Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Identify examples of uniquely human abilities and why they are significant
Language- ability to express numerable ideas and create new ones
Tools- being able to make tools, use them, and pass on the knowledge
Capable of mathematics- can make predictions about reality, can create
technology which ultimately leads to the successful dominance of our
environment
Understand what is meant by referring to the mind as a computer
The mind is the software running in the hardware of the brain.
Mind : Mental algorithm and cognitive processes
Identify, define, and know the significance of the five foundations of
psychological science (Evolution, Materialism, Idealism, Modularity,
Empiricism)
Evolution (Genes make brains): Result of genes and natural selection.
Materialism (Brains make minds): All sensory experience and emotions
come from neurons firing in the brain.
Empiricism (Believe what you can count!): We use observable and
testable methods to decide which intuitions about the mind are right or
wrong.
o Empiricism- the belief that accurate knowledge of the world
requires observation
o It has produced most reliable treatments
Idealism (Minds make reality)
Modularity (Mind is a collection of parts)
Methods
Identify why Empiricism is challenging for psychological science
Problems of empiricism:
o 1. it might not get accurate information
o 2. our intuitive senses may not be the way the mind works
However, empiricism does challenge researcher to go out into the physical world
and look beyond what they can plainly see.
Identify, define, and give examples of operational definitions
Identifies observable events in a way that any other researcher would be
able to identify them as well. Researchers must define the observable
condition that define the concept.
Important for study replication as well as consistency in coding
Example: when choosing to carry out an experiment on sensitivity,
sensitivity itself is considered to be abstract concept. The observable
condition must be defined in order for us to be come up with an
appropriate measure to detect the condition. Example of an operational
definition includes ticklessness, pain, threshold, etc.
o Ticklishness measured by laughs/min, squirming, no. of please
stops
o Pain measured by squirming
o Threshold measured by how participants respond to pressure,
temperature and distance of the caliper .
Understand the relations between an abstract property, operational
definition, and a measure
The abstract property is the condition which a researcher would choose to
observe in a study.The researcher must provide an operational definition in order
to specify the observable condition. In doing so, he or she would be able to
construct an appropriate measure in order to detect the observation.
Define and give/recognize examples of Convergent Validity
When two operational definitions are related
E.g. pain and threshold
Define and give/recognize examples of Reliability
When you measure multiple times and the results are the same. Other
researchers could use the same method and get the same results
E.g. calipers
Define and give/recognize examples of Discriminant Validity
When the measure used gives different results when measuring different
proves things that are supposed to be unrelated and unrelated
E.g.
Understand the relation between a theory and a hypothesis
Theory: a hypothetical account of how and why a phenomenon occurs
Hypothesis: a testable prediction made by a theory
Understand the relation between a sample and a population
Population: a complete collection of people whose properties we wish to
know
Sample: the people whose properties we actually measure
Identify why generality may be a good assumption
Evolution
Define evolution
Change over time, natural selection
Mechanisms by which evolution takes place
Natural selection
Define adaptations and identify types
Survival adaptations: natural disasters, the environment
Sexual selection theory: intrasexual comp etition, intersexual selection
Gene selection theory
Genes that are successful in getting passed on evolve while others dont
Error management theory
Evolved fight or flight instincts over time
better safe than sorry
Marrs levels of analysisidentify and define
1. Computation - evolution
o What is the problem to be solved?
2. Algorithm - mind
o What is the step-by-step procedure for solving the problem?
3. Implementation - brain
o How is the solution realized physically?
Naturalistic fallacy- be able to explain, identify, and describe importance
Because something is natural, doesnt mean it is moral, good, or right.
Is doesnt mean ought to be
Deterministic fallacy- be able to explain, identify, and describe importance
When things are inevitable because they are natural.
We can transcend and disobey what we are born knowing how to do.
Just because a tendency is natural doesnt necessarily translate to it being
inevitable.
