INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

COURSE OBJECTIVES

• To explore the subject matter of the field and to become familiar with the vocabulary and concepts
of the field and with some of the research findings upon which our knowledge of human thought
and behavior is based.
• To emphasize development of critical thinking skills and to prepare to be a cautious and analytical
consumer of information that is proclaimed scientific or based on research.
• Understanding and acceptance of yourself and others that will enrich your personal relationships. •
Explore the historical roots of different theories of psychology and understand its importance. •
Identify the differences in theories of psychology and its application to everyday situation. •
Demonstrate the use of various theories to understand individual differences through analysis of
various cases presented in class.
• Appreciate and respect the individual differences among peoples through this course.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

UNIT 1 The Nature of Psychology ........................................................... 1-14 UNIT 2

Psychological Research ........................................................... 15-24 UNIT 3 Biological
Bases of Behavior ............................................... 25-34 UNIT 4 Human Development
........................................................... 35-46 UNIT 5 Sensation and Perception
........................................................... 47-58 UNIT 6 States of Consciousness
........................................................... 59-68 UNIT 7 Learning and Memory
........................................................... 69-78 UNIT 8 Thinking, Language and Intelligence
................................... 79-98
UNIT 9 Motivation and Emotion ........................................................... 99-108 UNIT 10
Personality .................................................................................. 109-133 UNIT 11 Stress,
Health and Adjustment ............................................... 134-144 UNIT 12 Abnormal Behavior
...................................................................... 145-168 UNIT 13 Methods of Therapy
...................................................................... 169-179 UNIT 14 Social Psychology
...................................................................... 180-187

UNIT 1: The Nature of Psychology

I. LEARNING OBJECTIVE/OUTCOMES

1. Understand the historical background of Psychology.

2. Identify the traditional schools of Psychology.
3. Determine the different fields of specialization in Psychology.
4. Identify the goals of Psychology: to describe, explain, predict and control.

II. INTRODUCTION

“What made you decide to take up this course?”

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This question may prompt you to pause and go back to the time when you were contemplating on what
program you will get in college. Certainly, you based your decision on a lot of factors that made you
finally say to yourself that Psychology is the one.

Like everyone else, you probably have so many questions to yourself that still unanswered. These
curiosities start as you grew and observe people around including the environment you were in. You
might be wondering why some people became mentally challenge; how others became very successful
and yet extremely unhappy; How life has become more complicated now when it was very simple back
then during your childhood years? Sometimes you think it is not fair. Oftentimes you find it difficult to
understand yourself when in fact to some it seems very easy? While there may be a lot of “why’s and
how’s” running to your mind, luckily, someone had mentioned this course to you. Or while you are
browsing the internet, you came across about Psychology… this may be the reason why you are here,
hoping to find relief to your longed self- queries…

In this chapter, you will be toured in how Psychology was developed and its significance as an
academic discipline and mental health profession. You will also know that Psychology has different
schools of thought and fields of specialization. The last part will prove that its goals will provide how this
program is the best choice for you.

Now brace yourself because you are about to learn and enjoy this very interesting topic- Psychology.

III. LESSON PROPER

Lesson 1: History of Psychology

What is Psychology?
Psychology derived from two Greek words “psyche”, means mind, spirit or soul and “logos “means
science, study or discipline.
To the Greeks, psychology is simply a study of the soul.
In 1590, the word psychology was coined by a German scientist, Rudolf Glocenius. While In
1693, it was originally spelled as P-s-y-c-o-l-o-g-y that first appeared in the dictionary. And
what makes Psychology unique?
Its basic definitions explained that:
Psychology is the scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental
processes •The Scientific Method
It consists of a set of orderly steps used to analyze and solve problems
•Behavior
The means and actions by which organisms, including both animals and humans, adjust to their
environment.
It is everything we do that can be directly observed. It was previously interpreted as the
movements of the body that could be seen or observed. Recently, it has broadened to include
feelings, attitudes and mental process that are not directly observed but can be inferred from
external behavior.
•Mental Processes
The private, internal workings of the human mind.
These are internal subjective experiences inferred from behavior – the sensations, perception,
dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. It is an activity of organism that involves the mind like
cognition, memory, learning, problem solving etc.

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So it is formally defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes (Hilgard &
Atkinson). This definition usually included the investigation of animal as well as human behavior on the
assumption that:
1. Information obtained from experiments with subhuman species could be generalized to
human beings.
2. Animal behavior was of interest in its own right.

It also reflects psychology’s concern with the objective study of observable (overt) behavior, while
recognizing the importance of understanding mental processes and behavior that cannot be directly
observed (covert).

Silvermann defines Psychology as the study of human beings– how they behave, how they feel, how
they think, how they adjust or how they get along with one another and how they become the
individuals that they are.
❖ HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology has both a traditional and a scientific history. Traditionally, the earliest speculation
concerning the relationship of events was in terms of causal agents. Gods or spirits (supernatural
agents) were believed to direct man’s activities. This idea is called animism. As an experimental
science, it dates back from about 1875 and Psychology’s birth was set in 1879 through Wilhelm
Wundt.

DIFFERENT PERIODS:
A. Ancient Period- prevalence of belief in supernatural to cause people’s activities. B.
Greek Period- Greek philosophers laid down the earliest foundations of psychology. C.
Medieval Period- Merging of science of mind and religion to explain fate of man. D.
19th Century/ Modern Period- beginning of experimental/ scientific psychology. E.
20th Century- flourished of psychology in different parts of the world.

VERY IMPORTANT PERSONS:

The Greek Philosophers

Aristotle (4th Century B.C., 384-322 BC) is regarded as the Father of Psychology. According to him,
knowledge is not inborn; instead it is acquired through experiences. He postulates that the mind at birth
was a blank sheet (tabula rasa) and that experiences an individual encounters in his lifetime are
impressed on his mind. He distinguished 3 functions of the soul; vegetative (basic maintenance of life);
appetitive (motives and desires); and rational (the governing functions) which is located in the heart.
Plato (427-347 B.C.) conceived the existence of soul in the body, which is God-given. He divided the
human mind into three parts: the rational part, the will, and the appetites. Ideally the will supports the
rational element, which in turn controls the appetites. If the rational element is not developed, the
individual behaves immorally; hence immorality is a consequence of ignorance. He described
knowledge as a higher form of awareness, because it is gained from reason rather than from sense
experience.
Hippocrates (0460-377 B.C.) is an ancient Greek physician; he is called the Father of Medicine. He
was regarded as the greatest physician of his time. He based his medical practice on observations and
on the study of the human body. He held the belief that illness had a physical and rational explanation.
He

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rejected the views of his time that considered illness to be caused by superstitions and by possession of
evil spirits and disfavor of the gods.
Medieval Period
The church father, St. Augustine (1227-1274) had an interesting idea about mind. He said that the
human mind couldn’t gain knowledge from sense perception alone. He also rejected Plato’s theory of
ideas. Instead, according to Augustine, knowledge is acquired on account of divine illumination. His
insightful descriptions of subjective events begin the tradition of introspection (process of mental self
analysis) and phenomenology (study of subjective experience) in psychology.
An interesting overall explanation provided by Saint Thomas Aquinas (354 430 B.C.) was that God
created human beings so that God had someone who loved him/her. Also, that man should live to enjoy
their existence in God. Aquinas also believed that the human person is a soul-body unity. The soul is
immortal. He combined the science of mind and religion to explain the idea of immortality.
The Pre-Modern Period

Rene Descartes (1649) is recognized as the founder of modern philosophy. He formulated the theory of
mind/body interaction. He proposed a mechanism for automatic reaction in response to external events.
It was Descartes’ articulation of this mechanism for automatic, differentiated reaction that led to his
generally being credited with the founding of reflex theory. He stated that mind like machine can be
studied.

John Locke (1690) introduced the idea that all experiences that be analyze. He conceived the idea of
tabula-rasa of which at birth the mind is like a blank sheet that gathers its contents from experiences
that an individual encounters during his lifetime
nd th
Modern or Scientific Psychology (2 Half of the 19 Century)
• German Scientists:

Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory in 1879 at Leipzig, Germany. He was
considered as the Father of Experimental Psychology.
Gustav Fechner and Ernst Weber founded a new discipline, Psychophysics, which is concerned
with the measurement of psychological effects of sensation

Psychology in Different Parts of the World (20th Century)

o Psychology in America
William James was considered as the Dean of American psychologists and one of the founders of
Functionalism. He stressed the importance of observing and quantifying behavior. He advocated the
use of animals in psychological research.
Stanley Hall pioneered in child study movement, wrote on child, adolescent and senescent psychology.
He was considered as the Father of Child Study Movement.
James McKeen Cattell was considered as the Father of Mental Testing Movement. He developed
intelligence tests for use in America
o Psychology in France

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Philippe Pinel provided psychological interpretation of insanity.
Anton Mesmer developed hypnotism for cure of behavior disorder.
Alfred Binet developed intelligence test to identify between mentally retarded children from
normal ones. He is the Father of Intelligence Testing
o Psychology in Vienna

Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis, which is a branch of Mental Psychology. He concluded that
mental disorder might be caused purely by psychological factor rather than organic factors. He proposed
that dreams are the disguised expressions of unconscious wishes. He emphasized libidinal (sex) urges
of a person
Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist but a follower of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. He is one of the
best known contemporary contributors to dream analysis and symbolization. He develops his theory the
origin of neurosis. He established Analytic Psychology
Karen Horney was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career.
She was a Neo-Freudian but questioned some traditional Freudian views, particularly her theory of
sexuality. She disagreed with Freud about inherent differences in the psychology of men and women,
and traced such differences to society and culture rather than biology. She rejected his concept of penis
envy, declaring it to be both inaccurate and demeaning to women. She instead proposed the concept of
womb envy in which men experience feelings of inferiority because they cannot give birth to children,
thus founding Feminist Psychology.
o Psychology in England

Charles Darwin made the theory of evolution which established the continuity between man and
animals. He made Comparative Psychology important.

Sir Francis Galton devised the earliest test to determine hereditary influences to intelligence. He
devised statistical technique (correlation) to determine relationship of one variable (first trait) to another
variable (second trait). He used the technique to compare the intelligence of parents to their offspring.
Lesson 2: SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologists have opposing viewpoints and theories on the nature and functions of psychology. When
a large number of psychologists support a certain viewpoint, they are called a “school”. Between 1879
and 1930, several important schools of psychology developed.
STRUCTURALISM grew out of the works of James, Wundt, and their associates. The chief purpose of
this psychology was to describe, analyze, and explain conscious experience, particularly feelings and
sensations. The structuralists attempted to give a scientific analysis of conscious experience by
breaking it down into its specific components or structures. They primarily used a method of research
called introspection. In this technique, subjects were trained to observe and report as accurately as they
could their mental processes, feelings, and experiences.
Findings/ Results of their study were:
1. Mental states are responsible for man’s behavior.
2. Psychology is described as man and his experiences.
3. There are 8 kinds of sensation: visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and cutaneous (external
sensation), organic, vestibular, and kinesthetic (internal sensation).

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4. Complex experiences are made of elements such as images.

FUNCTIONALISM was formed as a reaction to the structuralism and was heavily influenced by the
work of William James and the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin. Functionalists sought to explain
the mental processes in a more systematic and accurate manner. Functionalists focused on the
purpose of consciousness and behavior, instead on the elements of consciousness
Findings/ Results of their study were:
1. Learning is a means of man’s adjustment to his surroundings.
2. Mental states influences man’s behavior.
3. Stimulus- response (SR) explains man’s behavior.

BEHAVIORISM was introduced in 1913 by John B. Watson, an American psychologist. Behaviorist

believed that observable behavior, not inner experience, was the only reliable source of information.
This concentration on observable events was a reaction against the structuralists' emphasis on
introspection. They stressed the importance of the environment in shaping an individual's behavior.
They chiefly looked for connections between observable behavior and stimuli from the environment.
Findings/ Results of their study were:
1. Behavior is explained in terms of reflex and conditioned reflex.
2. Man’s conduct is not due to consciousness but to stimulus.
3. Objective method not introspection should be used in overt behavior.

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY was founded about 1912 by Max Wertheimer, a German psychologist. Like
behaviorism, it developed as a reaction against structuralism. Gestalt psychologists believed that
human beings perceive the external world as an organized pattern, not as individual sensations. The
Gestalt is a German word meaning pattern, form, or shape. The Gestaltists believed that behavior
should be studied as an organized pattern rather than as separate incidents of stimulus and response.

Findings/ Results of their study were:

1. The whole experience is more than the sum of its parts (Gestalt principle).
2. A change in any element changes the whole.
3. The mind functions as a whole unit.

PSYCHOANALYSIS was founded by the Austrian doctor Sigmund Freud in 1800. Psychoanalysis was
based on the theory that behavior is determined by powerful inner forces, most of which are buried in
the unconscious mind. According to Freud and other psychoanalysts (Carl Jung, Karen Horney, and
Alfred Adler), from early childhood, people repress (force out of conscious awareness) any desires or
needs that are unacceptable to themselves or to society which can cause personality disturbances, self
destructive behavior, or even physical symptoms.
Findings/ Results of their study were:
1. LIBIDO THEORY: Sex urges are responsible for man’s behavior.
2. Personality is a stronger force in determining human behavior (extroversion –
introversion). 3. The unconscious attempt of an individual to overcome inferiority is a stronger
driving force.
PURPOSIVISM contends that mental life is hormic or goal-seeking. William McDougall, the foremost
Purposivist, maintains that the driving forces for consciousness are innate urges or tendencies, chief of
which are the submissive and self-assertive tendencies. Which are exercised in goal-seeking. James'

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preoccupation with instincts brought the subject to the fore. But it was McDougall who made instincts
central in behavior. His definition of conduct is pointed toward a clearly defined purposiveness.

Findings/ Results of their study were:

1. Striving is the cause of all behavior.
2. Ductless glands produce hormones in life.
3. Objects, movements and behavior have definite purposes.
 Lesson 3: FIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY

The Subfields of Psychology: Psychology’s Family Tree

As the study of psychology has grown, it has given rise to a number of subfields which can be likened to
an extended family, with assorted nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and cousins who, although
they may not interact on a day-to-day basis, are related to one another, because they share a common
goal: understanding behavior. One way to identify the key subfields is to look at some of the basic
questions about behavior that they address.

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WHAT ARE THE BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF BEHAVIOR?
In the most fundamental sense, people are biological organisms. Behavioral neuroscience is the
subfield of psychology that focuses on how the brain and the nervous system, as well as other
biological aspects of the body, determine behavior.

HOW DO PEOPLE SENSE, PERCEIVE, LEARN, AND THINK ABOUT THE WORLD? If you have ever
wondered why you are susceptible to optical illusions, how your body registers pain, or how to make
the most of your study time, an experimental psychologist can answer your questions. Experimental
psychology is the branch of psychology that studies the processes of sensing, perceiving, learning, and
thinking about the world. (The term experimental psychologist is somewhat misleading: Psychologists
in every specialty area use experimental techniques.)

WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF CHANGE AND STABILITY IN BEHAVIOR ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN?
A baby producing her first smile . . . taking his first step . . . saying her first word. These universal
milestones in development are also singularly special and unique for each person. Developmental
psychology studies how people grow and change from the moment of conception through death.
Personality psychology focuses on the consistency in people’s behavior over time and the traits that
differentiate one person from another.

HOW DO PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AFFECT PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH? Frequent

depression, stress, and fears that prevent people from carrying out their normal activities are topics that
interest a health psychologist, a clinical psychologist, and a counseling psychologist. Health psychology
explores the relationship between psychological factors and physical ailments or disease. Clinical
psychology deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological disorders. Clinical
psychologists are trained to diagnose and treat problems that range from the crises of everyday life,
such as unhappiness over the breakup of a relationship, to more extreme conditions, such as profound,
lingering depression. Some clinical psychologists also research and investigate issues that vary from
identifying the early signs of psychological disturbance to studying the relationship between family
communication patterns and psychological disorders.
Counseling psychology focuses primarily on educational, social, and career adjustment problems.
Almost every college has a center staffed with counseling psychologists. This is where students can get
advice on the kinds of jobs they might be best suited for, on methods of studying effectively, and on
strategies for resolving everyday difficulties, such as problems with roommates and concerns about a
specific professor’s grading practices.

HOW DO OUR SOCIAL NETWORKS AFFECT BEHAVIOR?

Our complex networks of social interrelationships are the focus for many subfields of psychology. For
example, social psychology is the study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by
others. Social psychologists concentrate on such diverse topics as human aggression, liking and loving,
persuasion, and conformity.
Cross-cultural psychology investigates the similarities and differences in psychological functioning in
and across various cultures and ethnic groups. For example, cross-cultural psychologists examine how
cultures differ in their use of punishment during child rearing.

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EXPANDING PSYCHOLOGY’S FRONTIERS
Evolutionary Psychology. Evolutionary psychology considers how behavior is influenced by our genetic
inheritance from our ancestors. The evolutionary approach suggests that the chemical coding of
information in our cells not only determines traits such as hair color and race but also holds the key to
understanding a broad variety of behaviors that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce.
Behavioral Genetics. Another rapidly growing area in psychology focuses on the biological mechanisms,
such as genes and chromosomes that enable inherited behavior to unfold. Behavioral genetics seeks to
understand how we might inherit certain behavioral traits and how the environment influences whether
we actually display such traits (Moffi tt & Caspi, 2007; Rende, 2007; Maxson, 2013).
Clinical Neuropsychology. Clinical neuropsychology unites the areas of neuroscience and clinical
psychology: It focuses on the origin of psychological disorders in biological factors. Building on
advances in our understanding of the structure and chemistry of the brain, this specialty has already led
to promising new treatments for psychological disorders as well as debates over the use of medication
to control behavior (Boake, 2008; Holtz, 2011).

Lesson 4: GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY

As you consider the many topics and perspectives that make up psychology, ranging from a narrow
focus on minute biochemical influences on behavior to a broad focus on social behaviors, you might
find yourself thinking that the discipline lacks cohesion. However, the field is more unified than a first
glimpse might suggest. For one thing, no matter what topical area a psychologist specializes in, he or
she will rely primarily on one of the five major perspectives. For example, a developmental psychologist
who specializes in the study of children could make use of the cognitive perspective or the
psychodynamic perspective or any of the other major perspectives.

Psychologists also agree on what the key issues of the field are. Although there are major arguments
regarding how best to address and resolve the key issues, psychology is a unified science, because
psychologists of all perspectives agree that the issues must be addressed if the field is going to
advance. As you contemplate these key issues, try not to think of them in “either/or” terms. Instead,
consider the opposing viewpoints on each issue as the opposite ends of a continuum, with the positions
of individual psychologists typically falling somewhere between the two ends.

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The figure above shows the issues that Psychology aim to understand. First is the issued on Nature vs
Nurture. A psychologist’s take on this issue depends partly on which major perspective he or she
subscribes to. For example, developmental psychologists whose focus is on how people grow and
change throughout the course of their lives may be most interested in learning more about hereditary
influences if they follow a neuroscience perspective. In contrast, developmental psychologists who are
proponents of the behavioral perspective are more likely to focus on environment (Rutter, 2002, 2006;
Barrett, 2011). However, every psychologist would agree that neither nature nor nurture alone is the sole
determinant of behavior; rather, it is a combination of the two. In a sense, then, the real controversy
involves how much of our behavior is caused by heredity and how much is caused by environmental
influences.

A second major question addressed by psychologists’ concerns conscious versus unconscious causes
of behavior. How much of our behavior is produced by forces of which we are fully aware, and how
much is due to unconscious activity—mental processes that are not accessible to the conscious mind?
This question represents one of the great controversies in the field of psychology. For example, clinical
psychologists adopting a psychodynamic perspective argue that psychological disorders are brought
about by unconscious factors, whereas psychologists employing the cognitive perspective suggest that
psychological disorders largely are the result of faulty thinking processes.

