses mean the most)Variation

Range: lowest and highest values in a group, or distribution of measurements Standard deviation: measurement of variation of values around the mean

Correlation coefficient

A statistic (r) which estimates the relationship between two variables R can range from -1.00 to 1.00

o Strength: size of the relationship (how large is the number?)o Direction: The direction of the relationship (positive or negative?)

Positive correlation: as one variable increases, so does the second variable (opposite is anegative, or inverse correlation)

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Biological Psychology: What are the components of the nervous system? How does the brain create

mental processes and behavior?

Important: any explanation/diagnosis needs to be reconcilable with how the brain/body work


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Major philosophical issues

Universality: assumption that all humans have same body and brain architecture to work with The mind-brain problem: How is experience related to the organ system that we call the brain? The mind-body problem: are mind and body (and brain and body) separate and distinct?

Measuring Brain Activity:

Lesion studies (damage to the brain from natural/surgical causes)o Ex: Phineas Gage: had a stake going through his head/brain but could still perform

everyday activities and had pretty good motor control

Starts gambling, cant make decisions about short-term/long-term gains, startsmaking cruel jokes, etc.

o Frontotemporal Degeneration: when part of the brain atrophies and died; similarbehavior to Phineas Gage

Neuroimaging (fMRI, etc)o Can take images of brain activity for normal brains, can focus on specific parts of brain

Ex: sleep-deprived people are more activated in terms of negative feelings incertain area of the brain

o PET Imagingtells us on a broad level what kind of (glucose) uptake is happeningo EEGcap that measures electrical activation in cortex of brain (when youre

experiencing activity, not where in brain)

o Replication: multiple methods: lesion, behavioral, fMRI, ERPcombining everything Animal models

o Ablation/Lesion (can take out part of a brain and monitor results)o Single-cell recordings (put electrodes in brain and monitor what happens in a single cell

in the brain)

Ex: could show a cat different stimuli and see when there is activityNeurons:

Types of neurons:o Sensory: from body to brain (help us sense whats going on)

Ex: hunger, sick to stomach, sense of touch, smello Motor: brain to bodyo Interneurons: in between

Parts of a neuron:o Dendrites: get info from other neuronso Cell body: all the info gets collected and summed upo Axon: long noodly thingo Myelin sheath: covers axons and protects them (multiple sclerosis if the sheath breaks

down)

o Axon terminals (terminal buttons): where it ends and connects to other neurons


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How it works:o There is a threshold level that must be reached in order for axon to fire

Excitatory and inhibitory information is being given, and unless you reach thatthreshold, neuron wont fire

Fires and connects to other neurons via synaptic gap Reaction within neuron is electrical: Communication across neurons is chemical

Between neurons: the synapseo Neuron releases chemicals at the synaptic gap (neurotransmitters), and other neurons

will pick that up (if it is right key for lock)

This is how we get specificity (neurons can release different neurotransmittersto unlock specific neurons

o Once neuron fires, it will release neurotransmitters UNTIL1. Enzymes in synaptic gap can destroy neurotransmitter so it can no longer reach new

neuron

2. Reuptake: if neurotransmitters dont get taken up by postsynaptic neuron, they goback to pre-synaptic neuron

3. Autoreceptor: when an autoreceptor on pre-synaptic neuron receives aneurotransmitter, it knows there are too many neurotransmitters and knows to

slow process down

Drugs and Neurotransmitters:

Agonists: facilitate neurons firingo Ex: with Parkinsons, neurons producing dopamine start breaking downcan intervene

by slowing reuptake of dopamine, add something that looks like dopamine and fits inneuron receptors; give people a piece of dopamine which actually helps them to

produce more

LDOPAchemical building block that temporarily helps body produce moredopamine

Antagonists: slow things down; get in the way; try to reduce a neuron from firingBrain Anatomy

Hindbrain (core)stuff we share with other vertebras Limbic systemgoes around brainstem; has other core functions common to mammals Cerebral cortexsquiggles around the brain (the thing that makes us human)


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Hindbraintakes care of a lot of basic functions (breathing, balancing, waking and sleeping)

Top of the brainstemo Ponso Cerebellumcontrols balance, coordinating motor movemento Medulla

Limbic Systemborder around hindbrain; parts that are somewhat automatic/unconscious

Hypothalamushelps coordinate things within the body (ex: sensory inputs and autonomicsystemgetting inputs and sending outputs)

o Responding to things outside and inside of bodyo Controls body temp, blood glucose levels

Hippocampusmemory oriented; connects to cortexo About building/storing/creating new memorieso London taxi drivers have larger hippocampuses

