Basic Concepts and Methods
Research ethics
Guidelines that researchers follow to in order protect the rights of both individuals who participate in experiments and animals utilized in research
long-term memory
The component of the memory system where information is permanently stored.
What is an ovum?
An egg cell produced by a woman each month from one of her two ovaries
Movements that develop the small muscles of the hands
Fine motor skills
Experiment
A study that tests a casual hypothesis.
fixation
Characterized by behaviors that reflect unmet needs
The process that transforms a zygote into a newborn
Reflexes such as sucking that help infants survive
Adaptive reflexes
Human development
The scientific study of age-related behavior, thinking, emotion, and personality changes.
Psychosocial stages
Erikson's eight stages of personality development in which inner instincts interact with outer cultural and social demands to shape personality.
Heterozygous
People with one dominant and one recessive gene
Tiny spaces across which neutral impulses flow from one neuron to the next
Synapses
What is the nature-nurture debate
The debate about the relative contributions of biological processes and experiential factors to development.
Working memory
Neonates born before the 38th week of gestation
Preterm
The growth that proceeds from the head downward
Cephalocaudal
Lifespan perspective
This approach helps us understand that development is a complex interplay of many factors and continues throughout our entire life
Bioecological theory
Bronfenbrenner's theory explains development in terms of relationships between individuals and their environments, or interconnected contexts.
Term for babies between birth and 1 month of age
Neonate
Myelinization
The process that sheaths around the axons of neurons, speeding up the transmission of electrical impulses