Biological

Question 1

localisation of function and nueroplasticity

Answer 1

Draganski (2004) and Sharot (2007)

Question 2

explain the aim of draganski 2004

Answer 2

Aim was to see if learning a new skill had an effect of the brain of participants.

Question 3

explain the procedure of draganski 2004

Answer 3

21 female and 3 male volunteers all non jugglers were split into either a juggling or non juggling group. they all recived MRI to start to measure a baseline of brain grey matter. The jugglers were taught a 3 ball juggling routine and when they notified the researcher that they had mastered it they had a second MRI scan. They were told to stop practising the routine and after 3 months they recived a 3rd MRI

Question 4

what were the results of draganski 2004

Answer 4

The researchers used voxel-based morphometry to see the difference in density of grey matter. At the start both sets of volunteers had no significant levels of grey matter and they were the same in both groups. but after they had learned the routine then researchers found an increase in grey matter in the mid temporal section in both hemispheres which is associated with visual learning. After the three months of not practising the researchers found a decrease in the juggling group. There was no difference in the control group

Question 5

what was the aim of sharot 2007

Answer 5

to study the potential role of biological factors on flashbulb memory

Question 6

what is flashbulb memory

Answer 6

memories for the circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) event.

Question 7

what was the procedure of Sharot 2007

Answer 7

this quasi experiment with 24 people recruited through an ad and that were all in New York on 9/11. They all went through an fMRI scan and they were shown a variety of word cues with either summer or September. Participants brain activity was recorded as they recalled the events of 9/11. participants were asked to rate their memories for vividness, detail, confidence in accuracy and arousal. Participants were also asked to write a description of their personal memories

Question 8

what were the results of Sharot 2007

Answer 8

Only half of the participants were reported to have flashbulb memory of the event and they reported that they were closer to the world trade centre and they were more clear in their written description. Sharot found that the activation of the amygdala was higher for the recall of 9/11 then of summer for those who were closer to it and it was equal for those who were futher away.

Question 9

what is the funtion of the amygdala

Answer 9

The amygdala helps to activate our fear response to prepare the body for the fight or flight response

Question 10

what is a quasi experiment

Answer 10

Quasi-experimental studies examine the effect of a naturally occurring or pre-existing independent variable (for example, age, gender, ethnicity) not an independent variable that is manipulated by the researcher.

Question 11

what is the implications of Sharot 2007

Answer 11

the strength of the activation of the amygdala correlates with flashbulb memories. the results show that close personal experiences may be critical in engaging the neural mechanisms that create vivid memories

Question 12

Memory & Neurotransmission

Answer 12

Antonova (2011)
Sperling (2002)

Question 13

what is the aim of Antonova (2011)

Answer 13

Antonova (2011) wanted to see if scopolamine affected hippocampal activity in the creation of spatial memory.

Question 14

Brain Imaging Techniques

Answer 14

Draganski (2004)
Sharot (2007)

Question 15

what is the procedure of Antonova (2011)

Answer 15

reserchers used 20 healthy men mean age 28 in a double blind test and injected them with either sopolomine or placebo, then the men were made to complete a task which was get through a VR maze to reach a pole whilst in an fMRI. the screen then turned black and the men had to find the pole using their spatial memory. when they reached the pole they were respawned in a different location in the same maze with the same intention they were scanned 6 times. this study was repeated measure which means the participants came back 3-4 weeks later and tried again using the opposite injection.

Question 16

what are the results of Antonova (2011)

Answer 16

they found that when injected with scopolamine activation in the hippocampus decreased in comparison the placebo. this suggests that acetylcholine has a large effect on encoding spatial memories

Question 17

what is the aim of Sperling 2002

Answer 17

the aim was to see how the effect of lorazepam and scopolamine on memory when it comes to remembering the names and occupations of a face

Question 18

what is the procedure of Sperling 2002

Answer 18

Ten healthy young
subjects were scanned on four occasions, 2 weeks apart; they were
administered i.v. saline during two placebo-scanning sessions and
then alternately administered i.v. lorazepam (1 mg) or scopolamine
(0.4 mg) in a double-blind, randomized, cross-over design. and asked to participate in a face name Associative Memory Exam where the participents are asked to memorize the names and ocupations of the faces shown

Question 19

Memory & Hormones

Answer 19

Fisher (2006)
McGaugh & Cahill (1995)

Question 20

what is the aim of the study Fisher 2006

Answer 20

to investigate neural mechanisms involved with the attraction system

Question 21

what is the procedure for Fisher 2006

Answer 21

10 women and 7 men ages 18-26, reported being in love average 7.5 months. Participants filled out a questionnaire (Passionate love scale) to investigate how they felt about their relationship
Participants placed in fMRI scanner (functional MRI). They looked at a picture of their beloved, then performed a distraction task, then looked at photo of a neutral acquaintance. (repeated 6x)

Question 22

what were the results for fisher 2006

Answer 22

Increased activity in dopamine rich brain areas when participants looked at their lover

Question 23

what was the aim of McGaugh and Cahill

Answer 23

The aim of McGaugh and Cahill’s study was to study the role of emotion in the creation of memories.

