States of Consciousness

• Sleep: a state of consciousness. We are less aware of our surroundings.
• Conscious, subconscious, unconscious
• Biological Rhythms
• Annual Cycles: seasonal variations (bears hibernation, seasonal affective disorder)
• 28 day cycles: menstrual cycle
• 24 hour cycle: our circadian rhythm
• 90 minute cycle: sleep cycle
• Circadian Rhythm: our 24 hour biological clock. Our body temperature and awareness changes throughout the day.
• Sleep Stages: there are 5 identified stages of sleep. It takes about 90-100 minutes to pass through the 5 stages. The brain's waves will change according to the sleep stage you are in. The first four stages are known as NREM sleep. The fifth stage is called REM sleep.
• Stage 1: kind of awake and kind of asleep. Only lasts a few minutes, and you usually only experience it once a night. Your brain produces Theta waves (high amplitude, low frequency (slow))
• Stage 2: "baseline" of sleep. Part of the 90 minute cycle and occupies approximately 45-60% of sleep. More Theta waves that get progressively slower. Show sleep spindles... short bursts of rapid brain waves.
• Stage 3 & 4: slow wave sleep. Produce Delta waves. If awoken you will be very groggy. Vital for restoring body's growth hormones and good overall health. May last 15-30 minutes. "Slow wave" sleep because brain activity slows down dramatically from the "theta" rhythm of Stage 2 to a much slower rhythm called "delta" and the height. Delta sleep is the "deepest" stage of sleep and the most restorative. Brain craves delta sleep first and foremost.
• REM Sleep: Rapid Eye Movement. Brain is very active. Dram usually occur in REM. Body is essentially paralyzed.
• Stage 5: composes 20-25% of a normal night sleep. Breathing, heart rate and brain wave activity quicken. Vivid dreams can occur. From REM, you go back to Stage 2.
• Sleep Disorders
• Insomnia: recurring problems in falling or staying asleep.
• Narcolepsy: characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. Lapses directly into REM sleep (usually during times of stress or joy).
• Sleep Apnea: a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and consequent momentary reawakening.
• Night Terrors: a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified. Occur in Stage 4, not REM, and are not often remembered.
• Sleepwalking (Somnambulism): sleep walking most often occurs during deep non-REM sleep (stage 3 or 4 sleep) early in the night.
• Dreams: a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind.
• Manifest Content: the remembered storyline of a dream.
• Latent Content: the underlying meaning of a dream.
• Why do we Dream? Three Theories
• Freud's Wish-Fulfilling Theory: dreams are the key to understanding our inner conflicts. Ideas and thoughts that are hidden in our unconsciousness.
• Information-Processing Theory: dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience.
• Physiological Function Theories
  Activation-Synthesis Theory: during the night our brainstem releases random neural activity, dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity.

Learning

• Associative Learning: learning that certain events occur together. Initial stage of learning.
• Main Types of Learning:
• Classical Conditioning: it all started with Ivan Pavlov
• Operant Conditioning
• Observational learning
• Latent learning
• Abstract learning
• Insight learning
• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response.
• Unconditioned Response (UCR): the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the UCS.
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with the UCS, comes to trigger a response.
• Conditioned Response (CR): the learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.

