Psych Notes: Dreams

-A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind
-Manifest Content: the remembered storyline of a dream
-Latent Content: the underlying meaning of a dream

Why Do We Dream?
-Freud's Wish-Fulfillment Theory

• dreams are the key to understanding our inner conflicts
• ideas and thoughts that are hidden in our unconscious
• manifest and latent content

-Information-Processing Theory

• dreams act to sort out and understand the memories that you experience that day
• REM sleep does increase after stressful events

-Activation-Synthesis Theory

• during the night our brainstem releases random neural activity, dreams may be a way to make sense of that activity

Psych Notes: Sleep Disorders

Insomnia
-persistent problems falling asleep
-affects 10% of the population

Narcolepsy
-suffer from sleeplessness and may fall asleep at unpredictable or inappropriate times
-directly into REM sleep
-less than .001% of population

Sleep Apnea
-a person stops breathing during their sleep
-wake up momentarily, gasps for air, then fall back asleep
-very common in heavy males
-can be fatal

Night Terrors
-a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified
-Occurs in Stage 4, not REM, and are not often remembered

Sleepwalking (Somnambulism)
-sleepwalking is a sleep disorder affecting an estimated 10% of all humans at least once in their lives
-sleepwalking most often occurs during non-REM sleep (stage 3 or stage 4) early in the night

Econ Notes: Comparative and Absolute Advantage

Specialization

-when a country focuses on producing a product that they have a comparative advantage in

-Adam Smith observed that specialization and trade increase the productivity of a nation's resources

Comparative Advantage
-When one country can make a good at a lower opportunity cost than another country, it has a comparative advantage in producing that good.
-Whenever a country has a comparative advantage over another country, both countries will benefit from trade. 

Absolute Advantage
-When a country can make more of a product than another country with the same resources, that country has an absolute advantage

Terms of Trade

-limited by relative costs of production within each country

Psych Notes: Learning

Classical Conditioning
-stimulus occurs before behavior

Operant Conditioning
-behavior/response occurs first
-positive or negative punishment
-positive reinforcement used to increase a desired behavior
-negative reinforcement used to decrease unwanted behavior

Reinforcement Schedules

1. Ratio Schedules
• Fixed Ratio: provides a reinforcement after a set number of responses
• Variable Ratio: provides a reinforcement after a random number of responses
2. Interval Schedules
• Fixed Interval: requires a set amount of time to elapse before giving the reinforcement
• Variable Interval: requires a random amont of time to elapse before giving the reinforcement; very hard to get acquisition but also very resistant to extinction

Observational Learning
-Albert Bandura and his BoBo Doll
-We learn through  modeling behavior from others
-Observational Learning + Operant Conditioning = Social Learning Theory

Latent Learning
-Edward Toleman
-Three-Rat Experiment
-Latent = Hidden
-Sometimes learning is not immediately evident
-Rats needed a reason to display what they learned

Insight Learning
-Wolfgang Kohler and his chimps
-some animals learn through the ah ha experience

Token Economy
-every time a desireed behavior is performed, a token is given
-they can trade tokens in for a variety of prizes (reinforcers)
-used in homes, prisons, mental institutions and schools, etc.

Econ Notes: Dollar Market

Domestic Markets
-a country's own market
-own specific currency
-ex: US trades within itself through the dollar


International Markets
-exchange rate: rate at which one country's product is worth a certain amount of another country's currency

Competitive Markets
-large number of producers compete with each other to satisfy the wants and needs of a large number of consumers
-Linkages to all domestic and foreign prices: where the market prices or exchange rate of a currency is an unusual price and links domestic prices with foreign prices; allows consumers in one country to translate prices of foreign goods

Example: America and Japan
-if demand of certain products increase in the US, the dollar price of yen will amso increase.
-If income increases in the US and people decide to buy more Japan products, demand for yen will increase
-If Japan demanded more goods from US, the yen value would decrease; dollar value appreciates in relation to yen