Sunteți pe pagina 1din 66

Psychology Textbook Notes

Prologue: The Story of Psychology

Psychological Science is Born


 Earliest milestone: when Aristotle theorized about learning, memory, motivation, etc.
 Wilhelm Wundt
o First psychology laboratory, philosopher, physiologist, University of Leipzig,
Germany, December 1879
o Sensory Perception
 “How long does it take to react to a sound? A light? A touch?”
 “How different do two lights have to be before one can tell which is
brighter?”
o Interested in the composition of mental processes “atoms of the mind”
 Ex. components of a car separately and together in order to fully
understand how the car works
o Ex. Reaction time experiments: Speed of the simplest mental processes like
recognition  subjects told to press button as soon as told (fast), subjects told to
press button as soon as they were aware they were being told (not as fast),
thinking about thinking concept (being aware of awareness)
 Structuralism
o Edward Brandford Titchener
 Tested subjects to find out the structure of the brain (asked them to
describe a rose or a smell, etc.)
 Termed the school of thought “structuralism”
o Focused on the basic structural elements of conscious, mental experiences
o Introspection (does not exist today because of it’s variance between people)
 Observation and reporting of one’s mental experiences
 Ex. apple, rose, pencil, bell
 Report sensations, thoughts, feelings
o Unreliable (inconsistent, subjective), vast results depending on person
 Functionalism
o William James, philosopher
 Theorized that the nose smells and the brain thinks because they adapt to
survive (why things function a certain way)
 Under influence of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection:
 What is the survival advantage of organisms physical attributes
and behaviours?
 What is the survival advantage of our mental behaviour?
 Ex. conscious thinking
o Allows one to consider the present in the context of the past
and the future
 Authored the first psychology textbook “The Principles of Psychology”
 Mary Whiton Calkins
o Female psychologist, refused a degree from Harvard (they refused her even
though she earned it)
Psychological Science Develops
 Behaviourism
o John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner (objected to structuralism and functionalism):
 Introspection is NOT science
 Consciousness, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, motivations
 Subjective, private experiences
 Not appropriate for science
o Said that psychology is the scientific study of observable behaviour
 Should study the factors that influence learning and behaviour
 Goal to predict and influence behaviour
o Promoted the idea that behaviour is primarily determined by environmental
factors
 Classical and operant learning/conditioning
o They said you can’t measurably observe a study, but you can observe a behaviour
by recording people’s responses, sensations, and feelings, hence behaviourist
 Freudian Psychology
o Sigmund Freud (physician, neurological researcher)
o Emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind
 Unconscious mental forces were responsible for human nature
(personality)
o Ways our unconscious thought processes and how our emotional responses to
childhood experiences affect our adult personality (unconscious mind too, like
regressed memories)
 Humanistic Psychology
o Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy triangle)
 Rejected idea that we are ruled by unconscious forces
 Rejected idea that behaviour is completely determined by external
influences
o Emphasizes current environmental influences on our growth potential
 People are driven towards personal growth
 People make conscious choices
 Highlighted the need for love and acceptance
 Theory of human nature/personality and therapy
 Psychology is the scientific study of ways that current environmental
influences can nurture or limit our growth potential, and the importance of
having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied
 Cognitive Revolution
o Explores ways we perceive, process, and remember information
o Sensation, perception, memory, language, reasoning, problem solving
 Applied to therapy for psychological disorders
o Modern brain-imaging techniques allow researchers to observe mental processes
 Cognitive neuroscience
 Focuses on the functioning of the central nervous
o What’s going through your mind?
 Modern Definition of Psychology
o The scientific study of behaviour and mental processes
 Talking, sleeping, running, eating, reading, aggression, reproductive
behaviour
 Sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, judgements
o Utilizes the scientific method
 Method, Systematic observations
 Why do people do what they do with the feelings that they have?

Modern Psychology
 Nature vs. nurture debate
 Gender differences in how we think
o Focuses on variation of aspects of thinking, feeling, and acting
o Relative influence on genes and environment on individual differences
 Psychology’s three main levels of analysis
o Biological influences
o Psychological influences
o Social-cultural influences
 Psychology used for everything (ex. in workplace to boost morale and positivity)
 Cross-Cultural and Gender and Positive Psychology
o Cross-Cultural
 Emphasizes cultural influences on thinking, feeling, behaviour
 Culture: behaviours, ideas, attitudes, values, tradition
o Gender
 Role our gender plays on thinking, feeling, behaving
o Positive
 Focuses on factors that influence positive human functioning
 Biopsychosocial Approach
o Behaviour or mental process
 Biological influences
 Social-cultural influences
 Psychological influences

Chapter One: Thinking Critically with Psychological Science

Need for Psychological Science


 Hindsight Bias
o “Knew it all along” phenomenon
o Thinking the outcome of something is obvious after it happened (for ex. 9/11
office workers going back into the building. We know now that it was obvious
they shouldn’t have because we knew what happened to the buildings after, but
they didn’t)
 Overconfidence
o More confident than correct
o Having too much confidence limits the chances of actually being right
 Perceiving Order in Random Events
o Seeing a pattern in something that doesn’t have a pattern (for ex. the lottery,
choosing random numbers instead of 1,2,3,4,5,6 when they both equally have the
same chance of being chosen)
 Curiosity, Skepticism, and Humility (Humbleness)
o The traits of a psychological scientist that can correctly discover things
 Critical Thinking
o Questioning everything (skepticism), how does he know that? How was that
information found? Etc.

The Scientific Method


 Theory
o An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations
and predicts behaviours or events
 Explain a variety of observations
 Explain through an integrated set of principle(s)
 Offer testable predictions which are implied by the theory
 Hypothesis
 Hypothesis
o A testable prediction, often implied by a theory
 Observations (Data Collection)

Theory: Observations
 Observations of the animal world
o There exists a large variety of living organisms in the world
o Each organism is equipped with traits that are ideal for surviving in their natural
habitats
o Some organisms seem related to others in terms of appearance and/or behaviour
 Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection (don’t need to know for final exam or
midterms)

Naturalistic Observation
 From watching chimp societies in the jungle to videotaping and analyzing parent-child
interactions in different cultures
 The study of things in the natural world (without interference, because actions change
when people/animals know they’re being watched)

The Survey
 Looks at many cases in less depth (asks people to report behaviour or opinions)
 Wording of questions on survey can affect people’s answers/responses
 Random sampling: when you get a sample of a certain group of people that is supposed to
be representative of the whole

Correlation
 Naturalistic observations and surveys often show that one trait or behaviour is related to
another, meaning they correlate
 Statistical measure (the correlation coefficient) helps us figure out other points by seeing
how previous points relate to one another (imagine a scatterplot with a pattern)
o Measure the relationship between two attributes or behaviours
 Ex. The younger children watch TV, the less they read
 Ex. The longer children are breast-fed, the greater the later academic
achievement
 Correlation: Strength of Relationship
o Correlation Coefficient
 Value ranges between -1 and +1
o Positive Correlation
 Ranges between 0 and +1
 +1 is a perfect positive correlation
o 0 means no correlation at all
o Negative Correlation
 Ranges between 0 and -1
 -1 is a perfect negative correlation
 Regression towards the mean
o We think that everyday we wore pink we were unlucky and all of a sudden we can
only remember days when we wore pink that we were unlucky (when we were
lucky other days in pink but just didn’t remember)
 Illusory correlation
o After weird/unusual events in the pattern, things tend to go back to normal (the
mean)
 Correlation and Causation
o Correlation does not prove causation
o Correlation indicates the possibility of a cause-effect relationship but does not
prove such
o Correlation: this will probably happen next
o Causation: this will happen next
o If low self-esteem causes depression
 Should see a negative correlation
o If depression causes low self-esteem
 Should see a negative correlation
o If some third attribute (ex. biological disposition) causes both low self-esteem and
depression
 Should see a negative correlation

The Experimental Method


 Allows for conclusions about causation
o Cause-effect relationships between 2 variables
 Involves manipulation of one variable
o And controlling the levels of the other variable
 Ex. longer children are breast-fed the greater their later academic achievement
o Manipulate amount of time breast-fed
o Observe if there are differences in later academic achievement
 Ex. the higher someone’s serotonin levels, the more elevated their mood is
o Manipulate the amount of serotonin (with medication)
o Observe if there are changes in mood
 Experimentation further proves correlation
 They enable researchers to isolate the effects of one or ore factors by
o Manipulating the factors of interest
o Holding constant “controlling” factors
o Ex. Study strategy and learning factual material
 Repetition
 Imagery
 Why questions
o All groups learn the same material and have same amount of time to write the test
 Experimental Group
o Changes
o Exposed to the treatment
o Ex. advanced study strategy
 Control Group
o Stays the same
o Not exposed to the treatment
o Ex. just use repetition
o Used for comparison
 Unlike correlational studies, which uncover naturally occurring relationships, an
experiment manipulates a factor to determine its effect
 Double-blind procedure:
 Placebo effect: Just thinking about getting a treatment can boost your spirits (like Harry
Potter when Ron thought Harry had given him the lucky potion but he hadn’t).
 Psychological science focuses less on particular behaviours than on seeking general
principles that helps explain many behaviours

Independent and Dependent Variables


 Independent
o Manipulated variable (changed)
o Hypothesized to cause changes in the dependent variable
 Length of breast-feeding
 Level of serotonin (drug dosage)
 Depth of processing (study strategy)
 Dependent
o The measured variable
o Hypothesized to change depending on the level of the independent variable
 Academic achievement
 Mood
 Memory Performance

Experimental Control
 1) Confounding Variables
o A variable/factor that could influence the dependent variable
o A) Must keep all experimental conditions constant except for the independent
variable
 Ex. Study of the effect of room temperature on test performance
 Independent Variable
 Room temperature
 Potential confounding variables
 Seat comfort
 Text font size
 Room lighting
 Instructions
 Time
o B) Must ensure that groups are equivalent in terms of all characteristics except for
the independent variable
 Potential confounding variables
 Age
 Innate memory ability
 Familiarity with material to be learned
 Thus, any differences between the groups can only be due to the
independent variable
 Control for group equivalence with random assignment
 Participants are randomly assigned to experimental or control groups
 Maximizes the possibility that the groups are equivalent
 Random assignment (SECOND):
 How you maximize the likelihood that your variables are random
and achieve precise results
 So that if you have good memory, 50% of good memory people
will be in one group, and 50% will be in the other, hence no biased
results
 Random sampling (FIRST):
 Law of Large Numbers applies to both random sampling and
assignment
 FIRST: Take random sample of population and THEN put the
random sample into random groups BY random assignment
 DIFFERENT from random assignment
o Law of Large Numbers
 As the size of the sample grows, its average gets progressively closer to
the expected value
 2) Placebo effect
o When response to treatment is due to expectation rather than the actual treatment
o Control group gets a placebo
 An inert substance
 3) Experimenter Bias
o Experimenter’s preconceived notions influence the behaviour of the participant
o Ex. tone of voice, gestures, facial expressions
 To control for both, use the double-blind technique
o Neither the participants nor those who administer the drug and collect the data
will know which group (experimental/control) is receiving the treatment

Statistical Significance
 When conducting experiments, looking at mean (arithmetic average) differences between
groups
o Through a statistical procedure, you can estimate the likelihood of obtaining
differences between groups by pure chance
o Groups will always have different means
 But is the difference statistically significant?
 That is, is the difference unlikely to occur by chance?
 Or, is the difference so big, that it is unlikely to have occurred by chance,
and is likely to have occurred because the independent variable had an
effect

Psychology’s Research Ethics


 Protecting Research Participants
o Studying and protecting animals (we are animals, just more complex ones)
 What is morally acceptable?
o Studying and protecting humans
 Informed consent
 Full debrief

