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105 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Phrenology
an early method assessing personality traits based on the bumps on ones skull
gray matter
An segment of the spinal cord that is dominated by the cell bodies of neurons
white matter
A segment of the spinal cord that consists mostly of axons and the fatty sheaths that surround them
Where else can you find gray and white matter?
The brain
Brain stem
the spinal cord continues up to the base of the skull and thickens to become more complex and transforms into the brainstem a section at the bottom of the brain that houses the most basic programs of survival such as breathing, swallowing, vomiting, urination, and orgasm
reticular formation
A large network of neural tissue wthin the brainstem involved in behavioral arousal and sleep–wake cycles
qualia
the properties of subjective phenomenological awareness (aspects of consciousness ie what we see, hear, and feel and think)
unconsciousness-
those processes that are outside the realm of conscious awareness
circadian rhythms
The regulation of biological cycles into regular patterns ie body temp, hormone levels and sleep wake cycles
dreams-
the product of an altered state of consciousness in which images and fantasies are confused with reality
REM-
The stage of sleep marked by rapid eye movements, dreaming, and paralysis of motor systems, numerous mental processes are activated, triggered by ach neurons in the pons which become very active before REM, primary visual is not active, but visual association is
manifest content
The plot of a dream, what a dream means
latent content-
What a dream symbolizes or what the material that is disguised in adream to protect the dreamer
How does freud's dream theory fair?
Life influences dreams, but Freud doesn’t have much actual support
activation-synthesis hypothesis
A theory of dreaming that proposes that neural stimulation from the ponds activates mechanisms that normally interpret visual imput. Sleeping mind tries to make sense of random neuronal firing by synthesizing apparent activity in visual and motor neurons with stored memories. So dream are side effects of mental processes
What is Broca’s area
The left frontal region of the brain that is crucial for production of language
What are reflexes
conversion of sensation into action by a handful neurons (this is the spinal reflex, all muscles have stretch receptors which sense changes , stretching causes firing, receptor axons enter spinal cord
What is the hypothalamus? What does it do?-
A small brain structure that is vital for temp regulation, emotion, sexual behavior, and motivation, it is the master regulatory structure of the brain , impels organism by driving thirst hunger etc, governs many internal organs, controls the pituitary gland , governs sexual and reproductive development
What is the thalamus? What does it do?
the gateway to the brain that receives almost all incoming sensory information before it reaches the cortex, everything passes except smell, plays a role in attention, shuts of outside world during sleep
What is the cerebellum? What does it do? –
A large convoluted perterbence at the back of the brainstem that is essential for coordinated movement and balance, motor function and motor learning is very important, this is why we can walk without thinking about it, a broader role has been suggested and it may play a role with making plans remembering events, using language, experiencing emotion especially empathy
Disorders of cerebellum result in?
Ataxia which is loss of motor coordination also impaired cognitive tasks and emotional experiences
What is the amygdala? What does it do?-
A brain structure that serves a vital role in our learning to associate things with emotional responses and for processing emotional information, allows us to overrule instinctive responses through memory, intensifies memory during emotional arousal, responds to stimuli for fear,
Basal ganglia?-
system of subcortical structures crucial for planning and producing movement / initian of planned movement, may be involved in the learning of habits, nucleus accumbens is a structure there is important for experiencing reward
What are the four lobes of the brain?
temporal, parietal, frontal, occipital
cerebreal cortex
Cerebral cortex-the outer layer of the brain that forms the convulated surface and is responsible for all thoughts, detailed perception and consciousness and is made up of four lobes
Frontal lobe
thought, planning movement
Parietal-
touch, spatial,
temporal
hearing, memory
Occipital
Vison
Hemineglect
patient’s failure to notice anything on their left side often caused by stroke or damage to the right parietal lobe
What is the homunculus?
Used to represent the somatosensory cortex which is a distorted view if the human body because more sensitive areas of the body have more cortical area devoted to them
Prefrontal cortex
directing and maintaining attention, working memory, decision making, social conduct and personality
What is the fusiform gyrus important for?
It is responsible for perceiving faces, greater activation for people of the same race, responds most strongly to upright faces
What is plasticity? Is the brain plastic?
A property of the brain that allows it to change as a result of experience, drugs, or injury, yes ours is brain can reorganize based on what is used and what is not, connections are refined and retuned, reduces with age, but maintains ability to rewire which is the basis of learning
What is a critical period?
The 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, use it or lose it principle
What is Hebbian learning?
Things that fire together will wire together
What is the corpus callosum?-
A fiber of axons that transmit information between the two hemispheres
What is a split brain patient?
