Sensation
when one sense can influence another; senses work together; ex- taste and smell - work together to give you a perception of flavor; vision & hearing
What is Sensory Interaction
the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today’s science views traits and behaviors as arising from the interaction of nature and nurture.
What is nature vs. nurture
in neural processing, a brief resting pause that occurs after a neuron has fired; subsequent action potentials cannot occur until the axon returns to its resting state
What is the refractory period
the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them
What is the corpus callosum
affects 1 in 5 adults; difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep; daytime fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating; caused by stress, anxiety, depression, poor sleep habits, medical conditions; acute or chronic (long lasting)
What is insomnia
the process by which our sensory receptors in our nervous system pick up or detect information from our environment
What is Sensation
the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body
What is the peripheral nervous system
the level of stimulation needed to trigger a neural impulse
What is threshold
the portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead. They enable linguistic processing, muscle movements, higher-order thinking, and executive functioning (such as making plans and judgments)
What is the frontal lobes
the central core of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord swells as it enters the skull; the brainstem is responsible for automatic survival functions
What is the brainstem
the minimum difference needed to detect a change correctly 50% of the time; the smallest difference in the intensity of a stimulus that a person can detect (the point at which you notice a change in stimulus)
What is Just-Noticeable Difference
the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body’s skeletal muscles
What is the somatic nervous system
pleasure and enjoyment/ reward system; movement, learning, attention (Too Much: linked with schizophrenia; Too Little: decreased mobility as seen in Parkinson’s Disease)
regulation of mood; hunger, sleep, learning, memory (Too Little: depression, appetite changes, sleep disruption)
What is dopamine and serotonin
in the left hemisphere of the frontal lobe in front of the motor cortex; crucial for speech production- manages the motor aspects of speech
What is Broca's area
"rapid eye movement”; paradoxical stage because brain activity looks the same as being awake; heart rate, breathing, blood pressure all increase to similar levels of being awake; body is very relaxed; vivid dreams occur; procedural memory and emotional processing
sensory receptors become less sensitive to constant stimuli over time; (ex: you notice a scent when you walk into a room but do not notice it after a while); allows the brain to focus on new and important information
What is sensory adaptation
the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy
What is the parasympathetic nervous system
neural pathways that are governed by the spinal column; sensory circuit where a message goes from the sensory nerves to the interneurons in the spinal column and loop back to the motor neuron (without going up to the brain to be processed) (pain reflex)
What is the reflex arc
the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; it includes areas that receive information from the visual fields
What is the occipital lobes
a neurotransmitter’s reabsorption by the sending neuron
reuptake
in order to detect a change in a stimulus, it must change by a constant minimum percentage relative to its initial intensity (ex: for weight, the change must be at least 2% to perceive that it’s gotten heavier or lighter) (example- if a light gets dimmer by a little bit, you may not notice, but if it gets dimmer by a lot, you will notice it)
What is Weber’s Law
the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms.
What is the autonomic nervous system
when the neurotransmitters bind with the receptor sites of the dendrites, positive ions enter the cell body, and this starts to charge the cell body until it reaches the threshold. Domino effect takes place down the axon, which propels the action potential (electrical impulse) down the axon
What is depolarization
the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear; it receives sensory input for touch and body position.
What is the parietal lobes
the portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears; it includes the auditory areas, each of which receives information primarily from the opposite ear. They also enable language processing. Plays a role in memory formation -houses the hippocampus
What is the temporal lobes