| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Consciousness | our awareness of ourselves and out environments |
| Biological Rhythms | periodic psychological fluctuations |
| Circadian Rhythms | the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms such as of wakefulness and body temp, that occur on a 24 hour cycle |
| REM (Rapid Eye Cycle) Sleep | recurring sleep stage; vivid dreams; "paradoxical sleep" (muscles relaxed, but other systems are active) |
| Sleep | periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness |
| Alpha Waves | slow waves of a relaxed, awake brain |
| Delta Waves | large, slow waves of deep sleep |
| Hallucinations | false sensory experiences |
| Stage 1 Sleep | alpha waves; easy to be waken up from sleep |
| Stage 2 Sleep | not aware of things around you, but not deep sleep |
| Stage 3 Sleep | 1st sign of delta waves, deep sleep -> hard to wake up |
| Stage 4 Sleep | sleep walking, talking in sleep, nightmares, body isn't prepared for them |
| REM Sleep | more efficient; body is immobile (paralyzed), self preservation, most recuperative sleep you can get; necessary to have it |
| Effects of Sleeplessness | fatigue, impaired concentration, depressed immune system, greater vulnerability to accidents |
| Insomnia | persistent problems in falling or staying sleep |
| Narcolepsy | uncontrollable sleep attacks |
| Sleep Apnea | temporary cessation of breathing during sleep; momentary re-awakenings |
| Night Terrors | occur within 2-3 hours of falling asleep, usually during Stage 4 high arousal - appearance of being terrified seldom remembered |
| Psychoatcric Drug | a chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood |
| Physical Dependance | physiology need for a drug; marked by unpleasant with withdrawal symptoms |
| Psychological Dependance | a psychological need to use a drug; for example, to relieve negative emotions |
| Tolerance | diminishing effect with regular use (altercations that occur in physiology) |
| Withdrawal | discomfort and distress that follow discontinued use |
| Depressants | drugs that reduce normal activity (alcohol, barbiturates, opiates); slow body functions, most found withdrawal |
| Alcohol | affects motor skills, judgement, and memory; reduces self awareness |
| Barbiturates | drugs that depress that activity of of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgement |
| Opiates | opium and its derivatives (morphine and heroine); depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety; highly addictive |
| Stimulants | drugs that excite neural activity; (caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, cocaine); speed up body functions |
| Amphetamines | drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes |
| Cocaine | effects depend on dosage, form, expectations, personality, and situation (coca leaves, powder, crack) |
| Ecstasy | MDMA (methylenediocymethamphetamine); stimulant and mild hallucinogen; dangerous short and long term effects |
| Hallucinogens | psychedelic (mind-manifesting) drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory; images in the absence of sensory input (LSD, MDMA (ecstasy)) |
| LSD | lysergic acid diethyl-amide; a powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid |
| THC | the major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations |
| Hypnosis | a social interaction in which are person (the hypnotist) suggest to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur |
| Polythypnotic Amnesia | supposed inability to recall what one experience during hypnosis; induced by hypnotists suggestion |
| Orne and Evans | hypnotized group told to dip hand in fake acid, then throw the "acid" in assistant's face; control group instructed to "pretend"; unhypnotized subjects performed the same acts as hypnotized |
| Posthypnotic Suggestion | suggestion to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help |
| Dissociation | a split in consciousness; allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others |
| Hidden Observer | Hilgard's term describing a hypnotized subject's awareness of experiences, such as pain, that will go unreported during hypnosis |
| Sensation | the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system recieve and represent stimulus energy system receive and represent stimulus energy |
| Perception | the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events |
| Bottom-Up Processing | analysis that begins with the same 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 |
| Psychophysics | the study of the relationships between physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience of them (Light-brightness, Sound-volume, Pressure-weight, Taste-sweetness) |
| Absolute Threshold | minimum stimulation needed to detect to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time |
| Difference Threshold | minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time just noticeable difference (JND) (to detect a change in stimulus) |
| Signal Detection Theory | predicts how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise); assumes that there is no single absolute threshold; detection depends partly on person's: experience, expectations, motivation, level of fatigue |
| Subliminal | when stimuli are below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness |
| Weber's Law | to be perceived as different, two different stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) (light intensity-8%, weight-2%, tone frequency-0.3%) |
| Sensory Adaptation | diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant simulation |
| Selective Attention | focussing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus; as in the cocktail party effect, our ability to block everything out |
| Transduction | conversion of one form of energy to another; in sensation, transforming of stimulus energies into nerural impulses |
| Wavelength | the distance from the peak of one wave to the peak of the next |
| Hue | dimension of color determined by wavelength of light |
| Intensity | amount of energy in a wave determined by amplitude (brightness, loudness) |
| Properties of Waves | short wavelength = high frequency (blueish colors, high-pitched sounds); long wavelength = low frequency (reddish colors, low-pitched sounds); great amplitude (bright colors, loud sounds); small amplitude (dull colors, soft sounds) |
| Pupil | adjustable opening in the center of the eye |
| Iris | a ring of muscle that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening |
| Lens | transparent structure behind pupil that changes shape to focus images on the retina |
| Accommodation | the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to help focus near or far objects on the retina |
| Retina | the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information |
| Acuity | the sharpness of vision |
| Nearsightedness | condition in which nearby objects are seen more clearly than distant objects because distant object focus in front of retina |
| Farsightedness | condition in which faraway object are seen more clearly then objects because the image of near objects is focused behind retina |
| Rods | peripheral retina receptors; detect black, white, and gray; for peripheral or twilight conditions |
| Cones | receptors near center of retina; fine detail and color vision |
| Optic Nerve | nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain |
| Blind Spot | point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind spot" because there are no receptor cells located there |
| Fovea | central part in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster |
| Vision-Receptors in Human Eye | Number: 6 million cones, 120 million rods; Location in retina: center (cones), periphery (rods); Sensitivity in dim light: low (cones), high (rod); Color sensitivity: yes (cones), no (rods) |
| Visual Info Processing Feature Detectors | nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features; shape, angle, movement (combo of shape/angle) |
| Parallel Processing | simultaneous processing of coverall aspects of a problem simultaneously |
| Trichromatic (Three Color) Theory | Young and Helmholtz; 3 different retinal color receptors (red, green, blue) |
| Opponent - Process Theory | opposing retinal processes enable color vision; when one is "on" the other is "off": red-green, blue-yellow, black-white |
| Color Constancy | perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object |
| Audition | the sense of hearing |
| Frequency | the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time |
| Pitch | a tone's highness or lowness, depends on frequency |
| Middle Ear | chamber between eardrum and cochlea containing 3 tiny bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window |
| Inner Ear | the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canal, and vestibular sacs |
| Cochlea | coiled, body, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which waves travel |
| Place Theory | the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated |
| Frequency Theory | the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch |
| Conduction Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea |
| Sensonneural Hearing Loss | hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerve; also called nerve deafness |
| Skin Sensations | pressure (only skin sensation with identifiable receptors), warmth, cold, pain |
| Taste Sensations | sweet, sour, salty, bitter |
| Sensory Interaction | the principle that one sense may influence another; as when the smell of food influences its taste |
| Kinesthesis | the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts |
| Vestibular Sense | the sense of body movement and position; including the sense of balance |
Combine with other sets
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