Psychology 101 Terms- WGU Exam with complete verified solutions 2024

cerebellum (balance, posture, coordination and speech) Coordinates voluntary movements like posture, balance, coordination, and speech. Results in smooth and balanced muscular activity. Thalamus (consciousness, sleep and sensory interpretation) It's a structure in the middle of the brain. It is located between the cerebral cortex and the midbrain. It works to correlate several important processes, including consciousness, sleep, and sensory interpretation. DOES NOT FILTER THE SENSE OF SMELL. Hypothalamus (secretes neurohormones) Synthesizes and secretes certain neurohormones, also called releasing hormones or hypothalamic hormones. These stimulate or inhibit the secretion of pituitary hormones. Corpus callosum (integrate motor, sensory and cognitive performance onto one side of the brain to the other) "Consists of about 200 million axons that interconnect the two hemispheres. The primary function of the corpus callosum is to integrate motor, sensory, and cognitive performances between the cerebral cortex on one side of the brain to the same region on the other side". google term Hippocampus Associated with long-term memory Cerebrum or cortex (largest part of the brain...thought and action. Divided into four lobes) Largest part of the human brain, associated with thought and action. The cerebral cortex is divided into four sections, called "lobes". These are the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. Frontal lobe Supports planning, organizing, problem solving, selective attention, personality and a variety of "higher cognitive functions" such as behavior and emotions. Parietal Lobe Note! Can be divided into two functional regions. One Involves sensation and perception and the other is works with integrating sensory input....primarily with the visual system. The first function integrates sensory information to form a single percept...also known as cognition Occipital lobe Visual processing center Temporal Lobe It's involved in high-level auditory processing Neurotransmitters Chemical messengers that cross through the synaptic gaps between neurons. When let go by the sending neuron, neurotransmitters travel across the synapse and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron...it influences whether a neuron will generate a neural impulse. Synapse gap The Junction between the axon of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. Piaget's Theory Sensorimotor (object permanence, stranger anxiety), Pre-operational (pretend play, egocentrism), concrete (conservation, mathematical transformation), formal (abstract logic, moral reasoning). Pancreas Secretes hormones that are designed to keep the body supplied with fuel that stores and produces energy. Pituitary gland Pea sized gland that controls the body's growth. It secretes hormones that influence peoples responses to pain...also signals ovaries and testes to make hormones. Known as the "master gland". Absolute threshold Smallest detectable level of a stimulus. Example: Experiment on sound detention... leader presents a sound with varying levels of volume. The smallest level that someone is able to hear is the absolute threshold. Example: A drop of perfume in a huge house. Affects all of our senses. Developmental psychology Examines physical, cognitive, and social development across the life span. Focuses on three major issues which are nature vs. nurture,Continuity and stages, and Stability and change Social facilitation Also known as the audience effect! It's the tendency for people to perform differently when in the presence of others than when they're alone. When someone is in the presence of others, they tend to perform better on simple or well-rehearsed tasks but worse on complex/new ones. Ingroup bias The tendency to favor your own/someone's own group. It's whatever group you associate with at a particular time (ex: on a baseball team that meets once a week. You're part of a group, which means you're in the ingroup. The opponents are in the outgroup). Group polarization When people are placed into a group and these people have to deal a situation, the group as a whole has some attitude toward the scenario. Over time paired with group discussion, the group's attitude toward that situation may change (good or bad). EX: a new policy is discussed...the team doesn't like it (initial group feeling). After discussing the policy in more detail the team is even more against the policy. Note: The attitude has been strengthened, making the group more polarized. Frustration-aggression hypothesis The hypothesis tries to explain wh