Psy100 Yaser Hashmi

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What is Psychology?

- Discipline concerned with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an
organisms physical state, mental state and external environment. Based on research and
empirical evidence.
- Critical thinking: ability and willingness to assess claims and make objective judgments on the
basis of well-supported reasons and evidence rather than emotion and anecdote. Able to look
for flaws in arguments and able to resist claims that have no support. Ability to be constructive.
Indispensable in ordinary life. Helps you learn better. Essential critical thinking guidelines.
Ask questions, be willing to wonder.
Defining terms
Examine the evidence
Analyze assumptions and biases
Avoid emotional reasoning
Don’t oversimplify
Consider other interpretations
Tolerate uncertainty

The Forerunners of Modern Psychology

- Wanted to describe, predict, understand and modify behavior. Did not however rely heavily on
empirical evidence. Observations were based on anecdotes or descriptions of individual cases.
- Also sometimes committed blunders. Example: Phrenology where they argued that the different
brain areas accounted for specific character and personality traits.
- Wilhelm Wundt: trained in medicine and philosophy and wrote many volumes on physiology,
ethics, logic. First person to announce that he wanted to make psychology a science. Favorite
research method: trained introspection
- 3 schools of psychology: structuralism, functionalism and psychoanalysis

Structuralism:

- William Wundt. Analyze sensations, images and feelings into basic elements. E.g.: listen to a
metronome and report exactly what is heard.
- Didn’t however have an answer for what to do after this. Used introspection which also caused
trouble. Died down eventually

Functionalism:

- Function or purpose of behavior


- William James: WW was a waste of time because the brain and mind are constantly changing.
- Structuralists: what happens when an organism does something. Functionalists: how and why.
Inspired by evolutionary theories.
- Wanted to know how specific behaviors and mental processes help a person or animal adapt to
the environment.
- Felt free to pick and choose amongst different ways of research.

Psychoanalysis
- Mind Cure movement: correct false ideas that made people anxious, depressed and unhappy.
- Freud: listened to patients and realized there problems were mental, not physical. Distress was
due to conflicts and emotional traumas.
- Ideas were evolved into a broad theory of personality and a method is psychotherapy. Became
known as psychoanalysis.

4 main perspectives of Psychology:

Biological perspective:

- How bodily events affect behavior, feelings and thoughts.


- How biology affects learning and performance, perceptions of reality and experience of emotion.
- Evolutionary psychology: how genetically influenced behavior that was functional or adaptive
during our evolutionary past may be reflected in many of our present behaviors, mental
processes, and traits.

Learning perspective:

- How environment and experience affect the behavior of human beings.


- Behaviorists focus on the environmental rewards and punishers that maintain or discourage
specific behaviors.
- Social-cognitive learning theorists combine elements of behaviorism with research on thoughts,
values, expectations and intentions.

Cognitive perspective:

- What goes on in peoples heads, how they reason, remember, understand language, solve
problems and form beliefs. How their thoughts affect their actions, feelings and choices.
- Has inspired an explosion of research on the intricate workings of the mind.

Sociocultural perspective:

- Social and cultural forces outside the individual. Shape every aspect of behavior from how we
kiss to what we eat.
- Focus on social rules and roles-how groups affect attitudes and behaviors, why people obey
authority etc.

Feminist psychology:

- Women noticed a pervasive bias in the research methods used and in the very question that
researchers had been asking. Many studies only used men as subjects.
- No research on menstruation, rape, domestic violence etc.
- Also influenced the study of men.

Psychologists do 3 things:

- Teaching research in colleges


- Providing health or mental health services
- Conducting research or applying its findings in non-academic settings such as business, sports,
government
- Applied psychology: relevance to human problems, but w/out basic psychology, there would be
little knowledge to apply.
Experimental psychologists carry out experiments in labs about learning, motivation etc.
Educational: study principles that explain learning and search for ways to improve educational
systems
Developmental: how people change and grow over time physically, mentally and socially
Organizational: group decision making, employee morale, work motivation
Psychometric psychologists: design and evaluate tests of mental abilities, aptitudes, interests and
personality.
Practicing psychologists:
Counselling psychologists
School psychologists
Clinical psychologists

How Psychologists do Research


- Start out with a general theory: organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to
explain certain phenomena and how they are related. Theories are tentative, pending more
research. Some though are accepted by all scientists (e.g. evolution)
- Hypothesis is derived from a theory. A statement that attempts to describe or explain a given
behavior. Leads to predictions about what will happen in a particular situation. Terms like anxiety
or threatening situation are given operational definitions here which specify how the
phenomena in question is to be observed and measured.
- Any theory must eventually be backed by empirical evidence- info that is observable and
verifiable.
- Scientists must state an idea in such a way that it can be refuted or disproved by
counterevidence. Principle of falsifiability. Often violated though because all of us are vulnerable
to the confirmation bias- tendency to look for and accept evidence that supports our pet
theories and assumptions and to ignore or reject evidence that contradicts our beliefs.
- Openness: Science depends upon the free flow of ideas and full disclosure of the procedures
used in a study.

Research participants:

- Representative sample: that accurately represents the larger population that the researcher is
interested in. however, extremely hard to find. Psychologists hence usually resort to convenience
sampling: subjects who are more available than the others. WEIRD subjects are often present
(college students who are from the west, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic cultures)
- Descriptive methods: that yield descriptions of behavior but not necessarily causal explanations
a) Case studies
b) Observational studies. Observe behaviors, involves many participants. Naturalistic
observations find out how people or animals act in their normal social environments. Lab
observations are where there is more control over the situation.
c) Tests. Psychological tests measure and evaluate personality traits, emotions, aptitudes and
values. Objective tests (inventories) measure beliefs, feelings of which an individual is aware.
Projective tests: designed to tap unconscious feelings or motives.
Can check reliability of test through test-retest reliability and alternate-forms reliability.
Validity can be checked through content validity, criterion validity (ability to test
independent measures of the trait in question).
d) Surveys. (often have a sampling issue, and a lying issue)

Correlations:

- Extent to which things are related to each other. These things are variables because they can
vary in quantifiable ways.
- Positive correlation: high values of one are related with high values of the other. Or, low values
of one are related with low values of the other.
- Negative: high score of one, low score of another.
- Correlation coefficient: Perfect positive is +1.00. Perfect negative: -1.00.
- Illusionary correlations should be avoided because they are a mere coincidence.
- Correlations do not establish causation. A may predict B, but may not be causing B.