Chapter 2: The Biology of the Mind

Neurons
 Brain cells, or nerve cells
Anatomy
 Cell body
 Dendrites
 Axon
 Terminal branches (terminal buttons)
 Myelin sheath

Glial Cells
 Nutrients
 Clean up debris (ions, neurotransmitters)
 Help in guiding neural connections
 Myelin
 Participate in information transmission

Neuron at Rest
 Selectively permeable membrane
o Some things can pass through, while others cannot
o Relatively impermeable to sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) at rest
 Na+ in higher concentration outside the cell
 K+ in higher concentration inside the cell
 Chemical or concentration gradient
 Overall, inside of the cell is negatively charged, compared to the outside of the cell
o Electrical potential (gradient)
o Resting (membrane) potential

Neuron When Activated: The Action Potential


 Action Potential
o A brief electrical charge that travels down the axon
o A “neural impulse”
o The neuron is “firing”
 Electrical signal transmitted along the axon by the diffusion of charged atoms
o The membrane becomes permeable to sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+)
o Series of channel openings along the axon that allows the diffusion
 Sodium channels open at the
o Sodium rushes in
o Since sodium is positively charged, the inside becomes positive
 Depolarization
o Resting membrane potential is then restored
 Sodium channels close
 Potassium channels open and potassium rushes out of the cell, making the
cell negative on the inside again
 Sodium pumped back out, while potassium pumped back in
 Sodium-potassium pump
 Repolarization
 Refractory period
 A period in which the neuron can not fire (so that potential doesn’t
go backwards)
o This occurs at successively adjacent portions of the axon
 Or the Nodes of Ranvier in myelinated axons
o All-or-none (no half action potentials, if one starts, it ends)

Synapse
 Synapse
o The junction between an axon terminal and a dendrite/cell body
o Synaptic gap (cleft)
 Axon terminals release neurotransmitter
o Synaptic vesicles
 Neurotransmitter binds to a receptor
o Dendrite or cell body of a receiving neuron
o Lock and key type relationship
 Trigger the opening (or closing) of ion channels
o NOT an action potential

Threshold and Reuptake


 Dendrites/cell body receive signals from many neurons
o Most excitatory, some inhibitory
o Summation
o Threshold
 Reuptake
o Taking back neurotransmitter
 Information flows through neurons
o Dendrites (collect electrical signals)
o Cell body (integrates incoming signals and generates outgoing signal to axon)
o Axon (passes electrical signals to dendrites of another cell or to an effector cell)

Neurotransmitters
 Several dozen
o May operate in more than one brain pathway
 Ex. Endorphins
o Areas related to mood and pain
 Ex. Acetylcholine
o Ach
o Learning and memory
o Junction of motor neuron and muscle
 Ach stimulates muscle to contract

Acetylcholine Agonists and Antagonists


 Certain drugs/chemicals are structurally similar to neurotransmitters
 Agonists
o A molecule that increases a neurotransmitter’s actions
o Ex. Black widow spider venom
 Antagonists
o A molecule that inhibits a neurotransmitter’s action
o Ex. Curare, Botulinum toxin

The Nervous System


 The Nervous System
o The body’s electrochemical network, consisting of all the nerve cells
o 2 major divisions
 1. The Central Nervous System
 The brain and spinal cord
 2. The Peripheral Nervous System
 Nerves
o Bundles of axons
 Connect to CNS to sensory organs, muscles, glands, and internal
organs
o 3 general types of neurons
 1. Sensory (afferent) neurons
 2. Interneurons
 3. Motor (efferent) neurons
 The Peripheral Nervous System
o A) Somatic Nervous System
 Nerves from:
 The sensory organs to the CNS
 The CNS that stimulate the voluntary skeletal muscles
o B) Autonomic Nervous System
 Controls the (mostly) involuntary muscles (ex. heart, lungs, blood vessels,
digestive system) as well as certain glands
o Divided into sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
 Sympathetic
 Fight or flight
 Expends energy
 Parasympathetic
 Rest and digest
 Conserves energy
 Central Nervous System
o Brain and spinal cord
o Brain
 40 billion neurons
 About 10,000 connections each
 400 trillion synapses
 Clustered into neural networks
 Multi-layered systems of connected neurons that learn functional
skills through experience
 Ex. languages, physical skills (music, athletics, woodworking),
intellectual skills (problem solving, object recognition, factual
knowledge)
 “Neurons that fire together, wire together”
o Spinal Cord
 The connection between the brain and the peripheral nervous system
 Sensory neurons enter from sensory systems
 Motor neurons conducting commands from the brain exit
o Reflexes
 A simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus
 Composed of networks that bypass the brain
 Interneuron within the spinal cord

Structures of the Brain – The Brainstem: Medulla and Pons


 Over the course of evolution, the brain has expanded by building on top of older
structures
 Brainstem
o Oldest part of the brain
 Medulla (Oblongata)
o Involved with basic life processes
 Ex. heart rate, breathing
 Pons
o Involved in coordination of movement
 Closely associated with the cerebellum
 Midbrain
o Reflexive movements in reaction to visual and auditory stimuli
o Pain modulation
o Gait
o Reinforcement of adaptive behaviours
 The Brainstem: The Cerebellum
o Base of the brain (left and right portions)
o Coordination of movement
 Necessary for smooth, skilled movements
o Other functions
 Non-verbal learning and memory
 Judging time
 Discriminating sounds and textures
 The Brainstem: The Reticular Formation
o Network of neurons running through core of brainstem
o Involved with arousal (degree of wakefulness)
o Involved with relaying the sensory nerves to the thalamus
o Filtering incoming tactile and auditory information (habituation)
 Pain modulation

The Thalamus
 Thalamus
o On top of brainstem
o Two distinct but connected sides
 Major relay station of the brain
 Relays information from the senses of touch, taste, sigh, and sound to the appropriate
areas of higher processing (the cortex)
o Relays return information from the cortex to the medulla and cerebellum
 Relays information from the cerebellum to the cortex
 Relays information from one area of the cortex to other areas of the cortex

The Limbic System


 Limbic System
o Neural systems involved in emotion, memory, and drives
o Hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus
 Hippocampus
o Declarative (conscious) memory
 Amygdala
o Involved with emotions
 Fear and aggression
 Both the experience and perception
o Involved with processing of emotional memories
 Closely associated with the hippocampus
 Hypothalamus
o Below (hypo) the thalamus
o Many functions
 Body temperature
 Hunger, thirst
 Sexual behaviour
 Sleep/wake cycle
o Controls the pituitary gland
 Acts to maintain homeostasis
o Reward Centre

Cerebral Cortex
 Cerebral Cortex
o Sensation and perception
o Thinking (ex. reasoning, problem solving, planning for the future)
o Language
o Voluntary movement
o 3 mm of grey matter
o 20-23 billion (of 40 billion) neurons
 The outermost covering of the cerebrum
o Made up of two cerebral hemispheres
 Four main lobes, separated by prominent fissures
o Frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital

Motor Cortex
 Responsible for voluntary muscular movements
 Rear border of the frontal lobe
 Contralateral control
 No direct correspondence between the size of the muscle and the size of the area of
cortex which controls it
o More cortical real estate means finer motor control

Brain-Computer Interfaces
 Predicting Movement
o 100 tiny electrodes attached to a computer
 Individual neurons
o Measure motor cortex activity that occurs right before a movement
o Train monkeys on a task
 Joystick for moving a cursor
o Computer program interprets neural signals
 Determines pattern of firing that corresponds to particular movements
o Program can now predict the movement before it happens
 Controlling robotics with the brain
o Task now involves a joystick moving a robotic arm
o Computer program again interprets neural signals
o The computer that interprets the signals is then linked up with a robotic arm
 Computers move robotic arm in response to the pattern of neural firing
 Also done with humans
 Cognitive neural prosthetics

Somatosensory Cortex
 Responsible for sense of touch
 Front border of the parietal lobe
 Contralateral sensation
 No direct correspondence between the size of the sensory area and the size of the area of
cortex which receives its sensory neurons
o More cortical real estate means greater sensitivity

Other Sensory Areas


 Visual cortex
o Occipital lobe
 Auditory cortex
o Temporal lobe

Association Areas
 Higher cognitive functions
o Interpret the incoming sensory information
 Compare incoming information to memories
 Determine what is in the environment and its relevance to you
o Determine an appropriate response
 Frontal lobes
o The prefrontal cortex
o Judgement, planning, memory formation
o Inhibition
o Integration of emotions in decision making
 Parietal lobes
o Mathematical and spatial reasoning
 Temporal lobes
o Facial recognition (right)

Plasticity
 Neurogenesis
o The formation of new neurons
o High rate in the hippocampus
 Plasticity
o The brain’s ability to reorganize itself in the face of different environmental
stimulation
o Genes provide a first draft organization in the absence of experience
 For example:
o Monkey fingers
o Stroke
 Constraint-induced therapy
o Visual or auditory impairment
o Hemispherectomy
Lateralization of Function
 The two cerebral hemispheres are intricately connected through the corpus callosum
o Hemispheres work in coordination
o But different functions, or different aspects of the same function are served by
different hemispheres
 General distinction
o Left hemisphere
 Analysis
 Focus is on the parts
 Processes information sequentially
o Right hemisphere
 Synthesis
 Focus is on the whole
 Processes information holistically
 Spoken language, calculation = sequential
 Facial, emotional recognition = holistic
 Left hemisphere
o Verbal communication (language)
 Reading, writing, speaking
 Comprehending speech
 Including sign language
 Right hemisphere
o Non-verbal communication
 Tone of voice, intonation
 Figurative meaning
 Ex. metaphors
 Good at interference
 Implied meaning
 Face recognition
 Emotion

Split Brains
 A condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain’s two hemispheres by cutting
the fibres (mainly those of the corpus callosum) connecting them
 Personality and intellect virtually unaffected
 The integration of perceptual information is interrupted
 The ability of the right hemisphere to express itself verbally is compromised

Chapter 6: Sensation and Perception


 Last chapter
o Information Transfer
 Neurons, action potential
o Information Regions
 Ex. visual cortex, association cortex
 This chapter
o Information detection
 Sense organs, stimulus energy detection, transduction, transmission to
brain
 Sensation
o Information processing
 Feature detection, holistic organization, interpretation
 Perception

Vision
 The stimulus input
o Electromagnetic radiation
o Packets of energy given off by all things, particularly things that are high in
energy (ex. sun)
o Different kinds of electromagnetic radiation
 Ex. X-Rays, UV radiation, infrared radiation, microwaves, radio waves,
light
 What we call “light” is the portion of the spectrum that our eyes can detect

Electromagnetic Radiation: Wavelength


 Packets of electromagnetic radiation oscillate
 Degree of oscillation determines the wavelength
o The greater the oscillation, the shorter the wavelength
o The wavelength determines whether or not our eyes can detect it

Wavelength and Amplitude


 Wavelength of light determines the hue that we will experience
o Hue = colour
 Amplitude of the wavelength determines the brightness of the colour
o Higher amplitude, brighter colour
o Lower amplitude, duller colour

The Eye
 Detect and transduce electromagnetic radiation (light)
o Transduction is the conversion of one form of energy into another
 Cornea
 Pupil
 Iris
 Lens
 Retina

The Retina
 Several layers of cells
 Photoreceptors
o Rods and cones
o 130 million rods and cones
 Mostly rods
 Bipolar cells
 Ganglion cells
o 1 million
o Axons form the optic nerve

Rods and Cones


 Cones are concentrated in the centre of the retina (fovea)
o Rods mostly in periphery
 Cones more sensitive to detail
o Better ratio of connections to bipolar cells
 Only cones are sensitive to colour
o Only absorb particular wavelengths of light
 Rods increase visual sensitivity when in dim light

