This document provides an overview of introductory psychology concepts and study material for Psyc 100 in April 2020. It covers the six main approaches to psychology, research methods including true experiments and correlational studies, important figures in the field, brain anatomy, perception, sleep, and altered states of consciousness. Key topics include the differences between descriptive and inferential statistics, manipulating versus measuring variables, visual illusions, sleep cycles, and Freudian dream analysis.

1. INTRO TO PSYCHOLOGY PSY 100 - STUDY MATERIAL & NOTES, APRIL 2020
1. Know the six approaches to Psychology and the focus of each
a. Psychoanalytic (Freud) – unconscious mind that effects our behavior, childhood & sex
on personality development
b. Behavorial (Watson, Skinner) – concentrates on what the subject does rather than
feels
c. Gestalt (Kohler, Wertheimer) – whole experience is the sum of the parts, need all of
consciousness to understand
d. Humanistic (Maslow, Rogers) – all humans are motivated to reach full potential
e. Cognitive – study cognition instead of behavior
f. Biological/Medical/Physiological – interdisciplinary work
2. Understand the basic scientific approach as outlined in class, and the important differences
between a true experiment and the correlational approach.
​Modify
Support
True Experiment Correlational Method
1) Randomly Divide Subjects 1) Measure Two Variables
2) Manipulate the Independent
Variable
2) Calculate the Relationship
3) Measure the Dependent Variable
Example: Mean Coffee gp = 75 bpm
Mean no Coffee gp = 65 bpm
Example: Pearson’s correlation = +.90
May infer that coffee CAUSED an increase in
Heart Rate
Support for hypothesis but cannot infer Causality

2. 3. William James, Whilhelm Wundt, Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, James Watson, Titchener
a. William James – functionalism focusing on consciousness not the structure (disagreed
with structuralism), Stream of Consciousness where you may focus on something and
then find yourself thinking of something else
b. Whilhelm Wundt – introspection
c. Charles Darwin – evolution, natural selection, no matter what there is normal distribution
d. Sir Francis Galton – Darwin’s cousin, Hereditary Genius (book) saying certain things such
as intelligence ran in families, anthrometric (measuring everything they could about
humans)
e. James Watson – Little Albert study (scared orphan by putting rat in front of child and then
loud noise behind head to prove that phobias were learned)
f. Tichener – student of Wundt, came to US and brought introspection, Structuralism:
attempting to study consciousness by breaking it into basic structures and elements
4. What is introspection?
a. To look within, examine your own thoughts
5. A ​testable hypothesis must be ​disconfirmable or ​falsifiable so that an experiment can either
support it or not. Some people might instead explain one outcome with one explanation and a
second outcome with a second explanation and a third with a third and so on. They make
attempts to disprove anything. They just find alternate explanations. It is always easy to offer an
explanation of any finding after the fact. The trick in science is to make a prediction and ONLY
THEN collect the data to see if it comes out as predicted. .
6. We begin a true experiment by ​randomly dividing subjects into 2 or more groups in order to
get groups that are equal on uncontrollable variables such as age, Intelligence, gender and so
on. By doing this we have equaled the effect of all such ​extraneous variables​. We have not
actually controlled those variables, just evened out any effect they might have on the Dependent
variable. If we don’t do this, any of those extraneous (third) variables might explain any effect we
observe on the dependent variable and we could not infer causality.
7. We ​randomly select subjects in some research in order to get a sample that represents a
population of interest. This allows us to generalize any findings from the sample to the larger
population
8. understand the important difference between ​True Experiments and ​Correlational Studies
and how that relates to causation
True Experiment Correlational Method
1) Randomly Divide Subjects 1) Measure Two Variables
2) Manipulate the Independent
Variable
2) Calculate the Relationship
3) Measure the Dependent Variable
Example: Mean Coffee gp = 75 bpm
Mean no Coffee gp = 65 bpm
Example: Pearson’s correlation = +.90
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3. May infer that coffee CAUSED an increase in
Heart Rate
Support for hypothesis but cannot infer Causality
9. Study the fields of specialization in the text book,
10. Charles Darwin’s brilliant book ​On the Origin of Species pointed out that natural selection acts
on ​individual differences in the population and that natural selection could not occur if there
were no ​natural variation in a population to begin with. This led to investigations of individual
differences in people, which led to psychology.
Statistics and Methods
11. Area under the normal curve (about 34%, 14%, 2%, .13%)
12. the dependent variable and the independent variable.
a. independent variable: condition that the experiment manipulates
b. dependent variable: resulting behavior that is measured/recorded
13. descriptive and inferential branches of statistics
a. Descriptive: summarizing large amounts of data into a form that is easily interpreted.