Experiments:

- Control and manipulate the situation being studied.


- Aspect manipulated: independent variable. Reaction of participants-behavior that is predicted is
the dependent variable.
- Need a control condition where there is no manipulation of the independent variable.
- Participants should not know whether they are in an experimental or a control group.
Single-blind study.
- Experimenter effects are also present.
- Double-blind study: researchers are not aware which participant is present in which group.
- Field experiments. Ecologically valid.

Descriptive Statistics:

- Numbers for data that are summarized. Good way to do this is to compute group averages.
Common type is through arithmetic man. SD tells us the trend, and cluster of data if present.
- Inferential statistics: stats that lead the researcher to draw conclusions about how meaningful
the findings are. E.g. significance tests which tell researchers how likely it is that their results
occurred by chance.
- Competing explanations sometimes exist.

Cross-sectional studies: in which people of different ages are compared at a given time. A subset is
longitudinal studies.

Effect size: an objective, standard way of describing the strength of the independent variable’s
influence on the dependent variable

Meta-analysis: set of techniques for combining data from a number of related studies to determine
the explanatory strength of a particular independent variable.

Ethics:

- Informed consent.
- Debriefing in case the real purpose is hidden in order to achieve accurate results.
- Ethics in studying animals.

Genes, Evolution and Environment


The human genome:

- Genes- basic units of heredity. Located on chromosomes (rod-shaped structures found in the
center of every cell of the body). Each sperm and egg cell have 23 chromosomes. Fertilized egg
and all the body cells that eventually develop from it contain 46 chromosomes arranged in 23
pairs.
- Chromosomes consist of threadlike strands of DNA molecules. Genes consist of small segments
of this DNA.
- 98.8% of our total DNA- noncoding DNA lies outside the genes. Previously called junk DNA
because it was believed that it was not important. Messages from non-coding DNA may also
affect the expression of certain genes.
- All genes, along w non-coding DNA make up the human genome. Most genes in the human
genome are found in other animals as well, but some are unique to our species.
- Many genes contribute to a particular trait. But others work indirectly by switching other genes
on or off.
- Within each gene: 4 bases: adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. Identified by letters A,T,C
and G.
- James Watson and Francis Crack: DNA is made of 2 strands with the bases in the middle holding
the strands together in pairs.: double helix
- Different combinations of genes can make up different protein depending on when and where
different segments of DNA on the gene are activated.
- Genome-wide association studies: examine a million DNA differences in people who share a
particular disease in comparison to those who don’t. researchers have a culprit gene in mind.
- Linkage studies: searching for genes associated with rare disorders. Tendency of genes lying clos
together on a chromosome to be inherited together across generations. Start by looking for DNA
differences called genetic markers. Then, patterns of inheritance of these markers in large
families in which this disease is common. Even after locating a gene though, don’t automatically
know its role in physical or psychological functioning.

Epigenetics

- Genome is not a static blueprint. Mutations-produce variant forms of genes which alter just one
DNA base or a large part of a chromosome. Many mutations are inherited from our parents, but
other ones arise before or after birth. Occurs bec of a mistake made when DNA copies itself.
Some occur bec of environment e.g. ultra-violet rays.
- Epigenetics studies changes in genes. Involves chemical molecules that regular the activity of the
genes. Epigenetic changes affect behavior, learning and memory, and vulnerability to mental
disorders.
- Can explain why one twin gets a disease and the other doesn’t. or how clones can differ.

Evolution and natural selection:


- Evolution is a change in gene frequencies within a population- takes place over many
generations. Why?
- Division of cells that produce sperm and eggs: if an error occurs in the copying of the original
DNA sequence, genes mutate. Small segments of genetic material cross over from one member
of a chromosome pair to another- exchanging places prior to the final cell division. Hence as they
keep mutating, new genetic variations and hence new traits keep arising.
- Natural selection: fate of these variations depends on the environment. In a given species living
n a particular environment, some individuals tend to be more successful than the others in
survival elements. Hence their genes stay alive longer-have been selected by reproductive
success. These genes even spread throughout the species. In contrast, individuals whose traits
are not as adaptive will not be reproductively fit. Natural selection also leads us to have a
“cooperate because you might need this person later” mindset hence we share niceness w
people who we mp wont ever meet.

Innate Human Characteristics:

- Infant reflexes: simple automatic responses to specific stimuli


- Interest in novelty. Intrigued by new, unfamiliar things
- Desire to explore and manipulate objects: scrutinize things by taking them apart.
- Play and fool around: like to explore. Also, helpful as it helps find food and other necessities of
life.
- Basic cognitive abilities: quickly and easily respond to the environment.

Evolution and sexual strategies:

- Species faced different kinds of survival problems, hence sexes differ in terms of dominance,
aggressiveness etc. males want to inseminate as many females as possible, while females want o
stay with just one, as a result, men want sex more often than females, aren’t as stable as females
and are just looking for dominance whereas females are more about finding the right partner.
- Critics however have challenged these conclusions.
- Stereotypes versus actual behavior: in many species, women are often also sexually ardent and
have many male partners. Similarly, in many species like penguins, men don’t just have sex and
run away, they stick around for the child.
- What people say versus what they do: many people state preferences for who they’d like to go
out with (e.g. handsome, beautiful) but they don’t actually look for just this. For women,
emotional infidelity would be worse as opposed to men.
- Convenience versus representative samples: carrying out tests on college students as opposed to
a more representative sample.
- The Fred Flintstone problem: natural selection has influences genes associated with taste, smell,
digestion, skin color, fertility.