Blind Spot
 Axons from the ganglion cells converge and leave the eye on the nose side of the retina
 There is a hole in your retina where there are no receptor cells
o Brain has no direct information about a small area of your visual field
o But it has indirect formation
 The other eye
 Eye movements
 Close one eye and keep the eyes still to notice the blind spot
o The brain fills in the information by making its best guess based on the adjacent
areas of the retina

Feature Detection
 Optic nerve carries information to the visual cortex
o Thalamus
o Areas of the visual field have corresponding areas of the visual cortex
 Feature detection cells (feature detectors) for each area of visual field
o Form (edges: lines, angles), movements, colors, depth
 Parallel processing
o All features are detected simultaneously
o Different brain regions for form, colour, movement, depth
o Damage can impair perception of particular categories of features
 Ex. motion
 Supercell clusters in association cortex
o Respond to complex patterns constructed from the combination of individual
features
o Ex. A gestalt
o Ex. Faces or objects
 Specific examples of these gestalts are housed in long-term memory (cortex)
o Damage can interfere with perception
o Ex. Prosopagnosia

Colour Vision
 Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory
o Any colour created by combining light waves of three primary colours
 Red, green, blue
o Theory was that brain worked the same way
o Hypothesized that retina will have three different types of colour sensitive cells
 Confirmed with research
 Colour blindness
o Typically, missing red, green, or both red and green cones
 Red and green look similar
 Problems with trichromatic theory
o Missing cones but perceiving yellow
o Yellow seems pure
 Not a combination of red and green
 Colour vision is the result of opponent processes
o Processes in which colour processing cells are stimulated by some cones, but
inhibited by others
o Afterimages
 Red and green are opponent colours
 Blue and yellow are opponent colours
 Black and white also
 Opponent Process Theory
o Opposing retinal processes enable full colour vision
o Ex. red and green
 Some cells stimulated by green, inhibited by red
 Others stimulated by red, inhibited by green
 Thus, there is no reddish-green

Motion Perception
 Brain infers motion by the change in images on the retina
o Same imagine taking up progressively more retinal space
 Approaching object
o Same image taking up progressively less retinal space
 Retreating object
o Same image displaced on the retina to the left, right, up, or down
 Movement right, left, down, or up, respectively

Illusory Motion
 Phi phenomenon
o An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and
off in quick succession
o Ex. Moving arrow, marquee lights
 Stroboscopic motion
o The perception of movement in a rapid series of varying images
 Ex. flip books, movies

Depth Perception: Binocular Cues


 Retinal Disparity
o The object of focus
 The greater the different (disparity) between the two objects, the closer it
is
o Other objects
 The different between the retinal placement of the images
 The more lateral the retinal image, the closer the object is
o 3D Movies

Depth Perception: Monocular Cues


 Relative height
o Things that are higher in your visual field tend to be perceived as farther away
 Relative size
o If we assume that two objects are similar in size (2 cars, 2 people), then the one
that takes up the least amount of retinal space will be perceived as farther away
 Interposition
o If one object partially blocks another one, we perceive it as closer
 Liner perspective
o Parallel lines appear to converge in the distance
o The more convergence, the farther they seem
 Light and shadow
 Light
o Nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes
 Shadow/Shading
o Brain assumes that light comes from above
 We can infer depth based on the shading
 Relative Motion (motion parallax)
o Objects that are closer are perceived as moving faster through our visual field

Chapter 6 Part 2: Sensation and Perception

Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing


 Bottom-Up Processing
o Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s
integration of sensory information
 Stimulus energy detection, transduction, transmission
 Feature detection, holistic organization, interpretation
 Top-Down Processing
o Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes that draw on our
experience and expectations to influence perception
 Ex. Reading
 Perceptual Set
o A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another
o A state of expectation based on past experience
o Perceptual sets depend on concepts (schemas) formed through experience
o Thus, sometimes you can see/hear what you’re looking for
o Or might see/hear what you’re fearing could happen
o Or might taste what you’re expecting to taste
 Context Effects
o Immediate context can also affect perception, top-down
o Effect of Emotion
 What is the meaning of the following words?
 First, expose some people to happy music, others to sad music:
 Mourning/morning
 Die/dye
 Pain/pane
 Motivational States
 If you’re hungry, bad food will taste better than if you weren’t
 If you were tired, short distances will seem longer than if you had
lots of energy

Perceptual Constancy
 Perceptual Constancy
o Perceiving objects as unchanging, even as retinal image or illumination changes
o Shape, size, brightness, colour
 Shape Constancy
o Perceive the shape of familiar objects as unchanging, even though the image on
the retina changes
 Size Constancy
o Two objects of the same size that differ in terms of how far away they are will
cast images of different sizes of the retina
 However, we don’t perceive the objects that cast a smaller retinal image as
actually smaller
o Experience allows our brains to make assumptions
 Objects of the same kind (ex. cars, people) are roughly the same size
o Thus, if we assume that two objects are roughly similar in size, then the one that
takes up the least amount of retinal space will be perceived as farther away, rather
than smaller
 Thus, depth perception cues play a role in size constancy
o Illusions of Size Constancy: Ames Room
 Room Shape
 Peep-hole eliminates binocular depth cues
 Linear cues altered
 Experience with rooms (Top-down)
 Size distortion
 Since room seems cubed, two corners seem about the same
distance
 Two people, same distance, but one takes up more space on retina
 Thus, must be bigger
 Illusion overrides size constancy assumption
 Colour Constancy
o Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent colour, even if changing
illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the objects
o Different sources of light emit different relative amounts of different visible light
wavelengths
 Ex. incandescent vs. fluorescent light bulbs
 Ex. The sun at noon vs. the sun at dusk
o Thus, the proportions of the different visible wavelengths that hit your retina—
determining the colour you see—also depend on the light source
o Your brain takes into account the light being reflected by all the objects in the
scene
o Failure of colour constancy: The Dress
 Blue/Black or White/Gold
 Depends on what your brain assumes about the illumination
 Brightness Constancy
o The total amount of light reflected influences brightness perception
 Ex. White paper reflects a greater proportion of the light that hits it
compared to black paper
o Black paper in sunlight reflects more light than white paper indoors
 But the paper still appears black
o Brightness of something depends on relative luminance
 The amount of light something reflects relative surrounding objects
 Colour/Brightness Constancy
o Amount of light reflected influences brightness perception
o But dull blue does not become bright blue in sunlight
o Relative luminance
 Everything is brighter

Hearing (Audition)
 Stimulus Input
o Sound waves
o Alternating series of compressed and expanded (rarified) air
 Sound Wave
o Sound can be represented as a two dimensional wave
o Number of wavelengths per second is the frequency (Hertz)
 The longer the wavelength, the shorter the frequency
 Frequency determines the pitch
o Amplitude of wave determines the loudness
 Measured in decibels
 Loudness: Decibels
o Sound loudness is measured in decibels
 A measure of the amount of pressure that the waves exert
o Decibels are a logarithmic scale that allows you to describe the magnitude of
different sounds relative to a reference magnitude
o Reference magnitude for sound is the absolute threshold for sound
 The smallest magnitude of sound that can be detected 50% of the time
o Every 10 decibels correspond to a 10-fold increase in sound intensity
 Relative to a threshold stimulus

The Ear
 Transduces the sound wave energy into electrical energy
 Outer ear
 Auditory Canal
 Eardrum
 Middle Ear – 3 bones
o Hammer
o Anvil
o Stirrup
 Cochlea
o Oval window
o Basilar membrane
o Hair cells (receptor cells)
 Cilia
 16,000 receptors
o The more hair cells that are stimulated, the louder the sound
 Hearing Loss
o 2 general kinds:
 Conduction hearing loss
 Damage to either the eardrum or bones of the middle ear
o Infection, trauma
 Sensorineural hearing loss
 Damage to the hair cells
o Or the auditory nerve
o Prolonged exposure to loud noises, age, infection
o Cochlear Implant
 A device for converting sound waves into electrical signals and
stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea

Chapter 6 Part 3: Sensations and Perceptions

Perception of Pitch
 Place Theory
o Best explains how we sense high pitches (depending on what area of the cochlea
membrane is stimulated)
 Frequency Theory
o Best explains how we sense low pitches (depending on the frequency of neural
impulses (the same as the frequency of the sound wave)).
 Limitation
o Can hear 20Hz to 20,000Hz
o But neurons fire at 1000Hz maximum
 Middle frequencies still not represented
 Volley Principle
o Frequencies of adjacent hair cells added together
o While some neurons shoot, others reload

Sound Localization
 Left-Right localization
o Different arrival times of stimulus at different ears
 Also a difference in the magnitude of the sound wave at different ears
o Sound magnitude weakens as it travels
o Head dampens the sound
 Sound shadow
 What about front, back, above, and below localization?

Body Position and Movement


 2 systems:
o Kinesthesia
 The sensation and perception of the position and movement of individual
body parts
 Sensors in your joints, tendons, and muscles
o Vestibular Sense
 The sense of head (body) position and movement
 Maintenance of balance
 Semicircular canals and vestibular sacs
 Filled with fluid that moves when head is accelerating/decelerating
in the vertical or horizontal plane, or rotating, or tilted
 Stimulates hair-like receptors

Taste
 Chemical sense
 Bumps all over your tongue
o Papillae
 About 200 taste buds inside each papilla
 Each taste bud consists of:
o A) A pore that captures food molecules
o B) 50 to 100 receptor cells that have little hairs that detect food molecules
 Basic Taste Sensations:
o Sweet
o Sour
o Bitter
o Salty
 Research confirmed receptors for these 4, and another taste sensation
o Umami
o Savory, meaty taste
 Ex. Monosodium glutamate (MSG), beef broth
o Things that contain amino acids
 Ex. Meats, cheese, soy sauce, grains, beans
 Each taste sensation is related to a survival function
Smell/Olfaction
 Like taste, smell is a chemical sense
o Sensory receptors detect airborne molecules emitted from a stimulus
 20 million receptor cells at the top of each nasal cavity
o Each with many hair-like cilia
o Bathed in mucous
 Embedded on the surface of the cilia are 350 different receptor proteins that recognize
particular odour molecules
o Combine to account for the many different scents we can detect
 Olfaction is the only sense that bypasses the thalamus
o It is the most primitive sense
o Animals use smell to track prey, avoid predators, navigate, mark territory, identify
family, detect potential mating partners
 Intimately connected with the limbic system
o Thus, ability to evoke emotions and memory
o Critical function of smell is to sample food before we ingest it
 Ex. Disgust, happiness
o Smells can trigger old memories, typically with an emotional content

Flavour
 Flavour is a combination of taste, smell, and texture
o Taste and smell meet up in the frontal lobe
o Temperature, spiciness, coolness, dryness
o Hunger, thirst, vision, audition
 Smell plays a large role in flavour
o Food has little taste with your nose plugged
 Both have direct connections with the amygdala

Sensory Interaction
 Sensory Thresholds and Reaction Times
o An accompanying sound can lower the absolute threshold for vision
o Reaction times are faster to combinations of sights and sounds
 Closed captioning
o Visual information clarifies auditory information
 McGurk Effect
o Brain’s tendency to perceive sound that is consistent with mouth movement
o Auditory-Ba and Visual-Fa
 Hear Fa
 Vision dominates
o Auditory-Ba and Visual-Ga
 Hear Da?
 Rubber Hand Illusion

Sense of Touch: Pressure


 4 General Sensations
o Pressure, heat, cold, and pain
o All send signals to the sensory cortex
 Sense pressure with mechanoreceptors
 Tickle
o Stroking adjacent pressure spots

Sense of Touch: Pain


 Pain is information
o Cells are dying
o Thus, change your behaviour
 Sense pain with nocicereptors
o Several varieties, sensitive to different types of damage
 Thermal, mechanical, or chemical
o Degree of pain is related to the number of receptors
o Endorphin release diminishes pain
o Massage, acupuncture, electrical stimulation diminish pain
 Psychological Influences
o Thought distraction
o Hypnosis
o Relaxation training
o Placebo medication and acupuncture (endorphin release)

Gate-Control Theory of Pain


 Explains the ability to diminish pain with physical or psychological stimulation
 Neural mechanisms is the spinal cord function as a gate
o Meeting between nerves from the skin (touch and pain), neurons that go to the
brain, and neurons from the brain
 Stimulation from nocicereceptors opens the gate
 Stimulation from other receptors closes the gate
o Massage, acupuncture, electrical stimulation
 Messages from the brain also close the gate
o Attentional distraction

Chapter 3 Part 1: Consciousness

Consciousness
 “Our awareness of ourselves and our environment”
 …and the awareness that we are aware
 The ability to experience or feel
o The state that involves experiential properties, often referred to as “qualia”
 A state with a particular subjective character
o If you are in a conscious state, then there is a “what it is like” to be in that state
o So, an organism is conscious if there is something that it’s like to be that organism
o That is, there is some subjective, first-person way that the world seems or appears
o What it’s like to be drunk? Meditating? Hypnotized? Asleep? Dreaming? A bat?

