Exam 1 Study Guide
Chapter 1 – The Science of Psychology
 Psychology
 Psychiatry
 Historical perspectives
o Wundt, structuralism, introspection
o James, functionalism
o Psychoanalysis, Freud
o Behaviorism
o Humanism
 Modern perspectives
o Multiculturalism, evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience,
positive psychology, biopsychosocial theory
 Critical thinking
o Pseudopsychology
o Confirmation bias
o Belief perseverance
 Descriptive research
 Correlational research, correlation-causation fallacy
 Experimental research
o random assignment
o independent variables, dependent variables,
o experimental group, control group, placebo effect
 Scientific method
o Theory, hypothesis
o naturalistic observation, surveys, case studies
Chapter 2 – Brain and Behavior
 Neurons
o dendrites, cell body (soma), axon, myelin sheath
o action potential
o synapse
o neurotransmitters
 acetylcholine, GABA, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, epinephrine
 agonist, antagonist
 Brain stem, cerebellum, medulla
 Thalamus
 Limbic system
o hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala
 Cerebrum (forebrain)
o Cerebral cortex
1
Right cerebral hemisphere, left cerebral hemisphere, corpus callosum
frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe
motor cortex, somatosensory cortex
Broca's area, Broca’s aphasia
Wernicke's area, Wernicke’s aphasia
plasticity
Nervous system
o Central nervous system, peripheral nervous system
o Somatic nervous system, autonomic nervous system
o sympathetic division, parasympathetic division
Hormones, cortisol
o
o
o
o
o



Chapter 3 – Sensation and Perception
 Sensation
 Absolute threshold, difference threshold (just noticeable difference)
 ESP, parapsychology
 Sensory adaptation
 Habituation
 Perception
o Perceptual constancies
o Selective attention
o Change blindness
o Inattentional blindness
o Gestalt principles: figure-ground principle
 Bottom-up processing, Top-down processing
 Vision
 Anatomy: retina, rods, cones
 Depth perception, binocular depth cues, monocular depth cues
 wavelength/color (hue)
 Trichromatic theory, opponent-process theory
 Audition
o cochlea
o wavelength/pitch, loudness
 Other senses: olfaction, gustation, somatosenses, kinesthetic sense, vestibular sense
Chapter 4 - Consciousness
 Consciousness
 Sleep
o Circadian rhythm
o Stages of sleep (non-REM sleep and REM sleep)
o Insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea
 Theories of dreaming
2
o
o



Freud’s theory of dreaming, Activation-synthesis hypothesis
Lucid dreaming
Hypnosis
Psychoactive drugs
o Tolerance and withdrawal
o Physical dependence and psychological dependence
o Types of psychoactive drugs: depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, opiates
Meditation and mindfulness
Chapter 5 - Memory
 Memory
 Information Processing Model: Encoding, storage, retrieval
 Sensory Memory
 echoic memory, iconic memory
 Levels of Processing
 chunking
 maintenance rehearsal, elaborative rehearsal
 Short-term Memory, Working memory
 Long-term Memory
o explicit memory, semantic memory, episodic memory
o implicit memory, procedural memory
 Retrieval Cue, recall, recognition
 Decay, interference
 Serial position effect, primacy effect, recency effect
 Flashbulb memory
 Spacing effect, massed practice, distributed practice
 amnesia
 Eyewitness testimony, Misinformation effect
 hindsight bias
 Repressed memories, motivated forgetting
3