Elementary Psychology Hybrid Learning

Exam 1 Study Guide

This is not an exhaustive list of the material covered. You will be responsible for
all material covered in
the lecture videos, the textbook chapters and the recitations.

Chapter 1
1. What is psychology?
- Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mind. This means that
anything people do or think is covered by psychology.
2. Types of psychologists
a. Clinical Psychologists
- Diagnose and treat physiological problems
b. Applied Psychologists
- Extend the principles of scientific psychology to practical everyday
problems in the real world
c. Research psychologist
- Conduct experiments and collect data to discover the basic principles
of behavior and mind

Chapter 2
3. Psychological Research
a. Confounding variable
- An uncontrolled variable that changes the independent variable
b. Dependent variable
- The behavior that is measured or observed in an experiment
c. Independent variable
- The aspect of the environment that is manipulated in an
experiment.
d. Placebo
- An inactive, or inert, substance that resembles an experiment
substance.
e. Correlational research
- To determine whether a relationship exists between two measures of
behavior, the one recorded and the one expected.
f. Experimental research
- A technique in which the investigator actively manipulates the
environment to observe its effect on behavior.
g. Quasi-Experimental research
- A type of evaluation which aims to determine whether a program or
intervention has the intended effect on a studys participants.
h. Operational definition
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- Definitions that specify how concepts can be observed and
measured.
4. Statistics
a. Mean
- Getting an average of observations or scores
b. Median
- The middle point in an ordered set of scores
c. Mode
- The most frequently occurring score in a set of scores
d. Range
- The difference between the largest and smallest scores in a
distribution.

Chapter 3
5. Anatomy of a neuron pg. 22 of coursepack

6. Neural Communication
a. Resting potential
- The tiny electrical charge in place between the inside and the
outside of the resting neuron.
b. Action potential
- Is an excitation that travels along the axon at a constant strength
regardless of the distance it must travel.
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c. Synaptic gap
- A specialized junction between two neurons where chemical
messages cross from one to the other.
d. Neurotransmitters
- Chemical messengers that relay information from one neuron to the
next
7. The Nervous System
a. Autonomic nervous system
- The collection of nerves that controls the more automatic needs of
the body (such as heart rate, digestion, blood pressure)
b. Sympathetic nervous system
- Allows body to function under stress
c. Parasympathetic nervous system
d. Brain Structures: pg. 33 in coursepack You need to know all of these!

Chapter 4
8. Physical development
a. Germinal period
- The period in prenatal development from conception to implement
of the fertilized egg in the wall of the uterus.
b. Zygote period
- The period of prenatal development when the egg is fertilized in the
fallopian tube.
c. Embryonic period
- The period of prenatal development lasting from implantation to the
end of the eighth week.
d. Fetal period
- The period of prenatal development lasting from the ninth week
until birth.
e. Teratogens
- Environmental agents such as disease organisms or drugs that
can potentially damage the developing embryo or fetus.
9. Infant Perception
a. Visual acuity
- Used to test babies eye sight.
b. Habituation
- The decline in responsiveness to a stimulus that is repetedly
presented.
c. Sense of smell
- Smell is more sensitive than adults
d. Taste
- More sensitive than adults
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10.Cognitive development
a. Piaget
- Founder of child development
i. Four stages
1. Sensorimoter
a. Birth to age 2 (senses only)
2. Preoperational
a. 2 to 6 years (own perspective)
b. Egocentrism thinking only of themselves
c. Principle of conservation breaking things in half.
(Juice in big glass and small glass)
3. Concrete Operational
a. 7 to 11 years (Here and Now) (Linear logic)
4. Formal Operational
a. Adolescence (Abstracts angd Hypotheticals)
ii. Conservation
iii. Assimilation
- The process through which we fit or assimilate- new experiences
into existing schemata.

Chapter 5
11.Change Blindness
- Thinking we see everything, when we really dont.
12.Decision Making Fallacy
13.Figure Ground
14.Retinal Disparity
- A binocular cue for depth that is based on location differences between the
images in each eye.
15.Convergence
- A binocular cur for depth that is based on the extent to which the two eyes
move inward, or converge, when looking at an object.
16.Looming
17.Gestalt principles of organization
- The organizing principles of perception proposed by the Gestalt
psychologists.
a. Proximity
i. If the elements of the display are close to each other, they tend
to be grouped together as a part of the same object.
b. Similarity
i. Items that share physical properties are placed into the same
set
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c. Common fate
i. If things appear to be moving in the same direction, people
tend to group them together.
d. Figure ground
i. Vase-Face illusion (white face=figure, black section=ground,
vice versa)
e. Simplicity
i. Ames room
ii. All three people are the same size but room isnt rectangular
and your mind thinks that it is.
f. Closure
i.