Consciousness vs. Mind


 “The mind is what the brain does.”
o I.e. The totality of conscious and unconscious mental processes
o Ex. Sensation, perception, memory, emotion, reasoning, decision making
o The “processes” themselves are coordinated patterns of neural activity
o Consciousness is the subjective experience of this activity

Hard vs. Easy Problems of Consciousness


 Contents of Consciousness
o Anything that we are aware of at any given moment
o Perceptions (visual, auditory, etc.)
o Cognitive activities (ex. decision making, problem solving, reading)
o Inner monologue and memories
 What is the relationship between physical energies (ex. electromagnetic radiation, sound
waves) and conscious experiences?
o Psychophysics (Ch6)
 What is the relationship between brain activity and cognitive activity?
o Cognitive neuroscience
 These are the “easy problems” of consciousness
 But, how do the contents of consciousness come to be?
o How do private, subjective experiences come to be?
o How does consciousness emerge from the brain?
o The “hard problem” of consciousness

The Two Track Mind: Two Processing Systems


 System 1: The Intuitive System
o The “low road”
o A) Automatic and unintentional
o B) Fast and effortless
o C) The process is not consciously accessible; only the result of the process enters
your conscious awareness
 System 2: The Reasoning System
o The “high road”
o A) Controllable and intentional
o B) Slow and effortful
o C) The process is consciously accessible, both the result and the process enter
your conscious awareness
 Ex. Decision making, navigating (walking, driving)
 Dual Processing
o The principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate
conscious and unconscious tracks
 Modern cognitive neuroscience indicates that the vast majority of our processing occurs
unconsciously
 We are aware of (conscious of) the results of cognitive processes
o Ex. Thoughts or attitudes, perceptions, emotions, bodily movements
o We are unaware of (unconscious of) the cognitive processes themselves
 New tasks typically involve conscious processing
o But become automatic following practice
o Ex. reading, driving

Blindsight
 A condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously
experiencing it
o A) Knowing the direction of moving targets
o B) Slipping post cards into mail slots
o C) Appropriately grasp a block
o D) Accurately navigate a cluttered hallway
o E) Detect emotions in faces
 Can replicate this in those with intact brains with magnetic stimulation
o A) Guess the colour and orientation of an object
o B) Detect emotions
 Ex. Hollow face illusion
 Two systems for visual processing
o One system controls conscious visual perception
 Allows us to recognize and plan
o The other controls visually guided actions
 Knows location, orientation, movement

Selective Attention
 Conscious awareness involves attention
 Selective Attention
o The focusing on conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
o Determines the contents of consciousness
 Spotlight analogy
o You attend to some information, but ignore the rest
 0.00036%
o But processing of the rest of the information is happening at a shallow level
 Ex. the cocktail party effect
o Multitasking
 Dividing attention between 2 tasks
 Switching of the attentional spotlight
 There is a cost
 Ex. distracted driving

Selective Inattention
 Attention to one thing means inattention to other things
 Inattentional blindness
o Failure to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere
 Inattentional deafness
 Change blindness
o Failure to notice changes in the environment
 Change deafness
Chapter 3 Part 2

Sleep: The Circadian Rhythm


 Sleep
o Periodic, natural loss of consciousness – as distinct from unconsciousness
 Circadian Rhythm
o Regular body rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle
o Ex. Hormone production (ex. melatonin), body temperature

Setting and Resetting the Circadian Rhythm


 Light
 Photoreceptors in the retina
 Suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus
 Pineal gland
 Melatonin
o Melatonin makes you sleepy
o More light means less melatonin

Brainwaves
 Electroencephalogram (EEG)
o Measurement of brain waves
 Alpha waves
o The relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state
o Lower arousal
o Lower frequency than when awake
 Delta waves
o The larger, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep

Stages of Sleep
 Four stages
o 3 non-REM stages and 1REM stage
 REM = rapid eye movement
 Stage 1 (NREM-1)
o Slower brain waves
o Hypnagogic sensations
 Hallucinations
 Ex. Sounds and images
 Ex. Feel like you’re falling, floating, being weighed down
o Brief (5-10 mins)
 Stage 2 (NREM-2)
o Brain waves become more irregular
o Ex. Sleep spindles
o Deeper than stage 1
o About 20 minutes
 Stage 3 (NREM-3)
o Stage 3 is the deepest sleep
o Indicated by low frequency delta waves
o Young children spend more time in this stage
o About 30 minutes
 Rapid Eye Movement (REM)
o Often termed paradoxical sleep
 Brain waves speed up
 Heart rate and breathing speed up
o Every 30 seconds, eyes dart around
 Indicates dreaming
o Sleep paralysis
o Genital arousal
o 10 minutes
 Cycles take about 90 minutes
o First cycle
 1, 2, 3, 2, REM
o Then repeat, skipping stage 1
 Stage 3 becomes progressively more brief
 REM and stage 2 become progressively longer
 Total about 20-25% (100 minutes) in REM sleep

Major Sleep Disorders


 Insomnia
o Recurring difficulty falling or staying asleep
o Negative health impact of inadequate sleep
o Remedies
 Manage your stress about sleep loss
 Exercise regularly
 Relax before bedtime
 Hide the clock face
 Sleep on a regular schedule
 Avoid caffeine after early afternoon
 Narcolepsy
o A sleep disorder characterized by periodic, overwhelming sleep attacks
o Typically last less than 5 minutes
o Mild version
 Intense sleepiness
o Severe version
 Collapse into brief period of REM sleep
o Genetic cause
o Lack of hypothalamic cells that produce the neurotransmitter orexin (hypocretin)
 Stimulates wakefulness
 Sleep Apnea
o Periods during sleep when breathing stops
o Blocked airway
o Blood oxygen decreases
o Person awakens briefly to breathe
 Loud snoring, snorts, gasps, choking noises
 Hundreds of times per night
 No memory
o Leads to:
 Excessive daytime sleepiness
 Irritability
 Linked with depression
 Sometimes high blood pressure
o Treated with a pressurized air mask
 CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure)
 Night Terrors
o Mostly children
o Screams of terror
o Increased heart rate, breathing rate
o Sit up, walk around, talk
o Not remembered well
o NREM-3
 Sleep Walking
o Also mostly children and NREM-3
o Eyes open with blank stare
o More like a shuffle than a walk (poor coordination)
o Walk around or stand still
 Might eat, get dressed, use bathroom
o Some talk, but unintelligible
o Not remembered
 Sleep Talking
o Mostly children
o Any sleep stage
o Usually unintelligible mumbling

Sleep Theories: Protective Function


 Protection from:
o 1) Injury
o 2) Predators
 Relationship between ability to hide and amount of sleep
o The better able you are the protect yourself, the more you can sleep

Sleep Theories: Biological Recuperation


 A) Neural Recuperation
o Neurons repaired while you sleep
 Damaged by free radicals, which are cleaned up during sleep
o Pruning away unused connections
 B) Growth
o Growth hormone
 Released from the pituitary
 Growth
 Muscle repair

Sleep Theories: Memory Consolidation


 Consolidation
o Strengthening of neural memory trace
o Integration with other memories
 Better recall of recently learned material after sleep
o Information is transferred from the hippocampus to the cortex
 Better performance on procedural tasks after sleep

Sleep Theories: Creative Thinking


 Creativity
o The ability to recognize novel solutions and connections
 People are more likely to have creative insight into a better way to perform a task after
they have slept

Chapter 3 Part 3

Dreams
 A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind
 Vivid
 Narrative (story)
o Often bizarre, but accepted
 Not remembered well

Dreams: Content
 Relation between waking and dreaming attributes
o Dreams often contain parts of the day’s events
 Ex. People, places, objects, personal anxieties, work/school
 More negative than positive content
o 80% of dreams have at least one negative event or emotion
o Repeatedly falling in an attempt to do something; being attacked, pursued or
rejected; experiencing misfortune
 Little sexual content
 Real stimuli can be incorporated
o Sounds, scents, physical stimuli
o Thus, brain is still analyzing incoming sensory information

Why We Dream: Wish Fulfillment


 Dreams = the unsuppressed drives of the id
o Act as an outlet for psychic energy
 Latent vs. manifest content
 Not scientific
Why We Dream: Memory Consolidation
 Consolidation
o Strengthening of neural memory trace for daily experiences
o Integration with other memories
 Research into interruption of REM sleep suggests a role in memory
o Memory for unusual phrases or hidden shapes in pictures worse when interrupt
REM sleep
 However, can’t account for dreams about the past, or people/places we’ve never seen

Why We Dream: Develop and Preserve Neural Pathways


 Neural Pathway (network)
o System of neurons that performs a function
o Cognitive or motor
 These pathways are strengthened by stimulation
o Can occur while awake
o And while asleep
o Pruning
 Explains why children spend more time in REM sleep
o Neural networks are forming at a rapid pace

Why We Dream: To Make Sense of Neural Static


 Activation-Synthesis Theory
 Neural static
o Brainstem still active
o Amygdala still active
o Neither stimulated form external stimuli, thus, haphazard or chaotic
 Cortex tries to synthesize the random information into a meaningful narrative
 Frontal regions involved in logical thinking, organization of events in time and inhibition
are inactive
 Thus, bizarre, illogical, emotion-laden, uninhabited dreams

We We Dream: Reflection of Cognitive Development


 They don’t serve a purpose, per se
 Rather, they reflect the more sophisticated cognitive development of adults
o Stimulation of our cognitive reality
 Evidence in dream content of young vs. old
o Children’s dreams are more simplistic
 Less narrative
 Represent the development of imagination
o Similar brain regions to daydreaming
o Both are considered driven by top-down processes

Psychoactive Drugs
 Chemicals that change perceptions and moods
 Through their action at the synapse
 Substances with similar chemical structure to neurotransmitters

Tolerance
 The diminishing effect of a drug after repeated use
 Require larger doses to obtain the same effect
 Tolerance is the results of neuroadaptation
o Attempt to maintain homeostasis by counteracting the effect of the drug
o Ex. Heroin mimicking endorphins
 Reduce the production or release endorphins
 Reduce endorphin receptors

Withdrawal and Addiction


 The same homeostatic mechanism causes withdrawal
o The discomfort and distress that follows discontinuing use of an addictive drug or
behaviour
 Opposite effects of the drug
o Ex. heroin
o Euphoria – dysphoria
o Relaxation – agitation
o Constipation – cramping
 Will become worse with repeated use
 Addiction
o Compulsive drug craving and use, despite adverse consequences

