Exam 1 Review sheet

Prologue: The Story of Psychology

Who conducted the first psychology experiment? When? What did he study?
What is structuralism? Who introduced this school of thought? What is introspection? What were
some of the problems when using introspection?
What is functionalism? Who advocated this school of thought?
What is behaviorism? Humanistic psychology? Cognitive neuroscience?
How do we define psychology?
What is the nature-nurture issue? What is natural selection?
What is the biopsychosocial approach? Review psychologys current perspectives (neuroscience,
evolutionary, behavior genetics, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and social-cultural)
in Table 1. How can psychological phenomena be examined from different perspectives?
What is basic research? Applied research?
Be familiar with the main interests of the different subfields of psychology: developmental,
cognitive, social, positive psychology and industrial/organizational. Be able to explain the
difference a counseling psychologist, clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist. See page 11
and Appendix p. A1-A5
What is the SQ3R study method?
Chapter 1- Thinking Critically with Psychological Science
What is the hindsight bias? How do people show overconfidence?
What is critical thinking?
What is a theory? A hypothesis? What is an operational definition? What is replication?
What is a case study? What can be problems with this method?
What is naturalistic observation?
What is a survey? What is a population? What is a random sample and how does if avoid
sampling bias?
What is a correlation? What is a correlational coefficient? What is a scatterplot? What does the
slope of a scatterplot indicate? What does it mean if a correlation is positive? Negative?
What does the amount of scatter indicate? What does a perfect correlation (+ or -1) look
like? Does correlation means causation? Be able to explain why. Look at Figure 1.4.
What is an experiment? What are the two key components of an experiment (top of p. 33)? What
is random assignment? Why is random assignment used? What is an experimental group? a
control group? What is an independent variable? a dependent variable? Given examples of
an experiment you should be able to identify the independent and dependent variable and
the experimental and control group.
What is the placebo effect? What is a double blind procedure and why is it used?
Review Table 1.3 on the varying Research Methods
Statistics: What is the mode? Mean? Median? What can happen to the mean when there are a few
atypical scores (i.e. it is skewed)? What is the range? Standard deviation? What is the
normal curve? What three things make it more likely we can infer that what we found in a
sample is true in the population (p. 39)? What does it mean to say that something is
statistically significant?
What four ethical principles are researchers urged to follow (p. 43)? What is informed consent?
Debriefing?

Chapter 2- The Biology of Mind

What is the biological perspective?
Be familiar with the parts of a neuron and what each does: cell body, dendrites, axon, and myelin
sheath. See Figure 2.2
Is communication within a neuron electrical or chemical (p. 50-51)? What is the resting potential
of a neuron? What is a threshold? What is an action potential? Is it a + or charge? Be
able to explain the process of how a signal is transmitted within a neuron (e.g., stimulus
at dendrites reaches a threshold, etc). See Figure 2.3. Does the strength of the stimulus
affect the speed of transmission? What is the all or none response?
Is communication between neurons electrical or chemical (p. 52-53)? What is a synapse? What
are neurotransmitters? What is reuptake? See Figure 2.4. Be familiar with the
neurotransmitter acetylcholine. What are endorphins? What are the ways that drug can
influence neurotransmitters? See. Figure 2.6
What comprises the central nervous system? The peripheral nervous system? Be able to explain
the difference between the somatic and autonomic nervous system and the difference
between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Review Figure 2.7
Be able to explain the path of a reflex. Figure 2.10.
Endocrine system- What are hormones? What is the pituitary gland and what does it do?
Be generally familiar with the different methods to study the brain: lesion, EEG, PET, MRI,
fMRI.
The brain- You should know to know the functions of each of these brain parts:
Brainstem- medulla, cerebellum, reticular formation, thalamus. Where in the brain does
information cross over?
Limbic system- hypothalamus, amygdala
Cerebral cortex. What are glial cells?
Lobes (temporal, occipital, parietal, and frontal): Know their functions. Which lobes
contain the auditory cortex? Which lobes contain the visual cortex? What are the motor
and sensory cortexes? Which lobes are they in? Which body parts get more space on the
sensory and motor cortex (Figure 2.24)? Which lobes are involved in planning and
making judgment and personality?
What are association areas? Is it accurate to say we only use 10% of our brain?
What is meant by plasticity? What is neurogenesis?
What are split brain patients? What is the corpus callosum? What hemisphere processes
language? Review experiment on p. 78 Figure 2.34 (shown to right visual field, can name
it; shown to left visual field- can only point to it but not name it). What does the right
hemisphere often do?