Nature/Nurture as dichotomy- be able to explain, identify, and describe
importance of debate
Nature via nurture
Evolution is an interaction between nature and nurture.
Teleology- be able to explain, identify, and describe importance
We are not necessarily evolving to become a better species
We only become better adapted to the environment that we live in
The environment of evolutionary adaptation be able to explain, define, identify
importance
Brain
Basic concepts of how the brain relates to the mind
Dualism: The mind and brain have no direct relationship. The brain is
simply biological and the mind is not connected.These two interact
through the pineal gland. (DUALISM ISNT TRUE)
Materialism: the mind and brain have a causal relationship and constantly
interact.
What is meant by brain cells fire in patterns
A pattern creates a thought. A pattern causes another pattern.
Why it is unsurprising that placebos affect brain activity
o The brain is constantly firing so the placebo
o The placebo effect affects the mind which neuron firings
o Mind cant do anything to the brain
o Brain can affect the mind
o Placebo effect doesnt affect brain any more than anything else
does
Globalization vs. localization of function
The brain is not a sponge. It is like a bike. Each part serves a particular
function, as opposed to every part serving the same function.
Overlapping brain regions also imply overlapping cognitive processes
Why localized function is important
If we lose a part of our brain (or a bike), the other parts are not affected.
Different parts are responsible for different processes. If you impair one
part of your brain, others may not be affected.
What was shown by the case of Phineas Gage
A rod went through the frontal lobe of his brain, so he became irritable and
mean. The frontal lobe controls decision making, problem solving, control
of purposeful behaviors, consciousness, and emotions. The case of
Phineas Gage shows that the brain is localized, because he did not lose
any other function in his brain other than the ones controlled by his frontal
lobe.
Electrical stimulation:
Neuron stimulation on brain, opening up the skull
Modern methods for brain measurement (from both lecture and book)
Electric stimulation
o Neuron stimulation on brain, opening up the skull
TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation)
Describe a split-brain patient and at least two important aspects of brain function
that these patients reveal
Perception: is the process by which changes in the state of the brain give
rise to our conscious experience of the world.
How blindsight shows evidence for distinction between Sensation and Perception
Patients with blindsight is able to navigate through an obstacle course
through sight, but cant explain why they avoided the obstacles. Their
brains cannot process the information and cannot experience the visual
information.
Explain how the sensory capabilities of non-human animals provides evidence
for Idealism
How visual information flows through the brain
What it means to say that vision is modular
Vision works because there are many components
Retinotopic maps
The what and where pathwaysalternate name for each pathway, how we
know they are distinct, what happens when each is impaired
Ba, Ma, Fa example- the same sound was made each time, but the actors
mouth movements were different, causing us to hear different sounds
Identify the major sources of our theories about the world that affect perception
Evidence for the role of cultural experience
Identify which components of the brain do/do not make humans smarter than
other animals
Its not so much how large our brain is, but how large it is in relation to our
body size
Our brains have more folds and is more dense
Our frontal lobe is much denser than that of a chimp
We have increased connections in our brain
Freuds theory of consciousness vs. the unconscious
Consciousness is more evolutionarily recent
Unconscious: drives we can not control that need to be repressed
Freud believes that the majority behaviour is controlled by conscious
processes.
Its like an iceberg
Modern theory of consciousness
Consciousness is a conductor - it can pass instructions onto the different
musicians, but it can not play every instrument at once
Identify why consciousness is tricky to study directly
Much of our mind operates on the unconscious level
Examples of evidence of unconscious processes
Patient with amnesia shook hand with doctor with needle, next day the
patient doesnt want to shake doctors hand
Pattern detection (chick sexing)
unconscious filtering (cocktail party effect)
unconscious priming
Examples of unconscious priming
experimenters primed subjects with unscrambling rude, neutral, and polite
words, and they act accordingly with their partners later
People were primed with neutral and elderly words, people who were
primed with the idea of the elderly walked much slower down the hall
The functions of the consciousness module