Meaning of Heritability:

- Gives an estimate of the proportion of the total variance in a trait that is attributable to genetic
variation within a group. Expressed as a proportion. Maximum that is possible is 1.0. understand
nature-nurture issue by understanding important facts about heritability:
- Estimate of heritability applies only to a particular group living in a particular environment.
Heritability is largely affected by the environment a person is living in. for e.g. children from
affluent families have high heritability because hey eat well etc., whereas children from poor
societies have low heritability because the environment affects them.
- Heritability estimates do not apply to a specific person, only to variations within a group of
people. Genes may make a tremendous difference n some aptitude or disposition; for another,
the environment may be far more important.
- Even high heritable traits can be modified by the environment where even if your genes have a
trait, it may nit be able to flourish bec of, for e.g., malnourishment.

Computing heritability:

- Adopted children: may have genes of parents from birth, or adoptive parents. Researchers can
compare correlations between the traits of adopted children and those of their biological and
adoptive relatives and can use results to compute an estimate of heritability.
- Second approach: identical vs fraternal twins.

Genes and individual differences:

- IQ. Reflects how a child has performed compared with other children of the same age. Measure
a general quality that affects most aspects of mental ability. However have many critics.
- Maintain that IQ tests are culturally biased.
- Scores of identical twins are more highly correlated than those of fraternal twins. Identical
reared apart are also more correlated as opposed to reared together.
- Adoptive studies: higher correlation with birth parents as opposed to adoptive parents.
However, they do/can score more as opposed to their birth siblings because they were reared in
a healthier environment.

Group differences:

- African American children score lower than white children on average. Researchers have a
genetic explanation for this difference.
- Genetic explanations have a fatal flaw: use heritability estimates based on white people to
estimate the role of heredity in group differences. Invalid because environmentally, black people
are inevitably sidelined from a healthy community as opposed to white children.

The environment and intelligence

- Poor prenatal care: pregnant women is malnourished, has infections her child is at risk of having
learning disabilities and lower IQ
- Malnutrition: difference with well-nourished children is very high
- Exposure to toxins: esp. poor children are exposed to dangerous levels of lead from dust which
can damage the brain and nervous system.
- Stressful family circumstances: father who doesn’t live w family, mother who has mental
illnesses: each factor reduces a child’s IQ by 4 points.
- Beyond nature vs nurture: genetically influenced traits can affect how we respond to a specific
environment an which environment we find most rewarding or compatible. The environment in
turn affects the genome, through its effects on mutations and epigenetic changes.
The Brain and Central Nervous System
- Central nervous system: has brain and spinal cord. Receives and stores information. Spinal
reflexes: voluntary behaviors from the brain. Can be influenced by thought through neural
circuits.
- Peripheral nervous system: handles the CNS’s input and output. All portions of nervous system
outside brain and spinal cord. Motor nerves: signals from CNS to muscles, glands etc. divided
into somatic (bodily) and autonomic (self-governing) NS.
Somatic: nerves that are connected to sensory receptors that make u make sense of the world.
Autonomic: functioning of blood vessels, glands and internal organs such as the bladder,
stomach and heart. Also divided into 2: sympathetic and parasympathetic NS.
Sympathetic: mobilizes body for action. E.g.: blushing. Pushes ur heart rate and blood pressure.
Para: slows process down to keep running smoothly.

Types of cells:

- Neurons/nerve cells: brains communication specialists, transmit info to, from and within the
CNS. Building blocks of the nervous system. Have 3 main parts- dendrites, a cell body and an
axon.
Dendrites: like a branch of tree. Act like antennas, receiving messages
Cell body: sphere or pyramid. Includes cells genetic info (DNA) and controls cells growth and
reproduction.
Axons: attached to cell body. Transmits messages away from cell body to other neurons gland
cells. Insulated by fatty material called myelin sheath. Purpose is to prevent signals in adjacent
cells from interfering w each other. Loss of myelin causes erratic nerve signals leading to loss of
sensation, weakness or paralysis.
- Glia/Glial: hold neurons in place and provide them with nutrients, insulates them, helps them
grow. Communicate with each other and with neurons.
- In peripheral NS, fibers of individual neurons are collected called nerves.
- Neurogenesis: cells can give birth to new neutrons and neurons divide and multiply.
- Embryonic stem cells: have many powers and can produce many different types of cells.

- Neurons communicate w one another, or to muscles or glans in an electrical or chemical


language. Their insides and outsides contain negatively and positively charged ions. They are
separated by a space called the synaptic cleft where the axon terminal nearly touches a dendrite
or cell body of another. The entire site-axon terminal, the cleft and the covering membrane of
the receiving dendrite or cell body is called a synapse.
- At rest, neuron has negative charge relative to the outside. When stimulated, special gates in the
cell’s membrane open-positively charged sodium ions go inside making neurons less negative. If
reached critical level, triggers action potential.

Neurotransmitters:
- Exist in brain and spinal cord, peripheral nerves and certain glands. Control everything the brain
does. 4 neurotransmitters exist.
- Serotonin affects neurons involved in sleep, appetite, mood etc.
- Dopamine: voluntary movement, attention, learning, memory, emotion
- Acetylcholine: muscle action, arousal, vigilance, memory
- Norepinephrine: neurons involved in heart rate increase and decrease

Transmitted in the entre brain: Gaba and glutamate.

Hormones:

- Produced by endocrine glands. Released into bloodstream. Promote bodily growth, regulate
digestion. Released into bloodstream. Neurotransmitters and hormones are not always different.
Norepinephrine can be both depending on where it is located.
- Melatonin: secreted by pineal gland. Regulates biological rhythms and promotes sleep
- Oxytocin: secreted by pituitary gland enhances uterine contractions during child birth, ejection
of milk.
- Adrenal: emotion and stress. Rise in response to heat, cold, pain. Outer part produces cortisol:
increases blood level and boosts energy.
- Sex hormones: includes 3 main types. Androgens (testosterone). Estrogens feminizing hormones.
Progesterone: growth and maintenance of the uterine lining.

Neuromodulators:

- Brains volume control. Modulate neural functions.


