Psych

• Sensation: receiving information from the environment
• Perception: organizing and interpreting sensory information to make it meaningful
• Transduction: 3-step process of sensation and perception
• Absolute threshold: minimum level of stimulus intensity needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time
• Signal detection theory: predicts how and when we detect a stimulus amid background noise
• Sensory adaptation: sensory receptors become less responsive to a constant stimulus
• Vision mechanics:

  • Pupil lets in light, size regulated by iris
  • Retina is where rods and cones are, processed in brain (thalamus, occipital lobe)
• Rods: necessary for detecting black, white, and gray, and for twilight vision
• Cones: necessary for detecting fine detail and color vision in well-lit environments
• Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory: retina contains three types of cones (red, green, blue)
• Opponent process theory: cones are paired for color vision (red-green, blue-yellow, black-white)
• Gestalt principles:

  • Figure-ground: separate things into figures that stand out from a background
  • Similarity: perceive similar objects together (size, shape, color)
• Depth perception:

  • Binocular cues - convergence: brain calculates eye muscle tension to determine object distance
  • Monocular cues - relative size: closer objects appear larger
  • Monocular cues - interposition: closer objects block distant objects
• Hearing mechanics:

  • Outer ear funnels sound into auditory canal
  • Basilar membrane's hair cells (cilia), processed in brain (thalamus, temporal lobe)
• Locating sounds: brain uses timing and intensity differences in ears to determine sound source
• Somatosensory cortex: part of brain in parietal lobe where touch is processed
• Limbic system: part of brain where smell is processed, linked to memory
• Basic tastes: sweet (energy), salty (sodium), sour (acidic), bitter (possibly poisonous), umami (protein)
• Kinesthetic sense: sense movement and body position

  Vestibular sense: balance
• Associative learning: events are associated or occur together
• Classical conditioning:

  • Pavlov discovered it
  • Learning association between reflex and new stimulus
  • Components: Unconditioned stimulus, Unconditioned response, Neutral stimulus, Conditioned stimulus, Conditioned response
• Higher-order conditioning

  Conditioning processes:

  • Acquisition
  • Generalization
  • Spontaneous recovery
• Taste aversion: learned association between food taste and nausea
• Operant conditioning:

  • Skinner discovered it
  • Learning association between voluntary behavior and consequence
• Thorndike's law of effect: behaviors followed by pleasant consequences increase
• Positive reinforcement: adds rewarding consequence to increase behavior
• Negative reinforcement: subtracts unpleasant consequence to increase behavior
• Positive punishment: adds unpleasant consequence to decrease behavior
• Negative punishment: subtracts pleasant consequence to decrease behavior
• Successive approximations: reinforcing small steps in complex behavior
• Continuous reinforcement: reinforcing every time a behavior is performed
• Observational learning: learn by observing and imitating others
• Conditions for observational learning:

  • Watch model perform behavior
  • Perform behavior
  • Pay attention to model's consequences
• Bandura performed Bobo doll experiment
• TV and video game violence related to aggressive behavior
• Prosocial behavior: positive behaviors learned through observational learning