The next issue is observable behavior versus internal mental processes. Should psychology concentrate
solely on behavior that can be seen by outside observers, or should it focus on unseen thinking
processes? Some psychologists, particularly those relying on the behavioral perspective, contend that
the only legitimate source of information for psychologists is behavior that can be observed directly.
Other psychologists, building on the cognitive perspective, argue that what goes on inside a person’s
mind is critical to understanding behavior, and so we must concern ourselves with mental processes.

Free will versus determinism is another key issue. How much of our behavior is a matter of free will
(choices made freely by an individual), and how much is subject to determinism, the notion that behavior
is largely produced by factors beyond people’s willful control? An issue long debated by philosophers,
the free-will/determinism argument is also central to the fi eld of psychology (Cary, 2007; Nichols, 2011;
Vonasch & Baumeister, 2013).

The last of the key issues concerns individual differences versus universal principles. Specifically, how
much of our behavior is a consequence of our unique and special qualities, the individual differences
that differentiate us from other people? Conversely, how much reflects the culture and society in which
we live, stemming from universal principles that underlie the behavior of all humans? Psychologists
who rely on the neuroscience perspective tend to look for universal principles of behavior, such as how
the nervous system operates or the way certain hormones automatically prime us for sexual activity.
Such psychologists concentrate on the similarities in our behavioral destinies despite vast differences in
our upbringing. In contrast, psychologists who employ the humanistic perspective focus more on the
uniqueness of every individual. They consider every person’s behavior a reflection of distinct and
special individual qualities.

Psychology’s Future

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We have examined psychology’s foundations, but what does the future hold for the discipline? Although
the course of scientific development is notoriously difficult to predict, several trends seem likely:

• As its knowledge base grows, psychology will become increasingly specialized and new
perspectives will evolve. For example, our growing understanding of the brain and the nervous
system, combined with scientific advances in genetics and gene therapy, will allow psychologists
to focus on prevention of psychological disorders rather than only on their treatment (Cuijpers et
al., 2008).
• The evolving sophistication of neuroscientific approaches is likely to have an increasing influence
over other branches of psychology. For instance, social psychologists already are increasing
their understanding of social behaviors such as persuasion by using brain scans as part of an
evolving field known as social neuroscience. Furthermore, as neuroscientific techniques
become more sophisticated, there will be new ways of applying that knowledge, as we discuss
in Neuroscience in Your Life (Bunge & Wallis, 2008; Cacioppo & Decety, 2009).
• Psychology’s influence on issues of public interest also will grow. The major problems of our
time—such as violence, terrorism, racial and ethnic prejudice, poverty, and environmental and
 technological disasters—have important psychological components (Zimbardo, 2004; Hobfoll,
Hall, & Canetti-Nisim, 2007; Marshall, Bryant, & Amsel, 2007).
• The public’s view of psychology will become more informed. Surveys show that the public at large
does not fully understand the scientific underpinnings of the field. However, as the field itself
embraces such practices as using scientific evidence to choose the best treatments for
psychological disorders, psychology’s reputation will grow (Lilienfeld, 2012).
• Finally, as the population becomes more diverse, issues of diversity—embodied in the study of
racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural factors—will become more important to psychologists
providing services and doing research. The result will be a field that can provide an
understanding of human behavior in its broadest sense (Chang & Sue, 2005; Quintana et al.,
2006).

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IV. ACTIVITIES/EXERCISES

TITLE: WHAT PSYCHOLOGISTS DO?

Objective: To determine the services performed by psychologists

Instruction: Psychologist can work in a wide variety of settings. Find out what they do in the different
work settings and areas of specialization in psychology. Use this table to write your answers. Refer to
psychology book or psychology internet website. Give at least 2 functions of psychologist in each
setting. Write your references.
Work Setting Typical Activities Specialization

A. Educational

1. _________________________
_________________________
__________________ __ _
__
2.
_________________________
 __

B. Industrial __________________________ _________________________

1.
__________________________ __
_
__________________
_________________________

2. __

C. Clinical __________________________ _________________________

__
1.
__________________________
_ _________________________
2. __

References: ___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________

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V. ASSESSMENT

Write the letter of your answer on the space provided. Choose from below.

______1. Joan, a college freshman, is worried about her grades. She needs to learn better
organizational skills and study habits to cope with the demands of college.
______2. At what age do children generally begin to acquire an emotional attachment to their fathers?

______3. It is thought that pornographic films that depict violence against women may prompt
aggressive behavior in some men.
______4. What chemicals are released in the human body as a result of a stressful event? What are
their effects on behavior?

______5. Luis is unique in his manner of responding to crisis situations, with an even temperament and
a positive outlook.
______6. The teachers of 8-year-old Jack are concerned that he has recently begun to withdraw
socially and to show little interest in schoolwork.
______7. Janetta’s job is demanding and stressful. She wonders if her lifestyle is making her more
prone to certain illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease.
______8. A psychologist is intrigued by the fact that some people are much more sensitive to painful
stimuli than others are.

______9. A strong fear of crowds leads a young man to seek treatment for his problem.
______10. What mental strategies are involved in solving complex word problems?

______11. What teaching methods most effectively motivate elementary school students to
successfully accomplish academic tasks?

______12. Jessica is asked to develop a management strategy that will encourage safer work practices
in an assembly plant.
g. clinical psychology

h. counseling psychology
a. behavioral neuroscience
i. educational psychology
b. experimental psychology
j. school psychology k.
c. cognitive psychology d.
social psychology l.
developmental psychology
industrial psychology
e. personality psychology f.
health psychology

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VI. SUMMARY

o There are three important elements in the definition of psychology: science, behavior, and mental
processes.
o The history of psychology has both a traditional and scientific history. During the ancient times,
belief about cause of behavior was by supernatural agents. Greeks provided the early
explanation of behavior, the founding of psychological laboratory by Wilhelm Wundt marked the
beginning of scientific psychology.
o There are differing viewpoints/theories of psychology. Schools of psychology are formed
emphasizing their different concern in the study of behavior. There were six schools of
psychology: structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, gestalt, purposivism and psychoanalysis.
o The study of psychology can be approached from several perspectives namely; biological,
behavioral, cognitive, psychoanalytic and humanistic.
o There are different branches of psychology and many new areas of inquiry are emerging at this
present time.
o Psychology is a science because it is objective and systematic in its study of how people behave
 and think. It has 4 goals which are to understand and explain, to predict, control behavior and to
improve the quality of life.
o Psychologists may engage in teaching research, and professional practice in psychology related
settings as in mental health clinics, government, and industry.
o Psychologists are concerned in resolving some key issues and controversies in psychology,
depending on their area of expertise

VII. REFERENCES

• Baucum, D. (2006). Psychology (2nd ed.). Barron's

• Feldman, R.S. (2015). Understanding Psychology (12th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill. •
Kalat, J. (2007) Introduction to Psychology (8th Edition)

• Lahey, B. (2012). Psychology An introduction. McGraw Hill Higher Education •

Myers, D. G. (2011). Exploring Psychology (8th ed.). Worth Publishers.
• Myers, D. G., & DeWall, C. N. (2016). Exploring psychology (10th ed.). Worth Publishers,
Macmillan Learning.
• Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Atkinson, R. L. (2012). Atkinson & Hilgard's introduction to psychology
(15th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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Unit 2: PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

• Explain the scientific method and the roles of theories and hypotheses in psychological research. •
Demonstrate different research methods
• Explain what a correlation coefficient tells us about the relationship between variables. •
Recognize that correlation does not indicate a cause-and-effect relationship between variables •
Discuss our tendency to look for relationships between variables that do not really exist. • Explain
random sampling and assignment of participants into experimental and control groups. • Discuss
how experimenter or participant bias could affect the results of an experiment. • Identify
independent and dependent variables.
• Discuss the major issues psychologists confront while conducting research

The Scientific Method

“Birds of a feather flock together”... or “Opposites attract”? “Two heads are better than one”... or “If
you want a thing done well, do it yourself”? “The more the merrier”... or “Two’s company, three’s a
crowd”?
 If we were to rely on common sense to understand behavior, we’d have considerable difficulty—
especially because commonsense views are often contradictory. In fact, one of the major undertakings
for the field of psychology is to develop suppositions about behavior and to determine which of those
suppositions are accurate.

Psychologists—as well as scientists in other disciplines—meet the challenge of posing appropriate

questions and properly answering them by relying on the scientific method. The scientific method is
the approach used by psychologists to systematically acquire knowledge and understanding about
behavior and other phenomena of interest. The figure below illustrates the four main steps of scientific
method, they are: (1) identifying questions of interest, (2) formulating an explanation, (3) carrying out
research designed to support or refute the explanation, and (4) communicating the findings.

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Figure 3.1
The scientific method, which encompasses the process of identifying, asking, and answering questions,
is used by psychologists, and by researchers from every other scientific discipline, to come to an
understanding about the world.

Theories: Specifying Broad Explanations

In using the scientific method, psychologists start by identifying questions of interest. We have all
been curious at some time about our observations of everyday behavior. If you have ever asked yourself
why a particular teacher is so easily annoyed, why a friend is always late for appointments, or how your
dog understands your commands, you have been formulating questions about behavior.

Psychologists, too, ask questions about the nature and causes of behavior. They may want to
explore explanations for everyday behaviors or for various phenomena. They may also pose questions
that build on findings from their previous research or from research carried out by other psychologists.
Or they may produce new questions that are based on curiosity, creativity, or insight.

After a question has been identified, the next step in the scientific method is to develop a theory
to explain the observed phenomenon. Theories are broad explanations and predictions concerning
phenomena of interest. They provide a framework for understanding the relationships among a set of
otherwise unorganized facts or principles.

All of us have developed our own informal theories of human behavior, such as “People are
basically good” or “People’s behavior is usually motivated by self-interest.” However, psychologists’
theories are more formal and focused. They are established on the basis of a careful study of the
psychological literature to identify earlier relevant research and previously formulated theories, as well
as psychologists’ general knowledge of the field.

Growing out of the diverse approaches employed by psychologists, theories vary both in their
breadth and in their level of detail. For example, one theory might seek to explain and predict a
phenomenon as broad as emotional experience. A narrower theory might attempt to explain why people
display the emotion of fear nonverbally after receiving a threat (Guerrero, La Valley, & Farinelli, 2008;
Waller, Cray, & Burrows, 2008; Anker & Feeley, 2011).

Hypotheses: Crafting Testable Predictions

Although theories as to how and why do things work or why different situations happen make
sense, it only represents the beginning of the investigative process. The next step was to devise a way
to test theories. A hypothesis is a prediction stated in a way that allows it to be tested. Hypotheses
stem from theories; they help test the underlying soundness of theories.

In the same way that we develop our own broad theories about the world, we also construct
hypotheses about events and behavior. Those hypotheses can range from trivialities (such as why our

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English instructor wears those weird shirts) to more meaningful matters (such as what is the best way to
study for a test). Although we rarely test these hypotheses systematically, we do try to determine
whether they are right. Perhaps we try comparing two strategies: cramming the night before an exam
versus spreading out our study over several nights. By assessing which approach yields better test
performance, we have created a way to compare the two strategies.

A hypothesis must be restated in a way that will allow it to be tested, which involves creating an
operational definition. An operational definition is the translation of a hypothesis into specific, testable
procedures that can be measured and observed.

There is no single way to go about devising an operational definition for a hypothesis; it depends
on logic, the equipment and facilities available, the psychological perspective being employed, and
ultimately the creativity of the researcher. For example, one researcher might develop a hypothesis that
uses as an operational definition of “fear” an increase in heart rate. In contrast, another psychologist
might use as an operational definition of “fear” a written response to the question “How much fear are
you experiencing at this moment?”

Psychologists rely on formal theories and hypotheses for many reasons. For one thing, theories
and hypotheses allow them to make sense of unorganized, separate observations and bits of
information by permitting them to place the pieces within a coherent framework. In addition, theories
and hypotheses offer psychologists the opportunity to move beyond known facts and make deductions
about unexplained phenomena and develop ideas for future investigation (Cohen, 2003; Gurin, 2006;
van Wesel, Boeije, & Hoijtink, 2013). In short, the scientific method, with its emphasis on theories and
hypotheses, helps psychologists pose appropriate questions. With properly stated questions in hand,
psychologists then can choose from a variety of research methods to find answers.

Theory of Diffusion of Responsibility by Bibb Latane and John Darley: An Example of Scientific
Method and Theory Development

Psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley, responding to the failure of bystanders to intervene
when Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York, developed what they called a theory of diffusion of
responsibility (Latané & Darley, 1970). According to their theory, the greater the number of bystanders
or witnesses to an event that calls for helping behavior, the more the responsibility for helping is
perceived to be shared by all the bystanders. Thus, the greater the number of bystanders in an
emergency situation, the smaller the share of the responsibility each person feels—and the less likely
that any single person will come forward to help.

Latané and Darley’s hypothesis was a straightforward prediction from their more general theory
of diffusion of responsibility: The more people who witness an emergency situation, the less likely it is
that help will be given to a victim. They could, of course, have chosen another hypothesis (try to think of
one!), but their initial formulation seemed to offer the most direct test of the theory.

APPROACHES TO RESEARCH

Clinical or case studies

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• In observational research, scientists are conducting a clinical or case study when they
focus on one person or just a few individuals.

• This approach is often used when studying individuals who are interesting to
researchers because they have a rare characteristic.

Generalizing

• Refers to the ability to apply the findings of a particular research project to larger
segments of society.

Naturalistic Observation

• If you want to understand how behavior occurs, one of the best ways to gain
information is to simply observe the behavior in its natural context.

Surveys

• Lists of questions to be answered by research participants, and can be delivered as

paper-and-pencil questionnaires, administered electronically, or conducted verbally.

Sample and Population

• A sample is a subset of individuals selected from a population, which is the overall

group of individuals that the researchers are interested in. Researchers study the
sample and seek to generalize their findings to the population.

Archival Research

• Relies on looking at past records or data sets to look for interesting patterns or
 relationships.

Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Research

• Longitudinal research is a research design in which data-gathering is administered
repeatedly over an extended period of time.

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• Cross-sectional research, is a researcher compares multiple segments of the
population at the same time.

Correlational Research

• From word “correlation” which means there is a relationship between two or more
variables but relationship does not necessarily imply cause and effect.

• Does not indicate causation, since it is useful because we can identify the strength
and directions of variables, but no too much in cause and effect.

Correlational Coefficient

• A numeric number from -1 to +1 to indicate the strength of relationship.

2 TYPES

• Positive Correlations

Variables move at same direction (eg. Ice cream crime rate increases as temperature
gets warmer.)

• Negative Correlations

Variables move at opposite direction.

CAUSALITY: CONDUCTING EXPERIMENTS BY USE OF DATA

The Experimental Hypothesis

 ▪ Can be formulated through direct observation or after careful review of previous research.

Designing an Experiment

❖ Basic design comes in two groups

• Control Group

• Experimental Group

Operational Definition

• Description on how we will measure the variable.

• It is important because it allows others understand how and what researcher measures in
particular experiment.

Two Types of Study

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• Single Blind Study- participants are unaware on which group they belong and the
researcher knows which participants are in each group.

• Double Blind Study- Researcher and participants are both unaware to the group
assignment.

Independent and Dependent Variables

▪ Dependent Variable- Is what researcher measures, to see how much effect the independent
variable had.

▪ Independent variable- Variable that is controlled by experimenter.

Critical Research Issues

You are probably knowledgeable now of the basic steps for psychological research. It includes
making choices of the type of study to conduct, discerning what measures to take and what ways of
analyzing the results is can be most effective. Now, even after all these important decisions are made,
psychologists still have to consider several critical issues. We go first to the most fundamental of these
issues: ethics.

The Ethics of Research

Most psychologists argue that deception is sometimes necessary to prevent participants from
being influenced by what they think a study’s true purpose is. An example of this would be an
experiment conducted by Latané and Darley to examine the helping behaviour of bystanders, in which
another “bystander” simulates a seizure who happened to be a confederate of the experimenters
(Latané and Darley 1970).

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If you knew that Latané and Darley were actually studying your helping behavior, wouldn’t you
automatically have been tempted to intervene in the emergency? To avoid such outcomes, a small
proportion of research involves deception. Nonetheless, because research has the potential to violate
the rights of participants, psychologists are expected to adhere to a strict set of ethical guidelines aimed
at protecting participants (APA, 2002). Those guidelines involve the following safeguards:
• Protection of participants from physical and mental harm.
• The right of participants to privacy regarding their behavior.
• The assurance that participation in research is completely voluntary.
• The necessity of informing participants about the nature of procedures before their
participation in the experiment.
• All experiments must be reviewed by an independent panel before being conducted
(Fisher et al., 2002; Fisher, 2003; Smith, 2003).

One of psychologists’ key ethical principles is informed consent. It is a document signed by

participants affirming that they have been told the basic outlines of the study and that they are aware of
what their participation will involve. It also informs them of the fact that their participation is purely
voluntary and that they may terminate it any time. After the participation, a debriefing or receiving an
explanation of the study and procedures that were involved shall be given to the participants. However,
informed consent and debriefing can be eliminated in experiments when risks are minimal, as in done in
a purely observational study such as in a public place (Koocher, Norcross, & Hill, 2005; Fallon, 2006;
Barnett, Wise, & Johnson-Greene, 2007; Nagy, 2011).

Threats to Experimental Validity: Avoiding Experimental Bias

Even the best-laid experimental plans are susceptible to experimental bias —factors that distort
the way the independent variable affects the dependent variable in an experiment. One of the most
common forms of experimental bias is experimenter expectations: An experimenter unintentionally
transmits cues to participants about the way they are expected to behave in a given experimental
condition. The danger is that those expectations will bring about an “appropriate” behavior—one that
otherwise might not have occurred (Rosenthal, R., 2002, 2003).
A related problem is participant expectations about appropriate behavior. If you have ever been
a participant in an experiment, you probably developed guesses about what was expected of you. In
fact, participants often develop their own hypotheses about what the experimenter hopes to learn from
the study. If participants form their own hypotheses, and then act on their hunches, it may be their
expectations, rather than the experimental manipulation, that produce the results (Rutherford et al.,
2009). To guard against participant expectations biasing the results of an experiment, the experimenter
may try to disguise the true purpose of the experiment. Participants who do not know that helping
behavior is being studied, for example, are more apt to act in a “natural” way than they would if they
knew. Sometimes it is impossible to hide the actual purpose of research; when that is the case, other
techniques are available to prevent bias. Suppose you were interested in testing the ability of a new
drug to alleviate the symptoms of severe depression. If you simply gave the drug to half your
participants and not to the other half, the participants who were given the drug might report feeling less
depressed, merely because they knew they were getting a drug. Similarly, the participants who got
nothing might report feeling no better, because they knew that they were in a no-treatment control
group. To solve this problem, psychologists typically use a procedure in which all the participants
receive a treatment, but those in the control group receive only a placebo —a false treatment, such as
a pill, “drug,” or other

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substance that has no significant chemical properties or active ingredient. Because members of both
groups are kept in the dark about whether they are getting a real or a false treatment, any differences in
outcome can be attributed to the quality of the drug and not to the possible psychological effects of
being administered a pill or other substance (Rajagopal, 2006;Crum & Langer, 2007; Justman, 2011).
However, there is one more safeguard that a careful researcher must apply in an experiment
such as this one. To overcome the possibility that experimenter expectations will affect the participant,
the person who administers the drug shouldn’t know whether it is actually the true drug or the placebo.
By keeping both the participant and the experimenter who interacts with the participant “blind” to the
nature
of the drug that is being administered, researchers can more accurately assess the effects of the drug.
This method is known as the double-blind procedure.

EVALUATE

I. Identification
1. An explanation for a phenomenon of interest is known as a _____________________.

2. To test this explanation, a researcher must state it in terms of a testable question known as
_______________.
3. An experimenter is interested in studying the relationship between hunger and aggression. She
decides that she will measure aggression by counting the number of times a participant will hit a
punching bag. In this case, her ______________ definition of aggression is the number of times the
participant hits the bag.

