Guide to Psychology. Sleep has five stages in a 100 minute cycle, starting with a phase where we would deny we are asleep, but have mild hallucinations and no dreams. The middle stage yields 13hz waves interspersed with spindles (bursts of energy), stage 3 has very deep sleep, but the sleeper will respond to sounds without awakening, stage 4 has very deep sleep and delta waves while REM sleep has dreams, paralyzation and sexual arousal. Circadian rhythm refers to our 24 hour biological clock, which would reach 25 hours if we lived in a cave. We need sleep to avoid grogginess, have better moods, consolidate memories and perform better. Sleep is restorative and needed for growth and protection processes..

Free information from Dick's Cyberspace Mall, the WORLD'S LARGEST MALL You're visitor number Hit Counter

Welcome to Dick's Guides

Dick's Guides to College Happiness Health Knowledge Love Pleasure Wealth
1985 23 foot Cobalt Condesa Power Boat for sale by owner

Psychology. Sleep has five stages in a 100 minute cycle, starting with a phase where we would deny we are asleep, but have mild hallucinations and no dreams. The middle stage yields 13hz waves interspersed with spindles (bursts of energy), stage 3 has very deep sleep, but the sleeper will respond to sounds without awakening, stage 4 has very deep sleep and delta waves while REM sleep has dreams, paralyzation and sexual arousal. Circadian rhythm refers to our 24 hour biological clock, which would reach 25 hours if we lived in a cave. We need sleep to avoid grogginess, have better moods, consolidate memories and perform better. Sleep is restorative and needed for growth and protection processes..

This page is about Psychology, especially "Sleep has five stages in a 100 minute cycle, starting with a phase where we would deny we are asleep, but have mild hallucinations and no dreams. The middle stage yields 13hz waves interspersed with spindles (bursts of energy), stage 3 has very deep sleep, but the sleeper will respond to sounds without awakening, stage 4 has very deep sleep and delta waves while REM sleep has dreams, paralyzation and sexual arousal. Circadian rhythm refers to our 24 hour biological clock, which would reach 25 hours if we lived in a cave. We need sleep to avoid grogginess, have better moods, consolidate memories and perform better. Sleep is restorative and needed for growth and protection processes.".

Dick's Guide to Psychology. Sleep has five stages in a 100 minute cycle, starting with a phase where we would deny we are asleep, but have mild hallucinations and no dreams. The middle stage yields 13hz waves interspersed with spindles (bursts of energy), stage 3 has very deep sleep, but the sleeper will respond to sounds without awakening, stage 4 has very deep sleep and delta waves while REM sleep has dreams, paralyzation and sexual arousal. Circadian rhythm refers to our 24 hour biological clock, which would reach 25 hours if we lived in a cave. We need sleep to avoid grogginess, have better moods, consolidate memories and perform better. Sleep is restorative and needed for growth and protection processes..

Material in quotation marks, unless otherwise attributed, is from Exploring Psychology by David G. Meyers

If you want a 2002 edition of this book, well marked with information and question answers, send $25 to Dick Amann, 1348 Eisenhower Drive, Box 16811, Savannah, GA 31416-16811

Also see these other psychology sites.

Origins of psychiatry

Guide to Psychology and its originating fields of science.

William Wundt, the worlds first psychological experimenter with his own university laboratory.

Guide to Psychology. Introspection and psychology and William Wundt

John Watson redefines psychology as the science of behavior

Psychology as defined today

What is behavior and its role in psychology?

What is the mental process

Comparison of psychology and psychiatry

The four goals of psychology

Careers in psychology

Clinical and counseling psychologists

Community psychologists

Psychology uses the scientific method

Guide to Psychology. In psychological research the aim is to get reliability, replicable results, representative results and validity.

In psychological research the population of an experiment is "all the cases in a group from which samples may be drawn to study"

In psychological research a random sampling is "a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion"

In psychological experiments, the independent variable is manipulated to see how it affect the dependent variable, i.e. behavior or mental process

Psychological research can involve experiments that explore cause and effect relationships, correlational studies that determine naturally occurring relationships and descriptive studies that record and observe behavior

Franz Gall (early 1800's) invented phrenology to determine peoples' mental abilities and character traits by studying the bumps on people's heads.

Phineas Gage was a railroad employee in 1848 whose frontal lobe was impaled by a metal rod. His mental abilities and memories were intact, but his personality changed. From a soft spoken, friendly guy he became an irritable, profane and dishonest.