Amygdalascanning environment for threato human faces register herelooking for threatso emotional memories are somewhat connected to amygdale (ex: if you drank bad milk

one time and got sick, youll remember that whenever you see milksame true for

tequila)

Also important: (not important for test)o Thalamuso Basal ganglia

Amygdala Activation (Chiao study 2008)

Responds to emotional faces Emotional differences? In-group vs. out-group differences?

o In-group solicits more response with fear and neutral faces, but there is not as much ofan effect for the happy/anger faces

Cerebral Cortex: takes care of things like language, complex decision making, future planning, vision and

perceptual processes

Localized (things happen in certain places) Lateralizedtwo generally symmetric halves to the brain; not necessarily the same in terms of

function

o Righty: language on left half of brain; creativity on right half of braino L for language; R for special relationso Hemisphere specialization: brain damaged participants see different things depending

on which half of their brain is damaged

Contralateral control: what we see on left side is processed on right side of the brain and viceversa


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Motor cortex (back end frontal lobe), visual cortex (back of occipital lobe), auditory cortex (topof temporal lobe), sensory cortex (front of parietal)

Frontal lobeo Logic and reasoning, planning, socially appropriate aspects of emotionso Motor skills in motor cortex (back of lobe)

Parietal Lobeo Pain, pressure, special abilitieso Somatosensory cortex (front of lobe)sensory inputs

More room is given to more sensitive areas of body Temporal Lobe

o Hearing, memoryo Auditory complex: top of lobe near motor and sensory cortexes

Occipital Lobeo Visual processingo Visual cortex (back of lobe)

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Time, Newsweek, Psychology TodaySensory Systems

Sensation and Perception:

Sensation: conversion of energy from theenvironment(stimuli) into a pattern of response by the nervous system by receptor cells (also

transduction) Perception: Organization, reorganization,

contextualization and interpretation of patterns of neural responses

Sensation/Transduction: KNOW BASIC PROCESSES AND HOW THEY WORK

Hearing: sensation a variation in airpressure waves

Vision: electromagnetic variation Taste: chemical molecules floating around

in the air and in food

Smell: similar to taste Touch: temperature, pain, pressure;

mechanical force


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Underlying Principles

Absolute threshold: the minimumstimulus for us to process

o Changes from sense to senseo Changes from context to contexto Varies from person to person

Just noticeable difference (JND)o The minimum amount of stimulus that

needs to be added in order to perceive a change (the amount you start with is

important)

More you start with, the more you needto notice a change: a proportion

Webers Law: As baseline intensity goesup, youll need more to change in order to notice

Signal Detection Theoryo Hits, misses, correct rejections and false

alarms

Vision:

Electromagnetic spectrum (350-700) Structures of the eye

o Energy goes through the pupil and thelens (which ends up turning the image upside down), hits the back part of the eye

(retina but specifically the fovea) receptors fire and information goes into optic nerve,

which connects to the brains visual cortex

o Optic nerve creates a blind spoto Rods: 90-95% of retina; periphery of

retina; respond to dim light, movement

o Cones: 5-10% of retina; located towardfovea; interpret color; perceive detail

Trichromatic theory:

color vision depends on the relative rateof response by three types of cones


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o Short-wavelength cones: respond topurple/blue

o Medium-wavelength cones: greeno Long-wavelength cones: orange/red

You see white when all the wavelengthsare coming at you

When we see red, were less likely to seegreen (and vice versa)

Additive Color Mixing:

Red and green make yellow Light is being emitted Adding new wavelengths in

Subtractive Color Mixing:

When we mix paint, more wavelengthsare absorbed (subtracted) and color we see is based on reflected wavelength

o Ex: you mix blue and yellow, see green(because that is the color that is reflected and not absorbed)

Opponent Process Theory

We perceive color in terms of a system ofpaired opposites

Certain classes of retinal ganglion cells areinhibited by one color (eg red) and excited by its opposite (green)

Senses:

Why do we have two eyes?o Depth perception; blind spoto Monocular vision: have to rely on relative

size, occlusion (one object is being blocked by another)

Two ears?

o Helps for keeping balance; telling in whichdirection things are (works better for things in front of you than behind you)

Two nostrils?o One nostril is slower, stuffier than the

other

1. Stimulus molecules attach to receptors


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2. Receptors convert the energy of achemical reaction into action potentials

