Teenage Brain Under Construction
Hormones, growth spurts, and reproductive maturity arrive during this developmental process.
What is puberty?
Reaction time, strength, and several physical abilities tend to be near their peak during this period.
Your receptors receive information; your brain makes sense of it. The first part is called this.
What is sensation?
This light-sensitive surface at the back of your eye does much more work than your camera roll.
What is the retina?
Turn up this sound-wave property and the sound becomes louder.
What is amplitude?
Adolescents are working to answer “Who am I?” during this Eriksonian conflict.
What is Identity vs. Role Confusion?
These life commitments in adulthood take up most of our time.
What are love and work?
Converting light, sound, or chemical energy into neural signals is called this.
What is transduction?
This tiny retinal area packed with cones provides your sharpest vision. I told you to FOCUS on this FOCAL point.
What is the fovea?
Increase this sound-wave property and the pitch becomes higher.
What is frequency?
“I won’t cheat because I’ll get punished” reflects this level of moral reasoning.
What is preconventional mortality?
Health, independence, and cognitive functioning vary especially widely among people during this period.
What is late adulthood?
The faintest stimulus you can detect half the time receives this threshold label.
What is absolute threshold?
Red, green, and blue cones walk into a theory of color vision. This is that theory.
What is the trichromatic theory?
This inner-ear structure turns vibrations into neural signals using tiny hair cells. (Unless you are my niece and nephew, then you use a processor--but don't wear it in the ocean)
What is the cochlea?
This brain area responsible for planning and impulse control is still finishing its renovations during adolescence.
What is the frontal lobe or prefrontal cortex?
Forgetting where you placed your phone occasionally is generally considered this rather than evidence of a neurocognitive disorder.
What is normal age related forgetting?
You forgot about the humming air conditioner until this clue reminded you. That reduced awareness illustrates this.
What is sensory adaptation?
A green afterimage after staring at red supports this color-vision theory.
What is opponent-process theory?
Food suddenly becomes boring when your nose is blocked because flavor depends heavily on this sense.
What is olfaction/smell?
Adolescents may understand the danger but still take the risk because this system responds strongly to immediate rewards.
What is the brain's reward system or reward sensitivity?
Unlike occasional forgetfulness, this disease causes progressive cognitive and memory decline that interferes with daily functioning.
What is Neurocognitive Disorders/Dementia/Alzheimers?
Two people receive the same sensory information but interpret it differently because perception involves this process.
What is organization and interpretation of sensory information?
Your brain fills in missing information to perceive a complete figure, illustrating this Gestalt principle.
What is closure?
You can touch your nose with your eyes closed because of this sense of body-part position and movement.
What is kinesthesia?