FUN FACTS 

You Forget 90% of Your Dreams

 Everybody Dreams

Every human being dreams (except in cases of extreme psychological disorder). If you think you are not dreaming – you just forget your dreams.

Dreams are Symbolic

If you dream about some particular subject it is not often that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symbolic language. Whatever symbol your dream picks on it is most unlikely to be a symbol for itself.

Sleeping Disorders

Insomnia

 

• Persistent problems falling asleep

• Affects 10% of the population 

Narcolepsy

• Suffers from sleeplessness and may fall asleep at unpredictable or inappropriate times
• Directly into REM sleep
• Less than .001% of population

Sleep Apnea

• A person stops breathing during their sleep
• Wake up momentarily, gasps for air, then falls back to sleep
• Very common especially in heavy males.

Night Terrors

• A sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified
• Occurs in stage A, not REM, and are not often remembered

Sleepwalking

• sleepwalking is a sleep disorder affecting an estimated 10% of all humans at least once in their lives
• sleepwalking most often occurs during deep non-REM sleep (stages 3 or 4 sleep) early in the night

Dreams

• A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind.
• Manifest Content : the remembered story-line of a dream
• Latent Content : the underlying meaning of a dream

Why do we dream?

• Freud's wish-fulfillment Theory
• Dreams are the key to understanding our inner conflicts
• Ideas and thoughts that are hidden in our unconscious
• Manifest and latent content

Information-Processing Theory

• Dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience that day
• REM sleep does increase after stressful events

Activation-Synthesis Theory

• during the night our brainstem releases random neural activity, dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity.

Learning

Most learning is associative learning

• Learning that certain events occur together

There  are 3 main  types of Learning

• Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)
• Observational Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning

Unconditional Stimulus (UCS) : a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response

Unconditional Response : the unearned, naturally occurring response to the UCS

Conditioned Stimulus (CS) : an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with the UCS, comes to trigger a response.

Conditioned Response : the learned response to a previously neutral stimulus

Acquisition

• The initial stage of learning
• The phase when the neutral stimulus is associated with  the UCS so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit the Conditioned Response (thus becoming the CS)

Extinction 

• The diminishing of a conditioned response.

Spontaneous Recovery

• The reappearance after a rest period, of an extinguished conditional response.

Generalization

• The tendency once response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the CS to elicit similar  responses.

Discrimination

• The learned ability to distinguish between a CS  and another stimuli that does not signal the UCS.

Operant Conditioning

• A type of learning in  which behavior is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed punishment.

Classical vs. Operant

• They both use acquisition, discrimination, SR, generalization and extinction.
• Classical conditioning is automatic
• Operant conditioning involves behavior where one can influence their environment with the behaviors which have consequences

The Law of Effect (Edward Thorndike)

• Edward Thorndike
• Rewarded behavior is  likely to recur

B.F Skinner

• Shaping - A procedure in Operant Conditioning in which reinforces guide behavior closer and closer towards a goal

Reinforce

• Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows
• Positive Reinforcement - strengths  a response by presenting a stimulus after a response
• Negative Reinforcement - strengthens a response by reducing or removing an aversive stimulus

Punishment

• Any event that decreases the behavior that follows it
• Positive Punishment - something bad is added in order to decrease an unwanted behavior
• Negative Punishment - Something good is removed to  cause an unwanted behavior to  decrease

Types of reinforces

Primary Reinforce

• An innately reinforcing stimulus

Conditioned (Secondary) Reinforce

• A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer

Partial Reinforce

• Reinforcing a response only part of the time
• The Acquisition process is slower
• Greater resistance to extinction

Fixed -ratio Schedules

• A schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

Variable-ratio Schedule

• A schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

Fixed-Interval Schedule

• requires a set amount of time to elapse before the reinforcement is given

Variable-interval Schedule

• A schedule of reinforcement that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals

Token Economy

• Every time a desired behavior is performed, a token is given they can trade tokens in for a variety of prizes (reinforces) 
• Used in homes, prisons, mental institutions an school

Observational Learning

• Albert Bandura and his bobo doll
• We learn through modeling behavior from others

Latent Learning

• Edward Toleman 
• Latent means hidden
• Sometimes learning is not immediately evident

Insight Learning

• Wolfgang Kohler
• Sometimes animals learn through the "ah-ha" experience.