• Classical Conditioning
• Acquisition: the phase where the neutral stimulus is associated with the USC so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit the CR (thus becoming the CS).
• Extinction: the diminishing of a CR. Will eventually happen when the UCS does not follow the CS.
• Spontaneous Recovery: the reappearance. After a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response.
• Generalization: the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the CS to elicit similar responses.
• Discrimination: the learning ability to distinguish between a CS and other stimuli that does not signal UCS.
• Operant Conditioning: a type of learning which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed by punishment.
• Classical v. Operant
• They both use acquisition, discrimination, SR, generalization, and extinction.
• Classical Conditioning is automatic. Dogs automatically salivate over near, then bell-no thinking involve.
• Operant Conditioning involves behavior where one can influence their environment with behaviors which has consequences.
• Edward Thorndike
• Law of Effect: rewarded behavior is likely to recur.
• Shaping: a procedure in Operant Conditioning in which reinforcers guide behavior closer and closer towards a goal.
• Reinforcer: any event that STRENGTHENS the behavior it follows. Positive and Negative.
• Positive: Strengthens a response by presenting a stimulus after a response.
• Negative: Strengthens a response by reducing or removing an aversive stimulus.
• Primary Reinforcer: an innately reinforcing stimulus.
• Conditioned (Secondary) Reinforcer: a stimulus that gains it reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer.
• Continuous Reinforcement: reinforcing the desired response ever time it occurs.
• Partial Reinforcement: reinforcing a response only part of the time. The acquisition process is slower. Greater resistance to extinction.
• Fixed-ratio Schedule: a schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.
• Variable-ratio Schedule: a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.
• Fixed-interval Schedule: a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response only after a specific time has elapsed.
• Variable-interval Schedule: a schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.
• Punishment: meant to decrease a behavior
• Positive: addition of something unpleasant.
• Negative: removal of something pleasant.
• Token Economy: every time a desired behavior is performed, a token is given.
• Observational Learning: we learn through modeling behavior from others.
  Observational Learning + Operant Conditioning = Social Learning Theory
• Latent Learning: sometimes learning is not immediately evident.
• Insight Learning: some animals lear through the "ah ha" experience.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrival of information.

• The Memory Process
• Encoding: the processing information into the memory system.
• Storage: the retention of encoded material over time.
• Retrieval: the process of getting the information out of memory storage.
• Recall vs. Recognition
• Recall: retrieve information from your memory.
• Recognition: identify the target from possible target.
• Flashbulb Memory: a clear moment of an emotionally significant moment of event.
• Types of Memory
• Sensory Memory: the incited requiring of sensory information in the memory system. Stored just for an instant and gets process the last half of second of visual. It last 2-4 seconds of auditory then the capacity of story is large and if energy is transferred, information is lost.
• Short-term Memory: memory that holds a few items briefly seven digits (plus or minus two).
  Working Memory: audio and visual both control where your attention lies.
• Long-term Memory: a permanent and limitless storage house.
  Encoding: getting information in our information.
  

• Two Ways to Encode Information
• Automatic Processing: unconscious encoding of incidental information.
• Effortful Processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.
• Things to remember about Encoding:
1. The Next-in-Line Effect: we seldom remember what there person has just said or sone if we are nest.
2. Information minutes before sleep is seldom remembered; in the hour before sleep; well-remembered.
3. Taped if played while asleep is registered by ears, but we do not remember it.
• Spacing Effect: we encode better when we study or practice over time.
• Serial Positioning Effect: our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.
• Types of Encoding:
• Semantic Encoding: the encoding of meaning, like the meaning of words.
• Acoustic Encoding: the enforcing of sound, especially the sounds of words.
• Visual Encoding: the encoding of picture images.
• Self-Referent Effect: the idea that we remember things (like adjectives) when they are used to describe ourselves.
• Tricks to Encode
• Imagery: mental pictures
• Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units. Often it will occur automatically.

Storage

• Iconic Memory: a mementary sensory memory of visual stimuli, a photograph like quality lasting only about a second. We also have an echoic memory for auditory stimuli.
• Storing Memories
  Long Term-Potentiation: long-lasting enhancement in signal transmission between two neurons that results from stimulating them synchronously.
• The Hippocampus: damage to the hippocampus disrupts our memory.
  Left=Verbal
  Right=Visual and Location
• Types of Retrieval Failure
• Proactive Interference: the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.
• Retroactive Interference: the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