II. Multiple Choice

1. What are the main types of assessment measures used by psychologists to study the outcomes of
mental activity?
a) Theories, hypotheses, tests

b) Self-report, experiments, correlations

c) Behavioural, self-report, experimental

d) Behavioural, self-report, physiological
e) (a) and (d)

2. Which of the following is NOT a widely used research method in modern experimental
psychology? a) The (true) experimental method.

b) The quasi-experimental method.

c) The introspective method.

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d) The case study method.

3. Experimental groups, treatment groups, and control groups represent ways to ____________
outcome variables.
a) Manipulate

b) Correlate
c) Attract
d) Validate

e) Generalise
4. In psychological research, the process of using multiple research methods to tackle the same issue is
referred to as:

a) Experimentation
b) Revision
c) Manipulation Check
d) Measurement
e) Triangulation

5. Which of the following is true?

a) The dependent variable is manipulated by the experimenter.
b) Experimental control involves making every condition different in every respect except the treatment
(i.e. the independent variable).
c) In a between-subjects experiment, control is typically achieved by a process of carefully assigning
participants to the right conditions.
d) In a properly designed experiment, we can infer that an observed difference must be due to our
manipulation of the independent variable.
III.

1. Ethical research begins with the concept of informed consent. Before signing up to participate in an
experiment, participants should be informed of:
 a. the procedure of the study, stated generally.
b. the risks that may be involved.
c. their right to withdraw at any time.
d. all of these.
2. List three benefits of using animals in psychological research.

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3. Deception is one means experimenters can use to try to eliminate participants’ expectations. True or
false?

4. A false treatment, such as a pill that has no significant chemical properties or active ingredient, is
known as a _________.

5. A study has shown that men differ from women in their preference for ice cream flavors. This study
was based on a sample of two men and three women. What might be wrong with this study?

Chapter Summary

• The scientific method is the approach psychologists use to understand behavior. It consists of four
steps: identifying questions of interest, formulating an explanation, carrying out research that is
designed to support or refute the explanation, and communicating the findings.
• Research in psychology is guided by theories (broad explanations and predictions regarding
phenomena of interest) and hypotheses (theory-based predictions stated in away that allows
them to be tested).
• To test a hypothesis, researchers must formulate an operational definition, which translates the
abstract concepts of the hypothesis into the actual procedures used in the study. • Research
methods are generalized and established ways of approaching research questions. • Research data
comes in many different formats and is gathered using a wide variety of methodologies.
• One of psychologists’ key ethical principles is informed consent. An informed consent is a
document signed by participants affirming that they have been told the basic outlines of the
study and that they are aware of what their participation will involve.
• Experiments are subject to a number of biases, or threats. Experimenter expectations can
produce bias when an experimenter unintentionally transmits cues to participants about her or
his expectations regarding their behavior in a given experimental condition. Participant
expectations can also bias an experiment. Among the tools experimenters use to help eliminate
bias are placebos and double-blind procedures.
• Placebo is a false treatment, such as a pill, “drug,” or other substance, without any significant
chemical properties or active ingredient.

Contents lifted from Understanding Psychology by Robert S. Feldman, 12th edition

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UNIT 3: BIOLOGICAL BASES OF BEHAVIOR

I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES/OUTCOMES

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Identify basic processes and systems in the biological bases of behavior, including
parts of the neuron and the process of transmission of a signal between neurons. •
Discuss the effect of the endocrine system on behavior.
• Describe the nervous system and its subdivisions and functions.

II. INTRODUCTION

Behavior depends on the integration of numerous processes within the body. This
integration is provided by the nervous system, with the help from the endocrine system.
Many aspects of behavior and mental functioning can be better understood with some
knowledge of the underlying biological processes. Our nervous system, sense organs,
muscles, and glands enable us to be aware of and adjust to our new environment. Our
perception of events depends on how our sense organs detect stimuli and how our brain
interprets information coming from the senses. Much of our behavior is motivated by such
needs as hunger, thirst, and the avoidance of fatigue or pain. Our ability to use language, to
think, and to solve problems depends on a brain that is incredibly complex. Indeed, the
specific patterns of electrical and chemical events in the brain are the very basis of our most
intricate though processes.
Experiences and behaviors are based on the activation of our nervous system, and that
an understanding of its functioning is important for the study of psychology.

III. LESSON PROPER

NEURONS
Neurons are the central building
blocks of the nervous system, 100 billion
strong at birth. Like all cells, neurons
consist of several different parts, each
serving a specialized function.
A neuron’s outer surface is made
up of a semipermeable membrane. This
membrane allows smaller molecules and
molecules without an electrical charge to
 pass through it, while stopping larger or highly charged molecules.
The nucleus of the neuron is located in the soma, or cell body. The soma has
branching extensions known as dendrites. The neuron is a small information processor,
and dendrites serve as input sites where signals are received from other neurons. These
signals are transmitted electrically across the soma and down a major extension from the

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soma known as the axon, which ends at multiple terminal buttons. The terminal buttons
contain synaptic vesicles that house neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers of the
nervous system.
Axons range in length from a fraction of an inch to several feet. In some axons,
glial cells form a fatty substance known as the myelin sheath, which coats the axon and
acts as an insulator, increasing the speed at which the signal travels. The myelin sheath
is crucial for the normal operation of the neurons within the nervous system: the loss of
the insulation it provides can be detrimental to normal function.
Information moves along a neuron in the form of a neural impulse called an action
potential – an electrochemical impulse that travels from the cell body down to the end of
the axon. Each action potential is the result of movements by electrically charged
molecules, known as ions, in and out of the neuron.

ACTION POTENTIAL

An
action potential is defined as a sudden, fast, transitory, and propagating change of the resting
membrane potential. Only neurons and muscle cells are capable of generating an action potential;
that property is called the excitability.

But what causes the action potential? From an electrical aspect, it is caused by a
stimulus with certain value expressed in millivolts [mV]. Not all stimuli can cause an action potential.
Adequate stimulus must have a sufficient electrocal value which will reduce the negativity of the nerve
cell to the threshold of the action potential. In this manner, there are subthreshold, threshold, and
suprathreshold stimuli. Subthreshold stimuli cannot cause an action potential. Threshold stimuli are of
enough energy or potential to produce an action potential (nerve impulse). Suprathreshold stimuli also
produce an action potential, but their strength is higher than the threshold stimuli.
 So, an action potential is generated when a stimulus changes the membrane potential to
the values of threshold potential. The threshold potential is usually around -50 to -55 mV. It is important
to know that the action potential behaves upon the all-or-none law. This means that any subthreshold

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stimulus will cause nothing, while threshold and suprathreshold stimuli produce a full response of the
excitable cell.

Is an action potential different depending on whether it’s caused by threshold or

suprathreshold potential? The answer is no. The length and amplitude of an action potential are
always the same. However, increasing the stimulus strength causes an increase in the frequency of
an action potential. An action potential propagates along the nerve fiber without decreasing or
weakening of amplitude and length. In addition, after one action potential is generated, neurons
become refractory to stimuli for a certain period of time in which they cannot generate another action
potential.

From the aspect of ions, an action potential is caused by temporary changes in

membrane permeability for diffusible ions. These changes cause ion channels to open and the ions to
decrease their concentration gradients. The value of threshold potential depends on the membrane
permeability, intra- and extracellular concentration of ions, and the properties of the cell membrane.

An action potential has several phases; hypopolarization, depolarization, overshoot,

repolarization and hyperpolarization.
Hypopolarization is the initial increase of the membrane potential to the value of the
threshold potential. The threshold potential opens voltage-gated sodium channels and causes a large
influx of sodium ions. This phase is called the depolarization. During depolarization, the inside of the
cell becomes more and more electropositive, until the potential gets closer the electrochemical
equilibrium for sodium of +61 mV. This phase of extreme positivity is the overshoot phase.

After the overshoot, the sodium permeability suddenly decreases due to the closing of its
channels. The overshoot value of the cell potential opens voltage-gated potassium channels, which
causes a large potassium efflux, decreasing the cell’s electropositivity. This phase is the repolarization
phase; whose purpose is to restore the resting membrane potential. Repolarization always leads first
to hyperpolarization, a state in which the membrane potential is more negative than the default
membrane potential. But soon after that, the membrane establishes again the values of membrane
potential.

❖ To gain more knowledge about Neurons and how they communicate watch
these videos:
o Structure and function of Neuron -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2kuU2mZzeU4
o How Neurons Communicate -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGDvvUNU-cw
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NERVOUS SYSTEM

The term nervous

system refers to all neural tissue. This system is divided into the central nervous system (CNS) and
the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The central nervous system includes the brain (the part of the
nervous system that resides in the skull) and the spinal cord.

The peripheral nervous system includes the remainder of the neural tissue in
the rest of the body. Afferent nerves carry signals from the body to the CNS, whereas efferent nerves
carry signals from the CNS to the body. The PNS consists of the somatic system, which carries
messages to and from the sense receptors, muscles, and the surface of the body (for conscious
sensory functions and voluntary motor functions), and the autonomic system, which connects with the
internal organs and glands (for automatic and involuntary functions, such as the beating of the heart).
The sensory nerves of the somatic system transmit information about external stimulation from the
skin, muscles, and joints to the central nervous system. That is how we become aware of pain,
pressure, and temperature variations. The motor nerves of the somatic system carry impulses from
the central nervous system to the muscles, where they initiate action. The nerves of the autonomic
system run to and from the internal organs, regulating processes such as respiration, heart rate, and
digestion.
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Nervous systems are
found in almost all multicellular
animals, but vary greatly in
complexity. The only multicellular
animals that have no nervous
system at all are sponges and
microscopic bloblike organisms
called placozoans and
mesozoans. The nervous
systems of ctenophores (comb
jellies) and cnidarians (e.g.,
anemones, hydras, corals and
jellyfishes) consist of a diffuse
nerve net.
All other types of
animals, with the exception of
echinoderms and a few types of
worms, have a nervous system
containing a brain, a central cord
(or two cords running in parallel), and nerves
radiating from the brain and central cord. The size of the nervous system ranges from a few
hundred cells in the simplest worms, to on the order of 100 billion cells in humans.

At the most basic level, the function of the nervous system is to control movement
of the organism and to affect the environment (e.g., through pheromones). This is achieved by
sending signals from one cell to others, or from one part of the body to others. The output from the
nervous system derives from signals that travel to muscle cells, causing muscles to be activated,
and from signals that travel to endocrine cells, causing hormones to be released into the
bloodstream or other internal fluids. The input to the nervous system derives from sensory cells of
widely varying types, which transmute physical modalities such as light and sound into neural
activity. Internally, the nervous system contains complex webs of connections between nerve cells
that allow it to generate patterns of activity that depend only partly on sensory input. The nervous
system is also capable of storing information over time, by dynamically modifying the strength of
connections between neurons, as well as other mechanisms.
 ❖ This video offers an in-depth discussion of the Nervous System and its
divisions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGGU-fGGycA

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ENDOCRINE SYSTEM
The endocrine system acts more slowly,
indirectly affecting the activities of cell groups
throughout the body. It does so by means of
hormones, chemicals secreted by the endocrine
glands into the bloodstream and transported to other
parts of the body, where they have specific effects on
cells that recognize their message

Hormones act in various ways on cells of

different types. Each target cell is equipped with
receptors that recognize only the hormone molecules
that act on that cell. The receptors pull those molecules out of the bloodstream and into the
cell. Some endocrine glands are activated by the nervous system, and others are activated by
changes in the internal chemical state of the body.

In many ways, the hypothalamus, which is located in the lower middle part of the
brain, controls much of the endocrine system by regulating the pituitary gland, which is located directly
below and outside the brain. The hypothalamus is often called the control center of the endocrine
system.

One of the major endocrine glands is the pituitary gland. This gland is partly an outgrowth of the
brain and lies just below the hypothalamus. The pituitary has been called the ‘master gland’ because it
produces the most different hormones and controls the secretion activity of other endocrine glands. One
of the pituitary hormones, growth hormone, has the crucial job of controlling the body’s growth.

The Pancreas is the organ regulates the level of sugar in the bloodstream by
secreting insulin. The Thyroid is the gland, which is located in the neck, regulates metabolism through the
secretion of hormones. The outside part) secretes hormones that regulate sugar and salt balances and
help the body resist stress; they are also responsible for growth of pubic hair, a secondary sexual
characteristic. The adrenal medulla (inside part) secretes two hormones that arouse the body to deal with
stress and emergencies: epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline).

Gonads. In females, the ovaries produce hormones that regulate sexual

development, ovulation, and growth of sex organs. In males, the testes produce hormones that regulate
sexual development, production of sperm, and growth of sex organs.
 ❖ To understand how Hormones work, watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SPRPkLoKp8

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IV. SAMPLE SITUATION

NEURODEGENERATIVE DISORDERS
Neurodegenerative disorders are illnesses characterized by a loss of nervous system
functioning that are usually caused by neuronal death. These diseases generally worsen over time as
more and more neurons die. The symptoms of a particular neurodegenerative disease are related to
where in the nervous system the death of neurons occurs. The death of these neurons causes
problems in balance and walking. Neurodegenerative disorders include Huntington’s disease,
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, other dementia disorders, and Parkinson’s
disease. In this section, Alzheimer’s disease will be discussed in more depth.

Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly. In 2012,
an estimated 5.4 million Americans suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Payments for their care are
estimated at $200 billion. Roughly one in every eight people age 65 or older has the disease. Due to
the aging of the baby-boomer generation, there are projected to be as many as 13 million Alzheimer’s
patients in the United States in the year 2050. Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease include disruptive
memory loss, confusion about time or place, difficulty planning or executing tasks, poor judgement,
and personality changes. Problems smelling certain scents can also be indicative of Alzheimer’s
disease and may serve as an early warning sign. Many of these symptoms are also common in
people who are aging normally, so it is the severity and longevity of the symptoms that determine
whether a person is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s disease was named for Alois Alzheimer, a
German psychiatrist who published a report in 1911 about a woman who showed severe dementia
symptoms. Along with his colleagues, he examined the woman’s brain following her death and
reported the presence of abnormal clumps, which are now called amyloid plaques, along with tangled
brain fibers called neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and an overall
shrinking of brain volume are commonly seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Loss of neurons in
the hippocampus is especially severe in advanced Alzheimer’s patients. Many research groups are
examining the causes of these hallmarks of the disease.

One form of the disease is usually caused by mutations in one of three known genes. This rare form
of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease affects fewer than five percent of patients with the disease and
causes dementia beginning between the ages of 30 and 60. The more prevalent, late-onset form of the
disease probably also has a genetic component. One particular gene, apolipoprotein E (APOE) has a

31
variant (E4) that increases a carrier ‘s probability of developing the disease. Many other genes have
been identified that may be involved in the pathology. Unfortunately, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s
disease. Current treatments focus on managing the symptoms of the disease. Because decrease in
the activity of cholinergic neurons (neurons that use the neurotransmitter acetylcholine) is common in
Alzheimer’s disease, several drugs used to treat the disease work by increasing acetylcholine
neurotransmission, often by inhibiting the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine in the synaptic cleft.
Other clinical interventions focus on behavioral therapies such as psychotherapy, sensory therapy, and
cognitive exercises. Since Alzheimer’s disease appears to hijack the normal aging process, research
into prevention is prevalent.

V. ACTIVITIES/EXERCISES

A. DRAW-IT-YOURSELF

In the box below, draw a nerve cell and label all the parts and provide a short description
for each.

B. FILM REVIEW
Watch the movie The Female Brain and write a REACTION PAPER
Answer the following questions in your output:
1. What are some differences between the structure of the female brain
compared to the male brain (state 3)
2. What biological processes occur only in the female brain?
3. Do you notice these differences in real life? Cite 2 specific situations.
4. What did you realize after watching the movie?
5. How does knowledge about these differences affect your way of
understanding the human brain?
VI. ASSESSMENT

32
A. IDEAS AND CONCEPTS
Fill in the blanks in the diagram below to show the overall to show the overall
organization of the nervous system.

_________

_________ _________

_________
_________
_________

_________

_________

B. VOCABULARY

_________

1) The nervous system is divided into 2 major divisions called the:

_______________ and the _______________
2) The central nervous system includes the _________ (the part of the
nervous system that resides in the skull) and the _________.
3) ___________ carry signals from the body to the CNS, whereas efferent
nerves carry signals from the CNS to the body.
4) Nervous systems are found in __________ multicellular animals, but vary
greatly in complexity
5) The nervous system is also capable of ________ information over time, by
dynamically modifying the _________ of connections between neurons, as
well as other mechanisms
6) In many ways, the _____________, which is located in the lower middle part
of the brain, controls much of the endocrine system
7) One of the major endocrine glands is the ______________.
8) The _____________ is the organ regulates the level of sugar in the
 bloodstream by secreting insulin

VII. SUMMARY

• All human (and animal) behavior is a product of biological structures and processes,
highly organized on multiple interconnected levels. Understanding these biological
precursors of behavior can lead to treatments for psychological disorders, such as
drugs that influence neurotransmitter function.

33
• The nervous system is highly specialized and hierarchical in its structure, but
neuroplasticity gives the brain some flexibility to adapt its structure and function. •
Though interconnected with and regulated by the nervous system, the endocrine system
produces effects on behavior in a distinct way: endocrine glands secrete hormones into
the bloodstream, allowing hormones to reach and interact directly with target organs.
• While many behaviors are learned as a result of experience within a particular
environment, the very capacity to learn such behaviors has a genetic basis, and such
capacities only persist because they contribute to the fitness of organisms.
• The endocrine system acts more slowly, indirectly affecting the activities of cell groups
throughout the body. It does so by means of hormones, chemicals secreted by the
endocrine glands into the bloodstream and transported to other parts of the body,
where they have specific effects on cells that recognize their message

VIII. REFERENCES

AP PSYCHOLOGY: BIOLOGICAL BASES OF BEHAVIOR NOTES. (n.d.). Retrieved

July 2020, from Kaplan: https://www.kaptest.com/study/ap-psychology/ap
psychology-biological-bases-of-behavior-notes/

Atkinson, R. L. (n.d.). Introduction to Psychology (11th ed.). San Diego: Harcourt Brace
College Publisher.

Furtak, S. (2020). Neurons. Retrieved July 2020, from Noba Project:

http://noba.to/s678why4

Hoekema, S. F. (2009). Introduction to Psychology (15th ed.). Wadsworth.

Neurodegenerative Disorders. (2019, July). Retrieved July 2020, from Biology Libretexts:
https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Book%
3A_General_Biology_(Boundless)/35%3A_The_Nervous_System/35.6%3A_Ner
vous_System_Disorders/35.6A%3A_Neurodegenerative_Disorders

Plotnik, R. K. (2011). Introduction to Psychology (9th ed.). Wadsworth.

