History
This age-old debate asks whether traits come from genes or from upbringing.
What is nature vs nurture?
This is the only research method that can determine cause and effect.
What is an experiment?
These neurons fire both when you do an action and when you watch someone else do it.
What are mirror neurons?
This lobe, at the back of the cortex, processes vision.
What is the occipital lobe?
This sense bypasses the thalamus and goes straight to the brain.
What is olfaction?
In 1848, a railroad worker's frontal lobe injury changed his personality.
Who is Phineas Gage?
A researcher secretly counts how many shoppers hold doors open for others.
What is an observational study?
These branch-like structures receive messages from other neurons.
What are dendrites?
After a brain injury in this lobe, I have trouble processing touch.
What is the parietal lobe?
This light sensitive tissue lines the back of the eye.
What is the retina?
Darwin's idea that traits helping survival and reproduction get passed on.
What is natural selection?
In an experiment, this is the variable the researcher manipulates.
What is the independent variable?
This fatty coating speeds up signals along the axon.
What is the myelin sheath?
This structure in the hindbrain coordinates heart rate, circulation, and respiration.
What is the medulla?
This is the process of converting physical energy into neural impulses.
What is transduction?
Early psychologists like Wundt examined their own thoughts and sensations using this method.
What is introspection?
This statistic measures the strength of a relationship between two variables.
What is the correlation coefficient (r)?
These chemicals carry signals across the synaptic gap.
What are neurotransmitters?
This hemisphere governs speech, reading, writing, and arithmetic.
What is the left hemisphere?
This type of photoreceptor detects color, operates in daylight, and permits us to focus on fine detail.
What is a cone?
Titchener's school of thought tried to break the mind into its basic elements.
What is structuralism?
Complexity, variability, and this (people acting differently when they know they're watched) make humans hard to study.
What is reactivity?
This major inhibitory neurotransmitter slows down brain activity.
What is GABA?
This procedure temporarily “shuts off” parts of the brain.
What is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
A student is waiting for an important notification from their professor. They think they feel their phone buzz, so they check, but there is not message. In signal detection theory, this is this an example of:
What is a false alarm?