Intelligence

The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

• Factor Analysis: a statistical procedure that identifies clusters or related items on a test.
• Charles Spearman used FA to discover his g or (general intelligence).
• Multiple Intelligence: Howard Gardner disagree with Spearman's g and came up with the concept of multiple intelligence. He came up with the idea by studying savants(a condition where a person has limited mental ability but is exceptional in one area).
• Gardner's Multiple Intelligence:
• Visual/Spatial
• Verbal/Linguistic
• Logical/Mathematical
• Bodily/Kinesthetic
• Musical/Rhythmic
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Natural
• Sternberg's Three Aspects of Intelligence:
• Analytical (academic problem solving)
• Creative (generating novel ideas)
• Practical (required for everyday tasks where multiple solutions exist)
• Emotional Intelligence: the ability to perceive, express, understand and regulate emotions.
• Brain Function and Intelligence: higher performing brains use less active that lower performing brains (use less glucose). Neurological speed is also a bit quicker.
• Mental Age: what a person of a particular age should know.
• Problems with the IQ formula: it doesn't work well with adults.
• Modern Tests of Mental Abilities: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale(WAIS) consists of 11 subjects and cues us in strengths by using factor analysis.
• Aptitude v. Achievement Tests
• Aptitude: a test designed to predict a person's future performance. The ability for that person to learn.
• Achievement: a test designed to assess what a person has learned.
• Standardization: the test must be pre-tested to a representative sample of people.
• Flynn Effect: intelligence test performance has been rising.
• Reliability: the extent which a test yields consistent results over time.
• Validity: the extent to which a test measures what is suppose to be measure.
• Content Validity: does the test sample a behavior of interest.
• Predictive Validity: does the test predict future behavior.
• Does Intelligence Change Over Time?
  By age 3, a child's IQ can predict adolescent IQ scores. Depends on the type of intelligence, crystallized of fluid.

Unit 6

Language: our spoken, written or gestured words and the way we combine them to communicate.

• Phonemes: in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.
• Morphemes: in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning. Can be a word or part of a word(prefix or suffix).
• Grammar: system of rules in a language that enables us to communicate and understand others.
• Semantics: the set of rules by which we derive meaning in a language. Adding -ed at the end of words meaning past tense.
• Syntax: the rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentence.
• Language Development
• Balling Stage (3-4 months): the infant make spontaneous sounds.
• One-word Stage (1-2 years): uses one word to communicate big meanings.
• Two-word Stage (2 years): uses two words to communicate meanings-called telegraphic speech.
• Skinner: though that we can explain language development through social learning theory.
• Psychologist
• Chomsky: we acquire language too quickly for it to be learned. We have this "learning box" inside our heads that enable us to learn any human language.
• Whorf's Linguistic Relativity: the idea that language determines the way we think.

Thinking

• Cognition: another term for thinking, knowing, and remembering.
• Concepts: a mental grouping of similar objects, events, dead, or people.
• Prototypes: a mental image or best example of a category.
• Algorithms: a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
• Heuristics: a rule-of-thumb strategy that often allows us to make judgements and sole problems efficiently. 
• Insight: a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem.
• Confirmation Bias: a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions.
• Match Problem
• Fixation: the inability to see a problem from a new perspective.
• Mental Set: a tendency to approach a problem in a particular way, especially if it has worked in the past.
• Functional Fixedness: the tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions.

Types of Heuristics (That often lead to errors)

• Representativeness Heuristic: a rule of thumb for judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they match our prototype.
• Availability Heuristic: estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in our memory.
• Overconfidence: the tendency to be more confident that correct.
• Framing: the way an issued is posed.
• Belief Bias: the tendency for one's preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning.
• Belief Perseverance: clinging to your initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.
• Artificial Intelligence

Perception

The process of organizing and interpreting information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

• Visual Capture: the tendency for vision to dominate the other senses.
• Gestalt Psychology: Gestalt means "an organized whole." These psychologists emphasize our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.
• Gestalt Philosophy: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
• Figure-Ground Relationship: the organization of the visual field into objects(figures) that stands out from their surroundings(ground).
• Grouping: the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into groups that we understand.
• Proximity: where we group similar figures together.
• Similarity: we group similar figures together.
• Continuity: we group continuous patterns together.
• Connectedness: we group together uniform and linked figures.
• Depth Perception: the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two dimensional.
• How do we transform 2D objects to 3D perception?
• Binocular Cues: depth cues that depends on two eyes.
• Retinal Disparity: a binocular cue for seeing depth. The closer an object comes to you the greater the disparity in between the two.
• Monocular Cues: depth cues that depends on two eyes.
• Interposition: if someone is blocking our view, we perceive it as closer.
• Relative Size: if we know that two objects are similar in size, the one that looks smaller is farthest away.
• Relative Clarity: we assume hazy objects are farther away.
• Texture Gradient: the coarser it looks the closer it is.
• Relative Height: things higher in our field of vision, they look farther away.
• Relative Motion: things that are closer appear to move more quickly. Linear Perspective: parallel lines seem to converge with distance.
• Light and Shadow: dimmer objects appear farther away because they reflect less light.
• Phi Phenomenon: an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in succession.
• Perceptual Consistency: perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal images changes.

