COGNI PSY

• Cognitive Psychology


  It explores how individuals acquire, process, store, and retrieve information, shedding light on the complexities of the human mind and its role in shaping behavior
• Cognitive psychology


  The branch of psychology that focuses on the study of mental processes, including how people think, perceive, remember, and learn
• Cognitive psychology


  • Investigates internal mental processes such as attention, memory, language, problem-solving, and decision-making
• Cognitive psychology

  The study of how people perceive, learn, remember, and think about information
• Why do objects look farther away on foggy days than they really are?

  • The discrepancy can be dangerous, even deceiving drivers into having car accidents
• Structuralism

  • Seeks to understand the structure (configuration of elements) of the mind and its perceptions by analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components
• Introspection


  • A looking inward at pieces of information passing through consciousness
• Functionalism


  • Seeks to understand what people do and why they do it
• Pragmatists

  • Believe that knowledge is validated by its usefulness: What can you do with it?
• Associationism


  • Examines how events or ideas can become associated with one another in the mind to result in a form of learning
• Behaviorism


  • A theoretical outlook that psychology should focus only on the relation between observable behavior and environmental events or stimuli
• Gestalt psychology


  • States that we best understand psychological phenomena when we view them as organized, structured wholes
• Lecture 2: Physiological Bases of Behavior
• Exam date


  April 26,2024
• Nervous system


  • The basis for our ability to perceive, adapt to, and interact with the world around us
• Neurons


  • Individual neural cells that transmit electrical signals from one location to another in the nervous system

  
• Neocortex

  • The part of the brain associated with complex cognition
• Soma

  • The center portion of a neuron that performs metabolic and reproductive functions
• Dendrites


  • Branch-like structures that receive information from other neurons

  
• Axon


  • A long, thin tube that extends from the soma and responds to the information by transmitting an electrochemical signal
• Myelin


  • A white fatty substance that surrounds some of the axons of the nervous system, which insulates and protects longer axons and speeds up the conduction of information
• Nodes of Ranvier


  • Small gaps in the myelin coating along the axon that increase conduction speed
• Terminal buttons


  • Small knobs found at the ends of the branches of an axon that do not directly touch the dendrites of the next neuron, but are separated by a small gap called the synapse
• Synapse


  • The juncture between the terminal buttons of one or more neurons and the dendrites (or sometimes the soma) of one or more other neurons, important in cognition
• Neurotransmitters


  • Chemical messengers for transmission of information across the synaptic gap to the receiving dendrites of the next neuron
• Postmortem studies


  • Researchers examine patients' brains for lesions (areas of damaged tissue) and infer links between observed behaviors and anomalies in particular brain locations
• Forebrain


  • The region of the brain located toward the top and front, comprising the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, limbic system, thalamus, and hypothalamus

  
• Lesion study


  1. Researchers examine patients' brains for lesions

  2. Infer lesioned locations may be related to affected behavior

  3. Trace link between observed behavior and brain anomalies
• The forebrain is the region of the brain located toward the top and front of the brain
• Components of the forebrain

  • Cerebral cortex
  • Basal ganglia
  • Limbic system
  • Thalamus
  • Hypothalamus

  
• Cerebral cortex


  Outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres, plays a vital role in thinking and mental processes

  
• Limbic system


  Important for emotion, motivation, memory, and learning
• Central interconnected structures of the limbic system

  • Amygdala
  • Septum
  • Hippocampus
• Amygdala


  Plays an important role in emotion, especially anger and aggression
• Septum


  Involved in anger and fear
• Hippocampus


  Plays an essential role in memory formation
• People with damage to or removal of the hippocampus can still recall existing memories but are unable to form new memories
• Thalamus


  Relays incoming sensory information to the appropriate region in the cortex
• Hypothalamus


  Regulates behavior related to species survival, emotions, and reactions to stress
• The midbrain helps to control eye movement and coordination