A neuron is a "nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system", where "bushy dendrites receive information while axons pass it along to other neurons, muscles or glands"

The myelin sheath "insulates the axons of some neurons and helps speed their impulses". In multiple sclerosis the myelin sheath decays.

A synapse is the junction at which the axon of one neuron sends chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) to the dendrites of another nerve cell.

Guide to Psychology. Neurotransmitters include dopamine which "influences movement, learning, attention and emotion." Too much has been linked to schizophrenia. Serotonin affect mood, hunger, sleep and arousal. Norepinephrine helps control alertness and arousal. Cocaine aids arousal, too. Endorphins are natural opiates and pain killers.

Agonists increase the likelihood of a neuron firing while antagonists inhibit firing by blocking dendrite synapses, aiding reuptake or increasing the enzymatic kill rate of neurotransmitters

The blood-brain barrier fences out unwanted chemicals circulating in the blood. It also blocks out dopamine which explains why people can not be injected with dopamine.

The two primary divisions of the nervous system are the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system, The peripheral nervous system is divided into the autonomic and somatic systems.

The somatic nervous system is involved in voluntary movements. Afferent nerves fibers are involved in sensory signals while efferent nerve fibers are involved in creating motion.

The autonomic nervous system is involved in keeping your body on auto pilot, especially with respect to your glands and internal organ muscles. Its sympathetic nervous system arouses the body during stressful situations by mobilizing needed energy. The autonomic system's parasympathetic nervous system calms the body to conserve energy.

The human brain weighs two to three pounds. In the development of the brain an evolutionary path is followed, starting with the brainstem beginning where the spinal cord enters the skull. From its rear extends the cerebellum (little brain). It coordinates voluntary movement.

The limbic system, between the cerebellum and the cerebral hemispheres includes the hippocampus (memory system processing) the amygdala (aggression and fear) and the hypothalamus (hunger, thirst, body temperature, pleasure, sexual behavior).

The pons relays the cerebellum to the cerebral cortex, a "fabric of interconnected neural cells that cover the cerebral hemisphere's frontal lobe" (voluntary muscle control, thought, plans, judgments); parietal lobe (sensory cortex, spatial reasoning, mental manipulations); occipital lobe (visual areas); temporal lobe (auditory information) and association areas.

Broca's area and Wernicke's area are both in the left area of the brain which controls language. Broca's, in the frontal lobe is needed for speech muscle movements; Wernicke's in the parietal, occipital region is needed for language comprehension. Damage here can lead to the word salad effect.

The left side of the brain is superior in logical thinking, language ability, writing, science and math skills. The right side of the brain is superior in musical and artistic ability, perception of space, imagination, fantasizing, body control and awareness. The corpus callosum connects these two sides.

The endocrine system is the body's "slow chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete chemical messengers" (hormones) into the blood stream. Glands include the adrenal (for the flight or fight response), pituitary (growth), thyroid (metabolic balance), pineal (sleep or awake), pancreas (regulates blood sugar) and gonads (sex).

Each human cell has 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent. Genetically humans and chimps share 98.4% of the same chromosomes. Every human has 99.9% of other human's chromosomes.

Evolutionary psychology looks at why behaviors are what they are over a period of time. Natural selection favors helpful genetic mutations and combinations, especially those that aid reproduction and survival. The easy availability of sperm, compared to the lesser availability of eggs, helps to explain gender difference towards intercourse.

Behavior genetics seeks to define human differences in terms of genetics and environment, where the environment refers to all non genetic influences.

Phenylketonuria, PKU, refers to the lack of an enzyme to metabolize phenylalanine, which causes retardation.

Developmental psychology studies physical, cognitive and social changes during life. Life begins with fertilization of an egg by a sperm in the fallopian tube. This results in a zygote which attaches itself to the uterine wall about 2 days later. Blastocyte forms (placenta, umbilical cord, amniotic sac) develop during this zygote stage. Once attached to the uterine wall the embryonic stage lasts from the second to the eighth day, and the fetal stage is entered about the ninth day.

The fetal period officially begins when the fetus responds to stimulation. The mothers feel this at about 4 or 5 months, but the baby's heart has been beating for a long time.

Pregnancy risk factors include age (mom under 16 or over 40), nutrition, stress (affects hormones), disease (like aids or taxoplasmosis), substance abuse (even of aspirin), paternal influences (sperm cell damage), the environment and non obvious experiences like grandma's cocaine addiction or the mother's previous lifestyle.