Even if a figure has a gap, or a small amount of its border

missing, people still tend to perceive the object as a whole.

Chapter 6
18.Stages of sleep
1. Awake
a. Fast, random low voltage
2. Drowsy/relaxed
a. Alpha waves
3. Stage N1 sleep
a. Theta waves
4. Stage N2 sleep
a. Sleep spindles, K complexes
5. Stage N3 sleep
a. Slow-wave sleep, Delta activity
6. REM Sleep
a. Fast, random; Sawtooth waves
19.REM
- Rapid Eye Movement (typically associated with dreaming)
20.Sleep cycle
- Awake, Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, Stage 3, Stage, 2, REM and
repeat
- Go through the cycle approximately 4/5 times a night.
21.Sleep disorders
1. Dyssomnias problems connected with the amount, timing and quality of
sleep
2. Parasomnias abnormal disturbances that occur during sleep
a. Nightmares
- Frightening and anxiety-aroused dreams that occur primarily during
the REM stages
b. Night terrors
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- Terrifying experiences, which occur mainly in children in which the
sleeper awakens suddenly in an extreme state of panic.

Chapter 7
22.Orienting Response
- An inborn tendency to notice and respond to novel or surprising events
a. Habituation
- The decline in the tendency to respond to an event that has become
familiar through repeated exposure.
b. Sensitization
- Increased responsiveness, or sensitivity, to an event that has been
repeated.
23.Classical conditioning
a. US, UR, CS, CR
- Unconditioned Stimulus: A stimulus that automatically leads to an
observable response prior to any training.
- Unconditioned Response: The observable response that is produced
automatically, prior to training, on presentation of an unconditioned
stimulus.
- Conditioned Stimulus: The neutral stimulus that is paired with the
unconditioned stimulus during classical conditioning.
- Conditioned Response: The acquired response that is produced by
the conditioned stimulus in anticipation of the unconditioned
stimulus.
b. Stimulus generalization
- Responding to a new stimulus in a way similar to the response
produced by an established conditioned stimulus.
c. Extinction
- Presenting a conditioned stimulus repeatedly, after conditioning,
without the unconditioned stimulus, resulting in a loss in response.
d. Spontaneous recovery
- The recovery of an extinguished conditioned response after a period
of nonexposure to the conditioned stimulus.
e. Taste aversion
- When you try a bad food and never have that food again.
24.Operant conditioning
a. Reinforcement
i. Positive
An event that, when presented after a response,
increases the likelihood of the response.
ii. Negative
An event that, when removed after a response, increases
the likelihood of that response occurring again.
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b. Punishment
i. Positive
An event, when presented after a response, lowers the
likelihood of that response occurring again.
ii. Negative
An event, when removed after a response, lowers the
likelihood of that response occurring again.
25.Reinforcement Schedules
a. Fixed-Ratio
- A schedule in which the number of responses required for
reinforcement is fixed and does not change.
b. Fixed-Interval
- A schedule in which the reinforcement is delivered for the first
response that occurs following a fixed interval of time.
c. Variable-Ratio
- A schedule in which a certain number of responses are required for
reinforcement, but the number of required responses typically
changes.
d. Variable-Interval
- A schedule in which the allotted time before a response will yield
reinforcement varies from trial to trial.
26.Radical Behaviorism
- All behavior is a result of its reinforcement history.

Chapter 8
27.Encoding
- The processes that determine and control how memories are formed.
28.Storage
- The processes that determine and control how memories are stored and
kept over time.
29.Sensory memory
- An exact replica of an environmental message, which usually lasts for a
second or less.
30.Short-term memory
- A limited-capacity system that we use to hold information after it has been
analyzed for periods lasting less than a minute or two.
31.Short-term memory capacity
32.Long- term memory
- The system used to maintain information for extended periods of time.
33.Flashbulb memory
- Rich memory records of the circumstances surrounding emotionally
significant and surprising events.
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34.Memory accuracy
35.Episodic memories
- A memory for a particular even, or episode, that happened to you
personally, such as remembering what you ate for breakfast or where you
went on vacation last year.
36.Primacy Effect
- The better memory of items near the beginning of a memorized list.
37.Recency Effect
- The better memory of items near the end of a memorized list.
38.Amnesia
- Forgetting that is caused by physical problems in the brain, such as those
induced by injury or disease.
a. Anterograde
- Memory loss of events that happened after the point of physical
injury.
b. Retrograde
- Memory loss of events that happened prior to the point of brain
injury.