Vaskovic, J. (n.d.). Action Potential. Retrieved July 2020, from Ken Hub:
 https://www.kenhub.com/en/library/anatomy/action-potential

34
Unit 4: Human Development

I. LEARNING OBJECTIVE/OUTCOMES

• Describe the developmental changes that occur from pre-natal to adulthood. •

Identify the different theories of development.
• Understand the biological theories of aging.
II. INTRODUCTION

Life is sexually transmitted. It starts from the moment of fertilization where conception begins, a
journey from womb to tomb. What leads one individual, so full of promise, to commit brutal acts of
violence and another to turn poverty and trauma into a rich literary harvest? If you have ever wondered
why people turn out the way they do, you have asked yourself the central question we will be exploring
in this chapter.
III. LESSON PROPER

WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT?
▪ Development is the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life
span. Most development involves growth, although it also includes decline brought on by aging
and dying.
Basic Terms:

▪ Life span - The biological limits to life’s length, determined by species-specific hereditary factors. ▪
Life-span perspective - the perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional,
multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; involves growth, maintenance, and
regulation; and is constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual factors working
together.
▪ Life expectancy - The average length of time that a given age-based cohort is expected to live ▪
Life course - The term used by sociologists to refer to the normal, expected set of events that take
place over an individual’s life, determined in many ways by the society’s norms

THEORIES OF LIFE SPAN DEVELOPMENT

A. Psychoanalytic Theories - theories that describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily
colored by emotion.
1. Freud’s Theory - suggests that a person’s problems were the result of his experiences early in life.
He thought that when children grow up, their focus of pleasure and sexual impulses shifts from the
mouth to the anus and eventually to the genitals.
 35
2. Erikson’s theory - the eight stages of human development wherein each stage consists of a unique
developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved.
1. Basic trust versus basic mistrust (0 –18 months): Children must establish a sense of being
able to rely on the environment (and caregivers) to take care of them.
2. Autonomy versus shame and doubt (18 months –3 years): Children learn ways to be able to
act independently from their parents without feeling afraid they will venture too far off on their own. 3.
Initiative versus guilt (3 –5 years): This is the play stage in which children learn to express
themselves creatively without fear they will engage in activities that will get them in trouble. 4.
Industry versus inferiority (5 –12 years): During this stage, children learn to identify with the world
of work and develop a work ethic.
5. Identity versus identity diffusion (12 –21 years): Adolescents establish a sense of who they
are and develop commitments in the areas of work and values.
6. Intimacy versus isolation (21 –30/40 years): Young adults are able to experience
psychologically close relationships with others and develop long-term commitments. 7. Generativity
versus stagnation (40–65 years): Middle-age adults feel a sense of caring and concern for the
younger generation and determine what their legacy will be after they are gone. 8. Ego integrity
versus despair (65 years till death): In later adulthood, individuals come to grips with mortality and
with achieving a sense of acceptance about the life they have lived.
B. Cognitive Theories
1. Piaget’s theory - states that children actively construct their understanding of the world and go
through four stages of cognitive development.

2. Vygotsky’s
Sociocultural Cognitive Theory - emphasizes how culture and social interaction guide cognitive
development.
a. Zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the area of knowledge just beyond a child’s abilities.
According to Vygotsky, children learn best when they encounter information at this level and can interact
with a more skilled person.
b. Scaffolding is the kind of support adults and teachers present when they provide progressively more
difficult problems or ask children to explain their reasoning for learning (within the ZPD) that enables
children to work independently but with help so they can solve problems and develop their cognitive
abilities more generally.
3. Information processing: The information processing approach to cognitive development proposes
that children develop their cognitive abilities in an incremental manner, in some cases corresponding to
the development of the brain. Two concepts important in the information processing approach are:
1. Metacognition: Children become better at solving problems because they develop more
conscious awareness of their cognitive activities and can use this awareness to select or change

36
strategies, including better knowledge about how to direct their attention and effectively use their
short-term/working memory and long-term memory.
2. Development is continuous: Children do not experience discrete changes or move from one
stage to another.
C. Psychosocial Theories
1. Lawrence Kohlberg expanded on Piaget’s cognitive development theory by proposing that children’s
cognitive abilities influence the growth of their ability to make moral judgments.
1. Preconventional (young children): Right and wrong are thought of in terms of their immediate
effects of pleasure versus pain. No moral principles are invoked.
2. Conventional (middle school children): Moral decisions are made in terms of laws or general
rules about what is right and what is wrong. In this law and order stage, for example, people
base their judgments on whether a law is broken or not.
3. Postconventional (adolescents and adults): Decisions about right and wrong are based on the
notion of moral relativity. A law should be violated if that law violates basic principles of valuing
human life above all else.
2. Attachment theory: According to British psychologist John Bowlby, children develop an inner
representation of their relationship with their primary caregivers. This inner representation, or working
model, becomes the basis for their subsequent adult relationships.
3. Bowlby’s work became the basis for the research by American psychologist Mary Salter Ainsworth,
who devised an experimental situation to assess a child’s attachment style. In this experiment, called
the strange situation, young children play in a room with their mother. The mother leaves the room and
then returns. The experimenter rates the child’s reaction both when she leaves the room and when she
returns. The attachment styles are as follows:
a. Securely attached: The child seems disturbed but not distressed when the mother leaves and
greets her happily when she returns.
b. Insecurely attached: The child may or may not become anxious or distressed when the mother
leaves the room and may either ignore her or be ambivalent about physical contact when she
returns.
4. Harry Harlow showed the importance of maternal attachment bonds in his work with infant monkeys.
Raised with wire monkeys that fed them or cloth monkeys that provided physical stimulation, the
monkeys preferred the cloth mothers. This research, though controversial, was vital in establishing the
importance of early bonding through contact comfort with caregivers
D. Sociocultural Theories
1. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory - development reflects the influence of several
environmental systems.
The theory identifies five environmental systems:
a. microsystem - setting in which the individual lives (person’s family, peers, school, and
 neighborhood).
b. mesosystem - involves relations between microsystems or connections between contexts
(relation of family experiences to school experiences, school experiences to religious
experiences, and family experiences to peer experiences.)
c. exosystem - consists of links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an
active role and the individual’s immediate context.
d. macrosystem - involves the culture in which individuals live.

37
e. chronosystem - consists of the patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life
course, as well as sociohistorical circumstances.
2. Baltes: Life span developmental psychologist Paul Baltes identified three social influences on the
course of development. These interact in ways that result in the patterning of specific life events:
a. Age-graded normative influences: The expectations associated with specific ages reflected in
a given culture.
b. History-graded normative influences: The effects of living in a given time and place that have
similar influences on people within that society.
c. Nonnormative influences: Random, unpredictable influences that are idiosyncratic to each
individual
PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE NEWBORN
The three stages are:
a. Zygote: Conception to 2 weeks
b. Embryo: 2 to 8 weeks
c. Fetus: 8 weeks to birth
1st Month: Fertilization occurs
Zygote implants itself in the lining of the uterus ending the zygote
period Rapid cell division occurs
Embryonic stage lasts from end of the 2nd week to end of the 8th week Cells
differentiate into three distinct layers: the ectoderm, the mesoderm, and the endoderm
Nervous system begins to develop
Embryo is 1/2 inch long

2nd Month: Heart and blood vessels form

Head area develops rapidly
Eyes begin to form detail
Internal organs grow, especially the digestive system
Sex organs develop rapidly and sex is distinguished
Arms and legs form and grow
Heart begins to beat faintly
Embryo is 1 inch long and weighs 1/10 ounce

3rd Month: Head growth occurs rapidly

Bones begin to form rapidly, which marks the transition to the fetal
stage The digestive organs begin to function
Arms, legs, and fingers make spontaneous movements
Fetus is 3 inches long and weighs 1 ounce
 4th Month: Lower parts of the body show rapid growth
Bones are distinct in X-ray films
Reflex movement becomes more active
Heartbeat detected by physician
Sex organs are fully formed
Fetus is 7 inches long and weighs 5 ounces

5th Month: Mother begins to feel reflex movements

A fine, downy fuzz covers the entire body
Vernix (a waxy coating) collects over the body
Ears and nose begin to develop cartilage
Fingernails and toenails begin to appear

38
Fetus shows hiccups, thumb sucking, and kicking
Fetus is 12 inches long and weighs 14 ounces

6th Month: Eyes and eyelids fully formed

Fat is developing under the skin
Fetus is 14 inches long and weighs 2 pounds

7th Month: Cerebral cortex of brain develops rapidly

Fetus is 17 inches long and weighs 3 pounds

8th Month: Subcutaneous fat is deposited for later use

Fingernails reach beyond the fingertips
Fetus is 17 inches long and weighs 5 pounds

9th Month: Hair covering the entire body is shed

Organ systems function actively
Vernix is present over the entire body
Fetus settles into position for birth
Neonate is 21 inches long and weighs 7 pounds

Reflexes, temperaments, and abilities of newborns

A. Motor development milestones or stages (provided in respective average ages):
a. 1 month: Rolls over
b. 1 month: Grasps rattle
c. 6 months: Sits without support
d. 7 months: Stands holding on
e. 8 months: Grasps with thumb and finger
f. 11 months: Stands well alone
g. 12 months: Walks well alone
h. 15 months: Builds tower of two cubes
i. 17 months: Walks up steps
j. 24 months: Jumps in place
B. Reflexes present at birth (mediated by the hindbrain and spinal cord):
 a. Grasping reflex: Holds a finger or other object firmly
b. Rooting reflex: Turns head when touched on cheek
c. Gag reflex: Clears the throat
d. Startle reflex: Flings out the arms, fans the fingers, and arches the back in response to a sudden
noise
e. Sucking reflex: Sucks objects placed in mouth
f. Babinski reflex: Curls toes when outer edge of sole of foot is stroked

39
DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES Nature-Nurture Issue

Continuity-Discontinuity Issue
Stability-Change issue

Involves the extent to by nurture. Nature refers nurture to its

which development is to an organism's environmental
influence by nature and biological inheritance, experiences.
 Debate about whether we Focuses on the degree to
become older renditions of our which development involves
INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD early experience (stability) or either gradual, cumulative
Perceptual abilities and whether we develop into change
someone different from who we (continuity) or distinct stages
intelligence were at an earlier point in (discontinuity).
development (change).

A. Habituation, the decrease in response to a stimulus that occurs after the same stimulus is repeatedly
presented, is used to measure an infant’s awareness. If the stimulus is changed enough, dishabituation
occurs, and the infant shows an awareness of the change. The processes of habituation and
dishabituation can be used to study attention, sensory and perceptual discrimination, and memory in
infants.
B. Within a few days of birth, infants can recognize their own mother’s voice, can distinguish between
their own and foreign languages, and can discriminate between closely related sounds.
C. By 7 months, infants can discriminate all sounds relevant to language production. content outline 22
D. Newborns show a preference for sweet tastes.
E. Visual perception proceeds rapidly:
a. 1 month: color perception
b. 4 months: focus on near or far objects
c. 4-5 months: recognition of two- and three-dimensional objects
d. 7 months: different responses to different facial expressions, such as smiles or frowns
Childhood: Physical and motor development

a. In the first 12 months, children triple their birth weight and double their height. b. From age 3 to
age 13, children gain about 5 pounds and 3 inches’ height per year. However, the proportions of the
body also change such that the head grows at a slower rate than the rest of the body

40
Parenting Styles
a. Authoritarian parenting - A restrictive, punitive style in which parents exhort the child to
follow their directions and to respect their work and effort. The authoritarian parent places
firm limits and controls on the child and allows little verbal exchange. Authoritarian parenting
is associated with children’s social incompetence.
b. Authoritative parenting - A parenting style in which parents encourage their children to be
independent but still place limits and controls on their actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take
is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturing toward the child. Authoritative parenting is
associated with children’s social competence.
c. Neglectful parenting - A style of parenting in which the parent is uninvolved in the child’s life;
this style is associated with children’s social incompetence, especially a lack of self-control. d.
Indulgent parenting - A style of parenting in which parents are highly involved with their
children but place few demands or controls on them. Indulgent parenting is associated with
 children’s social incompetence, especially a lack of self-control.
ADOLESCENCE AND EMERGING ADULTHOOD
Puberty is a brain-neuroendocrine process occurring primarily in early adolescence that provides
stimulation for the rapid physical changes that take place during this period of development. It is the
most important marker of the beginning of adolescence.
▪ The search for an identity during adolescence is aided by a psychosocial moratorium, which is
Erikson’s term for the gap between childhood security and adult autonomy. During this period,
society leaves adolescents relatively free of responsibilities and able to try out different identities.
▪ Adolescents who do not successfully resolve this identity crisis suffer what Erikson calls identity
confusion. The confusion takes one of two courses: Individuals either withdraw, isolating
themselves from peers and family, or they immerse themselves in the world of peers and lose
their identity in the crowd.
▪ James Marcia (1980, 1994) reasons that Erikson’s theory of identity development contains four
statuses of identity, or ways of resolving the identity crisis:
1. Identity diffusion is the status of individuals who have not yet experienced a crisis or
made any commitments. Not only are they undecided about occupational and ideological
choices, they are also likely to show little interest in such matters.
2. Identity foreclosure is the status of individuals who have made a commitment but not
experienced a crisis. This occurs most often when parents hand down commitments to
their adolescents, usually in an authoritarian way, before adolescents have had a chance
to explore different approaches, ideologies, and vocations on their own.
3. Identity moratorium is the status of individuals who are in the midst of a crisis but whose
commitments are either absent or are only vaguely defined.
4. Identity achievement is the status of individuals who have undergone a crisis and made
a commitment

41
ADULTHOOD AND AGING
Major physical changes
A. Although there are predictable changes in the body associated with adulthood and aging, many
changes are in fact preventable. Normal age-related changes should be differentiated from diseases;
the major chronic diseases in later adulthood include arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.
These are also preventable, particularly with control of diet and proper exercise.
B. Here is a brief summary of the changes that occur gradually throughout adulthood:
1. Skin: Changes in elastin and collagen lead to wrinkling and sagging. (“Photoaging” refers to sun
damage due to sun exposure.)
2. Body build: Body experiences loss of bone mineral content, increase in subcutaneous fat around
the torso, loss of height.
3. Muscle mass: Body experiences loss of muscle mass (called “sarcopenia”). 4. Joints: There can
be an increase in cartilage outgrowths and loss of articular cartilage thickness. 5. Aerobic capacity:
 The maximum cardiac output may decrease.
6. Hormone changes: Climacteric involves the diminution of sex hormones; the complete loss of
fertility in women is called menopause.
7. Nervous system: Changes in circadian rhythms lead to increase in early rising. There are also
decreases in numbers of neurons and synapses.
8. Vision changes: Presbyopia (far sightedness) and cataracts may occur.
9. Hearing changes: Presbycusis (loss of ability to hear high-pitched tones) is another change.
10. Balance: Loss of balance can increase the risk of falling
Personality and aging
A. The midlife crisis is a concept that is constantly being discussed in the media, but researchers do not
find that it is a widespread phenomenon at all. Most people develop gradually through adulthood without
undergoing a distinct transition in their 40s. The debate about whether personality is stable versus
whether it can change in adulthood seems to have subsided as researchers investigating long-term
patterns of personality find that shifts can occur even into the decades of the 80s and beyond.
B. Socioemotional selectivity theory proposes that as endings occur, people try to focus on their
relationships that are most positively fulfilling; consequently, as a theory of aging, the theory proposes
that older people prefer to spend time with people who enhance their wellbeing.
C. Other personality theories of aging propose that as people get older, they are better able to manage
their emotions, cope more effectively with stress, and engage in fewer self-defeating and acting-out
behaviors.
BIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF AGING
1. Evolutionary Theory of Aging - natural selection has not eliminated many harmful conditions
and non-adaptive characteristics in older adults because natural selection is linked to
reproductive fitness, which is present only in the earlier part of adulthood. For example, consider
Alzheimer disease, an irreversible brain disorder that does not appear until late middle
adulthood or late adulthood. In evolutionary theory, if Alzheimer disease occurred earlier in
development, it might have been eliminated many centuries ago.
2. Cellular clock theory is Leonard Hayflick’s (1977) theory that cells can divide a maximum of
about 75 to 80 times, and that as we age our cells become less capable of dividing. The answer
may lie at the tips of chromosomes, at telomeres, which are DNA sequences that cap
chromosomes. Each time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter and shorter. After about

42
70 or 80 replications, the telomeres are dramatically reduced, and the cell no longer can
reproduce. The consensus of research is that telomere shortening does play a role in aging. 3. A
second microbiological theory of aging is free-radical theory, which states that people age
because when cells metabolize energy, the by-products include unstable oxygen molecules known
as free radicals. The free radicals ricochet around the cells, damaging DNA and other cellular
structures.
4. Mitochondrial theory states that aging is due to the decay of mitochondria. Mitochondrial theory
views emphasize that this decay is primarily caused by oxidative damage and loss of critical
micronutrients supplied by the cell.
5. Sirtuin theory - Sirtuins are a family of proteins that have been linked to longevity, regulation of
mitochondria functioning in energy, possible benefits of calorie restriction, stress resistance, and
lower rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
6. mTOR pathway theory - The mTOR pathway is a cellular pathway that involves the regulation of
growth and metabolism. TOR stands for “target of rapamycin,” and in mammals it is called
mTOR. Rapamycin is a naturally derived antibiotic and immune system suppressant/ modulator
 that was discovered in the 1960s on Easter Island. It has been commonly used and is FDA
approved for preventing rejection of transplanted organs and bone marrow. Proposals have been
made that the mTOR pathway has a central role in the life of cells, acting as a cellular router for
growth, protein production/metabolism, and stem cell functioning.
7. Hormonal stress theory argues that aging in the body’s hormonal system can lower resistance
to stress and increase the likelihood of disease. When faced with external challenges such as
stressful situations, the human body adapts by altering internal physiological processes. This
process of adaptation and adjustment is referred to as allostasis. Allostasis is adaptive in the
short term; however, continuous accommodation of physiological systems in response to
stressors may result in allostatic load, a wearing down of body systems due to constant activity.

IV. ACTIVITIES/EXERCISES
Chapter Activity: Mixed-up Erikson’s Stages
Instructions: Identify the stage that seems to be associated with each example and explain why you
chose the stage.
Situation #1: A three-year-old is diagnosed with bone cancer. This shows Ego Integrity versus Despair
at ages 3–5 years. The child is confronted with end-of-life issues.
Situation #2: An 80-year-old woman is mugged. This shows Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust in later
adulthood. The woman must regain a sense of confidence or faith in the safety of her environment.
Situation #3: A divorced middle-aged man is considering remarriage. This shows Intimacy versus
Isolation in middle adulthood. The man is confronted with issues of intimacy.
Situation #4: A 16-year-old has the keys to his car taken away by his parents. This shows Autonomy
versus Shame and Doubt in adolescence. The teenager’s parents have constrained his independence.
Situation #5: A 35-year-old woman enjoys time with her child when she and her child can play with her
child’s blocks. This shows Initiative versus Guilt in middle age. The woman is enjoying the opportunity to
explore and play.

43
Situation #6: A 64-year-old man is fired from his job and worries about whether he will find another
one. This shows Industry versus Inferiority in later adulthood. The man is experiencing issues related to
feelings of competence.

V. CHAPTER ASSESSMENT
I. Multiple Choice.
1. Although development is lifelong, there is stability of personality over time. For example,
a. most personality traits emerge in infancy and persist throughout life.

b. temperament tends to remain stable throughout life.

c. few people change significantly after adolescence.
d. people tend to undergo greater personality changes as they age.
2. Body organs first begin to form and function during the period of the _________; within 6 months,
during the period of the _____________, the organs are sufficiently functional to allow a good chance of
survival.
a. zygote; embryo c. embryo; fetus
b. zygote; fetus d. placenta; fetus
3. Stroke a newborn’s cheek and the infant will root for a nipple. This illustrates
______. a. a reflex. c. differentiation.
b. nurture. d. continuity.
4. Adolescence is marked by the onset of
a. an identity crisis. c. separation anxiety.
b. puberty. d. parent-child conflict.
5. In Erikson’s stages, the primary task during adolescence is
a. attaining formal operations. c. developing a sense of intimacy with another person. b.
forging an identity. d. living independent of parents
II. Matching Type. Select from the box below the correct answer for the following statements.
________________1. This is the perspective that development is lifelong, multidimensional,
multidirectional, plastic, multidisciplinary, and contextual; it involves growth, maintenance, and
regulation; and is constructed through biological, sociocultural, and individual factors working together.
________________2. This is the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues throughout
the life span.
________________3. Theories that describe development as primarily unconscious and heavily colored
by emotion.

