Psych Chapter 4

Front 1

Phrenology

Back 1

An early method of assessing personality traits and mental abilities by measuring bumps on the skull.

Front 2

Broca's area

Back 2

The left frontal region of the brain that is crucial to the production of language.

Front 3

Spinal Cord

Back 3

Part of the central nervous system, a rope of neural tissue that runs inside the hollows of the vertebrae from just above the pelvis and into the base of the skull.

Front 4

Gray Matter

Back 4

A segment of the spinal cord that is dominated by the cell bodies of neurons.

Front 5

White matter

Back 5

A segment of the spinal cord that consists mostly of axons and the fatty sheaths that surround them.

Front 6

Brainstem

Back 6

A section of the bottom of the brain that houses the most basic programs of survival, such as breathing, swallowing, vomiting, urination and orgasm.

Front 7

Reticular formation

Back 7

A large network of neural tissue within the brainstem involved in behavioral arousal and sleep-wake cycles.

Front 8

Cerebellum

Back 8

A large convoluted protuberance at the back of the brainstem that is essential for coordinated movement and balance.

Front 9

Hypothalamus

Back 9

A small brain structure that is vital for temperature regulation, emotion, sexual behavior and motivation

Front 10

Thalamus

Back 10

The gateway to the brain that received almost all incoming sensory information before it reaches the cortex.

Front 11

Hippocampus

Back 11

A brain structure important for the formation of certain types of memory

Front 12

Amygdala

Back 12

A brain structure that serves a vital role in our learning to associate things with emotional responses and for processing emotional information

Front 13

Basal Ganglia

Back 13

A system of subcortical structures that are important for the initiation of planned movement.

Front 14

Cerebral Cortex

Back 14

The outer layer of brain tissue that forms the convoluted surface of the brain.

Front 15

Occipital Lobes

Back 15

A region of the cerebral cortex at the back of the brain that is important for vision.

Front 16

Parietal Lobes

Back 16

A region of the cerebral cortex lying in front of the occipital lobes and behind the frontal lobes that is important for the sense of touch and the spatial layout of an environment.

Front 17

Temporal Lobes

Back 17

The lower region of the cerebral cortex that is important for processing auditory information and also for memory.

Front 18

Frontal Lobes

Back 18

The region at the front of the cerebral cortex concerned with planning and movement.

Front 19

Prefrontal Cortex

Back 19

A region of the frontal lobes, especially prominent in humans, important for attention, working memory, decision making, appropriate social behavior and personality.

Front 20

Plasticity

Back 20

A property of the brain that allows it to change as a result of experience, drugs or injury.

Front 21

Critical Period

Back 21

A time in which certain experiences must occur for normal brain development, such as exposure to visual information during infancy for normal development of the brain's visual pathways.

Front 22

Corpus Callosum

Back 22

A fiber of axons that transmits information between the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain.

Front 23

Split brain

Back 23

A condition in which this corpus callosum is surgically cut and the two hemispheres of the brain do not receive information directly from each other.

Front 24

Qualia

Back 24

The properties of our subjective, phenomenological awareness.

Front 25

Unconscious

Back 25

Those processes that are outside the realm of conscious awareness.

Front 26

Blindsight

Back 26

A condition in which people who are blind have some spared visual capacities in the absence of any visual awareness.

Front 27

Insomnia

Back 27

A disorder characterized by an inability to sleep.

Front 28

REM sleep

Back 28

The stage of sleep marked by rapid eye movements, dreaming and paralysis of motor systems.

Front 29

Microsleeps

Back 29

Brief, unintended sleep episodes, ranging from a few seconds to a minute, caused by chronic sleep deprivation.

Front 30

Circadian Rhythms

Back 30

The regulation of biological cycles into regular cycles

Front 31

Dreams

Back 31

The product of an altered state of consciousness in which images and fantasies are confused with reality.

Front 32

Manifest Content

Back 32

The plot of a dream; the way the dream is remembered.

Front 33

Latent Content

Back 33

What a dream symbolizes, or the material that is disguised in a dream to protect the dreamer

Front 34

Activation-synthesis hypothesis

Back 34

A theory of dreaming that proposes that neural stimulation from the pons activates mechanisms that normally interpret visual input.