 States of Consciousness

• Sleep
• Hypnosis
• Drugs

Sleep

• A state of consciousness
• We are less aware of our surroundings

Why do we daydream?

• The can help us prepare for future events
• They can nourish our social development
• Can substitute for impulsive behavior

Fantasy Prone Personality

• Someone who imagines and recalls experiences with lifelike vividness and who spends considerable time fantasizing

Biological Rhythms

• Annual Cycle : Seasonal variation
• 28 day cycles : menstrual cycle
• 24 hour cycle : Our circadian rhythm
• 90 minute cycle : sleep cycles

Circadian Rhythm

• Our 24 hour biological clock
• Our body temp and awareness changes throughout the day

Sleep Stages

• 5 identified stages of sleep 
• Takes 90-100 minutes to pass through all 5 stages
• The brains waves will change according to the sleep stage you are in
• The first four stages are known as NREM
• the 5th is called REM sleep

Stage 1

• Kind of awake, kind of asleep
• Only lasts a few minutes, and you usually only experience it once a night
• Eyes begin to roll slightly
• Your brain produces theta waves ( high amplitude, low frequency (slow)

Stage 2 

• This follow stage 1 sleep and is the "Baseline" of sleep
• This stage is part of the 90 minute cycle and occupies approximately 45-60& of sleep
• More Theta waves that get progressively slower
• Begin to show sleep spindles. short bursts of rapid brain waves

Stages 3 and 4

• Slow wave sleep
• you produce Delta waves
• If awaken you will be very groggy
• Vital for restoring body's growth hormones and good overall health
• May last 15-30 minutes
• It is called "slow wave" sleep because brain activity slows down dramatically from the "theta" rhythm of stage 2 to a much slower rhythm called "delta" and the height or amplitude of the waves increases dramatically

REM sleep (Stage 5)

• Rapid eye-movement
• Brain is very active
• Dreams usually occur in REM
• Body is essentially paralyzed
• composes 20-25% of a normal night sleep
• Breathing, heart rate and brain wave activity quicken vivid dreams can occur
• From REM, you can go back to stage 2

MEMORY

 

 

 

• The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.

Encoding

 

• The processing of information into the memory system .

storage

• The retention of encoded  material over time.

Retrieval 

 

• The process of getting the information out of memory storage.

Recall v. Recognition

 

•  you must retrieve the information from your memory (fill-in-the blank tests.)
•  you must identify the target from possible targets (multiple choice test.)

Flashbulb Memory

 

 

• A clear moment of an emotionally significant moment or event

Types of Memory

 

 

• Sensory Memory
• The immediate, initial recording of sensory information in  the memory system
• Stored just for an instant, and most gets unprocessed 
•       Short-term Memory
• memory that holds a few item briefly.
• seven digits (plus of minus two
• the info will be store into long term or forgotten

•  Working Memory (Modern day STM)
• Another way of describing the use of short-term memory is called working memory
• Working Memory has three parts

1. Audio
2. Visual
3. Integration of audio and  visual (controls where your attention lies.)

•      Long-term Memory
• The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.

• Two ways to encode
• Automatic processing
• unconscious encoding of incidental information.
• you encode space, time and words meaning without effort thing can become automatic with practice.
• Effortful processing
• encoding that requires attention and conscious effort rehearsal is the most common effortful professing technique through enough rehearsal, what was effortful become automatic.
• THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT ENCODING
• The next in line effect
• we seldom remember that the person has just said or done if we are next.
• Spacing effect
• we encode better when we study or practice over time
• DO NOT CRAM.
• Serial positioning effect 
• our tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list.
• semantic encoding
• The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.
• A Caustic encoding
• The encoding of sound, especially the sound of words
• Visual Encoding
• The encoding of picture images
• Tricks to encode
• use imagery mental picture
• Mnemonic devices use imagery like "peg work" system.
• Chunking
• organizing items into familiar, manageable unit often it will occur automatically.