- Serotonin transporter: pics up serotonin from cleft and takes it back for recycling.
- Endorphins: reduce pain, promote pleasure. Play a role in appetite, sexual activity, blood
pressure. Shoot up when afraid or under stress.

Brain:

Observing behavior:

- Lesion method surgically remove or disable a brain structure and observe effects on behavior.
Not used on humans
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation: virtual lesion that doesn’t disable brain tissue.
- Transcranial direct current stimulation: : small electric current to an area of the cortex.
- Mapping the brain can also be done through electrodes: devices pasted or taped onto the scalp
to detect electrical activity in particular brain regions. Translates into wavy lines on a moving
piece of paper. This imprinting is known as EEG.
- Event related potentials: know when the brain activity occurred.
- PET scans: record biochemical changes in the brain as they are happening. Have been
superseded by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which takes highly detailed pictures of the
brain. fMRI: receivers detect levels of blood oxygen in different brain areas. Can localize brain
activity.
- Different parts perform different functions: localization of function.

- Base of the skull: brain stem. Pathways to and from upper areas of the brain pass through two
main structures- the medulla and the pons.

- Pons used in sleeping, waking and dreaming. Medulla is responsible for bodily functions that do
not have to be consciously willed like breathing and heart rate.

- From the core of the brain stem is reticular activating system- extends from brain stem into the
center of the brain and has connections with areas that are higher up. Helps in alertness and
consciousness.

- Back of the brain: cerebellum- sense of balance and coordinates the muscles. Movement is
smooth and precise.

- Thalamus: center of the brain-sensory relay station of the brain e.g. the sight of a sunset, sound
of a siren, fly landing on your arm.

- Only sense of smell has its own private switching station-olfactory bulb.

- Hypothalamus and pituitary gland: beneath thalamus is hypo. Monitors body’s current state and
issues instructions. Involved in feeding, fighting, fleeing and sex. Regulates body temperature.
Hanging down from thalamus is the pituitary gland.

- Amygdala: evaluate sensory information, determining its emotional importance and contributing
to the initial decision to approach or withdraw from a person or situation. Brains fear center.

- Hippocampus: memory structure. Gateway to memory.

- Cerebrum: largest part. Thinking happens here. Divided into two halves or cerebral hemispheres
connected by corpus callosum. 2 hemispheres have different tasks and talents: lateralization.
- Cerebral cortex: thin layers of densely packed cells covering the cerebrum. Has parietal (top of
brain), occipital (lower back of brain), temporal (sides) and frontal (forehead) lobes.
- Prefrontal cortex: forward part of the frontal lobes. One-third of the entire cortex in human
beings. Has something to do with personality.

Cerebrum is divided into two parts that control opposite sides of the body. Communicate w each other
through Corpus callosum

Body Rhythms and Mental States


Biological Rhythms

Circadian Rhythms
- Ups and downs in physiological functioning: biological rhythms. In tune with external time cues
like changes in clock time, temperature and daylight. Many rhythms continue w/out this also=
endogenous.
- Circadian: occur every 24 hours. Evolved in plants, animals, insects as an adaptation to the many
changes associated with the rotation of Earth in its axis (e.g. changes in light, air pressure). Best
known is sleep-wake cycle.
- Identify endogenous rhythms: isolate volunteers from sunlight, clocks, environmental sounds
and other cues of time.
- Body’s clock: circadian rhythms are controlled by a biological clock or overall coordinator.
Located in a tiny cluster of cells in the hypothalamus- suprachiasmatic nucleus. Neural pathways
from special receptors in the back of the brain: transmit info to SCN. Allow it to respond to
changes in light and dark. SCN: send messages that cause brain and body to adapt to these
changes.
- Melatonin is also regulated by SCN. Secreted by the pineal gland deep within the brain.
Melatonin induces sleep. Melatonin treatments used to regulate disturbed sleep cycles of blind
people who lack light perception and whose melatonin production does not cycle normally.
- On routine change, circadian rhythms change. Internal desynchronization. May also occur when
workers adjust to a new shift. Efficiency drops, irritation.
- Cure has eluded bec these rhythms can be affected by illness, stress, exercise, drugs. Differ
greatly from person to person due to people being morning or nighttime people, genetic
influences etc.

Moods and long-term rhythms

- Long-term cycles have been observed in everything from the threshold of tooth pain to
conception rates.
- Some people become depressed during particular seasons (typically winters). (SAD- seasonal
affective disorder). To counteract the effects of sunless days: treated with phototherapy.
- May occur in those whose circadian rhythms are out of sync- have jetlag.
- Phototherapy also helps people who are simply depressed and do not suffer from SAD.
- The menstrual cycle: people think that it affects moods too. [physical and emotional symptoms
like fatigue and irritability. PMS.

The Rhythms of Sleep

The Realms of Sleep

- Kleitman: do rolling eye movements that characterize the onset of sleep continue during the
night? Finding was that these were rapid, not slow. EEG: able to correlate REM with changes in
sleeper’s brain-wave patterns. REM alternates with non-REM during a person’s sleep.
- REM lasts for a few minutes to as long as an hour-avg 20 mins in length. When they begin, brain
changes to resemble that of alert wakefulness. Non-REM is divided into stages, each associated
with a particular brain-wave pattern.
- Climb bed, close eyes: alpha waves. Slower rhythm than normal and a higher amplitude.
Gradually they slow down even further. After this, when you go to sleep, pass through 3 stages,
each deeper than previous one.
Stage NREM1: waves are small and irregular. Drifting on the edge of consciousness. State of light
sleep. If u wake up, you can recall a few visual images.
Stage 2 NREM2: rapid, high-peaking waves. Sleep spindles. Minor noises don’t disturb you.
Stage NREM 3: delta waves. Slow with very high peaks. Deep sleep. Breathing and pulse slow
down. Muscles are relaxed. Will take shaking or loud noise to wake up. Sleep walking happens
here.
Sequence takes 30-45 minutes. Then move up ladder again from stage 3 to 1. 70-90 minutes
after sleep: stage 1: not drowsy. Brain now emits long bursts of rapid, irregular waves. Heart rate
increases, BP rises, breathing is faster and more irregular. Penis gets erect. Clit may enlarge and
lubrication increases. Skeletal muscles go limp. Realm of REM>
Called paradoxical sleep bec brain is extremely active while body is extremely inactive. Vivid
dreams occur here. Dream reports occur more when woken up during REM>
- When sleeper wakes up, person emerges from REM sleep before the muscle paralysis
characteristic of that stage has entirely disappeared. Becomes aware of an inability to move. Can
even see a ghost or a presence. Dream waking up.
- Rem and NREM continue to alternate throughout the night. As hours pass, stage 3 becomes
shorter or even disappear. REM gets longer and happens more often. Cycles are irregular.
- Some patients have lost the capacity to dream but still show REM and NREM.