Substance Use Disorder


 Continued substance craving and use despite significant life disruption and/or physical
risk
 Debate regarding what constitutes an addiction or substance use disorder
o The addiction-as-disease-needing-treatment idea has been offered as a defining
factor

Drug Effects: Depressants


 Drugs or chemicals that depress/calm neural activity and slow bodily functions
o Ex. alcohol, opiates, barbiturates
 Alcohol
o Slows activity in the frontal lobes
o Disinhibition
 Depression of brain activity related to judgements and behavioural
inhibition
 Ex. Dancing, attire, expressing opinions, aggression, affection, sex,
tipping
o Judgements
 Drinking and driving, safe sex, money, dangerous activities

Alcohol
 Slow neural processing
o Low doses
 Anxiolytic effect
 Inhibits anxiety (SNS), thus, elevates mood, mild euphoria
o Large doses
 Physical impairment
 Cognitive impairment
 Memory Disruption
o REM disturbances
o Hippocampus depression
o Long term damage
 Cognitive and memory impairment
 Reduced self-awareness
o Ex. Failures or shortcomings
 Expectancy Effects
o Aggression, increased friendliness, self-disclosure, sexual arousal

Barbiturates and Opiates


 Barbiturates
o Tranquilizers
o Similar effects to alcohol
o Prescribed for anxiety disorders, insomnia
o Dangerous combination with alcohol
 Opiates
o Similar CNS depressive effects
o Intense euphoria
o More addictive

Stimulants
 Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up bodily functions
o Ex. Caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy
 Cocaine
o HR, BP, BR increase
o Euphoria
o At larger doses anxiety, delusions of persecution
o Quick transition from euphoria to crash

Hallucinogens
 Psychedelic drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of
sensory input
o Ex. LSD, marijuana
 LSD
o Lysergic acid diethylamide
o Variable emotional experiences
o Strong visual and auditory hallucinations
 Marijuana
o A mild hallucinogen
o Amplifies sensory sensitivity
 Colours, sounds, tastes, smells
o Can also cause euphoria, relaxation, disinhibition
o Can intensify depression or anxiety

Chapter 7 Part 1

Learning
 Learning
o The process of acquiring through experience new information behaviours
 Associative Learning
o Learning that certain events occur together
 I.e. Learning to predict
 Brain naturally connects events that occur in sequence
o Adaptive
 Cognitive Learning
o The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, watching
others, or through language

Behaviourism and Associative Learning


 Behaviourism
o The view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behaviour
without reference to mental processes
o Should study how organisms respond to stimuli in the environment
o Stimulus
 Any event or situation that evokes a response
o Goals:
 1) Prediction
 2) Control
 Types of Associative Learning
 A) Classical Conditioning
o Learning that one stimulus predicts another stimulus
 B) Operant Conditioning
o Learning that behaviours have consequences

Ivan Pavlov
 Russian Physiologist
o Digestion
 Secretion of digestive juices
 Ex. Salivation (secretion of saliva)
 A biological response to the stimulus of food
 Noticed salivation before the food arrived
o Recognized associative learning
o Dogs learned to predict the food was coming
 Classical Conditioning
o A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate
events

Pavlov’s Experiments
 Classically conditioning dogs to salivate to a tone
 Creating an association between:
o 1) A stimulus that naturally elicits a response
o 2) A stimulus that doesn’t naturally elicit a response
 Presents food (stimulus) alone
o Salivation (response)
o Unlearned response
o Unconditioned Response (UR)
 An unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus
o Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
 A stimulus that unconditionally – naturally or automatically – triggers and
unconditioned response
 Present a tone (stimulus) alone
o No salivation (no response)
o Neutral stimulus (NS)
 A stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning
o Pair the tone with food (pair 2 stimuli) for several repetitions
 Salivation (response)
 Learned response
 Conditioned response (CR)
 A learned response to a previous neutral (but now conditioned)
stimulus
 Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
 An originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an
unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response

Creating a Conditioned Response


 Classical conditioning relies on respondent behaviour
o Behaviour that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus
o Responses that promote survival and reproduction
o Food – salivation
o Onion – tears
o Heat – sweating
 These are unlearned responses
o Unconditioned responses
 Classical conditioning creates learned responses
o Conditioned responses

Classical Conditioning
 Before Conditioning (Before Learning)
o Food (in mouth) = Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
 Unlearned stimulus
o Salivation = Unconditioned Response (UR)
 Unlearned response
o Tone = Neutral Stimulus (NS)
 No response (no salivation)
 During Conditioning (Acquisition)
o Pairing of tone (Neutral Stimulus) and Food (Unconditioned Stimulus)
 Neutral stimulus must come first
o Salivation (Unconditioned Response)
 After Conditioning (after several pairings of tone + food)
o Present just the tone
 Salivation
o Tone = Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
o Salivation = Conditioned Response (CR)
 An anticipatory response

Biological Advantages of Classical Conditioning


 Classical conditioning allows organisms to predict biologically significant events
o Elicit anticipatory responses
 Preparation for digestion
 Preparation for mating
o Japanese quails
 Avoid predators
 Find food
 Natural biological associations more easily conditioned
o Ex. Nausea inducing radiation or drugs
o Ex. Stuffed quail head vs. red light

Examples of Classical Conditioning


 Onion breath elicits arousal
 Can opener + cat
o Food = Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
o Food acquisition behaviour = the Unconditioned Response (UR)
o Can opener = Neutral Stimulus (NS) at first, then the Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
o Food acquisition behaviour in response to sound of can opener = Conditioned
Response (CR)
 Taste aversions
o Poison = US
o Nausea (+ Vomiting) = UR
o Food = NS at first, then the CS after pairing with poison
o Nausea = CR

Higher Order Conditioning


 First Order Conditioning
o Neutral Stimulus (NS) paired with Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
o Neutral Stimulus (NS) becomes Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
o NS (tone) + US (food) elicits UR (salivation)
 Tone elicits salivation
 NS (tone) becomes CS (tone)
 Second Order Conditioning
o Second Neutral Stimulus (NS2) paired with Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
o Second Neutral Stimulus then elicits the same conditioned response (CR)
o Second Neutral Stimulus becomes a second order Conditioned Stimulus (CS2)
o NS2 (light) + CS (tone)
 Light elicits salivation
 NS2 (light) becomes CS2 (light)
 Ex. McDonald’s
 Ex. Drug use

Extinction
 The process of reversing the classical conditioning
o Changed Conditioned Stimulus back to Neutral Stimulus
 Present the Conditioned Stimulus without presenting the Unconditioned Stimulus
 Example
o Present the tone (CS), but without the food (US)
o Salivation (CR) to the tone will stop

Spontaneous Recovery
 The recovery of a Conditioned Response
o Extinguish salivation (CR)
o Wait a few hours
o Present tone again
 Some recovery of the salivation (CR)
o The learning hasn't been erased
 Suppressed

Generalization and Discrimination


 Generalization
o Stimuli similar to Conditioned Stimulus also elicit Conditioned Response
 Ex. Different touch locations, tones, or different pitch
 Ex. Phobias/fears (John Watson’s research with “Little Albert”), PTSD,
lactation
 Discrimination
o Ability to learn to distinguish or differentiate a Conditioned Stimulus from similar
but Neutral Stimuli
 Ex. Ripe vs. unripe fruit
 Ex. Friendly vs. unfriendly professors

Practical Applications
 Advertising
o Advertising your product with something happy so that the product will get
associated with happiness, hence making the customer want to buy it
 Phobia Therapy
o Someone afraid of dogs because they were bitten by one in childhood, put them in
a room with a really friendly dog to make them face their fear
o Easiest psychological therapy (show them that what they think is going to happen
isn’t going to happen)
 Farm Animals
o Coyotes that eat your farm animals, instead of killing them (and upsetting the
natural ecosystem), poison the sheep meat so that the coyotes will associate sheep
with vomiting and poison and hence won’t want to eat your farm animals
 Drug programs

Operant Conditioning
 A type of learning in which behaviour is strengthened if followed by a reinforce or
diminished if followed by a punisher
 A form of associative learning
o An association between behaviour (response) and its consequences
 Reinforcers (rewards) and punishers
 Operant conditioning relies on operant behaviour
o Behaviour that operates on the environment to produce some consequence
o Voluntarily chosen behaviour

B.F. Skinner’s Experiments


 Built on Edward Thorndike’s Law of Effect
o The principle that behaviours followed by favourable consequences become more
likely, and the behaviours followed by unfavourable consequences become less
likely
 Designed an operant chamber
o A chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food
or water reinforce
o Attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking
o Investigated different kinds of reinforcement
 Positive vs. Negative
 Delayed vs. Immediate
 Primary vs. Conditioned
 Schedules of reinforcement

Reinforcements
 Any event that strengthens the behaviour it follows
 Tangible
 Activity
 Attention
 Relative Reinforcers
o Personal preferences
 Something reinforcing to one person may not be so to another
o Situation
 Can of coke or $100 bill for person who does best on midterm (chooses
$100), vs. can of coke or $100 bill for the stranded survivalist who first
builds a fire (chooses can of coke)
 Discriminative Stimulus
o Stimulus that signals that a response will be rewarded (ex. sit)

Positive and Negative Reinforcement


 Positive Reinforcement
o Increasing behaviours by presenting positive reinforcers
 Ex. Presenting something pleasurable
 Negative Reinforcement
o Increasing behaviours by stopping or reducing negative stimuli
 Ex. Taking away something pleasurable
o NOT punishment
 Both
o Ex. Studying, drug use

Primary and Conditioned Reinforcers


 Primary Reinforcer
o An innately reinforcing stimulus such as one that satisfies a biological need
o Unlearned (unconditioned)
o Ex. food/water, relief from pain/discomfort, physical pleasure
 Conditioned Reinforcer
o A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary
reinforcer
o Secondary Reinforcers
 Learned associations with primary (unconditioned) reinforcers
 Ex. Money, grades, praise
 Most reinforcers are secondary

Reinforcement Schedules
 Continuous versus partial (intermittent) reinforcement
 Continuous reinforcement
o Present a reward every time after a target response
o Faster learning
o Faster extinction
 Partial (intermittent) reinforcement
o Present a reward after several responses or after a particular amount of time
o Slower learning
o Slower extinction
o Examples
 Fishing
 Slot machines
 Child tantrum
 1) Fixed Ratio
o Provide a reward after a particular number of responses
o 1 food reward for every 10 pecks (1:10)
o This results in a high rate of responding
 As the number of responses increases, so does the reward
 2) Variable Ratio
o Provide a reward after a variable number of responses
o Sometimes after 10 responses, sometimes after 30 (1:10, 1:30)
 Unpredictable
o Again, get a high rate of responding
 Again, as the number of responses increases, so does the reward
 3) Fixed Interval
o Reinforce the first response after a fixed time period
o Get high responding when the time period approaches, but little or no responding
right after a reward
 4) Variable Interval
o Reinforce the first response after varying time intervals
o Sometimes right away, sometimes after 20 seconds, etc.
o Produces slow, steady responding

Shaping
 An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behaviour toward closer
and closer approximations of the desired behaviour
 Ex. rats pressing a lever
 Ex. monkey waterskiing
 Ex. rats sniffing out land mines

Punishment
 Punishment
o An event that tends to decrease the behaviour that it follows
o Ex. spanking, a scolding, bad grade, being laughed at, being fired, speeding ticket
o Ex. taking away a toy, a timeout, being grounded, losing your license
 Positive or Negative
o Positive: Administer something aversive
o Negative: Take away something desirable