 Types of Long-term memories

 

Explicit (declarative): with conscious recall

• Facts (General Knowledge "Semantic Memory")
• Personally experienced events

Implicit (non-declarative): without conscious recall

• Skills - motor and cognitive
• Classical and operant conditioning effects

Types of retrieval failure

 

Proactive Interference

• The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information 

Retroactive Interference

• The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

Misinformation Effect

• Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.

• Vision
• our most dominating sense
• the height of a wave gives us it's intensity (brightness) 
• the length of the wave give us it's true (color)
• the longer the wave the more red
• the shorter of the wavelength the more violet

• Transduction 
• transforming signals into neural impulses.
• information goes from the sense to the thalamus, then in the various areas in the brain
• light energy to vision 
• chemical energy to smell and taste

• Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic ( three colors) Theory
• types of cones
• red
• blue, green
• these types of cones can make millions of combination of colors

• Opponent-process Theory
• the sensory receptor come in pairs 
• red/ Green, yellow/blue, black and white
• if one color is stimulated the other is in hibited

• Hearing
• we hear sound waves 
• the height of the wave gives us the amplitude of the sound
• the frequency pf the waves give us the pitch of the sound
• the longer the wave length the low the pitch
• the shorter the wave length the higher of the pitch.

•   Transduction in the ear
• sound waves hit the eardrum then anvil then hammer then stirrup then oval window
• everything just vibrating
• then the cochlea vibrates 
• the cochlea is lines with mucus called basilar membrane 
• In the basilar membrane there are hair cell
• when the hair cells vibrate they turn vibration into neural impulses which called organ of corti sent them to thalamus up auditory nerve.

• Pitch theory
• place: theory different hairs vibrate in the cochlea when there are different pitches.
• so some hairs vibrate when they hear high pitches and other vibrate when they hear low pitches

• Frequency Theory
• all of the hair vibrate but at different speeds.

• deafness 
• conduction 
• something goes wrong with the sound and the vibration on the way to the cochlea
• you can place the bones or get a hearing aid to help
• Nerve (sensorineural ) deafness the hair cells in the cochlea get damaged 
• loud noises can cause this type of deafness,
• No way to replace the hairs
• cochlea implant is possible.

• Smell and Taste
• Sensory interaction the principle that one sense may influence another

• Taste
• we have bumps on our tongue called papillae
• Taste buds are located on the papillae ( they area actually all over our mouth)

• Touch 
• receptors located in our skin
• Gate control Theory of pain
• cora contain a neurological gate that blocks the pain signals or allows to pass onto the brain

• Vestibular sense
• tell us where our body in oriented in space our sense of balance 

• Kinesthetic
• tell us where our body part are
• receptors located in our muscle and joints

• Perception
•  the process of organizing and interpreting information enabling us to recognize meaningful object or events 

• Gestalt philosophy
• the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts

• Figure ground relationship
• the organization of the visual field into objects(figure) 
• that stand out from their surrounding (ground)

• grouping
• the perceptual tendency to organized stimuli into groups that we understand
• proximity, similarity,

• depth perception
• the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the reting are two dimensional allows us to judge distance

• Binocular Cues
• the closer an object comes to you the greater the disparity is between the two image
• retinal disparity an binocular cue for seeing depth 

Sensation and perception

sensation: your window to the world

perception:interpreting what comes in your window

• sensation
• the process by which our sensory receptor and nervous system receive stimulus from the environment.

• Bottom-up vs. Top-down processing
• bottom began with the sense receptor work up into 
• Top-down information processing got it by higher leave metal process.

• Absolute Threhold
• the minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus 50% on the time 

• Difference Threhold
• The minimum difference that a person can detect between two stimuli. Also noticeable difference

• Weber's law   
• The idea that to perceive a difference between two stimuli they must differ by a constant percentage not a constant amount. 

• Signal Detection Theory
• predict how we detect stimulus amid other stimuli.

•  Sensory Adaption
• Decreased responsiveness to stimuli due to constant stimulation.

• Selective attention
• The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular single

• Cocktail party effect 
• describes the ability to focus one's listening attention on a single talker among a mixture of conversation and background noises, ignoring other conversation form of selective attention.

perception