Psychology Key Studies and Biological Core Concepts

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards mapping key studies, core definitions, and key psychological terms directly from the lecture notes.

Milner (1966)

A longitudinal case study on patient HM investigating the effects of bilateral medial temporal lobe removal, including the hippocampus, on memory consolidation and behavior.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to acquire new episodic or semantic long-term memories following brain trauma, despite having intact short-term memory through active rehearsal.

Retrograde Amnesia

The loss of memory for events or knowledge acquired prior to brain surgery or injury, such as HM's memory loss covering the $12$ years preceding his operation.

Method Triangulation

The use of multiple data collection methods—such as psychometric testing, direct observation, interviews, cognitive testing, and MRI scans—to enhance research credibility.

Maguire et al (2000)

A quasi-experiment comparing $16$ right-handed male London taxi drivers to $50$ non-taxi driver control subjects using MRI scans to evaluate hippocampal neuroplasticity.

Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM)

An MRI measurement technique used in neuroimaging to quantify grey matter density in specific structural regions of the brain.

Posterior Hippocampus

A brain region found to be significantly larger in experienced London taxi drivers, associated with storing and using previously learned spatial information.

Draganski et al (2004)

A true experiment on $24$ self-selected participants investigating whether acquiring and subsequently ceasing a $3$-ball juggling routine would alter grey matter structure in the mid-temporal cortex.

Mid-Temporal Cortex

A region of the brain associated with visual memory, coordination, and movement that exhibited structural grey matter volume changes during juggling practice in Draganski et al (2004).

Antonova (2011)

A randomized, double-blind, cross-over fMRI experiment on $20$ male participants investigating the effect of scopolamine on allocentric spatial memory using a virtual arena task.

Scopolamine

An anticholinergic drug administered to block acetylcholine receptors in order to study its specific inhibitory effects on hippocampal activation during spatial memory tasks.

Allocentric Spatial Memory

Map-based spatial orientation and memory that operates independently of an individual's personal viewpoint or physical position in space.

Caspi et al (2003)

A longitudinal correlational study on $847$ New Zealanders investigating gene-environment interaction ($\text{G} \times \text{E}$) between the $5\text{-HTT}$ serotonin transporter gene alleles and stressful life events in predicting depression.

Diathesis-Stress Model

A psychological theory predicting that clinical conditions like depression result from a biological or genetic predisposition (diathesis) interacting with environmental stressors.

5-HTT Gene

A serotonin transporter gene with short and long alleles; individuals carrying short mutated alleles show increased susceptibility to depressive symptoms following life stress.

Newcomer et al (1999)

A double-blind laboratory experiment showing that daily high-dose cortisol treatment ($160\text{ mg}$) temporarily impairs verbal declarative memory recall in adult humans.

Cortisol

A stress hormone released by the adrenal glands via the HPA axis, high levels of which disrupt verbal declarative memory retrieval without causing permanent impairment.

Ronay & von Hippel (2010)

A field experiment on $96$ young adult male skateboarders demonstrating that the presence of an attractive female researcher increased testosterone levels and physical risk-taking.

Intrasexual Selection

An evolutionary strategy in which individuals compete with members of the same sex to signal strength, health, and dominance to prospective mates.

Zak (2009)

A double-blind, counterbalanced, repeated measures study on $25$ male students evaluating testosterone's effect on selfishness, stinginess, and social decision-making in the Ultimatum Game.

Wedekind (1995)

A double-blind experiment demonstrating that women prefer the body odor of men with dissimilar Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes, a preference disrupted by oral contraceptives.

Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)

A group of co-dominantly inherited immune system genes that influence body odor and human mate selection to enhance offspring immune diversity.

Kendler et al (2006)

A Swedish twin study examining $15,493$ twin pairs to evaluate the overall heritability of major depression, which was estimated at approximately 38\text{\ref{\text{\%}}} ($0.38$).

Concordance Rate

The probability or percentage that both twins in a pair share a specific trait or clinical diagnosis, used to measure genetic influence in twin studies.

LeVay (1991)

A post-mortem examination of $41$ autopsied brain tissue samples investigating structural differences in the INAH3 nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus relative to biological sex and sexual orientation.

INAH3 Nucleus

A sexually dimorphic nucleus in the anterior hypothalamus found to be more than twice as large in heterosexual men ($0.12\text{ mm}^3$) compared to homosexual men ($0.051\text{ mm}^3$).