Why we sleep:

- Time out period so that body can eliminate waste r=produces from muscles, repair cells,
conserve or replenish energy stones, strengthen immune system.
- Not enough sleep: operate abnormally. Sleep deprivation becomes uncomfortable after 4 days.
- Mental consequences of sleeplessness: necessary for normal functioning. Chronic sleep
deprivation increases levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Damage or impair brain cells
necessary for learning and memory.
- New brain cells: fail to develop or may mature abnormally.
- Insomnia develops due to psychological or physical problems
- Daytime sleepiness: sleep apnea. Breathing periodically stops for a few moments: choking and
gasping.
- Narcolepsy: teenage years. Irresistible and unpredictable daytime attacks of sleepiness lasting
from 5 to 30 minutes. Caused by reduced amounts of a particular brain protein, brought by a
viral infection or genetic abnormality.
People fall immediately into REM stage. Some ppl with narcolepsy experiences a symptom called
cataplexy: may suddenly drop to the floor. May be due to laughing out loud, or an orgasm.
- REM behavior disorder: muscle paralysis associated with REM sleep does not occur. Sleeper
becomes physical active, acting out a dream.
- Common cause of daytime sleep: not getting enough sleep. Leads to accidents etc.

Mental benefits of sleep:

- Sleep is crucial time for consolidation: where synaptic changes associated with recently stored
memories becomes durable and stable.
- In sleep, neurons activated in original experience activate again. Memories are transferred from
temporary storage in the hippocampus to long-term storage in the cortex. Makes changes more
permanent.
- Both REM and NREM are important for consolidation.
- Perhaps also enhances problem solving-relies on information stored in memory.

Explanations of Dreaming:

- Unaware of where our bodies are. However, some people say that they occasionally have lucid
dreams: they know they are dreaming and feel as though they are conscious. Few claims that
they can control the action in these dreams.
- Freud’s psychoanalytical notion of dreaming. The royal road to the unconscious. Thoughts are
also disguised.
- Some psychologists think of these notions as far-fetched though.

Efforts to deal with problems:

- Reflect the ongoing conscious preoccupations of waking life like concerns of relationships, work,
sex or health.

As thinking:

- cognitive approach emphasizes current concerns but doesn’t make claims about problems
solving during sleep.
- Content includes concepts and scenarios that may/may not be related to our daily problems. - -
Parts of cerebral cortex involved in perceptual and cognitive processing during the waking hours
are active during dreaming. Sleep: cut off from sensory input and feedback from the world and
our bodily movements. Only input is brains own input.
- Similar patterns in daydreaming and thinking when night-dreaming.

As interpreted brain activity:

- activation synthesis theory: why we dream about a test when about to take one. Hobson:
dreams are not “children of an idle brain “and are a result of neurons firing spontaneously in the
pons during REM sleep. Control eye movement, gaze, balance and posture.
- Signals in pons have no psychological meaning in themselves. Cortex tries to make sense by
synthesizing or integrating them with existing knowledge and memories to produce coherent
interpretation.
- When neurons fire in the part of the brain that handles balance-cortex generates a dream about
falling.
- Signals occur randomly because of which the meaning of the dream is incoherent.
- Brain mechanisms and not wishes cause dreams. But that doesn’t mean that the dream is
meaningless because brain creates meaning even when there is little to none to be found in the
data it is asked to process.

Evaluating dream theories:

- Dreams can’t actually solve problems or resolve conflicts. They only give expression to our
problems.
- Activation-synthesis theory: not all dreams are as bizarre and disjointed as the theory predicts. It
also does not account for dreaming that goes on outside of REM sleep. Brain mechanisms in
dreams: believe that dreams do reflect a person’s goals and desires.
- Cognitive: claims remain tested against neurological and cognitive evidence. But is most
promising.

Nature of Hypnosis:

- Procedure where practitioner suggests changes in sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings or


behavior of the subject. Hypnotized person tried to alter his/her cognitive processes in
accordance with the hypnotist’s suggestions.
- Person being hypnotized feels relaxed, is getting sleepy, feels eyelids getting heavier.
- Hypnotic responsiveness depends more on the efforts and qualities of the person being
hypnotized than in the skill of the hypnotist.
- Hypnotized people cannot be forced to do things against their will.
- Feats performed under hypnosis can be performed by motivated people without hypnosis.
- Does not increase accuracy of memory
- Does not produce a literal re-experiencing of long-ago events.
- Hypnotic suggestions have been used effectively for many medical and psychological purposes.

Theories of Hypnosis:

- Dissociation theories: involves dissociation- a split in consciousness in which one part of the
mind operates independently of the rest of consciousness. In many people, most of the mind is
subject to hypnotic suggestion, but one part is a hidden observer: watching but not
participating. Unless given special instructions, the hypnotized part remains unaware of the
observer.
- Question hidden observer.
- Dissociation occurs between 2 systems: the system that processes incoming information about
the world, and an “executive” system that control how we use that information. Hypnosis:
executive system turns off and hands it functions to the hypnotist.

