Summary
Summary PSYC 385 Test 1 Study Guide
- Course
- Biopsychology
- Institution
- James Madison University
Test 1 Study Guide for Psyc 385. Enjoy!!
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TEST 1 STUDY GUIDEPG 1 p.1-9
● Neurons: cells that receive and electrochemical signals
● Neuroscience: scientific study of the nervous system
○ Biopsychology is a related discipline
● Jimmie G-could not remember anything since his early 20s
● Thinking creatively: thinking in new productive, unconventional ways
● Much of what bio psychologists learn about the functioning of the normal brain comes
from studying the diseased or damaged brain
● Evolutionary perspective: trying to understand biological phenomena by comparing
them in different species
● Biopsychology did not develop into a major neuroscience discipline until 20th century
○ Publication of Organization of Behavior in 1949 by D.O. Hebb played a major role
in its emergence
■ Developed the first major theory that perception, emotion, thought,
memories may be related to brain activity
● 6 fields of neuroscience:
○ Neuroanatomy: study of structure of nervous system
○ Neurophysiology: study of functions and activities of nervous system
○ Neuropharmacology: study of the effects of drugs on neural activity
○ Neuropathology: study of nervous system disorder
○ Neurochemistry: study of chemical bases of neural activity
○ Neuroendocrinology: study of interactions between the nervous system and
endocrine system
● Human advantages over nonhuman
○ Can follow instruction
○ Report their subjective experiences
○ Cheaper
○ Intricacies of human brain function
● Nonhuman advantages over human
○ Brains and behavior are simpler (more likely to reveal fundamental brain-
behavior interactions)
○ Insights frequently arise from comparative approach
○ It is possible to conduct research on lab animals that , for ethical reasons, is not
possible in humans
● Experimental method almost single-handedly responsible for the knowledge that is the
basis for our modern way of life
● Coolidge effect: fact that a copulating male who becomes incapable of continuing to
copulate with one sex partner can recommence copulating with a new sex partner
○ Attempts to demonstrate a Coolidge effect in females is almost always
confounded with male fatigue
○ To control for confounding variable, at the same time a female was copulating
with a male, the other male to be used in the test was copulating with another
, female. Afterwards, both males were to have a rest period while female
copulating with third male
○ DV in experiment was how long female displayed lordosis
● Quasi-experimental studies: studies of groups of people who have been exposed to
conditions and interests of real world
PG 2 p.9-19 and fertility research article
● 6 Divisions of biopsychology:
○ Physiological psychology: studies neural mechanisms of behavior through
direct manipulation and recording of the brain in controlled experiments
○ Psychopharmacology: focuses on the manipulation of neural activity and
behavior with drugs
○ Neuropsychology: study of psychological effects of brain damage in human
patients
○ Psychophysiology: studies the relation between physiological activity and
psychological processes in brain
■ Usual measure of brain activity is the scallop EEG
■ Other measures: muscle tension, eye movement, HR, BP, pupil dilation,
electrical conductance of skin
■ Autonomic nervous system (ANS) division of nervous system that
regulates body’s inner environment
○ Cognitive neuroscience: study neural bases of cognition (higher intellectual
processes such as thought, memory, attention, and complex perceptual
processes largely through use of functional brain imaging
○ Comparative psychology: study of the evolution, genetics, and adaptiveness of
behavior, largely through the use of the comparative method
● Converging operations: strengths of one approach compensate for the weaknesses of
the others
● Korsakoff’s syndrome: severe memory loss
○ Initially believed to be a direct consequence of alcohol
○ Subsequent research showed that it is largely caused by brain damage
associated with thiamine
○ Biopsychology typically comes from converging operations- convergence of
neuropsychological case studies (case studies of those with Korsakoff), quasi
experiments with human participants, and controlled experiments with laboratory
animals
● Scientific inference: empirical method that scientist use to study the unobservable
● Critical thinking: spotting the weaknesses of existing ideas and the evidence on which
they are based
● First step in judging validity of any scientific claim is to determine whether the claim and
the research on which it is based were published in a reputable scientific journal
● Prefrontal lobotomy: a surgical procedure in which the connections between the brain
and the prefrontal lobes are cut as a treatment for mental illness
● Prefrontal lobes: large left and right areas of the very front of the brain
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