Drawbacks of Physical Punishment


 1) Teaches discrimination among situations
o They learn when the behaviour won’t be punished
o Teaches them how to avoid punishment
 2) Teaches fear
o Could result in chronic anxiety around the punisher
o Could result in avoidance of the punisher
 3) Increases aggressiveness
o Models aggression as a means for dealing with disputes
o Keep in mind that this is a correlation, thus, might not be causal
 4) Suppression of punished behaviour negatively reinforces physical punishment
o Can lead to a cycle of physical punishment
Operant Conditioning and Motivation
 We can be motivated by internal forces or external forces
o Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
 Intrinsic Motivation
o The desire to perform an act because it is satisfying or pleasurable in and of itself
o Ex. Go to class because it’s interesting
o Ex. Go to your job for a sense of achievement
o Ex. Exercise or play sports because it’s invigorating/healthy
 Extrinsic Motivation
o The desire to perform an act in order to gain a reward or to avoid an undesirable
consequence
o Ex. Go to class to obtain the credit
o Ex. Go to your job for a paycheck
o Ex. Exercise to avoid coronary artery disease
 Reinforcement can reduce intrinsic motivation

Observational Learning
 Bobo doll experiments
o Young child works on a drawing
o An adult in the same room is working with some Tinkertoys, but then gets
frustrated
o Gets up, starts pounding, kicking, and throwing a Bobo doll
 “Knock him down”, “kick him”
o Child then taken to another room and given some appealing toys to play with
o After playing with them briefly, the experimenter interrupts the child playing and
tells the child that he is saving these good toys for some other children
 Frustrate the child
o Take the child to another room with a Bobo doll and leaves them alone
o Another group followed the same procedure, except the model played with the
Tinkertoys only, and ignored the Bobo doll
o Those children who had witnessed the aggressive behaviour towards the Bobo
doll
 Mimicked the specific behaviour sand utterances
 Observational Learning
o Learning by observing others
 Modeling
o The process of observing and imitating a specific behaviour
o Some neonates will imitate tongue sticking out
o By 8-16 months infants will imitate novel hand and finger gestures
o By 12 months they will look where an adult is looking
o By 14 months they will imitate acts modeled on TV
o Culture
o Vicarious learning
 Vicarious reinforcement and punishment
 Brain reward system becomes active
 Ex. Olympics

Mirror Neurons
 Frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or
when observing another doing so
o Frontal lobe involved with planning movement
 First discovered in monkeys
o fMRI research with humans
 Some believe that these neurons provide the neural basis for imitation
 May be the basis for empathy

Chapter 8 Part 1

Memory
 The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of
information
 Cognitive psychology
o Create information-processing models
 Stages of Memory
o Sensory Memory
o Short-term memory
 Working memory
o Long-term memory
 Processes of memory
o Encoding
o Storage
o Retrieval

Effortful vs. Automatic Processing


 Automatic Processing
o Unconscious encoding of incidental information
o Space
o Time
o Frequency
o Classically conditioned associations
 Effortful Processing
o Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort
 Ex. Rehearsal
o Ex. Factual information, people’s names, directions, phone numbers

Sensory Memory
 First stage of memory
 Relatively exact representation of a sensory experience
 All sensory information
 Stored very briefly
o Required attention or lost
o 40/11,000,000
 Duration
o Depends on the sensory system
o Ex. Vision
 Sperling study
 Sperling Study
o Recall about half when trying to recall whole array of letters
o Recall almost perfect when trying to recall only one row
 Visual Sensory Memory
o Iconic memory
o About half a second
 Auditory Sensory Memory
o Echoic memory
o About 3-4 seconds
 Incoming information briefly scanned for relevant/important information
o Ex. Cocktail party effect

Working Memory/Short Term Memory


 Short-term memory
o Activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored
or forgotten
 Contains attended information from sensory memory
 Working/short term memory capacity
o A) Duration
 How long will previously attended information remain once attention has
been moved elsewhere
 Peterson & Peterson Study
o B) Number of units
 About 7 digits
 About 6 letters
 About 5 words
 Working Memory
o A newer understanding of short term memory that focuses on conscious, active
processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of
information retrieved from long-term memory
o Memory + simple questions
o Memory strategies
 Working memory capacity
o The efficiency of mental task performance

Effortful Processing Strategies


 Chunking
o Organizing information into familiar, manageable units
 Ex. Reading, passcodes
 Ex. Phone numbers, SIN number
 Ex. Chess, basketball, football
 Hierarchies
o Organization of concepts
o Creating categories
 Cat, chair, rain, bed, bird, snow, mouse, sunny, table
 Furniture, weather, animals
 Mnemonics
o Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and
organizational devices
 Often use visual imagery
o Creating mental pictures
o Easier with concrete words
 Bicycle, cigarette, fire
 Void, inherent, process
 Ex. The peg-word system
o One is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, four is a door, five is a hive, six is
sticks, seven is heaven, eight is a gate, nine is swine, ten is a hen
 Ex. The method of loci
 Acronyms
o Chunking mnemonic
 ROY G BIV, HOMES

Levels of Processing
 Refers to the degree of processing of meaning
 Craik & Tulving Study
o 1) Physical structure (visual encoding)
o 2) Phonemic analysis (acoustic encoding)
o 3) Semantic analysis (semantic encoding)
 Shallow Processing
o Encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words
 Deep Processing
o Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words
 The self-reference effect
o Gives something personal meaning

Long-Term Memory
 The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system
 Minutes to years
 Explicit Memory
o Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare
o Declarative memory
 Implicit Memory
o Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned association independent of
conscious recollection
o Non-declarative memory
o Memory of how to do things
 Procedural memories
 Ex. ride a bike, type
o Distributed neural networks
 Memories stored across large networks

Memory Storage
 Explicit Memory System
o Explicit memories are processed and stored by the frontal lobes and hippocampus
 Frontal lobes
o Working memory processing
 Hippocampus
o Saving and retrieving the processed information
o Damage disrupts memory consolidation and retrieval
o Memories not stored in hippocampus
 Registers and holds information to be remembered
 But passes it on to the cortex
 Implicit Memory System
o Implicit memories are processed and stored by the cerebellum and basal ganglia
 Classically conditioned memories
o Ex. hand prick
o Disrupted with cerebellum damage
 Procedural memory
o Involves the basal ganglia
 Motor control

Measures of Retrieval
 Recall
o A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned
earlier
o Ex. Facts or definitions
 What is the name of the second stage of memory?
o Ex. Fill in the blank
 The _______ is responsible for storing explicit memories
o Ex. Peterson & Peterson study
 Remember 3 consonants while counting down by 3s
 Recognition
o A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously
learned
o Ex. Multiple choice
o Ex. Craik and Tulving
 Questions that elicited different degrees of semantic processing
 Relearning
o A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning
material again
 Ex. The final exam
 Ex. Ebbinghaus
 Nonsense syllables
 BAZ, FUB, YOX, SUJ, VUM, PID, KEL

Chapter 8 Part 2

The Amygdala, Emotions, and Memory


 Emotional events trigger a sympathetic nervous system response
o Includes release of stress hormones
 Increases blood sugar
 Amygdala involved with emotional processing
o Stimulates brain regions involved in memory formation
 Ex. Frontal lobes, basal ganglia
 Emotional arousal improves memory formation
o Particularly stressful events
o Evolutionary advantageous
 Flashbulb memories
o A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event

Long-Term Potentiation
 Long term memory formation involves synaptic changes
 Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)
o An increase in a cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation
o Strengthening of the efficiency of neural transmission at the synapse
 Potentiate = to make potent or strengthen
o An increase in the number of synapses
 Interfering with LTP interferes with memory
o Manipulating the chemical processes involved
 Drugs that interfere with LTP or mutant mice jacking an enzyme for LTP
interfere with learning
 Drugs that enhance LTP facilitate learning
 Improving memory in humans?
o Manipulating the neurotransmitters involved
 Ex. Glutamate
o Increasing CREB production

Memory Retrieval
 Encoding
o Getting information in
 Storage
o Retaining information
 Retrieval
o Getting information out
 Memories are triggered by retrieval cues
o Anything that is associated with the thing that you are trying to remember
o Ex. The context of memories
 Smells, sights, sounds
 Mnemonics
 Memories exist as a web of associations
o Items that share characteristics are related in memory

Priming
 Priming
o The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory
o Ex. Word completion
o Ex. Rabbit – hare
o Ex. First expose some people to happy music, others to sad music
 Mourning/morning
 Die/dye
 Pain/pane
 Thus, priming can also influence perception
 Priming (Ch6)
o The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing
one’s perceptions, memory, or response
o The context in Chapter 6 is unconscious priming
 In the section covering thresholds
o Ex. Subliminally present inaction words like still or stop
 Evokes brain activity associated with inhibiting behaviour
o Ex. Subliminally present nude images
 Participants attention is unconsciously drawn to the side of the screen with
the image

Retrieval Cues: Context


 Context-Dependent Memory
o Learning context can prime memory for retrieval
o Ex. babies kicking
o Ex. underwater learning
 Encoding specificity principle
o The idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most
effective in helping us recall it

Retrieval Cues: State


 State-Dependent Memory
o The tendency to recall experiences that were learned in a particular internal state
 Ex. Alcohol or drugs
 Ex. Mood Congruent Memory
o The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or
bad mood
 Moods can also bias our memories
o Distort past memories in a way that is consistent with current mood

Forgetting
 Forgetting
o The loss of information that was previously stored in memory
 Forgetting and the Two-Track Mind
o Damage to brain areas related to explicit memories can still leave people able to
encode implicit memories
 Retrograde Amnesia
o An inability to retrieve information from one’s past
 Anterograde Amnesia
o An inability to form new memories
o Specifically, explicit memories
o Can still encode implicit memories:
 Memories for how to do things
 But no memory of the learning experience
 Remember their way to the bathroom
 Where’s Waldo
 Read mirror-image writing or mirror tracing
 Jigsaw puzzles

Forgetting: Encoding Failure


 Encoding Failure
o As one ages, neural areas dedicated to encoding becoming less efficient
o Failure to attend adequately
 Inattention to detail
 40/11,000,000
 Lack of rehearsal

Storage Decay
 Storage Decay
o Unrehearsed (unrecalled) memories fade over time
o Neural connections fade
 Ebbinghaus study
o Nonsense syllables
 Spanish vocabulary

Retrieval Failure
 Encoding failure and storage failure
o Memory is absent or too weak
 Interference
o Memory is there, but another memory is interfering with retrieval
o Competition
 Similar memory
 Similar retrieval cues
 Proactive Interference
o The forward-acting disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new
information
o New memory is interfered with by an old memory
 Retroactive Interference
o The backward-acting disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old
information
o Old memory is interfered with by a new memory
 Motivated Forgetting
o Consciously
 Suppression
o Unconsciously
 Repression
 But, flashbulb memories

Memory Construction
 All memories are reconstructions
o Memory is not an exact replica of the event
o Some details are omitted, while others are imagined
 Some fragments of memories get lose
o Fill in the gaps with what seems to make the most sense
 Ex. word lists, stories

Misinformation Effect
 When misleading information has corrupted one’s memory of an event
 Ex. Study (video of car crash)
o “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
o “About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”
o Any broken glass? Study shows that more people say there would be broken glass
if the word ‘smashed into’ was used instead of ‘hit.’