44
_________________6. _______ is a brain-neuroendocrine process occurring primarily in early
adolescence that provides stimulation for the rapid physical changes that take place during this period
of development.
________________ 7. The three major issues that interest developmental psychologists are
nature/nurture, stability/change, and ________ /___________.

Puberty Life-Span Perspective Psychoanalytic Theories Emerging Adulthood Continuity

Development Stages

VI. SUMMARY
▪ Development is the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the
human life span. It includes both growth and decline.
▪ The life-span perspective includes these basic concepts: development is lifelong,
multidimensional, multidirectional, and plastic; its study is multidisciplinary; it is contextual; it
 involves growth, maintenance, and regulation of loss; and it is a co-construction of biological,
cultural, and individual factors.
▪ The nature-nurture issue focuses on the extent to which development is mainly influenced by
nature (biological inheritance) or nurture (experience).
▪ The stability-change issue focuses on the degree to which we become older renditions of our early
experience or develop into someone different from who we were earlier in development. A
special aspect of the stability-change issue is the extent to which development is determined by
early versus later experiences.
▪ Developmentalists describe development as continuous (gradual, or cumulative change) or as
discontinuous (abrupt, or a sequence of stages). Most developmentalists recognize that extreme
positions on the nature-nurture, stability-change, and continuity-discontinuity issues are unwise.
Despite this consensus, there is still spirited debate on these issues.
▪ The nature-nurture issue focuses on the extent to which development is mainly influenced by
nature (biological inheritance) or nurture (experience).
▪ The stability-change issue focuses on the degree to which we become older renditions of our
early experience or develop into someone different from who we were earlier in development. A
special aspect of the stability-change issue is the extent to which development is determined by
early versus later experiences.
▪ Developmentalists describe development as continuous (gradual, or cumulative change) or as
discontinuous (abrupt, or a sequence of stages). Most developmentalists recognize that
extreme positions on the nature-nurture, stability-change, and continuity-discontinuity issues are
unwise. Despite this consensus, there is still spirited debate on these issues.
▪ A psychosocial moratorium during adolescence allows the personality and role
experimentation that are important aspects of identity development. James Marcia proposed
four identity statuses—identity diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and achievement—that
are based on crisis (exploration) and commitment.

45
VII. REFERENCES

Harlow's Classic Studies Revealed the Importance of Maternal Contact. Association for Psychological
Science - APS. (2018, June 20).
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/harlows-classic-studies
revealed-the-importance-of-maternal-contact.html.

Myers, D. G., & DeWall, C. N. (2016). Exploring psychology (10th ed.). Worth Publishers, Macmillan
Learning.

Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Atkinson, R. L. (2012). Atkinson & Hilgard's introduction to psychology (15th
ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Santrock, J. W. (2019). Life-span development (17th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Whitbourne, S. K. (2012, December). LIFE SPAN DEVELOPMENT a six-unit lesson plan for high
school psychology teachers. American Psychological Association.
 https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/topss/lessons/.

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UNIT 5: SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES/OUTCOMES

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. Identify and explain the different parts of sense organs and their functions.
2. Understand the importance of perception and attention
3. Illustrate the perceptual organization.

II. INTRODUCTION
One of the basic processes in the interaction of man and his environment is that which governs
the reception of information about the world around him. In order to survive, man must be able to sense,
interpret, and respond to the various events and stimulations he receives. The study of the reception
and function of stimulation may be divided into two parts: (1) that which considers the mechanisms of
receiving information called sensation and, (2) that which considers the received information and past
experiences called perception.
 III. LESSON PROPER
Sensation
The psychologists is interested in what sensations the organism can report or what
discriminations it can make so that it can adjust its behavior according to the sensory messages it
receives. In order for sensation to occur, there are two factors which are necessary, (1) there must be a
stimulus, and (2) there must be receptors that are sensitive to the stimulus. Kagan defines a stimulus as
any form of energy capable of exciting the nervous system like light waves, sound waves, and the
chemical energy that causes the sensation of taste and smell. A receptor is a specialized nerve ending
capable of responding to energy. The mechanism which convert stimulus energy into neural energy are
called the senses. There are five primary senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and the skin senses. In
addition we have the sense of equilibrium, kinesthesis, and organic sense. Let us now consider and
discuss these senses separately.

The Senses

Vision: The Visual System, the Eye, and Color Vision

In the human visual system, the eye receives physical stimuli in the form of light and sends
those stimuli as electrical signals to the brain, which interprets the signals as images. The human visual
system gives our bodies the ability to see our physical environment. The system requires
communication between its major sensory organ (the eye) and the core of the central nervous system
(the brain) to interpret external stimuli (light waves) as images. Humans are highly visual creatures
compared to many other animals which rely more on smell or hearing, and over our evolutionary history
we have developed an incredibly complex sight system.

Sensory Organs
Vision depends mainly on one sensory organ—the eye. Eye constructions vary in complexity
depending on the needs of the organism. The human eye is one of the most complicated structures on
earth, and it requires many components to allow our advanced visual capabilities. The eye has three

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major layers: The sclera, which maintains, protects, and supports the shape of the eye and includes the
cornea; The choroid, which provides oxygen and nourishment to the eye and includes the pupil, iris, and
lens; and The retina, which allows us to piece images together and includes cones and rods.

The Process of Sight

All vision is based on the perception of electromagnetic rays. These rays pass through the cornea
in the form of light; the cornea focuses the rays as they enter the eye through the pupil, the black
aperture at the front of the eye. The pupil acts as a gatekeeper, allowing as much or as little light to
enter as is necessary to see an image properly. The pigmented area around the pupil is the iris. Along
with supplying a person’s eye color, the iris is responsible for acting as the pupil’s stop, or sphincter.
Two layers of iris muscles contract or dilate the pupil to change the amount of light that enters the eye.
Behind the pupil is the lens, which is similar in shape and function to a camera lens. Together with the
cornea, the lens adjusts the focal length of the image being seen onto the back of the eye, the retina.
Visual reception occurs at the retina where photoreceptor cells called cones and rods give an image
color and shadow. The image is transduced into neural impulses and then transferred through the optic
nerve to the rest of the brain for processing. The visual cortex in the brain interprets the image to
extract form, meaning, memory, and context.
 The left hemisphere of the brain controls the motor functions of the right half of the body, and
vice versa; the same is true of vision. The left hemisphere of the brain processes visual images from
the right hand side of space, or the right visual field, and the right hemisphere processes visual images
from the left-hand side of space, or the left visual field. The optic chiasm is a complicated crossover of
optic nerve fibers behind the eyes at the bottom of the brain, allowing the right eye to “wire” to the left
neural hemisphere and the left eye to “wire” to the right hemisphere. This allows the visual cortex to
receive the same visual field from both eyes.

Color Vision
Human beings are capable of highly complex vision that allows us to perceive colors and depth
in intricate detail. Visual stimulus transduction happens in the retina. Photoreceptor cells found in this
region have the specialized capability of phototransduction, or the ability to convert light into electrical
signals. There are two types of these photoreceptor cells: rods, which are responsible for scotopic vision
(night vision), and cones, which are responsible for photopic vision (daytime vision). Generally
speaking, cones are for color vision and rods are for shadows and light differences. The front of your
eye has many more cones than rods, while the sides have more rods than cones; for this reason, your
peripheral vision is sharper than your direct vision in the darkness, but your peripheral vision is also in
black and white.

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Color vision is a critical component of human vision and plays an important role in both
perception and communication. Color sensors are found within cones, which respond to relatively broad
color bands in the three basic regions of red, green, and blue (RGB). Any colors in between these three
are perceived as different linear combinations of RGB. The eye is much more sensitive to overall light
and color intensity than changes in the color itself. Colors have three attributes: brightness, based on
luminance and reflectivity; saturation, based on the amount of white present; and hue, based on color
combinations. Sophisticated combinations of these receptors signals are transduced into chemical and
electrical signals, which are sent to the brain for the dynamic process of color perception.
 Depth Perception
Depth perception refers to our ability to see the world in three dimensions. With this ability, we
can interact with the physical world by accurately gauging the distance to a given object. While depth
perception is often attributed to binocular vision (vision from two eyes), it also relies heavily on
monocular cues (cues from only one eye) to function properly. These cues range from the convergence
of our eyes and accommodation of the lens to optical flow and motion.

Audition: Hearing, the Ear, and Sound Localization

The human auditory system allows us to perceive and localize sounds in our physical
environment. The human auditory system allows the body to collect and interpret sound waves into
meaningful messages. The main sensory organ responsible for the ability to hear is the ear, which can
be broken down into the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear. The inner ear contains the receptor cells
necessary for both hearing and equilibrium maintenance. Human beings also have the special ability of
being able to estimate where sounds originate from, commonly called sound localization.

The Ear
The ear is the main sensory organ of the auditory system. It performs the first processing of
sound and houses all of the sensory receptors required for hearing. The ear’s three divisions (outer,
middle, and inner) have specialized functions that combine to allow us to hear.

The outer ear is the external portion of the ear, much of which can be seen on the outside of the human
head. It includes the pinna, the ear canal, and the most superficial layer of the ear drum, the tympanic
membrane. The outer ear’s main task is to gather sound energy and amplify sound pressure. The pinna,
the fold of cartilage that surrounds the ear canal, reflects and attenuates sound waves, which helps the
brain determine the location of the sound. The sound waves enter the ear canal, which amplifies the
sound into the ear drum. Once the wave has vibrated the tympanic membrane, sound

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enters the middle ear. The middle ear is an air-filled tympanic (drum-like) cavity that transmits acoustic
energy from the ear canal to the cochlea in the inner ear. This is accomplished by a series of three
bones in the middle ear: the malleus, the incus, and the stapes. The malleus (Latin for “hammer”) is
connected to the mobile portion of the ear drum. It senses sound vibrations and transfers them onto the
incus. The incus (Latin for “anvil”) is the bridge between the malleus and the stapes. The stapes (Latin
for “stirrup”) transfers the vibrations from the incus to the oval window, the portion of the inner ear to
which it is connected. Through these steps, the middle ear acts as a gatekeeper to the inner ear,
protecting it from damage by loud sounds.Unlike the middle ear, the inner ear is filled with fluid. When
the stapes footplate pushes down on the oval window in the inner ear, it causes movement in the fluid
within the cochlea. The function of the cochlea is to transform mechanical sound waves into electrical or
neural signals for use in the brain. Within the cochlea there are three fluid-filled spaces: the tympanic
canal, the vestibular canal, and the middle canal. Fluid movement within these canals stimulates hair
cells of the organ of Corti, a ribbon of sensory cells along the cochlea. These hair cells transform the
fluid waves into electrical impulses using cilia, a specialized type of mechanosensory.

The Process of Hearing

Hearing begins with pressure waves hitting the auditory canal and ends when the brain
perceives sounds. Sound reception occurs at the ears, where the pinna collects, reflects, attenuates, or
amplifies sound waves. These waves travel along the auditory canal until they reach the ear drum,
which vibrates in response to the change in pressure caused by the waves. The vibrations of the ear
drum cause oscillations in the three bones in the middle ear, the last of which sets the fluid in the
cochlea in motion. The cochlea separates sounds according to their place on the frequency spectrum.
Hair cells in the cochlea perform the transduction of these sound waves into afferent electrical
impulses. Auditory nerve fibers connected to the hair cells form the spiral ganglion, which transmits the
electrical signals along the auditory nerve and eventually on to the brain stem. The brain responds to
these separate frequencies and composes a complete sound from them.

Sound Localization
Humans are able to hear a wide variety of sound frequencies, from approximately 20 to 20,000
Hz. Our ability to judge or estimate where a sound originates, called sound localization, is dependent on
the hearing ability of each ear and the exact quality of the sound. Since each ear lies on an opposite
side of the head, a sound reaches the closest ear first, and the sound’s amplitude will be larger (and
therefore louder) in that ear. Much of the brain’s ability to localize sound depends on these interaural
(between
the-ears) differences in sound intensity and timing. Bushy neurons can resolve time differences as small
as ten milliseconds, or approximately the time it takes for sound to pass one ear and reach the other.

Gustation: Taste Buds and Taste

The gustatory system, including the mouth, tongue, and taste buds, allows us to transduce
chemical molecules into specific taste sensations.The gustatory system creates the human sense of
taste, allowing us to perceive different flavors from substances that we consume as food and drink.
Gustation, along with olfaction (the sense of smell), is classified as chemoreception because it functions
by reacting with molecular chemical compounds in a given substance. Specialized cells in the gustatory
system that are located on the tongue are called taste buds, and they sense tastants (taste molecules).
The taste buds send the information from the tastants to the brain, where a molecule is processed as a
certain taste. There are five main tastes: bitter, salty, sweet, sour, and umami (savory). All the varieties
of flavor we experience are a combination of some or all of these tastes.

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Tongue and Taste Buds
The sense of taste is transduced by taste buds, which are clusters of 50-100 taste receptor cells
located in the tongue, soft palate, epiglottis, pharynx, and esophagus. The tongue is the main sensory
organ of the gustatory system. The tongue contains papillae, or specialized epithelial cells, which have
taste buds on their surface. There are three types of papillae with taste buds in the human gustatory
system:

• fungiform papillae, which are mushroom-shaped and located at the tip of the tongue; • foliate
papillae, which are ridges and grooves toward the back of the tongue; • circumvallate papillae, which
 are circular-shaped and located in a row just in front of the end of the tongue.

Each taste bud is flask-like in shape and formed by two types of cells: supporting cells and
gustatory cells. Gustatory cells are short-lived and are continuously regenerating. They each contain a
taste pore at the surface of the tongue which is the site of sensory transduction. Though there are small
differences in sensation, all taste buds, no matter their location, can respond to all types of taste.

Tastes
Traditionally, humans were thought to have just four main tastes: bitter, salty, sweet, and sour.
Recently, umami, which is the Japanese word for “savory,” was added to this list of basic tastes. (Spicy
is not a basic taste because the sensation of spicy foods does not come from taste buds but rather from
heat and pain receptors.) In general, tastes can be appetitive (pleasant) or aversive (unpleasant),
depending on the unique makeup of the material being tasted. There is one type of taste receptor for
each flavor, and each type of taste stimulus is transduced by a different mechanism. Bitter, sweet, and
umami tastes use similar mechanisms based on a G protein-coupled receptor, or GPCR.

Bitter - There are several classes of bitter compounds which vary in chemical makeup. Evolutionary
psychologists believe this to be a result of the role of bitterness in human survival: some bitter-tasting
compounds can be hazardous to our health, so we learned to recognize and avoid bitter substances in
general.

Salty - The salt receptor, NaCl, is arguable the simplest of all the receptors found in the mouth. An ion
channel in the taste cell wall allows Na+ions to enter the cell.

Sweet - Like bitter tastes, sweet taste transduction involves GPCRs binding. The specific mechanism
depends on the specific molecule flavor. Natural sweeteners such as saccharides activate the GPCRs
to release gustducin. Synthetic sweeteners such as saccharin activate a separate set of GPCRs,
initiating a similar but different process of protein transitions.

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Sour - Sour tastes signal the presence of acidic compounds in substances. There are three different
receptor proteins at work in a sour taste. The first is a simple ion channel which allows hydrogen ions to
flow directly into the cell. The second is a K+ channel which has H+ions in order to block K+ions from
escaping the cell.

Umami - Umami is the newest receptor to be recognized by western scientists in the family of basic
tastes. This Japanese word means “savory” or “meaty.” It is thought that umami receptors act similarly to
bitter and sweet receptors (involving GPCRs), but very little is known about their actual function.

Olfaction: The Nasal Cavity and Smell

The olfactory system gives humans their sense of smell by collecting odorants from the environment
and transducing them into neural signals. The olfactory system gives humans their sense of smell by
inhaling and detecting odorants in the environment. Olfaction is physiologically related to gustation, the
sense of taste, because of its use of chemoreceptors to discern information about substances.
Perceiving complex flavors requires recognizing taste and smell sensations at the same time, an
interaction known as chemoreceptive sensory interaction. This causes foods to taste different if the
olfactory system is compromised. However, olfaction is anatomically different from gustation because it
uses the sensory organs of the nose and nasal cavity to capture smells. Humans can identify a large
number of odors and use this information to interact successfully with their environment.

The Nose and Nasal Cavity. Olfactory sensitivity is directly proportional to spatial area in the nose—
specifically the olfactory epithelium, which is where odorant reception occurs. The area in the nasal
cavity near the septum is reserved for the olfactory mucous membrane, where olfactory receptor cells
are located. This area is a dime-sized region called the olfactory mucosa. In humans, there are about
10 million olfactory cells, each of which has 350 different receptor types composing the mucous
membrane. Each of the 350 receptor types is characteristic of only one odorant type. Each functions
using cilia, small hair-like projections that contain olfactory receptor proteins. These proteins carry out
the transduction of odorants into electrical signals for neural processing. Olfactory transduction is a
series of events in which odor molecules are detected by olfactory receptors. These chemical signals
are transformed into electrical signals and sent to the brain, where they are perceived as smells. Once
ligands (odorant particles) bind to specific receptors on the external surface of cilia, olfactory
transduction is initiated. In mammals, olfactory receptors have been shown to signal via G protein. This
is a similar type of signaling of other known G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR). The binding of an
odorant particle on an olfactory receptor activates a particular G protein (Gαolf), which then activates
adenylate cyclase, leading to cAMP production. cAMP then binds and opens a cyclic nucleotide-gated
ion channel. This opening allows for an influx of both Na+ and Ca2+ ions into the cell, thus depolarizing
it. The Ca2+ in turn activates chloride channels, causing the departure of Cl–, which results in a further
depolarization of the cell.

Interpretation of Smells. Individual features of odor molecules descend on various parts of the
olfactory system in the brain and combine to form a representation of odor. Since most odor molecules
have several individual features, the number of possible combinations allows the olfactory system to
detect an impressively broad range of smells. A group of odorants that shares some chemical feature
and causes similar patterns of neural firing is called an odotope.

Humans can differentiate between 10,000 different odors. People (wine or perfume experts, for
example) can train their sense of smell to become expert in detecting subtle odors by practicing
retrieving smells from memory.

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Smell and Memory. Odor information is easily stored in long-term memory and has strong connections
to emotional memory. This is most likely due to the olfactory system’s close anatomical ties to the limbic
system and the hippocampus, areas of the brain that have been known to be involved in emotion and
place memory. Human and animal brains have this in common: the amygdala, which is involved in the
processing of fear, causes olfactory memories of threats to lead animals to avoid dangerous situations.
The human sense of smell is not quite as powerful as most other animals’ sense of smell, but smell is
still deeply tied to human memory and emotion. Pheromones are airborne, often odorless molecules that
are crucial to the behavior of many animals. They are processed by an accessory of the olfactory
system. Recent research shows that pheromones play a role in human attraction to potential mates, the
synchronization of menstrual cycles among women, and the detection of moods and fear in others.
Thanks in large part to the olfactory system, this information can be used to navigate the physical world
and collect data about the people around us.

Somatosensorial: Pressure, Temperature, and Pain

The somatosensory system allows the human body to perceive the physical sensations of pressure,
temperature, and pain. The human sense of touch is known as the somatic or somatosensory system.
Touch is the first sense developed by the body, and the skin is the largest and most complex organ in
the somatosensory system. By gathering external stimuli and interpreting them into useful information
for the nervous system, skin allows the body to function successfully in the physical world. Touch
receptors in the skin have three main subdivisions: mechanoreception (sense of pressure),
thermoreception (sense of heat) and nociception (sense of pain). Receptor cells in the muscles and
joints called proprioceptors also aid in the somatosensory system, but they are sometimes separated
into another sensory category called kinesthesia.
Hairy skin Glabrous skin

Papillary Ridges
Epidermis

Free nerve

endingMerkel s receptor
Meissner s
Septa

Hair receptor

Pacinian
corpuscle Sebaceous gland corpuscle
Ruffini s
corpuscle Dermis

Human skin receptors: Mechanoreceptors can be free receptors or encapsulated. Examples of

free receptors are the hair receptors at the roots of hairs, while encapsulated receptors are the Pacinian
corpuscles and the receptors in the glabrous (hairless) skin: Meissner’s corpuscles, Ruffini’s corpuscles,
and Merkel’s discs.
Somatosensory Systems. The somatosensory system uses specialized receptor cells in the
skin and body to detect changes in the environment. The receptors collect and convert physical stimuli
into electrical and chemical signals through the transduction process and send these impulses to the

53
nervous system for processing. Sensory cell function in the somatosensory system is determined by
location.
The receptors in the skin, also called cutaneous receptors, tell the body about the three main
subdivisions mentioned above: pressure and surface texture (mechanoreceptors), temperature
(thermoreceptors), and pain (nociceptors). The receptors in the muscles and joints provide information
about muscle length, muscle tension, and joint angles.

