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PSY102-011 Exam 2: Review Notes

Lecture 5: Sensation and Perception
5.1 Sensation vs. Perception
• Major Terms:
o Sensation
o Perception
o Illusion
• Blind spot circle demo.
o Area at the back of the eye where the optic nerve exits.
o No photoreceptors present.
• Brain’s ability to fill in missing information and associated brain activity.
• Influential relationship between perception and action
o Baseball player example
o Gun embodiment study example
5.2 Principles of Sensation
• Major Definitions:
o Transduction
o Sense receptor (different one for each sense)
• Major Concepts:
o Know what Sensory Adaption is and examples of it.
o Understand what Absolute Threshold is and how it is assessed.
o Understand what the Just Noticeable Difference is and Weber’s Law.
o Signal Detection Theory
o Understand what the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies means in relation to
sense receptors.
▪ We went over several examples of sensory cross-talk (between different
senses), including phosphenes, McGurk Effect, reading braille, and
Synesthesia.
▪ McGurk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k8fHR9jKVM
▪ Synesthesia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBm4fvCwcGM
5.3 The Role of Attention
• The Role of Attention
o Understand what selective attention is.
o Broadbent’s Filter Theory of Attention
o Dichotic listening task, Treisman’s addition of shadowing, Cocktail party effect
o Inattentional blindness
▪ Example: participants missed the gorilla entering the basketball game
while paying attention to the number of passes
▪ Gorilla video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
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o Change blindness
▪ Spot the difference task.
5.4 Seeing: The Visual System
• Know the properties and characteristics of light.
• Major parts of the eye from notes (do not need to memorize figure with path from eye to
visual cortex with optic nerves and optic tract, etc., just terms we went over in class)
• Understand accommodation
• Pupillary reflex
• Understand the importance of the fovea, where rods and cones are located.
• Understand the Hubel and Wiesel experiment with cats. What is the importance of it?
• Colour vision theories: Trichomatic Theory vs. Opponent Process Theory
5.5 Hearing: The Auditory System
• Know the properties and characteristics of sound.
• Major parts of the ear from notes (do not need to memorize diagram).
• Pitch perception: Place Theory vs. Frequency Theory, what type of tones do they account
for?
5.6 Smell and Taste
• Terms: Olfaction vs. Gustation
• Properties of smell vs. taste
• How do we sense smells vs. tastes with receptors?
5.7 Body Senses
• Somatosensory system
o What types of sensory information is processed here?
o Receptor types: mechanoreceptors (don’t worry about individual
mechanoreceptor names in diagram)
o How we Perceive Touch
o Gate Control Model
o Phantom Pain
• Proprioception
o What types of sensory information is processed here?
• Vestibular Sense
o What types of sensory information is processed here?
5.8 Principles of Perception
Major Terms and Concepts
o Parallel Processing
o Bottom-up Processing
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o Top-Down Processing
• Understand how top-down processing influences our perception of the figures.
• Perceptual constancy
o Shape constancy
o Size constancy
o Colour constancy
• Review Gestalt Principles
• Motion perception
• Phi phenomenon video (FYI: contains flashing lights):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zbzt7Cb2e4
• Depth Perception
o Monocular Depth Cues
o Binocular Depth Cues
• Visual Cliff Experiment
Lecture 6: Consciousness
6.1 What is Consciousness?
• Major Terms/Concepts:
o Consciousness
o Mind Wandering
• Mind Wandering Video: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p09mtl6p/why-it-s-good-to-let-
your-mind-wander
6.2 The Biology of Sleep
• Reasons why we need sleep
• Understand the circadian rhythm: What pattens occur during the day and night?
• Major brain regions involved
• Issues with disruption of circadian rhythms
• Group differences in sleep
6.3 The Stages of Sleep
• Understand the five stages of sleep
• What are characteristics of each stage of sleep?
• Importance of REM
o REM Behaviour Disorder
o Michel Jouvet’s work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js50Orx94iM
• Sleep Disorders, know the different types and characteristics of them.
6.4 Dreams
• Types of Dreams; Lucid Dreams
• Why do we dream?
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• Freud’s Dream Protection Theory

• Activation-Synthesis Theory
• Neurocognitive Theory
6.5 Other Alterations of Consciousness
• Hallucinations
• Déjà vu
• Hypnosis and Hypnosis Myths
• Vegetative State
6.4 Psychoactive Drugs: NOT ON EXAM
Lecture 7: Learning
7.1 What is Learning?
Major terms/concepts to understand:
• Learning
• Habituation
o Sea slug experiment
o Difference between habituation vs. sensory adaptation
• Sensitization
7.2 Classical Conditioning
• Know the steps and terms of Classical Conditioning and Pavlov’s experiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asmXyJaXBC8
Major terms/concepts to understand:
• Acquisition
• Extinction
• Spontaneous Recovery
o Renewal Effect: Setting matters.
• Stimulus Generalization
• Stimulus Discrimination
• Higher Order Conditioning
• Classical conditioning in ads and political campaigns.
• Latent Inhibition
• Acquisition of Phobias through Fear Conditioning
o Little Albert Experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMnhyGozLyE
o Stimulus generalization was present.
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7.3 Operant Conditioning

• What is operant conditioning?
• Differences between operant and classical conditioning
• Thorndike’s Law of Effect
o Understand the Puzzle Box Experiment and its implications
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZVtU08D0Rs
• B.F. Skinner
o Skinner Box: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgowRy2WC0
o Discriminative Stimulus
• Understand the 4 quadrants/types of Operant Conditioning and examples
• Reinforcers
o Positive vs. Negative Reinforcement
• Punishment
o Positive vs. Negative Punishment
o Disadvantages of punishment
• Understand the differences between the key Schedules of Reinforcement
o Continuous vs. Partial
o Four types of Partial: Fixed Ratio, Variable Ratio, Fixed Interval, Variable
Interval
• Shaping
• Chaining
7.4 Cognitive Models of Learning
• Latent Learning
o Understand the methods and implications of Tolman and Honzik’s Rat Study
• Observational Learning
o Albert Bandura’s study
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmBqwWlJg8U
• Mirror Neurons
7.5 Biological Influences on Learning
• Conditioned Taste Aversion
o How does this differ from classical conditioning?
• John Garcia’s study
o Pairing of taste with nausea vs. other sensory stimuli, what happened?
• Preparedness
• Mineka and Cook Study with observational learning, fear conditioning, and monkeys.
o What happened?