Graphs, measures of central tendency, measures of variation.
b. Inferential: using statistical procedures to draw conclusions about the meaning of data
14. There are s measures of central tendency (mean, median and mode) and 3 measures of
spread or variability range, standard deviation and variance)
a. Central Tendency
i. mean – arithmetic average
ii. median/50​th​
percentile – number in the middle
iii. mode – number that occurs the most often
b. Spread/Variability
i. Range – subtract highest from lowest
ii. Standard deviation – how far groups lie from average
iii. Variance - the standard deviation squared
15. What does it mean to manipulate a variable?
16. Verbally explain the standard deviation.
17. Correlations have two independent qualities, ​Magnitude and ​Direction​. -.95 is still a very
strong correlation. It just happens to be negative. The weakest correlation would be 0, which is
actually no correlation at all.
18. Know what a z-score is. It is also called a standardized score. Such conversions allow us to
compare scores that are on different scales with different means and standard deviations or even
different units of measure. For example we might say that since your z score for height is.67
while your z score for weight is .80, you are heavier than you are tall.
a. z-score is specific score – mean of specific score divided by the standard deviation (+1
to -1)
19. Understand the ​third variable problem and the ​directionality problem as they relate to
correlational studies.
a. Third Variable problem: a factor, related to each of the other two, might account for a
relationship between the two factors that does not exist
b. Directionality problem: question of which variable is causing the other to change
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4. 20. In the book, read about research methods other than true experiments and correlational
studies.
a. Case study – in-depth exploration of either single/small group of subjects who are
examined individually
b. Surveys and Questionnaires – representative group of people questioned about
behaviors/attitudes. Representative sample is the ideal sample where subjects accurately
represent larger population about which we want to draw conclusions. Random sample selected
by randomization to assure every member of population of interest has equal chance of being
selected.
c. Observational – researchers observe their subjects as they go about activities, naturalistic
observation
Brain and Behavior
21. Know the lobes of the cerebral cortex and the one thing mentioned in class that happens in
each lobe. Also know Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.
a. Broca’s area – speech, language production, left hemisphere in frontal lobe
b. Wernike’s area – understanding language, temporal lobe
c. Frontal lobe – has Broca’s area, motor cortex (control, planning, execution of motor
movement)
d. Temporal lobe – hearing, auditory cortex (receives information directly from auditory
system), Wernike’s area
e. Occipital lobe – visual cortex (network of neurons devoted to vision)
f. Parietal lobe – somatosensory cortex (sensory info about touch, pressure, pain, temp.,
body position)
22. Know the ​Primary Visual Cortex (PVC) and the ​Visual Association Cortex (VAC) and what
each region does.
a. Primary Visual Cortex – geography of visual field retained here (if looking straight at spot in
the back of the room, in your visual clock you see the clock, podium in visual field – all of that
retained in PVC)
b. Visual Association Cortex – where you recognize things (oh, that’s a clock…)
Perception
23. There are lots of terms in this chapter. Know them all, but also notice how they fit
together. In college it is not enough to know every term. You also have to understand
the organization. Why do certain terms go together? For example, what do
convergence and binocular disparity have in common? Spend some time studying the
organization or outline of every lecture
See perception Chapter 4 notes.
24. Be sure to look in the book for the several different visual illusions mentioned there. Know the
names of each illusion.
a. Ames Illusion – person on one side of the room looks huge compared to the other
(conflicting environmental cues)
b. Muller-Lyer illusion – two vertical lines with arrows on top in different directions the
same length even though one looks longer (p.127) (size constancy)
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5. c. Moon illusion – when moon is low on the horizon it looks bigger than when it is
overhead, but it’s really the same size on the retina (size constancy)
d. Ponzo illusion – two horizontal lines (p.130) are equal even though we perceive the
distant one as longer (illusion of perspective)
e. Poggendorff illusion – looks like two diagonal lines wouldn’t cross if they continued
but they would (p.130) (shape constancy)
f. Stereogram – illusion of depth created from flat 2D images
Sleep and Altered Consciousness
Melatonin​, the rouge and mirror test
Alpha waves​ produced when relaxed but awake.
Beta waves​ produced when wide-awake.
Dreams have both a ​Manifest​ (apparent) content and a ​Latent​ (hidden) content.
The ​Hypnogogic​ state occurs between waking and sleeping.
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