Mechanoreception. Mechanoreceptors in the skin give us a sense of pressure and texture.

These receptors differ in their field size (small or large) and their speeds of adaptation (fast or slow).
Thus, there are four types of mechanoreceptors based on the four possible combinations of fast vs. slow
speed and large vs. small receptive fields. The speed of adaptation refers to how quickly the receptor
will react to a stimulus and how long that reaction will be sustained after the stimulus is removed.
Rapidly adapting cells allow us to adjust grip and force appropriately. Slowly adapting cells allow us to
perceive form and texture. The receptive field size refers to the amount of skin area that responds to
the stimulus, with smaller areas specializing in locating stimuli accurately.

Thermoreception. Thermoreceptors detect changes in temperature through their free nerve

endings. There are two types of thermoreceptors that signal temperature changes in our own skin: warm
and cold receptors. Our sense of temperature is a result of the comparison of the signals from each of
the two types of thermoreceptors. These receptors are not good indicators of absolute temperature, but
they are very sensitive to changes in skin temperature.

Nociception. Nociceptors use free nerve endings to detect pain. Functionally, nociceptors are
specialized, high-threshold mechanoceptors or polymodal receptors. They respond not only to intense
mechanical stimuli but also to heat and noxious chemicals—anything that may cause the body harm.
Their response magnitude, or the amount of pain you feel, is directly related to the degree of tissue
damage inflicted. Pain signals can be separated into three types that correspond to the different types of
nerve fibers used for transmitting these signals. The first type is a rapidly transmitted signal with a high
spatial resolution, called first pain or cutaneous pricking pain. This type of signal is easy to locate and
generally easy to tolerate. The second type is much slower and highly affective, called second pain or
burning pain. This signal is more difficult to locate and not as easy to tolerate. The third type arises from
viscera, musculature, and joints; it is called deep pain. This type of signal is very difficult to locate, and
often it is intolerable and chronic.

Proprioceptors. Proprioceptors are the receptor cells found in the body’s muscles and joints.
They detect joint position and movement, and the direction and velocity of the movement. There are
many receptors in the muscles, muscle fascia, joints, and ligaments, all of which are stimulated by
stretching in the area in which they lie. Muscle receptors are most active in large joints such as the hip
and knee joints, while joint and skin receptors are more meaningful to finger and toe joints. All of these
receptors contribute to overall kinesthesia, or the perception of bodily movements.

Additional Sensory Systems

Two additional sensory systems are proprioception (which interprets body position) and the
vestibular system (which interprets balance). No matter what your level of experience with psychology
is, you have probably heard of the five basic senses, which consist of the visual, auditory (hearing),
gustatory (taste), olfactory (smell), and somatosensory (touch) systems. However, recent advances in
science have expanded this canonical list of five sense systems to include two more: proprioception,
which is the sense of the positioning of parts of the body; and the vestibular system, which senses
gravity and provides balance.

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Proprioception and Kinesthesia. Proprioception is the sense of the relative positioning of
neighboring parts of the body, and sense of the strength of effort needed for movement. It is
distinguished from exteroception, by which one perceives the outside world, and interoception, by which
one perceives pain, hunger, and the movement of internal organs. A major component of proprioception
is joint position sense (JPS), which involves an individual’s ability to perceive the position of a joint
without the aid of vision. Proprioception is one of the subtler sensory systems, but it comes into play
almost every moment. This system is activated when you step off a curb and know where to put your
foot, or when you push an elevator button and control how hard you have to press down with your
fingers. Kinesthesia is the awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body using
sensory organs, which are known as proprioceptors, in joints and muscles. Kinesthesia is a key
component in muscle memory and hand eye coordination. The discovery of kinesthesia served as a
precursor to the study of proprioception. While the terms proprioception and kinesthesia are often used
interchangeably, they actually have many different components. Often the kinesthetic sense is
differentiated from proprioception by excluding the sense of equilibrium or balance from kinesthesia. An
inner ear infection, for example, might degrade the sense of balance. This would degrade the
proprioceptive sense, but not the kinesthetic sense. The affected individual would be able to walk, but
only by using the sense of sight to maintain balance; the person would be unable to walk with eyes
closed. Another difference in proprioception and kinesthesia is that kinesthesia focuses on the body’s
motion or movements, while proprioception focuses more on the body’s awareness of its movements
and behaviors. This has led to the notion that kinesthesia is more behavioral, and proprioception is
more cognitive.

The Vestibular System. The vestibular system is the sensory system that contributes to balance
and the sense of spatial orientation. Together with the cochlea (a part of the auditory system) it
constitutes the labyrinth of the inner ear in most mammals, situated within the vestibulum in the inner
ear. There are two main components of the vestibulum: the semicircular canal system, which indicates
rotational movements; and the otoliths, which indicate linear accelerations. Some signals from the
vestibular system are sent to the neural structures that control eye movements and provide us with
clear vision, a process known as the vestibulo-ocular reflex. Other signals are sent to the muscles that
control posture and keep us upright.

Proprioception vs. Vestibular System While both the vestibular system and proprioception
contribute to the “sense of balance,” they have different functions. Proprioception has to do with the
positioning of limbs and awareness of body parts in relation to one another, while the vestibular system
contributes to the understanding of where the entire body is in space. If there was a problem with your
proprioception, you might fall over if you tried to walk because you would lose your innate
understanding of where your feet and legs were in space. On the other hand, if there was a problem
with your vestibular system (such as vertigo), you might feel like your entire body was spinning in space
and be unable to walk for that reason.

Perception. Perception defined as the processes of knowing objects and objective events by means of
senses. This sensory input consists of nerve impulses. They carry a sort of raw, undigested information
about the environment. The individual must convert it into a meaningful information. Perception, then, is
the organization of sensory input into meaningful experiences. Our choice of texture, our use of colors,
all tend to express personality traits.

Perceptual constancy, also called object constancy, or constancy phenomenon, the

tendency of animals and humans to see familiar objects as having standard shape, size, color, or
location regardless of changes in the angle of perspective, distance, or lighting. The impression tends
to conform to the object as it is or is assumed to be, rather than to the actual stimulus. Perceptual
constancy is responsible for the ability to identify objects under various conditions, which seem to be
“taken into

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account” during a process of mental reconstitution of the known image. For example, snow appears
white in the low illumination of moonlight, as well as in sunlight 800,000 times as bright. Perceptual
constancy is reduced by limited experience with the object and by decreasing the number of
environmental cues that aid in identification of the object.

Size Constancy refers to the observation that the size of objects does not appear to change in
spite of the change in the size of the image reaching the retina. The tendency to see an object in
standard shape regardless of the viewing angle is called shape constancy. It is also called form
constancy. A plate continues to look around even though when viewed from certain positions, the
image on the retina undergoes as variety of changes. Location constancy refers to the apparent
stability of objects in space despite the changing location of the retinal pattern reaching the eye.

Organization in Perception
The perceptual constancies imply organization within perception. There are organizing
tendencies which help us to achieve stability in a world of constantly changing stimulation:
1. Figure and ground. When we perceive an object, usually one part tends to stand out while the
rest seems to remain in the background.
2. Grouping. We are concerned more with the figure than with the ground. The principles of
group, firs enunciated by Gestalt psychologist, include similarity, proximity, closure and
continuity.
Depth Perception
As sophisticated as the retina is, the images projected onto it are flat and two-dimensional. Yet
the world around us is three-dimensional, and we perceive it that way. How do we make the
transformation from 2-D to 3-D? The ability to view the world in three dimensions and to perceive
distance—a skill known as depth perception—is due largely to the fact that we have two eyes.
Because there is a certain distance between the eyes, a slightly different image reaches each retina.
The brain integrates the two images into one view, but it also recognizes the difference in images and
uses this difference to estimate the distance of an object from us. The difference in the images seen by
the left eye and the right eye is known as binocular disparity (Kara & Boyd, 2009; Gillam, Palmisano, &
Govan, 2011; Valsecchi et al., 2013). To get a sense of binocular disparity, hold a pencil at arm’s length
and look at it first with one eye and then with the other. There is little difference between the two views
relative to the background. Now bring the pencil just 6 inches away from your face, and try the same
thing. This time you will perceive a greater difference between the two views. The fact that the
discrepancy between the images in the two eyes varies according to the distance of objects that we
view provides us with a means of determining distance. If we view two objects and one is considerably
closer to us than the other is, the retinal disparity will be relatively large and we will have a greater
sense of depth between the two. However, if the two objects are a similar distance from us, the retinal
disparity will be minor, and we will perceive them as being a similar distance from us.
In some cases, certain cues permit us to obtain a sense of depth and distance with just one eye. These
cues are known as monocular cues. One monocular cue—motion parallax—is the change in position of
an object on the retina caused by movement of your body relative to the object. For example, suppose
you are a passenger in a moving car, and you focus your eye on a stable object such as a tree. Objects
that are closer than the tree will appear to move backward, and the nearer the object is, the more
quickly it will appear to move. In contrast, objects beyond the tree will seem to move at a slower speed,
but in the same direction as you are. Your brain is able to use these cues to calculate the relative
distances of the tree and other objects. Similarly, the monocular cue of relative size reflects the
assumption that if two

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objects are the same size, the object that makes a smaller image on the retina is farther away than the
one that makes a larger image. But it’s not just size of an object that provides information about
distance; the quality of the image on the retina helps us judge distance. The monocular cue of texture
gradient provides information about distance, because the details of things that are far away are less
distinct (Proffitt, 2006). Finally, anyone who has ever seen railroad tracks that seem to come together in
the distance knows that distant objects appear to be closer together than are nearer ones, a
phenomenon called linear perspective. People use linear perspective as a mon- ocular cue in
estimating distance, allowing the two-dimensional image on the retina to record the three-dimensional
world (Dobbins et al., 1998; Shimono & Wade, 2002; Bruggeman, Yonas, & Konczak, 2007).

Errors in Perception
Sometimes, we make mistakes in the way we perceive. Under certain stimulus conditions,
certain errors of perception occur in nearly everybody. Illusion is a term may be defined as a perception
which is common but usually considered mistaken. When we experience an illusion, we perceive
certain events which do not correspond to the objective situations. It should not be confused with
hallucination or delusion illusion is an error in perception which depends on stimulus conditions an
occurs in normal individuals. Hallucination are false perceptions that occur under abnormal conditions.
Persons under the influence of drugs, or persons suffering from psychosis or other forms of personality
disorders may experience visual or auditory hallucinations.

Some examples of illusion are:

1. Illusions based on relative size
2. Illusions based on intersecting lines
3. Ponzo Illusion

IV. ACTIVITY / EXERCISES: Activity “watched pot never boils”

Paying Attention to Sensory Information (individual project) Goal: To become more conscious
of just how much information is provided by the senses. How much attention do you pay to sensory
information? This project will require you to observe normal activities with a twist.

Despite this saying, we know that watched pots do boil and you will demonstrate that by
watching a pot of water come to a full boil. Select a small pot and using either a stove or an equivalent
(e.g., a hot plate or immersion heating unit), heat the water to boiling (be sure that whatever heating
method you use, it takes approximately 5 minutes or longer for the water to come to a boil). Observe
the pot the entire time and note all that you perceive. What do you see, hear, smell, feel, taste? Omit no
details; record everything. If links to other perceptual experiences occur, record those as well.

Assignment details: Length: 1-3 pages

V. ASSESSMENT

1. If the eye had a second lens that “unreversed” the image hitting the retina, do you think there
would be changes in the way people perceive the world?
2. From an evolutionary standpoint, why might the eye have evolved so that the rods, which we rely
on in low light, do not provide sharp images? Are there any advantages to this system?

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3. Much research is being conducted on repairing faulty sensory organs through devices such as
personal guidance systems and eyeglasses, among others. Do you think that researchers
should attempt to improve normal sensory capabilities beyond their “natural” range (for
example, make human visual or audio capabilities more sensitive than normal)? What bene- fits
might this ability bring? What problems might it cause?
4. Why might sensitivity to pheromones have evolved differently in humans than in other species?
What cultural factors might have played a role?
5. Why is kinesthetic important?
6. Define perception. Why is it important?
7. Describe the relationship between sensation and perception.
 VI. SUMMARRY
The psychologists is interested in what sensations the organism can report or what
discriminations it can make so that it can adjust its behavior according to the sensory messages it
receives. In order for sensation to occur, there are two factors which are necessary, (1) there must be a
stimulus, and (2) there must be receptors that are sensitive to the stimulus. Kagan defines a stimulus as
any form of energy capable of exciting the nervous system like light waves, sound waves, and the
chemical energy that causes the sensation of taste and smell. A receptor is a specialized nerve ending
capable of responding to energy. The mechanism which convert stimulus energy into neural energy are
called the senses. There are five primary senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste, and the skin senses. In
addition we have the sense of equilibrium, kinesthesis, and organic sense. Let us now consider and
discuss these senses separately. Perception defined as the processes of knowing objects and objective
events by means of senses. This sensory input consists of nerve impulses. They carry a sort of raw,
undigested information about the environment. The individual must convert it into a meaningful
information. Perception, then, is the organization of sensory input into meaningful experiences. Our
choice of texture, our use of colors, all tend to express personality traits. Perceptual constancy, also
called object constancy, or constancy phenomenon, the tendency of animals and humans to see
familiar objects as having standard shape, size, color, or location regardless of changes in the angle of
perspective, distance, or lighting. The ability to view the world in three dimensions and to perceive
distance a skill known as depth perception is due largely to the fact that we have two eyes. Sometimes,
we make mistakes in the way we perceive. Under certain stimulus conditions, certain errors of
perception occur in nearly everybody. Illusion is a term may be defined as a perception which is
common but usually considered mistaken.

VII. REFERENCES
• EZ 101 Study Keys Psycholgoy Second Edition (2006) Bon Baucum, Ph.D
• General Psychoglogy Fourth Edition (2005) Custodiosa A. Sanchez, Ph.D, Paz F. Abad, Ph.D, Loreto Jao,
Ed.D
• General Psychology Sixth Edition (2012) Geraldine E. Tria, Josefina E. Gaerlan, Delia A. Limpingco. •
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/sensory-processes/ •
https://teachpsych.org/resources/Documents/otrp/resources/Sensation%20and%20Perception
Activities%20to%20Enhance%20Learning.pdf

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Unit 6: States of Consciousness

LEARNING OBJECTIVE
• Understand what is meant by consciousness
• Explain how circadian rhythms are involved in regulating the sleep-wake cycle, and how circadian
cycles can be disrupted
• Discuss the concept of sleep debt
• Describe several theories aimed at explaining the function of sleep
• Differentiate between REM and non-REM sleep
• Recognize the symptoms and treatments of sleep disorders
• Describe how different categories of drugs affect behavior and experience
 • Understand the similarities and differences of hypnosis and meditation

INTRODUCTION

Our lives involve regular, dramatic changes in the degree to which we are aware of our
surroundings and our internal states. While awake, we feel alert and aware of the many important things
going on around us. Our experiences change dramatically while we are in deep sleep and once again
when we are dreaming. This chapter will discuss states of consciousness with a particular emphasis on
sleep. The different stages of sleep will be identified, and sleep disorders will be described. The chapter
will close with discussions of altered states of consciousness produced by psychoactive drugs,
hypnosis, and meditation.

Consciousness describes our awareness of internal and external stimuli. Awareness of internal stimuli
includes feeling pain, hunger, thirst, sleepiness, and being aware of our thoughts and emotions.
Awareness of external stimuli includes seeing the light from the sun, feeling the warmth of a room, and
hearing the voice of a friend.

Biological rhythms are internal rhythms of biological activity. A woman’s menstrual cycle is an example
of a biological rhythm—a recurring, cyclical pattern of bodily changes. One complete menstrual cycle
takes about 28 days—a lunar month—but many biological cycles are much shorter.

• Circadian Rhythm is a biological rhythm that takes place over a period of about 24 hours. Our sleep
wake cycle, which is linked to our environment’s natural light-dark cycle, is perhaps the most obvious
example of a circadian rhythm, but we also have daily fluctuations in heart rate, blood pressure, blood
sugar, and body temperature.
• Homeostasis is the tendency to maintain a balance, or optimal level, within a biological system. •
Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) The brain’s clock mechanism is located in an area of the
hypothalamus.
The axons of light-sensitive neurons in the retina provide information to the SCN based on the
amount of light present, allowing this internal clock to be synchronized with the outside world.

Disruptions of normal sleep

1. Jet Lag - is a collection of symptoms that results from the mismatch between our internal
circadian cycles and our environment.

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2. Rotating Shift Work - refers to a work schedule that changes from early to late on a daily or
weekly basis
3. Sleep Debt - A person with a sleep debt does not get sufficient sleep on a chronic basis.

Why do we sleep?

Sleep - is distinguished by low levels of physical activity and reduced sensory awareness. As discussed
by Siegel (2008), a definition of sleep must also include mention of the interplay of the circadian and
homeostatic mechanisms that regulate sleep.

Sleep rebound - refers to the fact that a sleep deprived individual will tend to take a shorter time to fall
asleep during subsequent opportunities for sleep. Sleep is characterized by certain patterns of activity of
the brain that can be visualized using electroencephalography (EEG), and different phases of sleep can
be differentiated using EEG as well.

Evolutionary psychology - is a discipline that studies how universal patterns of behavior and cognitive
processes have evolved over time as a result of natural selection. Variations and adaptations in
cognition and behavior make individuals more or less successful in reproducing and passing their
genes to their offspring.

Stages of Sleep

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - is characterized by darting movements of the eyes under closed
eyelids. Brain waves during REM sleep appear very similar to brain waves during wakefulness.

non-REM (NREM) sleep - is subdivided into four stages distinguished from each other and from
wakefulness by characteristic patterns of brain waves

NREM Stages of sleep

Stage 1 is a transitional phase that occurs between wakefulness and sleep, the period during which we
drift off to sleep. During this time, there is a slowdown in both the rates of respiration and heartbeat. In
addition, stage 1 sleep involves a marked decrease in both
overall muscle tension and core body temperature.

Stage 2

the body goes into a state of deep relaxation. Theta waves still
dominate the activity of the brain, but they are interrupted by
brief
bursts of activity known as sleep spindles. A sleep spindle is a
rapid burst of higher frequency brain waves that may be
important for learning and memory. In addition, the appearance
of K-complexes. A K-complex is a very high amplitude pattern
of
brain activity that may in some cases occur in response to
environmental stimuli.

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Stage 3 & stage 4

are often referred to as deep sleep or slow-wave sleep because these stages are characterized by low
frequency (up to 4 Hz), high amplitude delta waves. During this time, an individual’s heart rate and
respiration slow dramatically. It is much more difficult to awaken someone from sleep during stage 3 and
stage 4 than during earlier stages. Interestingly, individuals who have increased levels of alpha brain
wave activity.

Sleep Problems and Disorders

1. Insomnia - is a common sleep disorder that can make it hard to fall asleep, hard to stay asleep, or
cause you to wake up too early and not be able to get back to sleep.

How to diagnose Insomnia? For insomnia to be diagnosed, these symptoms must be present at least
three nights per week and the sleep difficulty is present for at least one month.

