Transcript Psych 101B: Professor Osterhout

Psych 101B:
Professor Osterhout
E XA M 2 R EV I EW
Subjects Covered
 Sensation & Perception (Ch. 6 p. 216-243)
 Consciousness (Ch. 3 p. 86-109)
 Learning (Ch. 7 p. 266-288)
 Language (Ch. 9 p. 349-359)
Sensation & Perception
 Sensation: the passive process by which stimuli are
received by the sensory systems
 Perception: the active process by which the brain
interprets the sensory information
 Properties: 8 different senses
 vision,
hearing, taste, smell, touch, temperature,
pain, balance
Sensation Receptors
 Types of receptor cells for transduction
Photoreceptor – sensitive to photons
 Vision
 Chemoreceptor – sensitive to molecules
 Smell
 Taste
 Mechanoreceptor – sensitive to pressure
 Touch
 Hearing
 Balance
 Thermoreceptors – sensitive to heat
 Temperature
 Nociceptors – sensitive to painful stimuli
 Pain (fast & slow)

Sensation & Perception
The
World
Sensory
Receptor
s
Transduction:
sensations 
neural
impulses
Interpretation
Conscious
Perception
Fovea: Center of
visual field
Pupil: hole in
middle of iris
Neurons in Retina:
Cones
Day vision
 Sensitive to
wavelength, color
Rods
 Night vision
 Sensitive to
amplitude,
brightness
 Detecting motion

Vision: The ability to perceive a very
limited spectrum of one form of
electromagnetic energy
Perception
 Requires experience in the world
 Depth Perception
 Binocular cues
Retinal
disparity – eyes are set apart
Convergence – inward turn when viewing a near object
 Perceptual organization: Gestalt psychologists
Figure-ground discrimination
Grouping
• Close objects/similar objects together/”fill in” missing
pieces
Context: Prior expectations strongly influence perceptions
Sleep: You Need it to Live!
 Sleep deprivation in rats: died after ~4 weeks
 In humans: Sleep reduction study
Subjects slept 2 or 5 ½ hours per night
 Noticeable cognitive impairments within 1st week
 Results: Sleep Deprivation is bad!
 After 2 weeks, compared to being legally drunk
 Circadian Rhythms
 ~24 hours(ish) independent of day/night cues
 Artificial light, shift work & jet lag disrupts rhythms
 Suprachiasmatic nucleus as “biological timekeeper”

Sleep: How is it Measured?
 EEG: Measures brain’s electrical activity (Frequency &
Amplitude)
 4 stages of sleep(+REM), with a transition of “sleep
steps”
REM Sleep
 REM
 EEG
resembles awake, increase in heart rate,
respiration
Rapid eye movements
Vivid dreams
Duration: 10-40 minutes
Paralysis of voluntary muscles
VERY difficult to wake up
Also known as “Paradoxical” sleep
Sleep Disorders
 Sleep Disorders to Review
 Insomnia
 Chronic inability to get sufficient sleep
 Narcolepsy
 Irresistible sleep attacks during the day
 Sleep apnea
 Cessation of breathing while sleeping
 SIDS
 Infant ceases breathing and dies in night- cause unknown
 Sleep walking/talking etc
 Stages 3 and 4
 Night terrors
 Stage 4 sleep
 REM-Behavior Disorder
 No paralysis
Simpsons & Night Terrors
Dreams
 Freud’s Theory of dreams
 Remember theory of personality: Id, Ego and Superego
 Hobson’s Theory of dreams
 Brain activates itself via the:
 “Reticular Activating System”
Learning
 Classical Conditioning: a neutral stimulus, through
association, takes on some of the psychological
properties of a second stimulus

UCS, UCR, CS, CR
Food (UCS)Slobber (UCR)
 Bell or light (CS) & food (UCS)  Slobber (UCR)
 Eventually bell (CS)  Slobber (CR)

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Acquisition
Extinction
Generalization
Discrimination
Learning
 Operant Conditioning: learning occurs as a result of
the consequences of behavior
 Reinforcement: any consequence that makes prior
behavior more likely to occur


Positive and negative
Schedules
Continuous
 Partial (pg. 278-79)
 Interval, ratio

 Punishment: any consequence that makes prior
behavior less likely to occur
Learning
 Long Term Potentiation:
 a long lasting enhancement in signal transmission between
two neurons
 Improves the postsynaptic cells sensitivity to signals received
from the presynaptic cell
Language
 Human Language:
 1. Compositional
A. Phonemes- units of sound (English- 45)
 Ex. K ae t = cat
 B. words- units of meaning
 C. sentences- units of structure


2. Three-level system
Sounds (phonemes, words) sentences meaning
 Syntax: rules that govern how words can be combined to form
sentences

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3. infinite # of possible sentences

Results from RECURSIVE nature of syntactic rules
Language
 Language Acquisition and stages of development

Babbling (5-12 mths)
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Non-syllabic babbling (5-7 mths)- baby begins to play with sounds “clicks,
hums, smacks”
Syllabic babbling (7-8 mths)- baby begins to produce real syllables
“deedeedee” “babababa”
Gibberish babbling (8-12 mths)- baby mixes syllables, really cute ‘speech’
results “da-dee”
One-word utterance stage (12-18 mths)


Initially, the child learns about 50 important words

Food: juice, cookie

Body parts: eye nose
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Toys: doll, block
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People: mama, dada, baby
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Action words: up, down, eat, go
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Modifiers: hot, allgone, more, dirty
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Social interaction: hi, bye-bye, yes, no
Language
 Language Acquisition and stages of development,
continued
Two-word state (18-24 mths)
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Learning 10-20 words/day
Words in mostly correct order
Grammatical competence (24+ mths)
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Explosion of linguistic competence
Rule overgeneralization
Language
 Washoe – signing chimp
 Kanzi – bonobo understanding English
 How is their language learning different from ours?
 They are limited in their ability to produce creative sentences
Language
 Aphasia – acquired problem in producing and/or
comprehending speech
 Broca’s aphasia:
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Non-fluent speech – halted, very difficult to produce
Comprehension (of both listening and producing) okay
Can curse, repeat memorized rhymes – can’t use language
creatively
 Wernicke’s aphasia:
 Fluent speech, but does not make sense
 Problems comprehending language – both what others are
saying and in their own responses
 Not always aware of their problems