psych 101

• Empathy


  Positive feelings
• Empathetic distress


  Poor health
• Compassion Fatigue


  Cost of caring, negative psychological symptoms that caregivers experience as a result of providing care while being exposed to either primary trauma or secondary trauma
• Signs of compassion fatigue

  • Mood swings
  • Detachment
  • Anxiety or depression
  • Trouble being productive
  • Insomnia
  • Physical symptoms
• Burnout


  • Exhaustion: drained and emotionally exhausted
  • Alienation: find their jobs increasingly stressful and frustrating
  • Reduced performance: affects everyday tasks; very negative about their tasks and lack creativity
• Vicarious Trauma


  Indirect exposure to trauma through a first-hand account or narrative of a traumatic event
• Warning signs of vicarious trauma

  • Hyperviligance
  • Poor boundaries
  • Avoidance
  • Inability to empathize
• Self-compassion


  Being kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings, honoring and accepting your humanness
• Three Elements of Self-Compassion


  • Self-kindness vs. Self-judgement
  • Common humanity vs. isolation
  • Mindfulness vs. over-identification
• Self-compassion is not self-pity, self-indulgence, or self-esteem
• Self-criticism


  Associated with diminished goal progress, increases procrastination
• Self-compassion


  Makes people more motivated to improve themselves and their performance
• RAIN Technique


  Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Natural
• Midbrain


  • Vision and hearing, Motor movement, sleep, Reticular formation - forebrain and midbrain, regulating the sleep / wake cycle, arousal, alertness and motor activity, Substantia nigra - black substance (dopamine), Ventral tegmental area - dopamine
• Hindbrain


  • Back of the head, extension spinal cord, Medulla - automatic process of the autonomic nervous system (brain stem), Pons - serves to connect brain and spinal cord, breathing activity while sleeping, Cerebellum - little brain, receives message from muscles, how to control / motor skills, procedural memory - performing a task
• Sensation


  Conversion of energy from the environment into a pattern of response by the nervous system, Stimulation of sensory receptors and the transmission of sensory information to the central nervous system
• Perception


  The interpretation of sensory information, Process by which sensations are organized into an inner representation of the world
• Absolute threshold


  Weakest level of a stimulus that is necessary to produce a sensation
• Absolute thresholds are not all that absolute - not all people have the same absolute threshold
• Subliminal stimulation


  Sensory stimulation that is below a person's absolute threshold for conscious perception
• Difference threshold


  Minimal difference in intensity required between two sources of energy so that they will be perceived as being different
• Just noticeable difference (jnd)

  The minimal amount by which a source of energy must be increased or decreased so that a difference in intensity will be perceived
• Signal-Detection Theory


  The view that the perception of sensory stimuli involves the interaction of physical, biological, and psychological factors
• Sensory Adaptation


  The processes by which organisms become more sensitive to stimuli that are low in magnitude and less sensitive to stimuli that are constant or ongoing in magnitude
• Sensitization


  Positive adaptation; we become more sensitive to stimuli that are low in magnitude
• Desensitization


  Negative adaptation; we become less sensitive to constant stimuli
• Structures of the Eye

  • Pupil - adjustable opening, Iris - colored structure, Lens - transparent body, Retina - photoreceptors, Rods - sensitive to light intensity, Cones - transmit color sensations, Fovea - central area adapted for detailed vision
• Dark Adaptation


  Vision gradually improves in dim light
• Trichromatic theory


  Color vision is possible by three types of cones: red light, some to green, some to blue
• Opponent-Process theory


  We see color in paired opposite colors: red vs. green, yellow vs. blue, white vs. black
• Types of color vision

  • Trichromat - normal color vision
  • Monchromats - sensitive to black and white only, color-blind
  • Dichromat - sensitive to black-white and either red-green or blue-yellow, partially color-blind
• Visual perception


  Process by which we organize or make sense of the sensory impressions caused by the light that strikes our eyes
• Laws of perceptual organization

  • Figure-ground
  • Proximity
  • Similarity
  • Continuity
  • Closure
  • Symmetry
• Agnosia


  Trouble in perceiving information; damage to the border of the temporal and occipital lobes or restricted oxygen flow to areas of the brain, result of traumatic injury. Have normal sensations but cannot recognize objects.
• Simultagnosia


  Inability to pay attention to more than one object at a time as caused by a disturbance in the temporal region of the cortex
• Prosopagnosia


  Severely impaired ability to recognize human faces
• Ataxia


  Damage on how. Processing failure in posterior parietal cortex, where sensorimotor information is processed. No coordination; can't use hands to find keyhole.