During labor contractions oxytocin is released. The first stage of delivery can be 12 to 24 hours when the water breaks. The second stage takes 20 to 60 minutes while the baby's head emerges. The third stage, which lasts 5 to ten minutes, is when the placenta and umbilical cord exit.

The new baby's brain grows to 1/2 its final size in the first year and 90% of its size by the age of six. The baby's first reflexes are sucking (touch lips) rooting (touch cheek) breathing and grasping. The baby's development occurs from the head down (cephalocaudal), inside out (proximodistal) and from simple to complex.

Four advantages of breast feeding are complete nutrition, less allergies, better mouth formation and mom gets her tummy back more quickly.

Rovee-Collier experiments showed babies could learn at one month (to control mobile). Piaget saw 4 stages of childhood cognitive development, sensorimotor (birth to two years), preoperational (2 to 6 years marked by language development and egocentrism), concrete operational (7 to 11 years, when conversational and mathematical abilities develop) and formal operational (from 12 through adulthood where abstract logic and moral reasoning can be done).

Life expectancy in 1900 was 47.3 years. In 1995 life expectancy had increased to 75.2 years. Gerontology is the study of the aged. Levinson's stages of life are 17-22 for exploration and modification, 22-28 for more exploration but the start of settling down, 28-33 when a change of life's path can still be achieved, 33-44 is the settling down phase where individuals make an investment in their life structure and 40-45 is the time for evaluating life and perhaps making a mid-life transition.

Sensation involves the nervous system's collecting information from the environment's energies. The absolute threshold is the minimum stimulation required to detect stimulus about 50% of the time. This is 30 miles for a candle light, 20 feet for a watch tick, 3 rooms for a perfume drop, 2 gallons of water for a teaspoon of sugar, a the touch of a fly wing on a cheek from one centimeter. Perception is the organizing and representing of sensory information to make sense.

Sensory adaptation occurs when receptors stop firing in the place of a long term stimulus like food smells, the feeling of clothes and frequent cocaine use.

The eye is covered by the transparent CORNEA, behind this is the black PUPIL, an adjustable opening regulated by the colored IRIS muscle. The LENS, behind the iris, focuses light onto the RETINA at the base of the eyeball. The retina's multilayered reflective coating has RODS (black and white detectors useful for peripheral and twilight vision) and CONE (color and fine detail receptors). The FOVEA is the central focus. Behind the fovea is the BLIND SPOT where the optic nerve exits the eye to connect to the visual cortex.

Hubel and Weisel discovered the eye also has FEATURE DETECTORS which react individually to shape, angle or movement. The Young-Helmoltz TRICHROMATIC theory says the eye has color detector individually responsive to red, green or blue. COLOR CONSTANCY is the ability of humans to perceive a fixed color, despite different illuminations of wave lengths.

The ear's parts include an outer ear, with its pin, the shape that collects sound and sends it to the inner ear, where the ear drum's large surface creates bone conduction through the hammer, anvil and stirrup to the inner ear's oval window that sends fluidic vibrations through the cochlea activating the organ of corti's sensory hair cells that send the sound sensation to the auditory nerve for perception.

The sense of touch responds to pressure, pain and temperature (warm and cold but NOT hot), with the most sensitive parts of the body being the fingers, lips and genitals. Our sense of taste is based on about ten thousand taste bumps that respond to tastes that are sweet, sour, salty and bitter, and -- as we age -- the threshold for taste doubles every 20 years. Taste is also aided by the olfactory epithelium which conducts nasal receptor cells through axon fibers of the olfactory nerve to the olfactory bulb.

Consciousness is when we are aware of ourselves and our environment and are capable of mental behavior. William James defined psychology as, "the science of mental behavior." Our state of consciousness can vary. Selective attention allows us to focus conscious awareness, for example at a cocktail party where we can focus on the conversation with just one person.

Sleep has five stages in a 90 to 100 minute cycle between REM sleep, starting with a phase where we would deny we are asleep, but have mild hallucinations and no dreams. The middle stage yields 13hz waves interspersed with spindles (bursts of energy), stage 3 has very deep sleep, but the sleeper will respond to sounds without awakening, stage 4 has very deep sleep and delta waves while REM sleep has dreams, paralyzation and sexual arousal. Circadian rhythm refers to our 24 hour biological clock, which would reach 25 hours if we lived in a cave. We need sleep to avoid grogginess, have better moods, consolidate memories and perform better. Sleep is restorative and needed for growth and protection processes.

also see General Psychology Index

Interesting places on the internet