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What is neurogenesis?
the formation of new neurons
Why does the brain produce new cells?
to try and repair damage
What helps to promote neurogenesis?
exercise, sleep, and stimulating (non-stressful) environments
What is the corpus callosum?
the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them
What is split brain?
a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain’s two hemispheres by cutting fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) connecting them
What is the right hemisphere responsible for?
perceptual tasks, making inferences, makes meaning clear with speaking, and feel our sense of self
What is the left hemisphere responsible for?
speaking, calculating, and making quick, literal interpretation of language
What produces different states of consciousness?
sleep, psychoactive drugs, and hypnosis
What is consciousness?
our awareness of ourselves and our environment. It encompasses thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences.
What is cognitive neuroscience?
the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language)
What is dual processing?
the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks
What is blindsight?
a condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it
What is parallel processing?
routine things
What is sequential processing?
new information or difficult problems
What is sleep?
periodic, natural loss of consciousness- as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation
What is circadian rhythm?
the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle (really around 24 or 25 hours)
How many stages of sleep are there and how long is each cycle?
4 different stages with 90 minutes cycles
What is REM sleep?
rapid eye movement sleep; a recurring sleep stage which vivid dreams commonly occur
What are Alpha waves?
the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state
What is NREM sleep?
non-rapid eye movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM sleep
What are hallucinations?
false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the abscence of an external visual stimulus (during NREM-1)
What are hypnagogic sensations?
bizzare experiences, such as jerking or a feeling of falling or floating weightlessly while transitioning to sleep
What are Delta waves?
the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep (during NREM-3)
What happens during REM sleep?
heart rate rises, breathing becomes rapid and irregular, eyes dart around, have emotional and hallucinatory dreams, genitals are aroused, paralyzed, and cannot be easily awakened
What is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)?
a pair of cell clusters in the hypothalamus that controls circadian rhythm. In response to light, the SCN causes the pineal gland to adjust melatonin production, thus modifying our feelings of sleepiness
What does the SCN do?
signals brain’s pineal gland to decrease production of sleep-inducing hormone melatonin in the morning and increase it in the afternoon
What does sleep do?
protects-you are safer hidden away at night sleeping
helps us recuperate-it helps restore and repair brain tissue, gives neurons a rest
helps restore and rebuild our fading memories of the day’s experiences
feeds creative thinking-people solves problems more insightfully after sleeping on it, better at seeing connections
supports growth-during sleep, the pituitary gland releases a growth hormone that is necessary for muscle development; dramatically improves athletic ability
What does sleep deprivation do?
makes someone irritable, less productive, more likely to make mistakes, gain weight, and suppresses our immune system
What is insomnia?
recurring problems in falling or staying asleep
What is narcolepsy?
a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. The sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopertune times; genetic disease
What is sleep apnea?
a sleep disorder where you stop breathing so you wake up and feel tired in the morning even though you don’t remember
What is sleepwalking?
a NREM-3 sleeping disorder that usually occurs in childhood and run in families
What are night terrors?
a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during NREM-3 sleep
What is REM sleep behavior disorder?
when adults act out the content of their dreams
What are dreams?
a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind
What is the wish-fufillment theory?
dreams provide a place to get rid of otherwise unacceptable feelings
What is manifest content?
the remembered story line of a dream
What is latent content?
the underlying meaning of a dream
What does the information-processing perspective propose?
dreams help sort through experiences in our memories
What is the third dream theory?
dreams help to develop and preserve neural pathways-physiological function, connected to development
What is the fourth dream theory?
dreams make sense of neural static-dreams could be the attempt of the brain to make sense of random neural activity from brainstem
What is the fifth dream theory?
dreams reflect cognitive development-part of brain maturation (top-down control of dreams)
What is REM rebound?
the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation (created by repeated awakenings during REM sleep)
What is hypnosis?
a social interaction in which one person (the subject) responds to another person’s (the hypnotist’s) suggestions that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur
What is sensation?
the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environments
What is perception?
the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events
What is bottom-up processing?
analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information
What is top-down processing?
information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations
What is transduction?
conversion of one form of energy to another
What is psychophysics?
the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them
What are absolute thresholds?
the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time
What is the signal detection theory?
a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person’s experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness
What is subliminal?
below someone’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness (so stimulus you cannot detect 50% of the time)
What is priming?
the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one’s perception, memory, or response
What is difference threshold?
the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detecting 50% of the time. We experience the difference (or jnd)
What is Weber’s law?
the principle that to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)
What is dual track mind?
much of our information processing occurs automatically, out of sight, off the radar screen of our conscious mind
What is sensory adaptation?
diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation
What is wavelength?
the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the next
What is hue?
the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth
What is intensity?
the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave’s amplitude (height)
How does light enter the eye?
through the cornea-pupil-lens-retina
What is the retina?
the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information
What is accommodation?
the process by which the eye’s lens change shape to focus near or far objects on the retina
What do the receptor cells do?
convert particles of light energy into neural impulses and forward those to the brain (not a whole image) until put together
What is the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three color) theory?
the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors- one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue-which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color
What is the opponent-process theory?
the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision
What are feature detectors?
nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement
What is audition?
the sense or act of hearing
What is frequency?
the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second)
What is pitch?
a tone’s experienced highness or lowness, depends on the frequency
How does a sound wave travel?
outer ear to middle ear to inner ear
What happens after a sound wave hits the hair cells?
hair cells in the inner ear/cochlea bend from sound waves-hair cell movement triggers the adjacent nerve cells-auditory nerve-thalamus-auditory cortex in the temporal lobe
What is sensorineural hearing loss?
hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea’s receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness
What is conduction hearing loss?
hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea
What is a cochlear implant?
a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulating the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea
What is the place theory?
in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea’s membrane is stimulated
What is the frequency theory?
in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch
What does skin sense?
pressure, warmth, cold, and pain
What is pain?
the body’s way of telling you something is wrong
What does pain reflect?
both bottom-up processes and top-down processes
What is the gate-control theory?
the theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The “gate” is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain
What is taste divided into?
sweet, sour, salty, and a savory, meaty taste of umami (MSG)
How do we smell things?
when molecules of a substance carried in the air reach a tiny cluster of cells at the top of each nasal cavity
What is kinesthesia?
the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts (from body-joints/tendons/bones)
What is vestibular sense?
the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance (from ear/brain)
What is sensory interaction?
the principle that one sense may influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste
What is embodied cognition?
in psychological science, the influence of body sensations, gestures, and other states on cognitive preferences and judgments
What is selective attention?
the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus
What is inattentional blindness?
failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere
What is change blindness?
failing to notice changes in the environment
What is perceptual set?
a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another
What is a schema?
a mental framework that helps people organize, process, and store information
What is extrasensory perception (ESP)?
the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition
What is a gestalt?
an organized whole
What did gestalt psychologists emphasize?
our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes
What is figure-ground?
the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground)
What is grouping?
the perceptual tendency to organize stimulus into coherent groups
What is depth perception?
the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distances
What is visual cliff?
a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals
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