Consciousness-Altering Drugs:

- Psycho-active drug alters perception, mood, thinking, memory or behavior. E.g.: nicotine,
alcohol, marijuana, opium. Alter consciousness as part of a religious ritual, for recreation or for
psychological escape.
- Recreational drugs: stimulants, depressants, opiates or psychedelics.
1) Stimulants speed up activity in the CNS> e.g. nicotine, caffeine, cocaine. Moderate amounts:
feelings of excitement, confidence, euphoria. Large amount: makes person anxious, jittery.
2) Depressants slow down activity in the CNS. E.g. alcohol, tranquilizers. Make person calm,
reduce anxiety, guilt, tension and inhibitions.
3) Opiates relieve pain. E.g. opium, morphine, heroine. Enhance transmission of dopamine and
produce a rush-sudden feeling of euphoria. Highly addictive in large amounts
4) Psychedelic drugs disrupt normal thought process like perception of time and space.
Produce hallucinations.
5) Marijuana: some classify it as a psychedelic =, others feel that its psychological effect place it
outside of these major classifications.

Physiology of Drug Effects:

- Act on brain neurotransmitters. Increase or decrease it at the synapse, preventing reuptake of


excess molecules/
- Affect cognitive and emotional functioning. Alcohol activates the receptor for GABA. Affects
perception, response time, coordination, balance. Affects memory also.
- Other drugs: small doses do not cause brain damage. However heavy uses cause damage. Heavy
uses of methamphetamine had damage to dopamine cells and performed more poorly than
other people on tests of memory, attention and movement.
- Repeated use of a drug can lead to tolerance.
- Habitual heavy users may feel withdrawal if they don’t take it.

Psychology of Drug Effects:

- Experience refers to the no. of times the drug is taken by the person. Reactions become positive
with more usage.
- Individual characteristics include body weight, metabolism, initial state of emotional arousal,
personality characteristics and physical tolerance for the drug. Women get drunker than men.
Different affects according to how the day went.
- Environmental setting: context in which the person takes the drug. Wine alone makes u sleepy.
Wine at a party makes u energetic.

Mental set: a person’s expectations about the drug’s effects and reasons for taking it. Some take it to get
out of anxiety/depression, some to have an excuse for violence etc.

Sensation and Perception


Our Sensational Senses

- Sensation: Detection of physical energy emitted or reflected by physical objects. Cells that do the
detecting are located in sense organs- ears, eyes, tongue, nose, skin and internal body tissues.
Begins with sense receptors (cells located in the sense organs). Receptors for smell, pressure,
pain and temperature are extensions (dendrites) of sensory neurons.
- Perception: set of mental operations that organizes sensory impulses into meaningful patterns.
- When sense receptors detect an appropriate stimulus (light, mechanical pressure or chemical
molecules), convert the energy of the stimulus into electrical impulses that travel along nerves to
the brain. Scan the terrain for signs of activity and transmit info to sensory neurons in the nerves
of the peripheral nervous system. The sensory neurons then send commands to the cells of the
brain which are then in turn responsible for analyzing and combining information.
- Nervous system encodes the messages. Anatomical code: different sensory modalities (vision,
hearing) exist because signals received by the sense organs stimulate different neural pathways
leading to different areas of the brain.
- Sensory crossovers: if u close your right eye and press it, flashlight on the left eye. Brain impulses
interpret it as coming from left side. Also occur in condition called synesthesia: stimulation of
one sense evokes a sensation in another. May say that the color purple smells like a rose.
- Syntheses have a greater number of neural connections between different sensory brain areas as
opposed to the people. Areas associated with extra sensations are far more sensitive in
synesthetes than in other people. Possibility that condition results from a lack of normal
disinhibitions in signals between different sensory areas.
- Functional codes: rely on the fact that sensory receptors and neurons fire or are inhibited from
firing. Info about which cells are firing, how many cells are firing, the rate at which cells are firing
and the patterning of each cells firing forms a functional code.

Measuring senses:

- How sensitive are senses? The smallest amount of signals a person can detect is known as the
absolute threshold. Reliable detection occurs when a person ca detect a signal 50% of the time.
- If ur absolute threshold for light was being measures, your be sitting in a dark room and will be
shown different flashes of light, some you will see, and some you wont see, this is because of
random firing of cells in the nervous system which produces fluctuating background noise.
- Found that our senses are v sharp. But our senses are tuned in to only a narrow band of physical
energies.
- Difference threshold: noticeable difference. E.g. if weight is being added to a dumbbell, how
much till you actually detect that it has gotten heavier? In comparison, if the friend adds 2
pounds to a small 1-pound weight, you’ll notice immediately. Determined that for people to
detect a difference between 2 stimuli (e.g. 2 weights), those stimuli must differ by a certain fixed
proportion not a certain amount.
- Signal detection theory: measurements for any person depends on the very person’s general
tendency. Problem of response bias. Signal-detection theory: an observer’s response in a
detection task can be divided into a sensory process which depends on the intensity of the
stimulus and a decision process which is influenced by the observer’s response bias. To separate
these 2 components: trials in which no stimulus is present and other in which a weak stimulus is
present. 4 kinds of responses are possible:
Detects a signal that was present (hit)
Says the signal was there, even when it wasn’t (false alarm)
Fails to detect signal when it was present (miss)
Says signal was absent correctly (correct rejection)
- Assumes that there is no single threshold because at any given moment a person’s sensitivity to
a stimulus depends on a decision that he or she actively makes.

Sensory Adaptation:

- When stimulus is unchanging or repetitious, sensation often fades or disappears. Nerve cells get
tired and fire less frequently. Sensory adaptation.
- Never adapt to an extremely intense stimuli though. Rarely adapt completely to visual stimuli
whether they are weak or intense.
- Sensory deprivation: restricted from patterned sight and sound. As a result, feeling edgy. Some
were so distorted that they quit after a day. However, more research: hallucinations are less
frequent and less disorienting than had been thought. Small periods of deprivation (e.g. spa) is
looked favorably upon.
- Minimum amounts of sensory stimulation is required to function normally.
Sensing without Perceiving:

- Selective attention: protects us from being overwhelmed by countless sensory signals that are
constantly impinging on our sense receptors.
- Sometimes fail to consciously register objects that we are looking straight at: inattentional
blindness.
- Protects from overload and allows to focus on what’s important.

Vision:

- Stimulus is light. Physical characteristics of light affect three psychological dimensions.