Imagination Inflation
 Imagining an experience makes a person more likely to report that it really happened
 Ex. Imagining childhood events
 Ex. Digitally altered photos
o Richer details days later

Improving Memory
 1. Study Repeatedly
 2. Make the material meaningful
 3. Activate retrieval cues
 4. Use mnemonic devices
 5. Minimize interference
 6. Sleep
 7. Test yourself

Chapter 11: What Drives Us – Hunger, Sex, Friendship, and Achievement

Motivation
 Motivation
o A need or desire that energizes and directly behaviour
 Motivation Conceptualizations
o Answer the question, “At any one time, why do we behave the way we do?”
o Because we are genetically predisposed
o Because we need to satisfy internal drives
o Because we need to attain the right level of arousal
o Because we need to satisfy needs, with some having priority over others

Instinct Theories
 Influenced by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
o Motivations evolved
 Instincts
o A complex behaviour that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is
unlearned
 Imprinting, display behaviors, spider webs
 Rooting and sucking reflexes
 Eating and drinking, staying warm, social contact, sex, build shelters
 Criticism
o Explaining by naming
o Doesn’t explain complex human behaviour
 Social patterns aren’t rigid across cultures (diversity)

Drive Reduction Theory


 Influenced by the concept of homeostasis
o Maintenance of a steady, balanced internal state
 Physiological Needs
o Water, food, warmth
o Needs create an aroused, motivated state
 Psychological Drive (drive state)
o Arousal, tense state
o Motivated to satisfy the drive
o Physiological need creates a psychological drive
 Drive reduction theory acknowledges that external stimuli elicit drive states
o Incentives
o A positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behaviour
 Need + incentive = strong drive state

Optimal Arousal
 Criticism of Drive Reduction Theory
o Only explains basic survival behaviours
 Behaviours related to survival and homeostasis
o Not all behaviours decrease arousal
 Doesn’t explain curiosity
 Doesn’t explain thrill-seeking
o People are motivated to attain optimal arousal
 Need for stimulation
 Vary from person to person
 Motivated to be in a state of optimal arousal

Hierarchy of Needs
 Abraham Maslow
o Specific human motivations
o Priority of motivations
 Hierarchy of Needs
 Criticisms
o Biased towards individualistic cultures
o Not everyone seeks self-transcendence
o The order is often violated
 Self-transcendence comes earlier for many
 Hunger strikes
 Parents protecting children
 Those in war zones still seek belongingness

Hunger: Physiology
 What causes/stimulates the motivation to eat?
 1) The Stomach: Hunger Pangs
o Pain or gnawing sensation in the abdominal region
 The feeling of hunger
o Stomach contractions
 There is correlation between feeling of hunger (pangs) and contractions
o However, hunger persists with stomach removal
 2) The Brain: The Hypothalamus
o Integrates hunger information from several sources
o Several hypothalamic nuclei involved
 Ex. Arcuate nucleus

Hunger Hormones
 Hypothalamus stimulates hunger through the release of orexin
 Hypothalamus monitors several signals related to food consumption
 Glucose levels
o Low levels stimulate hunger
o Glucostatic theory
 Hunger is triggered by the drive to restore optimal blood glucose levels
(homeostasis)
 Receives signals from the liver
 Ghrelin
o Stomach (empty)
o Stimulates hunger
 Obestatin
o Stomach (full)
o Suppresses hunger
 PYY
o Intestines
o Suppresses hunger
 Leptin
o Fat cells
o Suppresses hunger

Hormone Tissue Response


Orexin increase Hypothalamus Increases hunger
Ghrelin increase Stomach Increases hunger
Obestatin increase Stomach Decreases hunger
Leptin increase Fat cells Decreases hunger
PYY increase Digestive tract Decreases hunger

Set Point
 Leptin associated with long-term satiety
o Fat cells can hold limitless amounts of fatty acids
o The more they hold, the more leptin they release
o Related to the set point
 Set Point
o The point at which your “weight thermostat” is set
o As weight increases, hunger decreases
o As weight increases, basal metabolic rate increases
o Basal Metabolic Rate
 The body’s resting rate of energy expenditure
 The rate of energy expenditure for maintaining basic body functions when
at rest
 Ex. 29% drop in one semi-starved sample

The Psychology of Hunger


 Taste preferences are influenced by both biology and learning
 Biological influence
o Some general preferences are universal because they aid in survival
 Carbohydrates
o Starch and sugar
o Provide energy
 Salt
 Sour and bitter tend to be avoided
o Poisonous plants, rancid food
 Spicy
o Inhibit bacteria growth
o Greater preference in warmer climates
 Neophobia
o The dislike of things unfamiliar
 Pregnancy related nausea
o Around 10th week when embryo most susceptible to toxins
 Influence of learning (culture)
o Degree of saltiness, sweetness
o Serving sizes
o Specific taste preferences
 Situational Influences
o People eat more when eating with others
 Social facilitation
o Serving size and variety
 Unit bias
o Stress
 Starches increase serotonin (calming effect)

Physiology of Obesity
 Definition of Obesity
o Body mass index over 30
 Body Mass Index (BMI)
o Standard for classifying weight categories
o Significant increase in health problems at BMI over 30
 High blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes
 Gallstones, arthritis
o Doesn’t account for activity level
o Psychological effects
 Late-life cognitive decline
 Increased rates of depression
 Lower life satisfaction
 Social Consequences
o Bullying
o Weight discrimination

The Physiology of Obesity: The Genetic Factor


 Adoption Studies
o Adopted children’s weight correlates with their biological parents, not adopted
parents or siblings
 Twin Studies
o The body weights of identical twins correlate more strongly than fraternal twins
o 0.74 vs 0.32
o Even when raised apart

The Physiology of Obesity: Set Point and Metabolism


 Basal Metabolism
o Variation in the population
 Ex. Those who are more fidgety tend to have lower body mass
 Basal metabolism is flexible
o Ex. body composition
o Ex. decreases when restrict calories
o Also increases when overweight
 That is, when above one’s set point, however, sustained changes in body
weight shift the set point (i.e. settling point)

The Physiology of Obesity: Food and Activity Factors


 Environmental Factors
 Food Consumption
o Densely caloric food readily available
 Activity Levels
o Overall physical activity has dropped
 Sleep Loss
o Decreases leptin production
o Increases ghrelin production
 Social Influence
o More likely to become obese if a friend becomes obese

Sexual Motivation
 Evolutionary Perspective
o Sexual motivation supports procreation
 Sexual Motivation Influences
o Biological, psychological, cultural
 Sex Hormones
o Testosterone and estrogens
 (Non-Human) Mammals
o Females
 Only sexually receptive during periods of fertility
 Estrogens (ex. estradiol) peak during ovulation
 Can stimulate receptivity with an injection of estrogens
o Males
 Testosterone is more stable
 Injections have little influence
 Castrated rats will lose interest in sexual activity
 Injections will re-establish the motivation

Sex Hormones: Humans


 Females
o Estrogen increases with ovulation
 And testosterone
o Increase in sexual desire is modest
 Sexual desire rises more in women with mates
o Then why do female humans have sex even when not ovulating?
 Testosterone has a significant influence on female sexual motivation
o More than with other mammals
o Decreases result in decreased sexual interest
o Testosterone replacement therapy often restores the sexual interest
 Males
o Testosterone replacement also restores lost sexual interest
o But normal fluctuations have little impact
o Decreased testosterone in married fathers
 Sexual stimulation increases testosterone
o i.e. interacting with females
 Testosterone increases risk taking

Psychological Influences
 External Stimuli
o People
o Seeing, hearing, or reading erotic material
o Males and females similar reaction
 Males slightly more activation in the amygdala
o Adverse effects
 Increases men’s acceptance of the false idea that females enjoy coercive
sex
 Leads to devaluing of partners and relationships
 Decreases satisfaction with own partners
 Internal Stimuli
o Imagined stimuli
 Sexual fantasies or memories
o Males slightly more or less romantically
 Same with books or videos

Sexual Response Cycle


 Sexual Response Cycle
o The four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson
 Excitement
o Redistribution of blood to the genital area
 Plateau
o Breathing, HR, BP continue to build
o Blood flow to the genitals peaks
 Orgasm
o Muscular contraction throughout the body
o Further increase in breathing, HR, BP
o A pleasurable physical sensation
 Resolution
o The return of the body to an unaroused state
o Refractory Period
 A resting period after orgasm during which a man can not achieve another
orgasm

Sexual Orientation
 Sexual Orientation
o An enduring sexual attraction towards member’s of one’s own sex, the other sex,
or both sexes
 Sexual Orientation Statistics
o Estimated that 3-4% of men and 2% of women
 Numbers go up 1-2% when using surveys that absolutely guarantee
anonymity
o Estimated that less than 1% are actively bisexual
 Although 13% of women and 5% of men report some same-sex contact
during their life
o A “tiny fraction” identify as asexual
o Similar rates across Western countries
 Sexual orientation is neither willfully chosen nor willfully changed
o “Efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve
some risk of harm”, American Psychological Association
 Women tend to display more erotic plasticity
o Men are less sexually variable in terms of drive and interests
 Women’s desire goes up and down more than men
 Women are more likely than men to feel and act on bisexual attraction
o Ex. when shown pictures of heterosexual couples in either erotic and non-erotic
contexts, the men look mostly at the women, while the women look more equally
at both
o Ex. Physiological responses to sexually explicit videos (and subjective arousal) is
to the preferred target for men, while women respond more to both males and
females
 A high sex drive in men:
o Associated with greater attraction to women (if hetero) and greater attraction to
men (if homo)
 A high sex drive in women:
o Associated with increased attraction to both men and women

Origins of Sexual Orientation: Environment


 Parents
o Domineering mother combined with an ineffectual father
o Possessive mother combined with a hostile father
 Fear or hatred of the opposite gender
o Due to a rejection of peer relationships
 Current levels of sex hormones
o Imbalance in testosterone or estrogens
 Sexual victimization
o Molestation seduction by an adult homosexual
 No evidence for any of these suggestions
 Would not explain homosexuality in the animal kingdom
o Observed in several hundred species
o Ex. Grizzlies, gorillas, monkeys, flamingos, owls, swans, penguins, sheep

Origins of Sexual Orientation: The Brain


 There is a cluster of cells in the hypothalamus that is larger in heterosexual men than it is
in women and homosexual men
o Does not mean that this is the sexual orientation centre
 An area of the hypothalamus related to sexual arousal becomes active in gay males and
heterosexual females when they smell a scent derived from male sweat
o But heterosexual males only have this area light up when they smell a derivative
of a female hormone
o See the same thing with pictures of male and female faces
 It’s also possible that it’s the homosexual behaviour that causes the structural differences
o However, the differences are seen early in development, maybe even prenatally
 What influences brain differences?
 Genes
 Homosexuality runs in families
 Identical twins somewhat more likely than fraternal twins to share a homosexual
orientation
o But sexual orientation differs in many identical twins, so there must be other
factors besides genes
o Sensitivity to testosterone

Prenatal Hormones and Sexual Orientation


 Prenatal Hormones
o Identical twins are more likely than fraternal
o Fraternal twins are more likely than regular brother and sisters
o This suggests that, along with genetics, environment may also be a prenatal
environment component
 Exposure to male sex hormones during development has been shown to impact sexual
orientation in rats and sheep
o Females display mounting behaviours
o Males display presenting behaviours
 Critical period for the neural systems that control sexual attraction
o Typical male hormone exposure results in attraction to females and vice versa

Environment Origins of Sexual Orientation: Fraternal Birth Order Effect


 Fraternal Birth-Order Effect
o Men who have older brothers are somewhat more likely to be gay
 1/3 more likely for each older brother
 About 2% for first sons, little less than 3% for second born sons, about 4%
for third born sons
 Suggestion: Immune system response
 To substances that are only produced in males, thus would be foreign to a female body
o The immune system is designed to detect foreign substances
o And when it does, it produces antibodies to combat the foreign substance
 With each male, the response becomes stronger, as it does when one has encountered a
virus before
 These antibodies are in some way influencing the laying down of the neural networks that
underlie attraction to females
 Only occurs in men with older brothers from the same mother
o Whether reared together or not
o Unaffected by adoptive brothers
 Not found in women with older sisters
 Not found in women who were womb-mates with twin brothers
 Only environmental factor associated with homosexuality

