Never Skip Brain Day
The area of the brain responsible for speech comprehension
What is Wernicke's area?
The brain structure that regulates arousal/alertness; damaging this can result in a coma
What is the reticular formation? (also called reticular activating system)
The six primary tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, oleogustus, and ____________
What is umami?
When the successful retrieval of a memory depends on the environment where the memory was encoded
What is context-dependent memory?
When you assume something is more likely to happen because you can easily remember it happening before
What is the availability heuristic?
The lobe that houses the somatosensory cortex
What is the parietal lobe?
The stage(s) of the sleep cycle that produce beta waves
What are wakefulness and REM sleep?
Part of the eye that is entirely made up of cones
What is the fovea?
A type of sensory memory specific to vision
What is iconic memory?
A state of physiological equilibrium/stability
What is homeostasis?
The hormone that promotes satiety (fullness)
What is leptin?
Brain structure that helps you keep your balance on the tightrope
What is the cerebellum?
The only one of our five senses that is not routed through the thalamus
What is smell (olfaction)?
Occurs when old information interferes with the retention of new information
What is proactive interference?
A subtype of general intelligence (g) that reflects our ability to reason speedily and abstractly, and decreases as we get older
What is fluid intelligence?
The neurotransmitter exclusively responsible for controlling skeletal muscles; low levels of it are linked to Alzheimer's disease
What is acetylcholine (ACh)?
Which sleep disorder: Brian uncontrollably falls asleep at random times, even during his own wedding
What is narcolepsy?
The theory of color vision that explains why we see a red afterimage after staring at a green screen
What is opponent-process theory?
Remembering to take the trash out tomorrow night is an example of this type of memory
What is prospective memory?
Increased schooling and more demanding curricula are proposed explanations for this 100+ year trend of higher IQ scores
What is the Flynn effect?
The "master gland" of the endocrine system
What is the pituitary gland?
What is activation-synthesis theory?
The three tiniest bones in the human body (collectively known as the ossicles) that transmit vibrations of the eardrum
What are the hammer, anvil, and stirrup?
Jason Bourne's condition in The Bourne Identity
(has no memory of who he is, where he lives, what he does, etc. but can form new memories)
What is retrograde amnesia?
Example: 45 minutes into a movie you realize that you don't like it, but at this point you continue to watch it anyway
What is the sunk-cost fallacy?