3. The spatial and temporal pattern of nerveimpulses represents the stimulus in some meaningful way

o Odorants vary in sorption Low: orange High: peppermint

o Nostrils alternate flow rates High flow-rate nostril sensitive to high-

sorption odorants

Low flow-rate nostril sensitive to low-sorption odorants

o Result: we smell low- and high-sorptionodorants at the same intensity

Smellpheromoneso Substances which are secreted to the

outside by an individual and received by a second individual of the same species, in

which they release a specific reaction, for example, a definite behavior or a

developmental process

o Often for sexual communication

One type of pheromone:

o Products of the Major Histocompatibilitycomplex (MHC) are important for immune system

o The more varied your MHC is, the betteryour immune system works

o Mice are very good at smelling and matingassortatively based on MHCthey can smell just one locus of difference and mate

based on this discrimination

Stinky T-Shirt Study

Male and female students weregenetically typed

The males wore t-shirts for two nights,washed with odorless soap, told to avoid doing smelly thingssmoking, drinking, sex

Women sniffed and rated the t-shirts, 3from MHC similar men, 3 from MHC dissimilar men, some sniffed control t-shirts (never worn)


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Women not on birth control pill rated theMHC dissimilar t-shirts as smelling sexier and more pleasant, and said the smell reminded them

of their past lovers

Women on the pill preferred MHC similarmen

o More likely to be related to you, your ownoffspring (more willing to take care of you)

2/24/10: PERCEPTION

Perception begins in the cortex Transduction: transformation of energy in

cortex from a nerve pulse (?)

Monocular and binocular depth cues Gestalt psychology

o Laws of grouping Language effects on color perception Perception: process of organizing,

integrating, and interpreting sensory information

o An active processthe mind adds toexperience

Monocular depth cues:

Relative size Texture gradient (things that are closer

look more detailed)

Interposition (occlusion)blocking bysomething in front

Linear perspective: (parallel lines recedeinto the distancelike with a railroad)

o Ponzo illusion for example (two recedingparallel lines, and two lines bisecting ittop line looks longer)

Height in field

Motion parallax(things that are further

away seem to move more slowly)

o How fast things move past our retinaGestalt Psychology (shape or form)

Focus is on overall patterns of an image


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The whole is different than the sum of itsparts

o Just because you understand people asindividuals doesnt mean youll understand how theyll act as a group

Powerful role ofassumptions/expectations

Perceiver as activeo Laws of grouping

law of proximity : ( )things that are close to each other we tend to group as together

law of similarity: (rows of alternatingcircles and triangles) group similarly shaped items together

law of good continuation: you tend to seelines as continuing as if its an extension of what you see in motion

principle of illusory contours: tend tomake shapes out of angles of others (see book) can also have to do with

occlusion and closure

principle of closure: tend to finish off linesto make known shapes

principle of figure and ground: brain isconstantly focusing on foreground and moving everything to the background

good figure (simplicity):Evolutionary Stages of Color Categorization

languages that have two words for color:black and white

then red then yellow/green then green/yellow then blue then brown then purple/rose/orange/grey

Language and Color Perception

Two competing argumentso Sunlight damages lens of the eye, causing

yellowing. This yellowing makes it harder to distinguish blue from green

o Language structures shape ourperceptualprocesses

Kay and Kempton (1984)


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English vs Tamahumara (who has no blue-green distintion)

Showed a color chip with colors rangingfrom green to blue (equidistant on a color schemeonly our perception that makes them seem

closer)

Language and Color

Language structures shape our perceptualprocesses (boundary effects)

However, even if we dont have a namefor a color, we are able to see the distinctions

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Learning and Conditioning: Dogs, Cats, Rats and Pigeons

Learning:

Process by which experience alters apersons future behavior

Behaviorist approacheso Classical conditioningo Operant conditioning

Observational learningClassical Conditioning (Pavlov)

Unconditioned stimulus (US)o Thing that naturally happens (on the

outside)

o Pretty biological and prettystraightforward

Unconditional response (UR)o Natural response to something that

naturally happens (on the inside)

o USUR Conditioned stimulus (CS)

o Learned stimuluso CS + US

Conditioned Response (CR)o Response to learned stimuluso CSCR


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In classical conditioning, you are learningto predict what will happen in the environment

o Running away from fire is a conditionedresponse (pain teachers you that)

o Fire bell goes off fear is the conditionalresponse

o Physiological responses Usually something painful or pleasurable

that will result

Classical conditioning is about signaling(what bell signals, for example)

Why does conditioning occur?

