Psychology Study Guide 1

Vocabulary:

1. Acetylcholine: neurotransmitter that stimulates muscle contraction through the release of sodium ions 2. Action Potential: spike of an electrical charge that travels along the membranes of a cell, used by neurotransmitters to communicate between neurons and other body tissues 3. Adaptation: trait of an organism that has been favored by natural selection 4. Applied Psychologist: the use of psychological principles and theories to overcome problems in other areas, such as mental health, business management, education, health, product design, ergonomics, and law. Applied psychology includes the areas of clinical psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, human factors, forensic psychology, engineering psychology, as well as many other areas such as school psychology, sports psychology and community psychology. In addition, a number of specialized areas in the general field of psychology have applied branches (e.g., applied social psychology, applied cognitive psychology). 5. Autonomic System: system that operates and serves its purpose by managing its self without external intervention even in the event of environmental changes 6. Axon: long, slender projection of a nerve cell that conducts electrical impulses away from the neurons cell body (soma) 7. Behavior: actions or reactions of an organism, usually in response to the environment 8. Behaviorism: (also called learning perspective) is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things which organisms do including acting, thinking and feelingcan and should be regarded as behaviors. The school of psychology maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind. Behaviorism comprises the position that all theories should have observational correlates but that there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling). (Skinner) 9. Case Study: in-depth study of a single incident/person (case) 10. Central Nervous System: largest part of the nervous system, includes the brain and spinal cord controls actions 11. Cerebellum: region of the brain that plays an important role in the integration of sensory perception and motor output 12. Cerebral cortex: brain-memory, attention , language, perceptual awareness, consciousness 13. Clinical Psychologist: the scientific study and application of psychology for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development (Wundt)

14. Cognitive revolution: combination of psychology, anthropology and linguistics with approaches to neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and computer science 15. Computerized tomography scan (CT scan): medical imaging method employing tomography where digital geometry processing is used to produce a 3D image. 16. Confidentiality: ensuring that information is only available to those authorized to have access 17. Confounding variable: variable that should but has not been controlled in an experiment, can lead to false results and an indirect relationship 18. Corpus callosum: thing that connects the 2 hemispheres of the brain and allows them to transmit information 19. Correlation: