Biopsycology Flashcards

Question

Exo and endo- a01 - exo

Answer 1

Exogenous- external environmental changes affecting biological rhythms to conform to certain cynical time periods Social cues-are examples which entrain bio rhythms these include set meal and bed times which signify when to wake up and fall asleep This means in order to avoid jet lag it’s useful to accustom yourself too the set sleeping and eating times of your destination to avoid desynchronisation

Answer 2

- the effect of SCN was demonstrated by decoursey et al who surgically lesioned the SCNs of 30 chipmunks and compared their circadian rhythms in their natural habitat with 17 controls - researchers found that the vast majority of the experimental group had been killed in the first 80 days after being returned and episodes of nocturnal movement were detected within their permanent dens -this is a strength as it shows that the SCN establishes and maintains the sleep wake cycle -however difficult to generalise as its generalising from animals to humans which i hard to do as the physiology is different - moreover there’s ethical issues as the animals were exposed to much harm and risk so undermining its credibility

Answer 3

This was demonstrated and supported by siffre et al who stayed in a cave for 2 months with no exogenous z like light or a clock and his sleep wake cycle free ran to around 25-30 hours displaying how exogenous have influence over circadian rhythms Also was demonstrated by Campbell and Murphy who found that shining light on the back of ps knees shifted circadian rhythms which is a strength as its showing evidence light doesn’t need to be detected in they eyes to affect bio rhythms

Answer 4

Miles (1977) recount the story of a blind man, who had been blind from birth and had a circadian rhythm of 24.9 hours. Despite being exposed to social cues his sleep/wake cycle could not change and needed sedatives at night and stimulants in the morning. Alongside this in artic regions people show normal sleep patterns despite prolonged exposure to light. Both suggest that there are occasions where exogenous zeitgebers have little bearing on our internal rhythm.

Answer 5

-The fight or flight response becomes activated when an individual enters a stressful or dangerous situation -It is an evolved survival method that lets humans and other animals react quickly to life-threatening situations -1 the responses to the sensory impact for example what we hear see and smell -2They connect the century input with emotions associated with the fight of flight response for example fear and anger -3 If the situation is deemed stressful or dangerous, they make less sense a distress signal to the hypothalamus -4 this communicates with the body through the sympathetic nervous system -5 The SNS stimulates the adrenal medulla to secrete the hormones, adrenaline, and adrenaline into the bloodstream 6-Adrenaline can cause a number of psychological changes to prepare the body to fight or fly -Following the response, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated to return the body back to its normal resting state -The parasympathetic nervous system will slow down our heart rate and breathing rate and reduce our blood pressure -In the sympathetic nervous system, they can be many psychological changes for example increased heart rate to increase blood flow to organs, increase breathing rate to increase oxygen intake, pupil dilation to increase entry into the eye, sweat production to regulate temperature, and reduction of non-essential functions like the digestive system or salvation to increase energy for other essential functions

Answer 6

One weakness is lots of early research into this response is typically conducted on males so his androcentric -Consequently many researchers assumed that the findings could be generalised to females -Many research finds that females can adopt a tend and befriend response to stressful and dangerous situations -Taylor found that women are more likely to protect their offspring (tend) -Or from alliances with other women (their friend) -Rather than fight an adversary or flea -Furthermore, the fight or flight response may be counterintuitive for women -As running might be seen as a sign of weakness and put their offspring at risk of danger -Therefore the research done into fight your flight highlights of beta bias. A psychologist assumed that females responded in the same way as males until Taylor provided evidence of a tend and befriend response

Answer 7

-Another criticism would be that some psychologists would say that we have a freeze response -So Gary argued that we avoid confrontation and that prior to responding with attacking over running away most animals display the freeze or stop to look and listen response -Where the animal is hyper vigilant and alert to the slightest sign of danger -The adaptive advantages of this for humans is that freezing focuses our attention and makes them look for new information in order to make the best response for that particular threat -therefore, a weakness as It therefore doesn’t count for the whole story of fight or flight

Answer 8

-there is evidence for positive behaviour rather than fight or flight behaviour -von dawans challenges of view that under distress men respond only with fight or flight -Whereas women are more prone to tend and be friend -It was found that acute stress can actually lead to greater cooperative and friendly behaviour even in men -This could explain the human connection that happened during term of crisis such as the 911 terrorist attack attacks -One reason for this maybe because human beings are fundamentally social animals and is the protective nature of human social relationships that has allowed our species to thrive