Temporal contiguityo Different temporal relationships

Forward pairing (CS then US) This works the best because the bell

serves as an indicator (cause an effect)

Simultaneous pairing of CS and US Backward paring (US then CS)

Contingency and predictionClassical Conditioning

Stimulus generalizationo When a slightly different stimulus still

produces the same response

Stimulus discriminationo the ability to respond to certain stimuli

but not others (based on which stimuli produce results)

Little Alberto John Watson as father of behaviorism

(along with Pavlov)

Watson was charismatic, pushedbehaviorism into popular media


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Phobia: not always an example of classicalconditioning

o Learned phobias can happen very quickly(one-trial learning), like with food poisoning

Biological preparedness: its much easierfor us to learn to fear things like snakes, spiders, rats, than things like electrical outlets

o Ancestors that feared these things weremore likely to survive and pass this down

o Preparedness, not necessarily that wereborn afraid (just more easier learned)

Operant Conditioning (how you can operate on/manipulate the environment)

In classical conditioning, you dont doanything to make fire burn, make loud sound, etc.

Law of effect

o In operant conditioning, you do somethingto the environment, and see whether or not it creates the effect you want (thereby

controlling whether or not youll do it again)

o Satisfying effect: more likely to occuragain in that situation

reinforcemento Discomforting effect: less likely to occur

again in that situation

Punishment

Reinforcement Schedule

Ratio vs interval scheduleso Fixed vs. Variable

Fixed: happens every time Variable: it varies

o Ratio: how often the behavior is exhibitedo Interval: has to do with time passing

Variable ratioo Ex: Every time you buy a lottery ticket, you

have a chance at winning


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o EX: You do chores and you get paid )whatyou have to do to get the money varies)

Fixed intervalo EX: Workers get paid by the houro EX: Tests come every four weeks

Variable intervalo Ex: get paid every 3-8 dayso EX: How long it takes to get a test back

(varies)

o EX: pop quizzeso EX: six people get their homework taken

up every day

o Students study best for thisyou alwayshave to be prepared (have to exhibit the behavior all the time)

Fixed ratioo EX: test comes every five chapters

Summary

Classicalo Learn which events predict other eventso Contingencieso Preparedness

Operanto Learn about consequences of ones

actionso Sensitive to schedules of reinforcemento Shaping via successive approximations

You reward the animal/human forbehavior approximating what you want, hoping that it will eventually lead to the

desired behavior

Sense of preparedness involved (cantteach any animal to do anythingthey have to have a tendency to do that

anyway)

Similarly, its hard to teach animals not tocertain things (like raccoon with rubbing)

Bobo study


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Children watched videos, and then wereleft alone to see if they could learn behavior of violently playing with Bobo without being

reinforced

Study suggests that reinforcement notnecessary for learning

3/3/10

Multiple choice, some short answer,maybe one essay

o Multiple choice about discrimination ofconcepts

o Short answer is more definitional (explaina theory, talk about the different ways in which memory can occur); compare these two

topics

oEssay: apply a concept youve learned to

something new

o One hour fifteen minutesMemory and Memory Applications

Memory is an interpretive process (onlyremember certain things, add certain things)

Memory

Memory processes Modal memory model Application

o How to improve your studyingo Eyewitness testimony

Memory processes

Encoding (when we perceive outsideinformation and neurochemical transformation in brain)

Storage (ongoing process; has to do withhow we retain memory once it has been encoded)

o Either short-term or long-termo Ex: studying is a process to store

memories

Retrieval (process of retrieving somethingfrom memory)

Memory errors can happen at all stages


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o Encoding: can exaggerate things,misinterpret, memories could get mixed together

o Storage: HM had hippocampus removed;lost long-term memory; something can interfere and get in the way of storing

something long-term

o Retrieval: amnesia, tip of the tonguephenomenon, hard to remember something you havent used recently

Modal Memory Model

Sensory registersSTMLTM Sensory registers: dont last long in

memory (can recall some of what just happened, but then no more) STM (working memory): can pull things

from your long-term memory temporarily in your short-term memory

o If youre not repeatedly accessing theinformation, short-term memory is about 30 seconds

o If you rehearse material, can hold it inshort-term memory longer

o 5+-2 units (chunks) for short-termmemory

The bigger the chunks, the fewer youcan remember

LTM: supposedly there forever (more amatter of whether you can bring it up); supposedly limitless

Explicit memorieso Semantic memoryo Episodic memory

Implicit memoriesBasis for STM-LTM distinction

Capacity

duration Primacy effect: likely to remember first

things in a list

o Rehearsal; getting into your long termmemory


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Recency effect: likely to remember mostrecent things in a list

o Short-term memory The middle things in a listdont have

time to rehearse

o Interference, or not enough time torehearse

o In LTM, but less rehearsedModal Memory

As we process information, we filter, alteror lose much of it

Sensory memoryshort-termmemorylong-term storageretrieval from long-term memory

Sensory memory: the senses momentarilyregister amazing detail Short-term memory: a few items are both

noticed and encoded

Long-term storage: some items are alteredor lost

Retrieval: depending on interference,retrieval cues, moods, and motives, some things get retrieved, some dont