A condition in which the corpus callosum is surgically cut and the two hemispheres of the brain do not receive info from one another
What does the left hemisphere do better than the right and vice versa?
Left hemisphere is more competent at language, right can improve though the left is bad at spatial which the right side rocks out on
What is blindsight
A condition in which people who are blind have some spared visual capacities in the absense of any visual awareness, due to damage of visual cortex, with the amygdala it will see and process a face even if eyes don’t
what are the different stages of sleep and their characteristics.
Stage one-theta waves, can be easily aroused stage 2- breathing becomes more regular and less sensitive to external stimuli, really asleep still theta waves with bursts of activity, stage 3 and 4 delta waves progression to deep sleep, still process info at this time
What effects do melatonin and serotonin have on brain function?
Melatonin is a hormone that travels through the blood and affects numerous receptors, bright light suppresses and dark triggers, help get to sleep, Sleep deprivation initiates serotonin receptors
Sensation
How sense organs respond to external stimuli and transmit the responses to the brain
Perception-
refers to the brain’s futher processing of these detected signals that ultimately results in an internal representation of stimuli and a conscious experience of the world, the processing, organizing, and interpreting of sensory signals that result in an internal representation of the stimulus
Transduction
A process by which the sensory receptors produce neural impulses when they receive physical or chemical stimulation
absolute threshold-
The minimum intensity of stimulation that must occur before one can experience a sensation ie what is the faintest sound you can hear before you can’t hear it
difference threshold
the minimum amount of change required in order to detect a difference between intensities of stimuli, the just noticeable difference
Webers Law-the size of the just noticeable difference is based on a relative proportion of difference rather than a fixed amount of difference
sensory adaptation
When an observers sensitivity to stimuli decreases over time, normally when the stimulus is presented over time
pheromones-
chemicals released by animals and humans that trigger physiological behavioral reactions in other members of the same species, major role in sexual signaling, we can’t actually smell them
accommodation-
A process by which muscles change the shape of the lens by flattening it to focus on distant objects or by thickening it to focus on closer objects , behind the iris muscles change the shape of the levels
binocular disparity
A cue of depth perception that is caused by the distance between a persons eyes it’s the weird finger thing
perceptual constancy-
people correctly perceive objects as constant in their shape, size, color, and lightness despite raw sensory data that could mislead perception, for the most part changing the angle, distance, or illumination does not change our perception of size shape color or lightness
filter theory-
A theory that people have a limited capacity for sensory information and thus screen incoming information, letting in only the most important, attention is like a gate that opens for important information and closes whe n it needs to be ignored
attention
the process of the brain selects sensory stimuli to discard and which to pass along to higher levels of processing
shadowing-
patient wear headphones and will get different things on each side, can be told listen to the left and say that out loud, they will notice it but won’t know the content, if say the name they’ll pay attention
selectivity-
we can select what we pay attention to
bottleneck theory
when a stage of processing has a lower capacity than its input stage then a bottleneck occurs
capacity theory,-
we have a limited capacity and more is available when arousal is higher
automatic processing
ie reading walking its an advantage that allows use to perform routine activities without much effort, but can be a disadvantage ie stroop
What things can divert attention
hunger, george clooney
absolute threshold-
The minimum intensity of stimulation that must occur before one can experience a sensation ie what is the faintest sound you can hear before you can’t hear it
difference threshold
the minimum amount of change required in order to detect a difference between intensities of stimuli, the just noticeable difference
Webers Law-the size of the just noticeable difference is based on a relative proportion of difference rather than a fixed amount of difference
sensory adaptation
When an observers sensitivity to stimuli decreases over time, normally when the stimulus is presented over time
pheromones-
chemicals released by animals and humans that trigger physiological behavioral reactions in other members of the same species, major role in sexual signaling, we can’t actually smell them
accommodation-
A process by which muscles change the shape of the lens by flattening it to focus on distant objects or by thickening it to focus on closer objects , behind the iris muscles change the shape of the levels
binocular disparity
A cue of depth perception that is caused by the distance between a persons eyes it’s the weird finger thing
perceptual constancy-
people correctly perceive objects as constant in their shape, size, color, and lightness despite raw sensory data that could mislead perception, for the most part changing the angle, distance, or illumination does not change our perception of size shape color or lightness
filter theory-
A theory that people have a limited capacity for sensory information and thus screen incoming information, letting in only the most important, attention is like a gate that opens for important information and closes whe n it needs to be ignored
attention
the process of the brain selects sensory stimuli to discard and which to pass along to higher levels of processing
shadowing-
patient wear headphones and will get different things on each side, can be told listen to the left and say that out loud, they will notice it but won’t know the content, if say the name they’ll pay attention
selectivity-
we can select what we pay attention to
bottleneck theory
when a stage of processing has a lower capacity than its input stage then a bottleneck occurs
capacity theory,-
we have a limited capacity and more is available when arousal is higher
automatic processing
ie reading walking its an advantage that allows use to perform routine activities without much effort, but can be a disadvantage ie stroop
What things can divert attention
hunger, george clooney
cornholio
affect by caffeine and has attention state alter
covert attention-
We don’t need to move our eyes to attend to things
dichotic listenin
The guy from shadowing, is hearing two things but only listening to one
Visual agnosia
Can not say the object, but hands recognize and start doing movement ie the lock, cannot recognizde the object but can see it
What are the two types of pain?