The Need to Belong


 We are social creatures with an affiliation need
o The need to build relationships and feel part of a group
 Survival advantage of close bonds
o Raising children
 Keeps children close to their caregivers
 Co-nurturing
o Hunting, gathering, building shelters, learning
o Protection
 “Us” vs. “them”
 Satisfaction of the affiliation need contributes significantly to overall life satisfaction
 Emotions move with the strengthening and weakening of social bonds
o Most people feel joy when they form new social attachments and feel anxiety or
grief when these bonds are broken
o Most people feel happy when they get attention and sadness or depression when
they are ignored
o Most people feel comfort when they are accepted, but distress when they are
rejected
 “What is necessary for your happiness?” or “What makes your life meaningful?”
o Relationships typically mentioned first
 Contributes to a deep sense of well-being
o Along with autonomy, competence
 Being with loved ones can reduce pain and discomfort
 Actively work to strengthen bonds
o Talk to, share news with, celebrate with, mourn with, teach and learn, participate
in ceremonies
 Work to avoid rejection
o Monitor our behaviour
 Making the right impression
o Conform to group standards
o Spend money on clothes, cosmetics, surgery, diet and fitness aids

The Pain of Ostracism


 Ostracism
o Deliberate social exclusion of individuals or groups
 Leads to deep anxiety and depression
o Or sometime anger instead
o Withdrawal or retaliation
 Research with cyber-ostracism
o Depressed mood, increased aggression, increased conformity
o Brain areas that respond to physical pain active
 Anterior cingulate cortex
 Acetaminophen
 Ostracism used as a tool of social control
o Exclude those who don’t conform
o Time-outs
o Solitary confinement

Achievement Motivation
 Achievement Motivation
o A desire for significant accomplishment; for mastery of skills or ideas; for
control; and for attaining a high standard
 Biological theories of motivation fail to explain why we continue to be motivated after
our physiological needs have been satisfied
 High achievement motivation characterized by being more ambitious, energetic,
persistent, tenacious, self-disciplined
o Varied hobbies and activities
o Self-discipline better predicts school performance, attendance, and graduation
honours than IQ
 Grit
o Passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals

Chapter 12: Emotions, Stress, and Health

Emotion
 A response to some stimulus that involves:
 1) Arousal component
o Physiological arousal
o Ex. HR, BP, BR
o Ex. Losing a child
 Accelerated HR; running around searching, facial expression of fear;
thoughts of loss; feeling of fear
 2) Behavioural component
o Expressive behaviours
o Facial expression and body mannerisms
o Ex. Seeing a loved one after a long separation
 Accelerated HR; embracing, kissing, smiling; affectionate thoughts;
feeling of joy
 3) Cognitive component
o A) Thoughts or Interpretations
 Interpretation of the consequences or relevance of the stimulus
o B) Feelings
 The subjective experience of an emotion
o Ex. Being insulted
 Accelerated HR; yelling, aggressive body stance, angry facial expression,
thoughts of threat; feeling of anger

Physiological Arousal
 Autonomic nervous system
o Sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions
o Sympathetic division responds to challenge
 Fight or flight
 Arousal also necessary for cognitive challenges
o Emotions signal either a physical or cognitive challenge
o The amount of arousal that is optimal depends on the task
 Yerkes-Dodson Law
o In general, moderate arousal leads to optimal performance
o But less for difficult tasks, and more for easy tasks
 Physiological Similarities and Differences Among Particular Emotions
o Similarities
 Sympathetic nervous system responses
o Slight differences in physiological response
 Fear and joy similar HR increase
 Differences in brain circuits
o More amygdala activation with fear than anger
o Negative emotions (ex. disgust, depression) more activation of right frontal lobe,
and vice versa
 Differences in facial muscles

Theories of Emotion
 A response to some stimulus that involves 3 components:
o 1) Arousal
o 2) Behaviours
o 3) Cognition
 Early theories of emotion concerned with:
o Which occurs first?
 The physiological arousal or the conscious experience and labeling of the
emotion?
o Or do they occur at the same time?
 Later theories of emotion concerned with:
o What is the relationship between cognition and emotions

James-Lange Theory of Emotion


 James-Lange Theory
o The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological
responses to emotion-arousing stimuli
 Some stimulus causes physiological arousal and expressive behaviours causes the feeling
o “We feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, and afraid because we
tremble”
 There is no explicit cognitive appraisal component (of the stimulus)
o The “interpretation” is of the physiological response and expressive behaviours,
not the stimulus/situation
o Ex. If the HR, BR increase, sweating, muscles are trembling
 Fear
o Ex. If HR, BR increase, sweating, muscles are engaging in striking or defending
from strikes (fighting)
 Anger
o Ex. If HR, BR increase, smiling muscles are activated, hugging
 Joy

Facial Expressions
 Characteristic patterns of facial muscle contraction
o Fake smiles last longer and start and stop more abruptly
 Distress or worry
o Lifting of inner eyebrow
 Surprise
o Raised eyebrows
o Eyes open widely
 Disgust
o Wrinkling of the nose
 Consistent across cultures
 Seen in infants
 Seen in the congenitally blind

Effects of Facial Expressions


 Facial feedback effect
o The tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as
fear, anger, or happiness
o Contracting the muscles involved with particular emotions increases the feeling of
those emotions
o Ex. Golf tees, pen in mouth, Botox
 Behaviour feedback effect
o The tendency of behaviour to influence our own and other’s thoughts, feelings,
and actions
o Ex. Walking, staring

Cannon-Bard Theory
 Criticism of James-Lange Theory
o 1) Mechanism is too slow
o 2) Physiological responses not distinct enough
 Cannon-Bard Theory
o The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers:
 1) Physiological responses
 2) The subjective experience of emotion
 The detection of a stimulus causes the physiological response (and expressive
behaviours) and he conscious experience (the feeling) at the same time
 The neural signal from the stimulus goes simultaneously to the SNS (physiological
arousal) and to the cortex (conscious experience)
 Also, no explicit emphasis on the cognitive appraisal
Schachter and Singer’s Two-Factor Theory
 Two-Factory Theory
o The Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must:
 1) Be physically aroused
 2) Cognitively label the arousal
 Physiological arousal comes first
o But physiological responses are not distinct enough
 Require a cognitive appraisal of the situation
o Physiological arousal
o Consciously explain the source of the physiological arousal
o The two together cause the consciously experienced feeling
 Spillover effect
o Heightened levels of arousal impact how one perceives other events
 Study: Reported feelings after injection of adrenaline
 Study: Bridge phone number
 Thus, conscious cognitive labels can influence the felt component of an emotion

Two Processing Systems


 System 1: The Intuitive System
o The “low road”
o A) Automatic and unintentional
o B) Fast and effortless
o C) The process by which the evaluation was made is not accessible to
consciousness, only the result of the process enters your conscious awareness
 System 2: The Reasoning System
o The “high road”
o A) Intentional and controllable
o B) Slow and effortful
o C) The process is consciously accessible and viewable

Criticism of Two-Factor Theory


 Criticism of Two-Factor Theory
o Sometimes the feeling comes before conscious cognitive labelling
 Thus, conscious labelling is not always necessary
o Cognition must precede the physiological arousal
 Unconscious cognitive appraisal
o The stimulus causes unconscious (intuitive) cognitive appraisal
o Unconscious cognitive appraisal causes the physiological response, expressive
behaviours, and the feeling

Conscious and Unconscious Processing


 Two Tracks for Emotion Producing Stimuli
o 1) Directly to the amygdala
 The “low road”
 Allows for fast reactions
 Doesn't require conscious processing
 Ex. subliminally presented eyes
o 2) Cortex, then amygdala
 The “high road”
 Allows for deeper cognitive analysis, but takes longer
 More neural projections from the amygdala to the cortex, than vice versa
o The “low road” can more easily hijack the “high road”
o But can use reason to moderate our emotions

Lie Detection
 Polygraph
o A machine that measures emotion-linked changes in breathing, cardiovascular
activity (HR & BP) and perspiration
o Asked baseline questions
 Probable-lie questions
 “In the last 20 years, have you ever taken anything that belongs to you?”
 “Have you ever lied to get out of trouble?”
o Then asked the critical questions
 Compare physiological measures to the baseline questions
 Criticisms
o Anxiety, irritation, guilt result in similar physiological arousal
 The victim can fail the test
o Can be beaten
 Guilty Knowledge Test
o Ask them questions about a crime that would not be known to an innocent person
o Sequential multiple choice
o Measure the physiological reaction to the individual choices
 EEG recordings
o Brain wave patterns that reveal familiarity
 fMRI
o Left frontal lobe (prefrontal cortex)
o Anterior cingulate cortex

Detecting Emotion in Non-Verbal Cues


 Particularly sensitive to anger
o Ex. Subliminally flashed words
o Ex. Faces in crowds
o Sensitivity can be heightened with experience
 Abused children more sensitive to anger
 Relatively insensitive to lying
o Only 54% accurate

The Experience of Emotion: Basic Emotions


 There are different accounts of primary emotions
 Ex. Carrol Izard
o 10 basic emotions
o Joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, interest-excitement, contempt, shame,
guilt
 7 that can be seen in infants
 3 that develop with further maturation
o Other emotions are a combination of the basic emotions
 Ex. love is a combination of joy and interest-excitement
 Others include more primary emotions
o Ex. pride, love

The Experience of Emotion: Valence and Arousal


 Emotional experienced placed along two dimensions
 1) Valence
o Positive or negative
o Pleasant or unpleasant
o Emotional ranges
 Ex. Apprehension, fear, terror
 Ex. Content, happy, elated
 2) Arousal
o High or low
o Emotional ranges
o Ex. Annoyance, anger, rage
o Ex. Interest, absorption, excitement

Anger
 Response to some perceived misdeed
o To oneself or someone one cares about
o Particularly if perceived as willful, unjustified, or avoidable
 Adaptive function
 Catharsis
o Emotional release
 Catharsis Hypothesis
o Releasing aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges
o Ex. Screaming, hitting pillows, kicking garbage cans

Catharsis Research
 Ex. Bushman (2002)
o Make people angry by insulting their essay
o Some hit punching bag, others not
 If hit bag, show more aggression
o Rumination vs. distraction
 Story about student treated unfairly by professor
 Those who ruminate show more anger
 Sometimes acting progressively temporarily leads to calming
o A) When the provoker is the target
o B) The retaliation seems justifiable
o C) The target is not intimidating
Happiness
 Happiness
o A state of well-being and contentment
o A response to some perceived fortune
 Positive Psychology
o The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and
promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities thrive
o Studying the factors related to happiness
o Ex. brain correlates of happiness, genes, personality characteristics, effects on
health, how to teach happiness, behaviours

Determinants of Happiness
 Genes
o Twin studies
 Wealth?
o 82% of American college students think “Being very well off financially” is very
important
o People with lots of money are happier than those who struggle to afford life’s
basic needs
o People in rich countries experience greater well-being than those in poor countries
o However, while incomes continue to increase, happiness has not
o Once people have their basic needs met, happiness ratings tend to level out

Evidence Based Suggestions for a Happier Life


 Realize that enduring happiness may not come from financial success
 Take control of your time
 Act happy
 Seek work and leisure that engage your skills
 Buy shared experiences rather than things
 Join the “movement” movement
 Give your body the sleep it wants
 Give priority to close relationships
 Focus beyond the self
 Count your blessings and record your gratitude
 Nurture your spiritual self

S-ar putea să vă placă și