What Causes Insomnia?

• Stress
• Travel or Work Schedule
• Poor sleep habits
• Eating too much late in evening
• Medications
• Mental health disorders
• Medical conditions
• Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol

How to Prevent Insomnia?

• Keep your bedtime and wake time consistent from day to day.
• Stay active
• Check your medications to see if they may contribute to insomnia.
• Avoid or limit naps
• Avoid or limit caffeine and alcohol, and don't use nicotine.
• Avoid large meals and beverages before bedtime.
• Make your bedroom comfortable for sleep.
• Create a relaxing bedtime ritual, such as taking a warm bath, reading or listening to soft music. 2.
Parasomnias - are disruptive sleep disorders that can occur during arousals from REM sleep or
arousals from NREM sleep.

Two Kinds of Parasomnias:

1. Rapid Eye Movement (REM) - involves physically acting out dreams.

Type of REM Parasomnias:

• Nightmare - are vivid dreams during sleep that can cause feelings of fear, terror, and/or anxiety.

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• Sleep Paralysis - is a sleep disorder where individuals are not able to move the body or limbs
when falling asleep or waking up due to their muscles being briefly paralyzed, even though they
are awake.
• REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) - is a REM parasomnia where individuals act out dramatic
and/or violent dreams during REM sleep.
2. Non-rapid Eye Movement (NREM) - also called disorders of arousal, occur during the sleep-wake
transition and are initiated during non-rapid-eye-movement sleep or slow-wave sleep.

Type of NREM Parasomnias:

• Sleep terrors/night terrors - arouses from sleep in a terrified state often accompanied by crying
or screaming, with an increase in heart rate or breathing, sweating, or flushing of the skin. •
Sleepwalking - occurs when a person appears to be awake and moving around with eyes wide
open but is actually asleep.
• Confusional arousals - occur when a person is awakened from a deep sleep during the first part
of the night.
What Causes Parasomnias?

• Personality disorders
• Other stressors
• Drugs, for example, levodopa, beta-adrenergic drugs, and withdrawal of REM-suppressing
medications
• Fever
• Sleep deprivation (lack of sleep)
• Possible hereditary/familial trend
• Relationship difficulties

How to Prevent Parasomnias?

• Get a full night of sleep every night

• Keep a regular sleep-wake schedule
• If you use sleeping pills, use the medication as directed
• Make adjustments to your work schedule if you are a shift worker
• Avoid alcohol and drug use

3. Sleep Apnea - is a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts.

Two types of Sleep Apnea:

1. Obstructive sleep apnea - occurs when an individual's airway becomes blocked during sleep.

2. Central sleep apnea - occurs when your brain doesn't send proper signals to the muscles that
control breathing.

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Treatment for Sleep Apnea:

• Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) - device includes a mask that fits over the
sleeper's nose and mouth, which is connected to a pump that pumps air into the person's
airways, forcing them to remain open.

Symptoms of Sleep Apnea:

• Loud snoring
• Gasping for air during sleep
• Awakening with a dry mouth
• Morning headache
• Episodes in which you stop breathing during sleep — which would be reported by another person
• Difficulty staying asleep (insomnia)
• Excessive daytime sleepiness (hypersomnia)
• Difficulty paying attention while awake
• Irritability
What Causes Sleep Apnea?

• Excess weight
• Being older
• Smoking
• Family history
• Nasal congestion

How to Prevent Sleep Apnea?

• Maintain a healthy weight

• Try yoga
• Alter your sleep position
• Use a humidifier
• Avoid alcohol and smoking

4. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) - an infant stops breathing during sleep and dies.

What Causes SIDS?

SIDS is a mysterious syndrome, and by its very definition the cause cannot be determined. Children’s
researchers have uncovered strong evidence that SIDS has a biological basis, and are continuing to
work towards determining the underlying causes and identifying at-risk babies.

How to Prevent SIDS?

• place your baby on his back to sleep

• keep fluffy blankets and stuffed animals out of his crib

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• don’t overheat the baby or his room when he sleeps
• don’t allow anyone to smoke around your baby
• breastfeed your baby
5. Narcolepsy - is a sleep disorder characterized by excessive sleepiness.

What Causes Narcolepsy? Experts don’t know what causes narcolepsy. They think it involves multiple
things that come together to cause problems in your brain and disturb your REM sleep.

How to Prevent Narcolepsy?

• Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.

• Keep your bedroom dark and at a comfortable temperature. Make sure your bed and pillows are
comfortable.
• Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and heavy meals several hours before bedtime.
• Don't smoke.
• Do something relaxing, such as take a warm bath or read a book before going to sleep. • Get
regular exercise every day, which can help you sleep at night. Be sure you plan exercise several
hours before bedtime.
• Plan naps during the day when you typically feel tired. This helps control daytime sleepiness and
reduces the number of unplanned sleep attacks.
 • Stimulant medicines can help you stay awake during the day.
• Antidepressant medicines can help reduce episodes of cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and
hallucinations.
• Sodium oxybate (Xyrem) works well to control cataplexy. It can also help control daytime
sleepiness.

Substance Use and Abuse. A person who has a substance use disorder often uses more of the
substance than they originally intended to and continues to use that substance despite experiencing
significant adverse consequences. In individuals diagnosed with a substance use disorder, there is a
compulsive pattern of drug use that is often associated with both physical and psychological
dependence.
Keywords: Physical Dependence/Psychological Dependence/Tolerance/Withdrawal/Drug
Drug Categories:

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Alcohol and Other Depressants

- Ethanol, which we commonly refer to as alcohol, is in a class of psychoactive drugs known as

depressants.

A depressant is a drug that tends to suppress central nervous system activity. Other depressants
include barbiturates and benzodiazepines.

Stimulants are drugs that tend to increase overall levels of neural activity. Many of these drugs act as
agonists of the dopamine neurotransmitter system.

A. Methamphetamine is a type of amphetamine that can be made from ingredients that are readily
available (e.g., medications containing pseudoephedrine, a compound found in many over-the-counter
cold and flu remedies).

B. The cocaine, amphetamine, cathinones, and MDMA users seek a euphoric high, feelings of
intense elation and pleasure, especially in those users who take the drug via intravenous injection or
smoking.

C. Caffeine is another stimulant drug. Generally, people use caffeine to maintain increased levels of
alertness and arousal.
D. Nicotine is highly addictive, and the use of tobacco products is associated with increased risks of
heart disease, stroke, and a variety of cancers.

E. Opioid is one of a category of drugs that includes heroin, morphine, methadone, and codeine.
Opioids have analgesic properties; that is, they decrease pain.

F. Hallucinogen is one of a class of drugs that results in profound alterations in sensory and
perceptual experiences.

G. Medical Marijuana
- While the possession and use of marijuana is illegal in most states, it is now legal in Washington and
Colorado to possess limited quantities of marijuana for recreational use

Other States of Consciousness

Hypnosis is a state of extreme self-focus and attention in which minimal attention is given to external
stimuli.

These steps are conducive to being open to the heightened suggestibility of hypnosis. • The
participant is guided to focus on one thing, such as the hypnotist’s words or a ticking watch. •The
participant is made comfortable and is directed to be relaxed and sleepy. • The participant is told
to be open to the process of hypnosis, trust the hypnotist and let go. •The participant is
encouraged to use his or her imagination.

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Meditation is the act of focusing on a single target (such as the breath or a repeated sound) to
increase
awareness of the moment.

REFLECTION

Answer the following questions.

• What do you do to adjust to the differences in your daily schedule throughout the week? Are you
running a sleep debt when daylight saving time begins or ends?
• Have you (or someone you know) ever experienced significant periods of sleep deprivation
because of simple insomnia, high levels of stress, or as a side effect from a medication? What
were the consequences of missing out on sleep?
• Many people experiment with some sort of psychoactive substance at some point in their lives.
Why do you think people are motivated to use substances that alter consciousness? • Under what
circumstances would you be willing to consider hypnosis and/or meditation as a treatment option?
What kind of information would you need before you made a decision to use these techniques?

ASSESSMENT

Encircle the most correct answer.

hours.
1. ________ cycles occur roughly once every 24 a. biological
b. circadian b. stage 2
c. rotating c. stage 3 and stage 4
d. conscious d. REM sleep

2. ________ is one way in which people can 5. Sleep spindles and K-complexes are most
help reset their biological clocks. often associated with ________ sleep. a. stage
a. Light-dark exposure 1
b. coffee consumption b. stage 2
c. alcohol consumption c. stage 3 and stage 4
d. napping d. REM

3. ________ appears to be especially important 6. Symptoms of ________ may be improved by

for enhanced performance on recently learned REM deprivation.
tasks. a. schizophrenia
a. melatonin b. Parkinson’s disease
b. slow-wave sleep c. depression
c. sleep deprivation d. generalized anxiety disorder
d. growth hormone
7. The ________ content of a dream refers to
4. ________ is(are) described as slow-wave the true meaning of the dream.
sleep. a. latent
a. stage 1 b. manifest

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c. collective unconscious b. somnambulism
d. important c. cataplexy
d. narcolepsy

8. ________ is loss of muscle tone or control 12. ________ is most effective in individuals
that is often associated with narcolepsy. that are very open to the power of suggestion.
a. RBD a. hypnosis
b. CPAP b. meditation
c. cataplexy c. mindful awareness
d. insomnia d. cognitive therapy

9. An individual may suffer from ________ if 13. ________ has its roots in religious
there is a disruption in the brain signals that are practice. a. hypnosis
sent to the muscles that regulate breathing. a. b. meditation
central sleep apnea c. cognitive therapy
b. obstructive sleep apnea d. behavioral therapy
c. narcolepsy
d. SIDS 14. Meditation may be helpful in
________. a. pain management
10.The most common treatment for ________ b. stress control
involves the use of amphetamine-like c. treating the flu
medications. d. both a and b
a. sleep apnea
b. RBD 15. Research suggests that cognitive
c. SIDS processes, such as learning, may be affected
d. narcolepsy by ________. a. hypnosis
11. ________ is another word for sleepwalking. b. meditation
a. insomnia c. mindful awareness
 d. progressive relaxation

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CHAPTER SUMMARY

• States of consciousness vary over the course of the day and throughout our lives.
Important factors in these changes are the biological rhythms, and, more specifically,
the circadian rhythms.
• We devote a very large portion of time to sleep, and our brains have complex systems
that control various aspects of sleep. Several hormones important for physical growth
and maturation are secreted during sleep. While the reason we sleep remains
something of a mystery, there is some evidence to suggest that sleep is very
 important to learning and memory.
• The different stages of sleep are characterized by the patterns of brain waves
associated with each stage. As a person transitions from being awake to falling
asleep, alpha waves are replaced by theta waves. Sleep spindles and K-complexes
emerge in stage 2 sleep. Stage 3 and stage 4 are described as slow-wave sleep that
is marked by a predominance of delta waves. REM sleep involves rapid movements
of the eyes, paralysis of voluntary muscles, and dreaming. Both NREM and REM
sleep appear to play important roles in learning and memory. Dreams may represent
life events that are important to the dreamer.
• Many individuals suffer from some type of sleep disorder or disturbance at some point
in their lives. Insomnia is a common experience in which people have difficulty falling
or staying asleep. Parasomnias involve unwanted motor behavior or experiences
throughout the sleep cycle and include RBD, sleepwalking, restless leg syndrome,
and night terrors. Sleep apnea occurs when individuals stop breathing during their
sleep, and in the case of sudden infant death syndrome, infants will stop breathing
during sleep and die. Narcolepsy involves an irresistible urge to fall asleep during
waking hours and is often associated with cataplexy and hallucination.
• Substance use disorder is defined in DSM-5 as a compulsive pattern of drug use
despite negativeconsequences. Both physical and psychological dependence are
important parts of this disorder. Alcohol, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines are
central nervous system depressants that affect GABA neurotransmission. Cocaine,
amphetamine, cathinones, and MDMA are all central nervous stimulants that agonize
dopamine neurotransmission, while nicotine and caffeine affect acetylcholine and
adenosine, respectively. Opiate drugs serve as powerful analgesics through their
effects on the endogenous opioid neurotransmitter system, and hallucinogenic drugs
cause pronounced changes in sensory and perceptual experiences. The
hallucinogens are variable with regards to the specific neurotransmitter systems they
affect.
• Hypnosis is a focus on the self that involves suggested changes of behavior and
experience. Meditation involves relaxed, yet focused, awareness. Both hypnotic and
meditative states may involve altered states of consciousness that have potential
application for the treatment of a variety of physical and psychological disorders.

Contents lifted from:

Spielman, R. (2017). Psychology. Openstax edition. Retrieved from

https://openstax.org/details/books/psychology.

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UNIT 7: LEARNING AND MEMORY

LEARNING OBJECTIVES/OUTCOMES
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. Learn the meaning of learning and memory.
2. Understand the different theories of learning.
3. Understand the different types of learning.
4. Understand the phenomenon of memory, encoding, storage, retrieval, and
forgetting.
INTRODUCTION
Learning may be defined as a process that brings about a change in an individual’s way of
responding as a result of practice or other experiences. Learning may also be defined as a relatively
permanent change in behavior. Behavior changes with experience. New patterns of behavior take
place when the organism senses its world, interprets it, responds to it, and then responds to the
consequences of its own responses. Once the organism has passed through this cycle, it is never the
same again.
Memory is a term used to label the way facts and past experiences are impressed, retained
and later recalled. It is the power of remembering past objects and stages of consciousness. As a by
product of learning, it is that which is left over or retained after an interval of time. To have a good
memory means that the individual has learned the appropriate responses. He has retained these
effects of impression.

LESSON PROPER
Theories of Learning

Pavlov and Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning involves the learning of associations between stimuli, in

situations where responses are reflexive or habitual.

Ivan Pavlov, around the beginning of the 20th century, was a Russian physiologist
interested mainly in animal digestive processes. In one aspect of his research, dogs had
special tubes surgically inserted into their throats to allow measurement of their salivation in
response to being fed. And, as the story goes, Pavlov became puzzled by the observation
that the dogs often salivated before the food was actually placed in their mouths, and even
when lab assistants simply approached the dogs with or without food. Pavlov dubbed this
phenomenon “psychic secretions,” an illusion to some kind of covert process. And from
there, he and his colleagues set about discovering how and why they occurred, thereby
launching a major line of research in psychology that is still active today.

In classical conditioning, the organism learns an association between two (or

more) stimuli. In essence, the organism learns that one stimulus is often followed by a
second one, based on temporal contiguity and whatever response is appropriate to the
second stimulus become appropriate to the first as well. The first stimulus, in other words,
becomes a “cue” for the second.

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For example: In Pavlov’s lab, it appears that the stimulus features of the lab assistants such
as their white lab coats had become associated with food stimuli. The lab coats cued the
dogs that food might be on the way, thus eliciting salivation.

Classical conditioning experiments nowadays tend to be quite complex, but the basic
procedures and terms can be illustrated by Pavlov’s early experiments: Ring a bell, then
immediately give the dog a bit of food; the dog salivates. Ring the bell again, feed the dog
again, and so on. Eventually, the dog salivates in response to the bell alone. In technical
terms, food is an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that produces an unconditioned response
(UCR) of salivation. The bell is a conditioned stimulus (CS), which eventually produces a
conditioned response (CR) of salivation after repeated trials in which the bell and food are
paired.

The components of classical conditioning. We can divide classical conditioning

into four main components. These components are the unconditioned and conditioned
stimuli and the unconditioned and conditioned response. If we understand the relationships
between these components, we’ll be able to understand classical conditioning better. We’re
now going to briefly explain each of these components and the relationship between them:

• Unconditioned stimulus: This is the stimulus that is already significant and meaningful
enough for the subject. By this, we mean that it’s a stimulus that’s capable of
provoking a response on its own. In Pavlov’s experiment, the unconditioned stimulus
was the food.
• Unconditioned response: This is the subject’s response in the presence of the
unconditioned stimulus. In the case of the aforementioned experiment, the
unconditioned response was the salivation when the dogs saw the food.
• Conditioned stimulus: This is the initially neutral stimulus which doesn’t generate any
significant response in the subject on its own. However, through association with the
unconditioned stimulus, it’s capable of provoking a new response. In the case of
Pavlov’s experiment, this stimulus was the sound of the bell.
• Conditioned response: This is the response after introducing the conditioned stimulus.
In the case of this experiment, it was the dogs salivating when they heard the sound
of the bell.
Skinner and Operant Conditioning. Operant conditioning involves the learning of
association between responses and consequences, in situation where behavior is voluntary.
Skinner is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning, but his work was based on
Thorndike’s (1898) law of effect. According to this principle, behavior that is followed by
pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and behavior followed by unpleasant
consequences is less likely to be repeated.
Skinner introduced a new term into the Law of Effect - Reinforcement. behavior which is
reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e., strengthened); behavior which is not reinforced tends to
die out-or be extinguished (i.e., weakened).
Skinner (1948) studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments using animals which
he placed in a 'Skinner Box' which was similar to Thorndike’s puzzle box.

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Skinner identified three types of responses, or operant, that can follow behavior.

• Neutral operants: responses from the environment that neither increase nor
decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated.
• Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a
behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative. • Punishers:
Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being
repeated. Punishment weakens behavior.

We can all think of examples of how our own behavior has been affected by
reinforcers and punishers. As a child you probably tried out a number of behaviors and
learned from their consequences. For example, if when you were younger you tried smoking
at school, and the chief consequence was that you got in with the crowd you always wanted
to hang out with, you would have been positively reinforced (i.e., rewarded) and would be
likely to repeat the behavior. If, however, the main consequence was that you were caught,
caned, suspended from school and your parents became involved you would most certainly
have been punished, and you would consequently be much less likely to smoke now.

Positive Reinforcement. Skinner showed how positive reinforcement worked by

placing a hungry rat in his Skinner box. The box contained a lever on the side, and as the rat
moved about the box, it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so a food pellet
would drop into a container next to the lever.
The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the
box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would
repeat the action again and again. Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by
providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding. For example, if your teacher gives
you £5 each time you complete your homework (i.e., a reward) you will be more likely to
repeat this behavior in the future, thus strengthening the behavior of completing your
homework.

Negative Reinforcement. The removal of an unpleasant reinforcer can also

strengthen behavior. This is known as negative reinforcement because it is the removal of an
adverse stimulus which is ‘rewarding’ to the animal or person. Negative reinforcement
strengthens behavior because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience.
For example, if you do not complete your homework, you give your teacher £5. You
will complete your homework to avoid paying £5, thus strengthening the behavior of
completing your homework.
Skinner showed how negative reinforcement worked by placing a rat in his Skinner
box and then subjecting it to an unpleasant electric current which caused it some discomfort.
As the rat moved about the box it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so
the electric current would be switched off. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever
after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of escaping the electric current
ensured that they would repeat the action again and again. In fact Skinner even taught the
rats to avoid the electric current by turning on a light just before the electric current came on.
The rats soon learned to press the lever when the light came on because they knew that this
would stop the electric current being switched on.
These two learned responses are known as Escape Learning and Avoidance Learning.

Punishment (weakens behavior) Punishment is defined as the opposite of

reinforcement since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than increase it.

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It is an aversive event that decreases the behavior that it follows. Like reinforcement,
punishment can work either by directly applying an unpleasant stimulus like a shock after a
response or by removing a potentially rewarding stimulus, for instance, deducting someone’s
pocket money to punish undesirable behavior.
Note: It is not always easy to distinguish between punishment and negative
reinforcement. There are many problems with using punishment, such as:

• Punished behavior is not forgotten, it's suppressed - behavior returns when punishment
is no longer present.
 • Causes increased aggression - shows that aggression is a way to cope with problems. •
Creates fear that can generalize to undesirable behaviors, e.g., fear of school. • Does not
necessarily guide toward desired behavior - reinforcement tells you what to do,
punishment only tells you what not to do.