Pain is the bodies warning system, fast pain leads to recoil from harmful objects and therefore is protective where as slow pain keeps us from using the affected body part therefore helping with recuperation
What is temporal coding?
Is used to encode relatively low frequencies in which the frequency of the sound wave is encoded by the frequency of firing of the hair cells
What is place coding?
A mechanism for encoding for high frequency auditory stimuli in which the frequency of the sound wave is encoded by the location of the hair cells along the basilar membrane, Receptors are similar but located in different places
What is Weber’s law?
The size of the just noticeable difference is based on a relative proportion of difference rather than a fixed amount of difference like 6 wrong on a test differs by number of questions
What is signal detection theory?
States that detecting a stimulus requires making a judgment about its presence or absence baqsed on subjective interpretation, involves a series of trials, sometimes stimulus is presented sometimes not
Hit-present and detected, miss-present and not detected, false alarm-not present and detected, -correct rejection-not there not detected, detects bias ie easier to diagnose tumor than broken bone
Retina-
thin inner surface of the back of the eyeball contains photoreceptors for light into neural signals, light is focused on here
pupil-
a small opening in the front of the lens which contracts to let light in,
cornea
light first passes through here a thick transparent outer layer of the eye, focuses incoming light in a process called refraction
lens
lens is adjustable and helps refract light on the retina
fovea
center of retina where cones are densely packed,
iris
thick muscle the controls the size of the pupil
optic nerve-
axon bundles that exit at the back of the eye, has nor rods or cones creating a blind spot wher it exits
Optic chiasm
ic nerve splits in two causing left to right and right to left
Know the parts of the retina (
Rods and Cones. Rods respond to little light and are responsible for night vision, they do not support color or fine detail Cones are under high light and see color and detail, rods are packed in the middle and the outer edges and cones are scattered throughout the middlelayer of ganion cells and a midlayer which has cells to transduce nerve impulses which form a synapse with the ganglion the ganglion cells transmit neural impulses to the brain
What is a receptive field?
The region of visual space to which neurons in the primary visual cortex are sensitive
What type of cell is especially senstive to edges
ganglion cells
What side of the brain sees what
Know that the left visual field is represented in the right visual cortex and vice
versa (Fig. 5.10).
What is lateral inhibition?
A visual process in which adjacent photoreceptors tend to inhibit one another ie object look darker against black than white
How does lateral inhibition explain the Hermann Grid illusion?
Receptors coding information from the white lines are inhibited by their neighbors on two sides, those receptors that code information from the intersection however are inhibited n four sides so they respond less vigorously which makes it look as though the intersections are darker
How do we see color?
Color is determined by the mixture of wavelengths, we see hue, brightness and saturation, brain converts physical energy into the experience of color, certain combination of wave lengths strike the retina, begins in the retinal cone cells which transduce light into impulses, three types of cones SML which correspond to wave length and color is determined by how many of each cone type is activated hard to see reddish green or bluish yellow
Visual processing accounts for such which is in the retinal ganglion cells
What is retinotopic organization?
The systematic ordering of neuronal pathway from the retina to the occipital lobe, this preserves spatial relationships, so that adjacent areas of the retina correspond to adjacent areas in the primary visual cortex
What do V1 neurons care about?
Primary visual cortex which is the largest are in occipatl lobe where the thalamus projects an image, spatial relationships, lines angles, curves, colors, and motion
What are the “what” and “where” pathways in the brain?
Visual areas beyond V1 form two parallel processing streams
Ventral stream is specialized for object recognition and perception such as color and shape, what
Dorsal seems to spatial perception, where
What is the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing? Be able to
recognize examples of top-down processing on visual perception.
Bottom up means that data are relayed from lower to higher lvels of processing, top down means that info from higher levels will affect what we see now ie the dlamation or THE CAT, can lead to faulty expactation
Where are faces processed in the brain?
Fusiform gyrus which is in the right hemisphere
What is prosopagnosia?
Can’t recognize a face