1) Hue: specified by color names. Related to the wave-length of light. Shorter waves: seen as
violet and blue. Longer: orange and red.
2) Brightness: related to amount or intensity of the light an object emits or reflects and
corresponds to the amplitude (maximum height) of light wave. The more light an object
reflects, the brighter it appears. Brightness is also affected by wavelength.
3) Saturation: related to complexity of light. How wide or narrow the range of wavelength is.
When light contains a single wavelength, it is said to be pure and the resulting color is
completely saturated. White light: contains all wavelengths of visible light and has zero
saturation. Nature: pure light is extremely rare.

An eye on the world:

- Lens of the eye works by subtly changing its shape, becoming more or less curved to focus light
from objects that are close by or far away.
- Amount of light going into the eye is controlled by muscles in the iris-the part of the eye that
gives it color.
- Iris surrounds the round opening-pupil of the eye. Dim room: pupil widens. Bright: pupil gets
smaller, allows less light n.
- Visual receptors are in the back of the eye (retina). Retime forms from tissue that projects out
from the brain. Retina is actually an extension of the brain.
- When the lens of the eye focusses light on the retina, the result is an upside-down image.
- 120-125 million receptors in the retina are long and narrow. Called rods. 7-8 million are
cone-shaped. Called cones. Centre of retina is where vision is the sharpest. Contains only cones.
- Rods are more sensitive to light than cones and help us see in even f=dim light. Rods also handle
peripheral (side) vision. But they aren’t sensitive to color so it is hard to distinguish colors in dim
light.
- Takes time for our eyes to adjust fully to dim illumination. Dark adaptation: chemical chambers
in the rods and cones.
- Rods and cones are connected by synapses to bipolar cells which then communicate with
neurons called ganglion cells. The axons of h=the ganglion cells converge to form the optic nerve
which carries information though the back of the eye and on to the brain.
- Where the optic nerve leaves the eye, at the optic disk, there are no rods or cones. Absence of
receptors produces a blind spot in the field of vision. Unaware of the blind spot because
1) The image projected on the spot is hitting different, nonblind spot in the other eye
2) Our eyes move so fast that we can pick up the complete image
3) The brain fills in the gap.
Why the visual system is not a camera:

- No passive recording of the external world.


- Ganglion cells and neurons in the thalamus of the brain respond to simple features in the
environment, such as spots of light and dark.
- Mammals: special feature-detector cells in the visual cortex respond to more complex features.
- Hubel and Wiesel: different neurons were sensitive to different patterns projected on a screen in
front of an animal’s eyes.
- One type of cell might fire most rapidly in response to a horizontal line in the lower right part of
the visual filed, another to a diagonal line are a specific angle in the upper left part of the visual
field.
- Other cells: even more specialized roles. Group pf cells at the bottom of the cerebral cortex:
responds much more strongly to faces than objects.
- Another area-part of the cortex neat the hippocampus makes sure you understand the
environment. Responds to images of all kinds of places.
- Third region: part of the occipital cortex responds selectively to bodies and body parts much
more strongly than to faces or objects.
- Brain cannot possibly contain a dedicated area for every conceivable object. Job is to take
fragmentary information about edges, angles, shapes etc. and figure out that a chair is a chair
and the thing next to it is a dining room table.
- Perception of objects: depends on activation of many cells in far0flung parts of the brain and on
the overall pattern and rhythm of their activity.

How we see colors:

- Trichromatic theory: first level of processing which occurs in the retina. Retina has 3 basic types
of cones: one type responds maximally to blue, another to green, third to red.
- Total color blindness: genetic variation- malfunctioning retina.
- Many people are colour deficient.
- Opponent-process theory: second stage of colour processing in ganglion cells. These cells, aka
opponent process cells either respond to shirt-wavelengths but are inhibited from firing by long
wavelengths or vice versa.
- When these are inhibited by a particular colour, produce a burst of firing when the colour s
removed.
- Explains why we are susceptible to negative after-images when we stare at a particular hue.

Constructing the visual world:

- Form perception: Gestalt psychologists studied how people organize the world visually into
meaningful units and patterns. When we perceive something, properties emerge from the
configuration as a whole that are not found in any particular component. People organize the
visual field into figure and ground. Figure stands out from the rest of the environment. E.g.:
unique things in a normal environment stand out.
- Other Gestalt principles describe strategies used by the visual system to group sensory building
blocks into perceptual units.
1) Proximity: things that are near each other tend to be grouped together
2) Closure: brain fills in gaps to perceive complete forms.
3) Similarity: things that are alike in some ways tend to be perceived as belonging together.
4) Continuity: lines and patterns tend to be perceived as continuing in time or space.
- Depth and distance perception: need to know what something is, and where it is.
- Rely on binocular cues that require the use of two eyes. One cue is convergence- the turning of
the eyes inwards. Occurs when they focus on a nearby object.
- Difference in lateral separation between two objects: retinal disparity.
- For objects far away, use monocular cues: that do not depend on using both eyes. One such cue
is interposition: when an object is interposed between the viewer and a second object, the first
object is perceived as being closer. Another cue is linear perspective: when two lines known to
be parallel appear to be coming together or converging, they imply the existence of depth.
- Visual constancies: seeing is believing. Ability to perceive objects as stable even though sensory
patterns they produce are constantly shifting is called perceptual constancy.
Size constancy: an object as having a constant size even when its retinal image becomes smaller
or larger. E.g.: friend walking from a distance
Shape constancy: perceive same shape even when a different angle changes the shape
Location constancy: perceive stationary objects as remaining in the same place even though
retinal image moves about as we move our eyes, head and body.
Brightness constancy: see objects as having relatively constant brightness even though the
amount of light they reflect changes as the overall level of illumination changes.
Colour constancy: an object maintains its hue despite the fact that the wavelength of light
reaching our eyes from the object may change and the illumination changes.
- Visual illusions: perceptual illusion. Visual illusions occur when strategies that normally lead to
accurate perception are overextended to situations where they do not apply.
- Illusions may interfere with performance of some task or skill.