Edward Thorndike: The Law of Effect The law of effect principle developed by
Edward Thorndike suggested that: "responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular
situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a
discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation. Edward Thorndike
(1898) is famous in psychology for his work on learning theory that lead to the development
of operant conditioning within Behaviorism. Whereas classical conditioning depends on
developing associations between events, operant conditioning involves learning from the
consequences of our behavior. Skinner wasn’t the first psychologist to study learning by
consequences. Indeed, Skinner's theory of operant conditioning is built on the ideas of
Edward Thorndike. Thorndike studied learning in animals (usually cats). He devised a classic
experiment in which he used a puzzle box (see fig. 1) to empirically test the laws of learning.

Fig 1: Simplified
graph of the result of the puzzle box experiment.
He placed a cat in the puzzle box, which was encourage to escape to reach a scrap
of fish placed outside. Thorndike would put a cat into the box and time how long it took to
escape. The cats experimented with different ways to escape the puzzle box and reach the
fish. Eventually they would stumble upon the lever which opened the cage. When it had
escaped it was put in again, and once more the time it took to escape was noted. In
successive trials the cats would learn that pressing the lever would have favorable
consequences and they would adopt this behavior, becoming increasingly quick at pressing
the lever. Edward Thorndike put forward a “Law of effect” which stated that any behavior
that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed
by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped.

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Social Cognitive Theory by Albert Bandura. Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)
started as the Social Learning Theory (SLT) in the 1960s by Albert Bandura. It developed
into the SCT in 1986 and posits that learning occurs in a social context with a dynamic and
reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior. The unique feature of SCT is
the emphasis on social influence and its emphasis on external and internal social
reinforcement. SCT considers the unique way in which individuals acquire and maintain
behavior, while also considering the social environment in which individuals perform the
behavior. The theory takes into account a person's past experiences, which factor into
whether behavioral action will occur. These past experiences influences reinforcements,
expectations, and expectancies, all of which shape whether a person will engage in a
specific behavior and the reasons why a person engages in that behavior.
 Many theories of behavior used in health promotion do not consider maintenance of
behavior, but rather focus on initiating behavior. This is unfortunate as maintenance of
behavior, and not just initiation of behavior, is the true goal in public health. The goal of SCT
is to explain how people regulate their behavior through control and reinforcement to achieve
goal-directed behavior that can be maintained over time. The first five constructs were
developed as part of the SLT; the construct of self-efficacy was added when the theory
evolved into SCT.

1. Reciprocal Determinism - This is the central concept of SCT. This refers to the
dynamic and reciprocal interaction of person (individual with a set of learned
experiences), environment (external social context), and behavior (responses to
stimuli to achieve goals).
2. Behavioral Capability - This refers to a person's actual ability to perform a behavior
through essential knowledge and skills. In order to successfully perform a behavior, a
person must know what to do and how to do it. People learn from the consequences
of their behavior, which also affects the environment in which they live.
3. Observational Learning - This asserts that people can witness and observe a behavior
conducted by others, and then reproduce those actions. This is often exhibited
through "modeling" of behaviors. If individuals see successful demonstration of a
behavior, they can also complete the behavior successfully.
4. Reinforcements - This refers to the internal or external responses to a person's
behavior that affect the likelihood of continuing or discontinuing the behavior.
Reinforcements can be self-initiated or in the environment, and reinforcements can
be positive or negative. This is the construct of SCT that most closely ties to the
reciprocal relationship between behavior and environment.
5. Expectations - This refers to the anticipated consequences of a person's behavior.
Outcome expectations can be health-related or not health-related. People anticipate
the consequences of their actions before engaging in the behavior, and these
anticipated consequences can influence successful completion of the behavior.
Expectations derive largely from previous experience. While expectancies also
derive from previous experience, expectancies focus on the value that is placed on
the outcome and are subjective to the individual.
6. Self-efficacy - This refers to the level of a person's confidence in his or her ability to
successfully perform a behavior. Self-efficacy is unique to SCT although other
theories have added this construct at later dates, such as the Theory of Planned
Behavior. Self-efficacy is influenced by a person's specific capabilities and other
individual factors, as well as by environmental factors (barriers and facilitators).

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Insightful Learning (Perceptual Learning)

The earliest and best-known experiments on insightful learning were done by

Wolfgang Kohler (1887 – 1967), a Gestalt psychologist. In observing chimpanzees, Kohler
saw that animas are capable of acquiring a new response in one burst of insight, wherein the
solution of a problem becomes suddenly clear.
It is the solution of a problem by a sudden adaptive reorganization of experience.
There are three process of insight learning:
1. Surveying relevant conditions of the presented stimulus and seeking their
relationship.
 2. Determing the “instrumental value” of a tool, either object or information, as a
means of solving a problem or achieving a goal.
3. “Eureka” experience (Aha!)
Other Types of Learning

Sign Learning may be defined as an acquired expectation that one stimulus will be followed
by another if a familiar behavior route is taken.

Programmed Learning is a method of self-instruction consisting of frames (a series of short

steps) and responses. It uses instructional materials where one works at one’s own rate, makes
active responses to a step-by-step program, and gets immediate knowledge of results. The
self-instructional materials can be presented by mechanical devices, called teaching machines,
which come in various forms.

Learning to Learn past experiences with similar problems increase the likelihood that certain
relationships will be learned and will be applied to the solutions. Research conducted on monkeys
(Harlow 1949) demonstrated the occurrences of learning sets. In some circumstances, the monkeys
appeared to catch on to principles involved in a series of learning tasks.

Multiple-Response Learning is acquired via patterns of sequences of movements or words.

It involves more than one identifiable act, with the order of events usually fixed by the demands of the
situation. In complex skills, whether verbal or motor, patterns of responses are acquired gradually
and become organized. A sensorimotor skill, like driving a car or riding a bicycle, involves muscular
movement under sensory control. Separate responses, such as watching the traffic and other
vehicles on the road, are connected into sequences and patterns. Practicing the skills each day
(distributed practice) is generally more effective than consecutive practice within one period (massed
practice).

Associative Learning (Habit Formation) is behavior learned through habit formation or by

associating S (Stimulus) and R (Response). This is illustrated in experiments on classical
conditioning, operant conditioning, multiple-response learning, and escape and avoidance learning.

Rational Learning knowledge is the outcome sought in this type of learning. Rational
learning is intellectual in nature and involves the process of abstraction by which concepts are
formed.

Motor Learning The outcome sought in this type of learning is skills, which may be described
as the adaptation of movement of stimuli resulting in speed and precision of performance.

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Associational Learning the outcome sought in this type of learning is the acquisition and
retention of facts and information. This involves the development of associative patterns of learning
by which ideas and experiences are retained, recalled, and reorganized through the process of
linking together or establishing relationships between and among ideas and experiences, so that one
will serve as the stimulus for the revival and recall of the other previously experienced.

Appreciation Learning the outcome sought in this type of learning is appreciation or

aesthetic improvement. Appreciation involves both intellectual and emotional elements. It is a
sensitive awareness to and perception of the importance or utility of information in relation to other
fields and in the development of attitudes and tastes. Appreciation learning involves the process of
acquiring attitudes, ideals, satisfaction, judgement, and knowledge concerning values as well as the
recognition of worth and importance which the learner gains from participating in the learning
activities.

Memory is the faculty by which the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information. It is a record of
experience for guiding future action. Humans process stimuli first with their sensory memory; that
information is typically held in the brain for less than a second, which may explain why most people
report that when shown an object quickly, they feel like they take in more details than they're able to
recall later. Next, the information is transferred to short-term memory or working memory, which
allows someone to mull things over and hold key information in their mind. Finally, people store past
events and patterns in their long-term memory, also known as episodic or semantic memory.

Understanding Memory There are many different types of memory. There's the type of memory
that you can dredge up without any effort at all; and there's the category where you must sweat to
imprint facts and knowledge. Here is an overview, from various kinds of long-term memory, where
you can recall events forever, as well as short-term, procedural, sensory, among others.

What is long-term memory? This is how you store life-time memories, your first kiss, your wedding
day, and the birth of your baby. The more weight you put on the event, the more likely it will be
coded into your memory stores. The two types of memory stored in long-term are implicit and
explicit.
What is implicit memory? This type of memory is trouble-free and unintentional. How do
you, after hearing a melody once, recall that melody without any effort on your part? Implicit memory
is unconscious and involuntary in nature.
What is explicit memory? This is a type of long-term memory, and is the opposite of
implicit memory. Trying to study and remember hard facts for an exam requires intentional and
conscious thinking. Semantic and episodic memory are two types of explicit memory, also called
declarative memory.
What is semantic memory? If you are great at trivia games and can dredge up, for
example, the names of obscure ancient capitals, then you have good semantic memory. This type
of recall is used for everyday information such as the meaning of a word, facts, and general
knowledge.
What is episodic memory? When you recollect and recapture particular events from your
past, it won’t be the same memory that a friend might have of that same event. This memory is
unique to you. Episodic memory relies on semantic memory. An example might be the very first
movie you ever saw.
What is procedural memory? Once you learn how to ride a bike or play the piano or drive
a car, your procedural memory takes over. It’s the instant recall of skills and actions that you
acquire. This general mastery becomes ingrained and automatic. Procedural memory, also called
motor memory, is a type of implicit memory.

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What is sensory memory?This short-term memory is related to your ability to retain
impressions from the sensations you experience. What you smell, touch, hear, taste, and see is
processed by the brain into sensory memories.
What is short-term memory? The brain stores short-term memories for about 20 to 30
seconds. This is why you forget where you put your keys or whether you turned the stove off.
Research suggests that we can only store between five and nine events in short-term memory.
What is working memory? You need working memory to retain and use information. This
type of memory is needed in learning. A child with good working memory does well in math and
reading, for example. Working memory may have a short duration, but practice and reusing the
memory can encode information in long-term storage.

How Memory Works

Memory is malleable, and many researchers believe that it can be improved. But it also tends
to decline naturally as people age and it can be corrupted by dementia as well as brain injury, trauma,
or repeated stress. Even without impairment, human memory is notoriously untrustworthy. Different
areas of the brain affect memory including the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex.

What is the role of the hippocampus in memory? The hippocampus, located in the
temporal lobe and part of the limbic system, is related to normal recognition and gives memories
meaning and connects them to other memories. The hippocampus is also involved with spatial
memory, which helps the brain map the surrounding world and find its way around a known place,
for example.
What is the role of the prefrontal cortex? Located in the frontal lobe, the prefrontal cortex
is important in decision-making, speech, language, executive function, among other behaviors.
This is also where short-term and working memory resides.
What is the amygdala? Located near the hippocampus, the amygdala is linked to emotional
memory, it also helps you discern emotions in others. Also part of the limbic system, the amygdala
activates your flight-or-fight response when you are fearful, stressed, or threatened.

Three Stages of the Learning/Memory Process

Psychologists distinguish between three necessary stages in the learning and memory
process: encoding, storage, and retrieval (Melton, 1963). Encoding is defined as the initial
learning of information; storage refers to maintaining information over time; retrieval is the ability to
access information when you need it. If you meet someone for the first time at a party, you need to
encode her name (Lyn Goff) while you associate her name with her face. Then you need to
maintain the information over time. If you see her a week later, you need to recognize her face and
have it serve as a cue to retrieve her name. Any successful act of remembering requires that all
three stages be intact. However, two types of errors can also occur. Forgetting is one type: you see
the person you met at the party and you cannot recall her name. The other error is
misremembering (false recall or false recognition): you see someone who looks like Lyn Goff and
call the person by that name (false recognition of the face). Or, you might see the real Lyn Goff,
recognize her face, but then call her by the name of another woman you met at the party (mis recall
of her name).

Theories of Forgetting

Why cannot we recall everything that happened to us during the fourth, fifth, or tenth year of our
life? There are several explanations none of which is completely satisfactory in itself.

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a. Passive Decay Through Disuse. This theory assumes that lapse of time is responsible
for forgetting.
b. Interference Effects. Present learning with what has been previously learned leads to
forgetting.
c. Absence of Adequate Stimulation. Most often, we are unable to recall some event in the
past because the appropriating stimuli are absent.
d. Obliteration of the Memory Trace. This state occurs because of certain conditions other
than time. One is the effect of emotional shock.
 e. Motivated forgetting. According to this principle, some of our memories become
inaccessible to recall because of the negative effect on us.

How can I sharpen my memory?

You can boost memory with proven techniques like repeating what you hear out loud, writing
information down, creating associations, and dividing new information into learnable chunks. Plus,
simple and healthy life choices also help slow memory loss and improve cognition in your later years.

What foods improve memory?

There are foods that can improve cognitive function. Fatty fish, for example, contains
docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid, which reduces inflammation and improves the
brain. Other foods that protect against memory loss are blueberries, turmeric, cruciferous
vegetables like broccoli, nuts, and seeds.

VIII. ACTIVITY / EXERCISES

Journal Writing
Share your most unforgettable experience during your high school days. What makes it
unforgettable? Who are the people involved? And what are your learnings and realization from this
experience.

IX. ASSESSMENT
Questions:
1. What is learning?
2. Differentiate classical from instrumental / operant conditioning.
3. What is a reinforcement?
4. What is rational learning? Kindly cite an example of situation to explain further.
5. Give examples of appreciational learning.
6. What may be the cause of forgetting?
7. Give some factors that would affect an individual’s ability to learn.

X. SUMMARRY
Learning may be defined as a process that brings about a change in an individual’s way of
responding as a result of practice or other experiences. Learning may also be defined as a relatively

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permanent change in behavior. Behavior changes with experience. New patterns of behavior take
place when the organism senses its world, interprets it, responds to it, and then responds to the
consequences of its own responses. Once the organism has passed through this cycle, it is never the
same again.
Classical conditioning involves the learning of associations between stimuli, in situations where
responses are reflexive or habitual.
Operant conditioning involves the learning of association between responses and
consequences, in situation where behavior is voluntary.
 The law of effect principle developed by Edward Thorndike suggested that: "responses that
produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation,
and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation.

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) started as the Social Learning Theory (SLT) in the 1960s by
Albert Bandura. It developed into the SCT in 1986 and posits that learning occurs in a social context
with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment, and behavior.
The earliest and best-known experiments on insightful learning were done by Wolfgang
Kohler (1887 – 1967), a Gestalt psychologist. In observing chimpanzees, Kohler saw that
animas are capable of acquiring a new response in one burst of insight, wherein the solution of
a problem becomes suddenly clear.
Memory is a term used to label the way facts and past experiences are impressed,
retained and later recalled. It is the power of remembering past objects and stages of
consciousness. As a by-product of learning, it is that which is left over or retained after an
interval of time. To have a good memory means that the individual has learned the appropriate
responses. He has retained these effects of impression.

Psychologists distinguish between three necessary stages in the learning and memory
process: encoding, storage, and retrieval

XI. REFERENCES

• EZ 101 Study Keys Psycholgoy Second Edition (2006) Bon Baucum, Ph.D • General
Psychoglogy Fourth Edition (2005) Custodiosa A. Sanchez, Ph.D, Paz F. Abad, Ph.D,
Loreto Jao, Ed.D
• General Psychology Sixth Edition (2012) Geraldine E. Tria, Josefina E. Gaerlan, Delia
A. Limpingco.
• https://exploringyourmind.com/ivan-pavlov-theory-classical-conditioning/
• McLeod, S. A. (2018, January 14). Edward Thorndike. Simply Psychology.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/memory

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UNIT 9: Thinking, Language and Intelligence

Learning Objectives

✓ Understand the barriers to problem solving. And the significance of finding solution to
the problem.
✓ Understand the meaning of language.
✓ Determined and language into different cultures.
✓ Understand the meaning of Intelligence
✓ Analyze and evaluate the existing theories of intelligence.
✓ Determine the influences that affect intelligence
Introduction

In this chapter, we now turn to the subject of how the brains process language as well as how it
uses information to solve problems and make decisions. Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology
that focuses on the study of higher mental processes including thinking, language, memory, problem
solving, knowing, reasoning, judging, and decision making. Although the realm of cognitive psychology is
broad, we will center on three major topics. The first topic we consider in this chapter is thinking, reasoning
and the different strategies for approaching problems, means of generating solutions, and ways of making
judgments about the usefulness and accuracy of solutions. Then we discuss how language is developed
and acquired, its basic characteristics, and the relationship between language and thought. Finally, we will
tackle intelligence, its theories and measurement.

Thinking, Reasoning and Decision Making

What are you thinking about at this moment?

The mere ability to pose such a question underscores the distinctive nature of the human ability to
think. No other species contemplates, analyzes, recollects, or plans the way humans do. Understanding
what thinking is, however, goes beyond knowing what we think. Psychologists define thinking as brain
activity in which we mentally manipulate information, including words, visual images, sounds, or other data.
Thinking transforms information into new and different forms, allowing us to answer questions, make
decisions, solve problems, or make plans. To understand more the fundamental elements involved in
thinking, we begin by considering our use of mental images and concepts, the building blocks of thought.

Mental Images

Think of your best friend. Chances are that you “see” some kind of visual image when asked to
think of her or him, or any other person or object, for that matter. To some cognitive psychologists, such
mental images constitute a major part of thinking. Mental images are representations in the mind of an
object or event. They are not just visual representations; our ability to “hear” a tune in our heads also relies
on a mental image. In fact, every sensory modality may produce corresponding mental images (De Bini,
Pazzaglia , & Gardini , 2007; Gardini et al., 2009; Koçak et al., 2011). Research suggests that our mental
images also have the same properties of the actual stimuli they represent (i.e. scanning smaller objects
take a shorter time than scanning larger objects just as the eyes takes shorter time to scan actual smaller
objects than actual large objects). Similarly, mental images can be manipulated just as we are able in the
real world. See Figure 1.

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 Figure 1
Try to mentally rotate one of each pair of patterns to see if it is the same as the other member of that pair.
It’s likely that the farther you have to mentally rotate a pattern, the longer it will take to decide if the
patterns match one another. Does this mean that it will take you longer to visualize a map of the world
than a map of the United States? Why or why not? (Source: Adapted from Shepard & Metzler, 1971)

Some experts see the production of mental images as a way to improve various skills. For
instance, many athletes use mental imagery in their training. Basketball players may try to produce vivid
and detailed images of the court, the basket, the ball, and the noisy crowd helping them to improve
performance through a process they call “getting in the zone” (Fournier, et al., 2008; Moran, 2009;
Velentzas, et al. 2011). Similarly, pianists who simply mentally rehearse an exercise show brain activity
that is virtually identical to that of the people who actually practice the exercise manually. Apparently,
carrying out the task involved the same network of brain cells as the network used in mentally rehearsing
it (Pascual-Leone et al., 1995; Kensinger & Schacter, 2006; Sanders et al., 2008).

Concepts

If someone asks you what is in your refrigerator, you might answer with a detailed list of items (a
jar of jam, eggs, tomatoes, frozen pork or fish, leftover dishes, bottles of water, etc.) Though, you may
also categorize items in terms of “cooked” or “fresh ingredients.” Using such categories reflects the
operation of concepts. Concepts are mental groupings of similar objects, events, or people. Concepts
enable us to organize complex phenomena into cognitive categories that are easier to understand and
remember (Murphy, 2005; Connolly, 2007; Kreppner et al., 2011). Other concepts—often those with the
most relevance to our everyday lives are more ambiguous and difficult to define. When we consider
these more ambiguous concepts, we usually think in terms of examples called prototypes. Prototypes
are typical, highly representative examples of a concept that correspond to our mental image or best
example of the concept. For instance, although a robin and an ostrich are both examples of birds, the
robin is an example that comes to most people’s minds far more readily. Consequently, robin is a
prototype of the concept “bird.” Similarly, when we think of the concept of a table, we’re likely to think of
a coffee table before we think of a drafting table, making a coffee table closer to our prototype of a
table. Culture shapes our recognition of prototypes as we will see on Figure 2.

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