CHAP 3 MYERS

Midterm

Consciousness

our awareness of ourselves and our environment

Selective Attention

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus

Cocktail Party Effect

the ability to attend to only one voice among many

Perceptual Adaptation

in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field

Inattentional Blindness

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

Retinal Disparity

a binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity between the two images, the closer the object

Circadian Rhythm

the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24 hour cycle

Behavior Genetics

the study of the relative power and the limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior

Gender Roles

the behaviors a culture expects from its men and women

Gender Typing

the acquisition of a traditionally masculine or feminine role

Natural Selection

the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations

Schemas

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Genome

the complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all of the genetic material in that organism’s chromosomes

Norms

an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior, and prescribe “proper” behavior

Stages of Sleep

NREM1, NREM2, NREM3, REM

NREM1

experience hallucinations and hypnagogic sensations

NREM2

periodic sleep spindles: bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain wave acitivity

NREM3

the brain emits large, slow delta waves; in deep sleep

REM Sleep

heart rate rises, breathing becomes rapid and irregular, eyes dart around behind closed lids, where dreams occur

Sleeping Disorders

problems involving the quality, timing, and amount of sleep

Freud’s Dream Theory

dreams have a manifest content, the apparent and remembered story line, that censors the latent content, a symbolic, underlying meaning of a dream that represents the unconscious drives and wishes of the dreamer

Tolerance

the diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug’s effect

Withdrawal

the discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing the use of an addictive drug

Opiates

opium and its derivatives that depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety, such as morphine and heroin

Stimulants

drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions, such as caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, cocaine, ecstasy, and meth

Depressants

drugs that reduce neural activity and slow body functions, such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates

Hallucinogens

psychedelic drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input, such as LSD

Meth

stims CNS, sped up body funcs (associated energy and mood changes), deduces baseline dopamine lvls

Ecstasy

synthetic stim/mild hallucinogen; produces euphoria and social intmacy; long term harm to serotonin producing neurons

barbiturates

drugs that press nervous system activity reducing anxiety but impairing memory/judgement

Overall effects

depends on the bio and psychological aspects; depends on what the user expects from the drug/social contexts/culture

manifest content

remembered storyline

latent content

underlying meaning of a dream

change blindness

failure to see change in an environment

blindsight

a condition where a patient can respond to a visual stim w/o actually experiencing it