What is Biopsychology?

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  • Created by: katielou
  • Created on: 11-04-19 11:25
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  • What is biopsychology?
    • Branches
      • Psychopharmacology: Manipulating neural activity with drugs
      • Physiological Psychology: Manipulating neural mechanisms through NS, surgical/electrical methods (lab)
      • Neuropsychology: Uses non-experimetns to study psych effect on brain damage in humans
      • Cognitive Psychology: Neural bases of cognitive processes (eg fMRI)
      • Psychophysiology: Recording physiological responses to behaviour
      • Comparative Psychology: Comparing species' behaviour to understand evolutionary psych & behavioural genetics
    • Diversity of Research
      • Humans vs non-humans
        • Animals: 1. Simpler so can understand fundamentals, 2. less ethical constraints, 3. use comparative approach (eg function of cortex vs without)
        • Humans: 1. Follow instructions, 2. subjectivetly report experience, 3. cheaper & 4. can look at human brain
      • Experiments vs non-experiments
        • Experiment: 1. Establish cause & effect, 2. Paradoxically very simple
        • Quasi: 1. Can't always control variables, 2. use real situations. Case studies: 1. In-depth research but 2. lacks generalisability
      • Pure vs applied research
        • Pure: Motivated by researcher, wants new knowledge
        • Applied: Motivated by direct benefit to humans
    • Critical thinking: spotting weaknesses of ideas/evidence
    • Converging operations: Using multiple approaches to focus on one problem
      • Eg Jimmie G & Korsakoff - alcoholics & deficit in thiamine
    • Neuroscience: = study of nervous system - biopsych is bridge betwwen neuroscience and psychology

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