Answer 9

-infradian rhythms are those that take longer than 24 hours to complete -An example of this would be the menstrual cycle which is governed by monthly changes in hormone levels -A typical cycle lasts 28 days -During each cycle rising levels of oestrogen cause the ovary to release an egg -And after ovulation the hormone progesterone helps the womb lining to grow thicker -Ready in the womb for pregnancy -if pregnancy does not occur, the egg is absorbed into the body and the womb lining leaves the body -Seasonal affective disorder is also another example -And this is depression that caused during the winter and recovery is experienced in the summer -this is thought to be that the hormones serotonin is released less due to the dark winter months -research was conducted by Russell who studied 29 women with irregular periods -Samples of pheromones were gathered from none of the women are different stages of their menstrual cycle Kels -Via cotton pad placed in their armpits -The parts were rubbed on the upper lip of the participants -They found that 68% of women experience change to the cycle which brought them closer to the cycle of their older donor -suggesting the menstrual cycle is affected by pheromones which is an exogenous factor

Answer 10

Ultraradian are rhythms that last less than 24 hours -An example would be blinking heartbeats sleep cycle and digestion -One big one is the sleep cycle -We go through five distinct stages which span about 90 minutes -It starts at light sleep progressing to deep sleep and then rem sleep -stage 1: this is light sleep you are easily woken up, Alpha brain waves occur -stage 2: light sleep continues, sleep spindles which are shortness of activity occasionally occur -stage 3 + 4 : There is deep sleep or slow wave sleep, Delta waves occur with lower frequencies, difficult to wake someone up at this point -stage 5 : Sleep, The body is paralysed yet brain activity closely resembles that of the awake brain, the brain produces feet of waves and the eyes move around and dreams are most often experienced during RAM sleep

Answer 11

-an assumption of research into the sleep cycle is that during REM sleep dreaming takes place - dement and Kleitman recorded the sleep patterns of nine participants in a sleep lab on an EEG -And controlled the effects of caffeine and alcohol -they were studied under controlled labs conditions and reported to the lab shortly before their usual bedtime -They were asked to abstain from alcohol and caffeine during the time period of the study -They went to bed in a dark room and observed over a number of nights with an EEG sensor attached to their head to measure brain and eye activity -They were randomly awoken a number of times per night using a doorbell sound -They were unaware if they had been awoken during NREM or REM sleep I will ask to record the content of their dreams if they had any into a nearby voice recorder -In the participants the REM sleep could last between three and 50 minutes but overall 20 -The participants experienced a period of RAM sleep every 92 minutes on average -And they all experienced REM sleep every night -80% of the time when they were walking during sleep, they reported a clear dream -However when awoken during NRM sleep only 7% recall having a dream -They show their dream rec recall is more frequent when waking up in REM sleep -and REM sleep is clearly linked with dreaming

Answer 12

-A strength of studying ultra radiant rhythms is a supporting evidence for the distinct stages of sleep comes from highly controlled lab studies -for instance dement and kleitman recorded the sleep patterns of nine participants in a sleep lab on an EEG and they control the effects of caffeine and alcohol -Using these methods allowed for high control of extraneous variables -Therefore increasing the validity as research is a more certain that the results obtained with due to the independent variable -Allowing us a concrete cause-and-effect relationship to be established -Additionally, the lab experiments used standardised practices and these can be tested for replicability and consistency -therefore, due to the methodological practices implemented it allows for objective and empirical evidence to be collected and a high internal validity

Answer 13

-however a limitation is the research is done in a lab setting which is unrealistic to normal circumstances -Well investigating sleep patterns they subjected participants to a specific level of control and use EEG to measure such rhythms -So participants were attached to monitors in a sleep lab -Therefore arising methodological issues when assessing the effects of caffeine and alcohol as firstly they were in a lab environment unfamiliar to them -Which may have affected their natural sleep -And the EEG is attached to their scalps Also add an unrealistic setting which participants had to sleep in -Therefore, it reduces the ecological validity of the study and questions the generalisability of findings outside the research setting -therefore limiting its explanatory power

Answer 14

A weakness with studying the sleep cycle Kels is the difference is observed in people which make investigating patterns very difficult -tucker found significant differences between participants in terms of duration of each stage -Particularly stages three and four -this demonstrates that there may be an individual differences in trading rhythms which means that it is worth focusing on these differences during investigations into sleep cycles

Answer 15

-research into the menstrual cycle is supported by the theory of evolution -For example, it may have been advantageous for women to men together and become pregnant at the same time -In social groups this would allow babies to have lost their mothers during childbirth to have access to breastmilk thereby improving the chances of survival -suggesting that the synchronisation of the menstrual cycle is an adaptive strategy