Short-term: differences on neuron levelfrom long-term

Study Skills

Encoding specificityo Ex: word association (in a way that will

help you)

Deep processingo Make connections meaningful (more

context/stories you can associate with what you want to remember)

Number of connections and types ofassociations are important for memory

Mnemonicso Ex: King Philip Came Over For Good Soup,

Every Good Boy Does Fine

Timingo Study in small chunkso Sleep


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o Cram with the details you dont know aswell; formulas that you know youre gonna need

Things that dont help

State-dependent memory (like studyingdrunk)

o Small effect sizeo Not a practical effect

Emotional Arousal and Memoryo Ex: Where were you on 9/11

For this class

Repetition Connections

o Encode multiple wayso Process deeplyapply it

Self-Test Review again Test again

VOCAB CHAPTERS 1-3

Psychological science: the study of mind, brain, and behavior

Mind/body problem: a fundamental psychological issue that considers whether mind and body are

separate and distinct or whether the mind is simply the subjective experience of the physical brain

Introspection: a systematic examination of subjective mental experiences that requires people to

inspect and report on the content of their thoughts

Structuralism: an approach to psychology based on the idea that conscious experience can be broken

down into its basic underlying components or elements

Functionalism: an approach to psychology concerned with the adaptive purpose, or function, of mind

and behavior

Gestalt theory: a theory based on the idea that the whole of personal experience is different from

simply the sum of its constituent elements

Psychoanalysis: a method developed by Freud that attempts to bring the contents of the unconscious

into conscious awareness so that conflicts can be revealed

Behavioralism: a psychological approach that emphasizes the role of environmental forces in producing

behavior


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Cognitive psychology: the study of how people think, learn and remember

Social psychology: the study of group dynamics in relation to psychological processes

Theory: a model of interconnected ideas and concepts that explains what is observed and makes

predictions about future events

Hypothesis: a specific prediction of what should be observed in the world if a theory is correct

Naturalistic observation: a passive descriptive study in which observers do not change or alter ongoing

behavior

Participant observation: a type of descriptive study in which the researcher is actively involved in the

situation

Longitudinal studies: involve observing and classifying developmental changes that occur in the same

people over time

Descriptive studies: involve observing and classifying behavior, either by naturalistic observation or

participant observation

Cross-sectional studies: involve observing and classifying developmental changes that occur in different

groups of people at the same time

Experimental expectancy effect: actual change in the behavior of the people or animals being observed

that is due to observer bias

Correlational study: research method that examines how variables are naturally related int eh real

world, without any attempt by the researcher to alter them

Directionality problem: when researchers find a relationship between two variables in a correlational

study, they cannot determine which variable may have caused changes in the other variable

Third variable problem: when the experimenter cannot directly manipulate the independent variable

and therefore cannot be confident that another, unmeasured variable is not the actual cause of

differences in the dependent variable

Confound: anything that affects a dependent variable and may unintentionally vary between the

experimental conditions of a study

Selection bias: when participants in different groups in an experiment differ systematically

Meta-analysis: a study of studies that combines the findings of multiple studies to arrive at a

conclusion

Reactivity: when the knowledge that one is being observed alters the behavior being observed


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Self-report method: a method of data collection in which people are asked to provide information

about themselves, such as in questionnaires or surveys

Interactive method: involves asking questions of participants, who then respond in any way they feel is

appropriate (open-ended) or select from among a fixed number of options (multiple choice)

Response performance: a research method in which researchers quantify perceptual or cognitive

processes in response to a specific stimulus

Electroencephalogram (EEG): a device that measures electrical activity in the brain

PET: a method of brain imaging that assesses metabolic activity by using a radioactive substance

injected into the bloodstream

MRI: a method of brain imaging that produces high-quality images of the brain

fMRI: imaging technique used to examine changes in the activity of the working human brain

TMS: use of strong magnets to briefly interrupt normal brain activity as a way to study brain regions

IRBs: review boards to make sure proposed research is humane

Heritability: a statistical estimate of the variation, caused by differences in heredity, in a trait within a

population

Receptors: in neurons, specialized protein molecules, on the postsynaptic membrane, that

neurotransmitters bind to after passing across the synaptic cleft

Reuptake: the process whereby a neurotransmitter is taken back into the presynaptic terminal buttons,

thereby stopping its activity

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Psychology 105