Brain structures
Received and processes auditory information. Also plays a role in memory storage, emotion and language comprehension.
What is the temporal lobe?
White fatty coating around the axon of a neuron that facilitates transmission of electrical impulses.
What is a myelin sheath?
The term given to neural activities that only take place in one particular hemisphere.
What is lateralised function?
The study of bumps and indentations on the skull to determine a person’s character, intelligence and a range of other behaviours and functions.
What is phrenology?
The cut-off for determining whether the difference between conditions or the relationship between variables is statistically significant or not.
What is the alpha value (0.05)?
A set of neural fibres that connect the two brain hemispheres
What is the corpus callosum?
Specialised communication cells that possess electrical excitability, the ability to response to a stimulus and convert it into an action potential.
What is a neuron?
Measures the volume and location of blow flow in the brain by tracking a radioactive substance such as glucose that has been injected into a person’s bloodstream.
What is a PET scan?
Researcher who did autopsies on patients and discovered a specialised brain area involved in speech production.
Who is Pierre Broca?
A type of experimental design where each participant experiences only one condition of the independent variable.
What is an independent groups design?
Partial damage to this area could result in gap in visual field.
What is the occipital lobe?
Carry sensory information from the body and external environment to the CNS.
What is a sensory neuron?
Shows patterns of brain activation while person is performing cognitive tasks. Provides detailed information about the physical structure and shows the brain in action.
What is fMRI?
Researcher who first performed corpus callostomies to stop children from having seizures. His experiments demonstrated hemispheric localisation.
Who is Roger Sperry?
A method for recruiting participants into a study where each person in the target population has an equal chance of being selected for the study (i.e., to be part of the sample population).
What is random sampling?
Plays a role in co-ordinating and sequencing voluntary movement, as well as fine motor control.
What is the cerebellum?
The division of the PNS responsible for homeostasis – i.e., maintaining balance in automatic day-to-day bodily functions, such as digestion, normal heart rate and breathing.
What is the parasympathetic nervous system?
The concentration of hydrogen differs in different types of tissue. This information is used used to produce a 3D picture of brain structure.
What is MRI?
Researcher who used electrical brain stimulation to map the cerebral cortex of his patients.
Who is Wilder Penfield?
The degree to which the effects observed in an experiment (i.e., changes to the dependent variable) are due to the manipulation of the independent variable and not confounds.
What is internal validity?
Plays a major role in sleep, regulation of body temperature, controlling emotion and motivated behaviours (the four ‘F’s’ – feeding, fighting, fleeing and fornication) such as eating, drinking and sexual activity.
What is the hypothalamus?
Neurons communicate across this structure using neurotransmitters.
What is the synapse?
A functional neuroimaging technique with excellent temporal resolution (i.e. can see brain activity in real time) but very poor spatial resolution (i.e. can't tell where in the brain the activity is localised).
What is EEG?
Researcher who ablated areas of animals’ brains to observe the effects on their behaviour and cognition. He provided evidence that areas of brain were responsible for different functions (localisation). His research did not support phrenology.
Who is Pierre Flourens?
Consideration for the quality of a study and its results given the extent to which measures of the dependent variable vary across time (from one use to another) and between different researchers. Examples include test-retest and inter-rater.
What is external reliability?