Review for Exam 2

As a general rule, you should know everything that was presented about these topics in the book and in class.

See "How to get Straight A's" for exam studying tips.

Nature and Nurture

nature vs. nurture

evolutionary psychology

proximate and ultimate explanations

behavioral genetics

behavioral approach/behaviorism

Pavlovian (classical) conditioning

operant conditioning

reinforcers and punishers

extinction

social-cognitive theory

observational learning/modeling

Perception

transduction

Weber's law

sensory adaptation

absolute thresholds

signal detection theory

difference thresholds/jnd

rods and cones

visual pathways

trichromatic theory

opponent procecss theory

monocular depth cues

Gestalt view of percecption

figure and ground

optical illusions/Muller-Lyer

feature analysis

bottom-up and top-down processing

Memory

Atkinson-Shiffrin model

sensory memory

short-term memory

hippocampus

Baddeley's 4 component working memory model

long-term memory (declarative/procedural & implicit/explicit)

context dependent learning

mnemonic devices

encoding/levels of processing theory

schemas

decay theory

interference theory

Questions for Review

1. Identify the similarities and difference between the evolutionary and behavioral genetics approaches.

2. What is meant by nature vs. nurture? How do both contribute to the explanation of behavior?

3. Generate an example of classical (Pavlovian) conditioning.

4. What is the difference between an unconditioned response and a conditioned response?

5. Generate examples of positive & negative reinforcement and punishment. How do we know if something is a reinforcer or punisher?

6. How does extinction occur in both classical and operant conditioning?

7. How does learning occur according to social cognitive theory?

8. What is the difference between absolute thresholds and difference thresholds?

9. Describe trichromatic and opponent process theory of color vision.

10. What is bottom-up and top-down perceptual processing? Provide an example of each.

11. Identify the differences between sensory, short-term, and long-term memory.

12. Identify some of the ways LTM can be enhanced through encoding.

13. What is a schema? How do schemas influence encoding and recall? Provide an example.