Hearing

- Stimulus for sound: wave of pressure created when an object is vibrated or when pressed air
released. Vibration causes molecules in a transmitting substance to move together and apart.
Produces variations in pressure that radiate in all directions.
- With vision: physical characteristics of the stimulus- a sound wave- are related in a predictable
way to psychological aspects of our experience.
1) Loudness: psychological dimension of auditory experience related to the intensity of a wave
pressure. intensity corresponds to the amplitude of the wave. ‘
sound intensity is measured in decibels. Absolute threshold of hearing is zero decibels
2) Pitch: frequency of sound wave and its intensity. Frequency: how rapidly the air vibrates.
One cycle per second: hertz.
3) Timbre: diminishing quality of sound. Dimension of auditory experience related to the
complexity of the sound wave. Pure tone: only one frequency. It is what makes a note played
on a flute.
- When sound-wave frequencies are present but are not in harmony, noise.
- When all frequencies of the sound spectrum occur, produce hissing sound called white noise.

Ear:
- Soft, funnel-shaped outer ear: designed to collect sound waves. Hearing would still be good
without it. Essential parts of the ear are hidden from view, inside the head.
- Soundwave passes into the outer ear and through inch-long canal to strike an oval-shaped
membrane called the eardrum. Eardrum responds to the movement of even a single molecule.
Sound wave causes it to vibrate with the same frequency and amplitude as the wave itself.
Vibration passes along 3 bones in the middle ear- smallest bones in the human body. (hammer,
anvil, stirrup). Stirrup pushes on a membrane that opens into the inner ear.
- Organ of hearing: organ of Corti-chamber inside the cochlea (snail shaped structure within inner
ear). Corti contains all important receptor cells (called hair cells. Topped by tiny bristles or cilia).
Brief exposure to really loud noises can damage these cells. This damage is irreversible. These
hair cells are embedded in the rubbery basilar membrane which stretches across the interior of
the cochlea.
- When pressure reaches cochlea, causes wave-lie motions in fluid within the cochlea’s interior.
These waves of fluid push on the basilar membrane, causing it to move in a wavelike fashion too.
- As the hair cells rise and fall, their tips brush against it and they bend. Causes hair cells to initiate
a signal that is passed along the auditory nerve which then carries the message to the brain. The
particular pattern of hair-cell movement is affected by the manner in which the basilar
membrane moves. Pattern determines which neurons fire and how rapidly they fire. Resulting
code helps determine the sort of sound we hear.

Constructing the Auditory World:

- Organizing sounds: need to know where they are coming from. 2 ears hence sound arriving from
the right reaches the right ear a fraction of a second sooner than the eft ear.
- Echolocation: blind people use their mouths to make clicking sounds and listen to the tiny
echoes bouncing off objects. Visual cortex responds to sounds that produce echoes.

Other Senses:

Taste:

- gustation. Chemicals stimulate thousands of receptors in the mouth, on tongue, throat, inside
the cheeks and on the roof of the mouth.
- Tongue has many small bumps called papillae. Sides of each papilla are lined with taste buds
which look like segmented oranges. Humans can have 500-10,000 taste buds. Receptor cells are
inside the buds: 15 to 50 to a bud. These cells send tiny fibers out through an opening in the
bud; the receptor sites are on these fibers. New receptor cells replace old ones about every 10
days. After the age of 40, total number of taste buds declines. Centre of tongue has no taste
buds.
- 4 basic tastes: salty, sour, bitter, sweet. Some researchers think we have a fifth: umami. Taste of
monosodium glutamate.
- Taste receptors are found throughout gastrointestinal tract and may have difference functions in
different locations.
- Protein molecules are too large to be sensed by taste or smell but when eaten and digested,
they are broken into their constituent amino acids.
- Supertasters: overtaste all 4 kinds of tastes. Taste differences are a matter of genetics, culture
and learning.
Smell: sense of scents

- Olfaction. Receptors are specialized neurons embedded in a tiny patch of mucous membrane in
the upper part of the nasal passage, just beneath the eyes. Millions of receptors in each nasal
cavity: respond to chemical molecules in the air. Molecules can also enter from mouth. Trigger
responses in the receptors that combine to yield the yeasty smell of freshly baked bread.
- Signals from the receptors are carried to the brain’s olfactory bulb by the olfactory nerve- made
up of receptors ’axons.

Senses of the Skin:

- Identify objects and establish intimacy with others. Gives us a sense of ourselves as distinct from
the environment.
- Touch, warmth, cold, pain. Within these, itch, tickle, painful burning.

Mystery of Pain

- Even when the stimulus is removed, sensations continue sometimes for years.
- Understanding chronology of pain: difficult because of different types of pain involve different
chemical changes and different changes in nerve-cell activity.
- Gate-control theory. Pain impulses must get past a gate in the spinal cord. A patter of neural
activity that either blocks pain messages from the skin, muscles and internal organs, or lets
those through.
- When body tissue is injured, large fibers are damaged and small fibers pen the gate-allowing
pain messages to reach the brain unchecked.
- Matrix of neurons in brain gives us a sense of our own bodies and body parts. When abnormal
patterns of activity, the result is pain. ‘
- Scientists study at the molecular and cellular level.
- May also be caused by changes to the sensitivity of neurons in the CNS.
- Extreme pain w/out pain is called phantom pain. Here, brain reorganizes itself.

The Environment within:

- Kinthesis: where our bodily parts are located and lets us know when they move.
- Equilibrium/sense of balance: information about our bodies as a whole. Lets us know whether
we are standing upright or on our heads. Relies on three semicircular canals in the inner ear, are
filled with fluids that moves and presses on hair like receptors whenever the head rotates.
- Both work together to give us a sense of our own physical reality.

Perceptual Powers

Inborn abilities and critical periods:

- Abilities develop overtime. Infants perception of depth is tested through a device called visual
cliff.
- Some infants miss out on these also.

Psychological and cultural influences:

1) Needs. When we need something, we are more likely to perceive it


2) Beliefs: religious seem to be shown
3) Emotions: can influence our interpretation of sensory information.
4) Expectations

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