Study sheet: Psychological Science Fundamentals

📋 Course Outline

1. Psychology and Scientific Thinking
2. Research Methods and Statistics
3. Ethics, Sampling, and Inference
4. Neurons and Neural Communication
5. Nervous System and Brain
6. Consciousness, Sleep, and Drugs

📖 1. Psychology and Scientific Thinking

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Psychology : The study of how people think, process information, and experience emotions.

★ Must-know

📌 A theory provides broad principles that guide research and understanding, whereas a hypothesis is a specific prediction derived from a theory.

Further detail

• Common psychological myths include: opposites attract, people learn better when taught in their preferred learning style, psychology is merely common sense, psychology is a new field

💡 Memory Hook

A theory explains the big picture, whereas a hypothesis predicts a specific outcome.

📖 2. Research Methods and Statistics

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Random assignment : Places participants into experimental conditions by chance and is essential for reducing preexisting group differences.
• Correlation coefficient : A correlation coefficient indicates the direction and strength of the relationship between two variables, with a positive correlation meaning that the variables tend to increase together.

📝 Essential Points

• 🔄 The scientific method proceeds through these stages:
  1. a research question
  2. an empirical study
  3. data analysis
  4. conclusions
  5. the research literature

📌 A correlational study examines naturally occurring relationships among variables, whereas an experiment manipulates variables to investigate cause-and-effect relationships.

📌 The independent variable is manipulated by the researcher, whereas the dependent variable is measured as the outcome of the experiment.

💡 Memory Hook

Question → study → data → conclusion → literature

📖 3. Ethics, Sampling, and Inference

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Sampling : The process of selecting a representative group from the population under study.

★ Must-know

• The Belmont Report identifies three core ethical principles:

  • respect for persons
  • beneficence
  • justice

• Ethical research requires:

  • informed consent
  • confidentiality
  • freedom from coercion
  • debriefing when deception has been used

• Descriptive statistics summarize a dataset, whereas inferential statistics use sample data to draw conclusions about population characteristics.

• The null hypothesis states that an observed effect or relationship is absent, whereas the alternative hypothesis states that an effect or relationship exists.

• A lower p-value means that a result is less likely to be due to chance, and a statistically significant result meets the field's criterion for rejecting the null hypothesis.

Further detail

• Measures of central tendency include:
  • the mean
  • the median
  • the mode

💡 Memory Hook

RBJ: Respect, Beneficence, Justice

📖 4. Neurons and Neural Communication

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Neuron : A cell that communicates information through electrical signals and chemical messages.

📝 Essential Points

• The major parts of a neuron include:

  • dendrites
  • the cell body
  • the axon
  • the myelin sheath
  • axon terminals

• 🔄 Neural communication proceeds through these stages:

  1. an action potential travels along an axon
  2. neurotransmitters cross the synaptic cleft
  3. receptors on the next neuron respond
  4. neurotransmitters are removed by reuptake

• Endorphins are natural opiates released in response to pain and exercise, GABA reduces neuronal excitability and slows nerve signals, and serotonin affects mood, hunger, sleep, and stress reduction.

📌 An agonist increases a neurotransmitter's action, whereas an antagonist blocks or inhibits an action without activating the receptor; reuptake inhibitors prolong neurotransmitter action by preventing removal.

💡 Memory Hook

Receive → fire → cross the synapse → reuptake

📖 5. Nervous System and Brain

★ Must-know

• Sensory neurons carry information from the body to the spinal cord and brain, whereas motor neurons carry information from the central nervous system to muscles and glands.

• The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord, whereas the peripheral nervous system consists of sensory and motor neurons connecting the central nervous system to the rest of the body.

• The sympathetic nervous system arouses the body and expends energy during fight-or-flight responses, whereas the parasympathetic nervous system calms the body and conserves energy during rest-and-digest responses.

• The hindbrain supports survival functions, breathing, sleep, arousal, coordination, and balance; the midbrain controls movement and transmits visual and auditory information; and the forebrain manages cognition, sensory and associative functions, and voluntary motor activity.

• The medulla regulates heartbeat and breathing, the pons supports sleep, arousal, and coordination, the cerebellum coordinates movement, the hypothalamus regulates survival needs, the hippocampus supports memory, and the amygdala processes emotion including fear and aggression.

Further detail

• The major lobes and functions are:
  • frontal lobe: speech and voluntary movement
  • temporal lobe: auditory processing and memory
  • parietal lobe: spatial awareness and navigation
  • occipital lobe: visual processing

📌 Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change or rewire, whereas neurogenesis is the production of new neurons.

💡 Memory Hook

Sympathetic fight-or-flight expends energy, whereas parasympathetic rest-and-digest conserves it.

📖 6. Consciousness, Sleep, and Drugs

★ Must-know

📌 Dual processing means that information is processed on separate tracks, while selective attention focuses processing on some information and non-conscious processing occurs without awareness.

📌 Inattentional blindness is failing to see an object because attention is focused elsewhere, change blindness is failing to notice a change, and blindsight is unconscious visual processing that remains after visual awareness is lost.

• Sleep repairs damaged neurons, strengthens memories, promotes creative thinking, and supports muscle development, whereas sleep deprivation causes fatigue, irritability, impaired concentration, reduced productivity, impaired memory consolidation, and slowed performance.

• 🔄 A typical sleep cycle progresses through:

  1. N1 light sleep
  2. N2 sleep with bursts of brain-wave activity
  3. N3 deep slow-wave sleep
  4. REM sleep

📌 Insomnia is ongoing difficulty falling or staying asleep, narcolepsy involves sudden attacks of sleepiness, sleep apnea involves repeated stopping of breathing during sleep, and sleepwalking involves performing normal waking activities while asleep.

📌 Tolerance is needing more of a drug to achieve the same effect, withdrawal is discomfort after stopping a drug, and addiction is compulsive craving of a drug.

• Addictive drugs hijack the dopamine reward system, causing the brain to adapt with tolerance, reduced pleasure from everyday activities, and drug craving.

Further detail

• Major drug classes and examples include:
  • depressants: alcohol, tranquilizers, and opioids
  • stimulants: nicotine and cocaine
  • hallucinogens: LSD and marijuana

💡 Memory Hook

N1 → N2 → N3 → REM

📊 Synthesis Tables

Research Designs Compared

Feature	Correlational Study	Experimental Study
Variables	Naturally occurring relationships	Variables are manipulated
Main conclusion	Association	Cause and effect
Assignment	No random assignment required	Random assignment is essential

Major Nervous System Divisions

Division	Main role
Central nervous system	Brain and spinal cord
Peripheral nervous system	Connects the central nervous system to the rest of the body
Sympathetic nervous system	Fight-or-flight arousal and energy expenditure
Parasympathetic nervous system	Rest-and-digest calming and energy conservation