Answer 16

-there is research to suggest that infradian rhythms such as the menstrual cycle are also important regulators for behaviour - Penton volk et al -Found that women expressed a preference for feminised faces at the least fertile stage of their menstrual cycle and from a masculine face at the most fertile point -these findings indicate that women sexual behaviour is motivated by their infra rhythms highlighting the importance of studying infra rhythms in relation to human behaviour

Answer 17

There is more research to suggest the menstrual cycle is to some extent governed by exogenous zeitgerbers - Reinberg examined a woman who spent three months in a cave with only a small lamp to provide light -He noticed that her mental cycle shortened from the usual 28 days to 2 5.7 days -The suggested that the lack of light in the cave has affected her mental cycle and therefore demonstrating the effect of external factors of infra rhythms

Answer 18

So study the brain allows psychologist to investigate localisation of the brain and look at what part of the brain is responsible for different functions -Functional magnetic resonance imaging or FMRI -Works by detecting the changes in blood flow and blood oxygenation that occur as a result of neural activity -When a part of the brain is more active more blood is consumed to meet the demand of the increased activity -To meet this demand blood flow is directed towards the area -This is a haemodynamic response -The image produced is three dimensional showing which parts of the brain are involved in different mental processes

Answer 19

-electroencephalogram or EEG -Measures electrical activity within the brain the electrodes on a skull cap - The sky represents brain waves that are generated from the action of thousands of neurons -By measuring characteristic wave patterns the EEG can help to diagnose certain conditions of the brain -Event related potentials ERP’s -Is what’s left after a statistical averaging technique and is used to fill out all the extra extraneous brain activity from the original EEG recording and only leaving response related to the specific response

Answer 20

Post-mortem examination is a technique involving the analysis of a persons brain following their death -they are used to determine whether the behaviour is observed during a persons lifetime or linked to structural abnormalities in their brain

Answer 21

A strength of FMRis is unlike standing techniques like PET scans it does not rely on the use of radiation -It is also straightforward to use and risk free additionally non-invasive -However F MRIs are very expensive in comparison to other neuro imaging techniques -And has poor temporary resolution with a delay of around five seconds -Meaning the FMRI may not represent moment to moment brain activity

Answer 22

-One strength of EGS is it has been useful in studying the stages of sleep and the diagnosis of conditions such as epilepsy -It has high temple resolution -And today the technology can detect brain activity our resolution of 1 ms which shows a real world usefulness -However they only provide a measure of general brain activity -Meaning the brain responds to a single stimulus or event of interest is not usually visible in an EEG -however, it is possible to tease out and isolate specific sensory cooperative and motor responses with EEG data

Answer 23

E.g.’s and ERP’s are less invasive than other scanning techniques such as PET scans -For example, they don’t use radiation or require instruments to be inserted in the brain -So they are virtually risk free -In addition they are cheaper methods compare to F MRIs and therefore more widely available to researchers -However a major disadvantage is they have poor spatial resolution -They only detect the activity in superficial regions of the brain -They are unable to Provide information on what is happening in the deeper regions of the brain like the hypothalamus making this technique limited in comparison to the FMRI which is a spatial resolution of one to 2 mm

Answer 24

-One strength of a post-mortem is they were vital in the foundation for early understanding of key processes in the brain -Additionally they provided detailed examination of structure of the brain that is not possible with other scanning techniques -They can access areas such as the hypothalamus and hippocampus which other scanning techniques would struggle to reach -This matters because postmortal examinations provide research researchers with an insight into these deeper brain regions -Which often provide a useful basis for further research -Limitation however is the observed damage in the brain may not be directly linked to the behaviours or disorders in question -We cannot determine causation -In addition to this there are many ethical issues in relation to informed consent -many post-mortem examinations are carried out on patients with severe psychological deficits for example patient HM who suffered from severe amnesia -These participants would not be able to provide fully informed consent and yet a postal examination has been conducted on his brain -Therefore this is a severe ethical questioning surrounding the nature of such investigations

Answer 25

-what are the main limitations? However of post-mortem is the issue of causation? -The deficit of patient displays during their lifetime like an inability to speak may not be linked to the deficits found in the brain like a damaged Broca’s area - These deficits reported could’ve been a result of other illnesses and therefore psychologist are unable to conclude that the deficit is caused by the damage found in the brain -All the confounding factors, including medication a person may have been taking throughout their lives or the length of time between death and post-mortem at the age of a person’s death

Biopsycology Flashcards

(49 cards)