Smell, Taste, and Touch

• Tongue
• Papillae: those bums on our tongue. Help grip food while your teeth are chewing. Contain taste buds.
  
• Sweet is located on the tip of your tongue and it is sensed when our tastebuds come into contact with sugar.
• Salty is sensed when salty sensitive tastebuds come into contact with salt. It is located on the front side of the tongue.
• Sour is sensed when our tastebuds comes into contact with acid. Located on the back side of the tongue.
• Bitter is sensed when our tastebuds come in contact with an alkali metal. Located on the base of the tongue.
• Spicy is sensed when the no receptors in our mouth come into contact with a chemical that irritate it.
• Smell
• Pheromones: chemical messengers that are picked up through our sense of smell.
• Touch: receptors are located in our skin.
• Gate Control Theory of Pain: the nervous system blocks or allows pain signals to pass to the brain.
• Vestibular Sense: tells us where our body is oriented in space. Our sense of balance. Located in our semicircular canals in our ears.
• Kinesthetic Sense: tells us where are body parts are. Receptors located in our muscles and joints.

Vision and Hearing

• Vision
• Wavelength: the distance from the peak of one light wave to the peak of the nest. The distance determines the hue(color) of the light we perceive.
• Intensity: the amount of energy in a light wave. Determined by the height of the wave. The higher the wave the more intense the light is.

• Parallel processing: the processing of several aspects of a problem simultaneously.
• Two Major Color Theory
• Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic(three color) Theory: realized that any color can be created by combining the light waves of three primary color.
  Rods facilitate black and white vision.
  Cones facilitate color vision.
• Opponent-Process Theory: we cannot see certain colors together in combination (red-green, blue-yellow, and white-black). These are antagonist/opponent colors.
• Hearing
• Frequency: the number of complete wavelengths that pass through point of a given time. This determines the pitch of a sound.
• Amplitude: how loud the sound is. The higher the crest of the wave is the louder the sound is. Measured in decibels.
  
• Helmholtz's Place Theory: we hear different pitches because different sound waves trigger activity at different places along the cochlea's basilar membrane.
• Frequency Theory: we sense pitch by the basilar membrane vibrating at the same rate as the sound.
• Hearing Loss
• Conduction Hearing Loss: caused by damage to mechanical system of ear.
• Sensorineural Hearing Loss: caused by damage to cochlea's receptor cells or to auditory nerves.

Unit 5

Sensation and Perception

• Sensation: your window to the world. The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive stimulus from the environment.
• Perception: interpreting what comes in your window. The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events. Perception is essentially an interpretation and elaboration of sensations.
• Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing
• Bottom-Up Processing: analysis that begins with the sense receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.
• Top-down Processing: information processing guided by higher-level mental processes. As when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.
• Absolute Threshold: the minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% of the time.
• Difference Threshold: the minimum difference that a person can detect between two stimuli. Also known as Just Noticeable Difference.
• Weber's Law: the idea that, to perceive a difference between two stimuli, they must differ by a constant percentage, not a constant amount.
• Signal Detection Theory: predicts how we detect a stimulus amid other stimuli. Assumes that we do not have an absolute threshold, we detect stuff based on our experiences, motivation and fatigue level.
• Subliminal Stimulation: below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
• Transduction: transforming signals into neural impulses. Information goes from the senses to the thalamus, then to the various areas in the brain.
• Sensory Adaptation: diminished sensitivity as a result of constant stimulation.
• Selective Attention: the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.
• Cocktail Part Effect: ability to listen to one voice among many.