Question 24

what was the procedure of McGaugh and Cahill’s

Answer 24

participants were divided into 2 groups and each group saw 12 slides. one group saw a boring story about woman and her son who paid a visit to the son’s father in a hospital where they witnessed the staff in a disaster preparation drill of a simulated accident victim.
whilst the second group witnessed a a more mentally stimulating story about a boy was involved in a car accident where his feet were severed. He was quickly brought to the hospital where the surgeons reattached the injured limbs. Then he stayed in the hospitals for some weeks and then went home with his mother. 2 weeks later the participants were asked to retell with as much accuracy the stories they heard

Question 25

what did McGaugh and Cahill’s follow up study entail

Answer 25

they repeated the experiment but now the participants with the traumatic story were injected with beta blockers called propranolol or a placebo. This is a drug that is used to treat heart disease because the beta-blockers block target cells for the hormone so that the heart will pump more slowly and efficiently. However, in this study, it was used to prevent activation of the amygdala.

Question 26

what were McGaugh and Cahill’s results

Answer 26

in the original study they found that those who received the traumatising story remembered it better and with more accuracy but in the follow up study, those who recived beta blockers did no better than the boring story. this shows how the amygdala has to do with memory

Question 27

Introducing Love

Answer 27

Antonova (2011)
Sperling (2002)

Question 28

The Evolution of Love

Answer 28

Clark & Hatfield (1989)
Ronay & Von Hippel (2010)

Question 29

what was the aim of Clark & Hatfield (1989)

Answer 29

The following study by Clark and Hatfield is an interesting field experiment that looks to see if there
really are gender differences in the approach to casual sexual activity.

Question 30

describe a field experiment

Answer 30

Field experiments are done in every day (i.e., real-life) environment of the participants. The experimenter still manipulates the independent variable, but in a real-life setting

Question 31

what was the procedure of Clark & Hatfield (1989)

Answer 31

the sample was made up of 48 male and 48 female participants. The study also used a team of confederates (five women and four men) who ranged from mildly unattractive to
moderately attractive. The confederates approached members of the opposite sex who were total strangers. The
confederates were told to only approach people that they thought were attractive enough that they
would be willing to actually sleep with them. They were asked after each interaction to rate the attractiveness of the naive participants. There was no significant difference between the two gender groups.
Once they had selected a participant, the confederate would say, “I have been noticing you around
campus. I find you very attractive.” Then they would ask one of the following questions:

● Would you go out with me tonight?
● Would you come over to my apartment tonight?
● Would you go to bed with me tonight?

The questions were asked randomly. They were also only asked during weekdays and not between
classes or during rainy weather.

Question 32

what were the results of Clark & Hatfield (1989)

Answer 32

the results were that in both sets and both genders the response to go on a date yes was 50 but to go back to the apartment or to sleep with them the female response was primarily no whilst the male was yes.Notice that although in both cases roughly 70% of the men were willing to have casual sex, in both
experiments, none of the women agreed to do so. Analysis of the results found that the level of
attractiveness of the confederate and no significant impact on the response from the participant.

Question 33

what was the aim of Ronay and von Hippel (2010

Answer 33

to determine if men would take greater risks in the presence of an attractive female, than in the presence of a male. In addition, they wanted to see if testosterone played a role in this behaviour.

Question 34

what was the procedure of Ronay and von Hippel (2010

Answer 34

The sample was made up of 96 young adult Australian male skateboarders with a mean age of 21.58. Participants were recruited at skateboard parks. 43 were assigned to the male-researcher condition and 53 were assigned to the female-researcher condition.
Skateboarders were asked to do one “easy trick” and one difficult trick which they could successfully complete approximately 50% of the time. They were asked to do each trick 10 times.
After a break, they were asked to make 10 more attempts of each trick but this time in front of the same male researcher or an attractive 18-year-old female researcher who was blind to the hypothesis. The attractiveness of the researcher was established by having 20 male raters view photos of potential female experimenters. The skateboarders’ attempts were coded for one of three outcomes: success, crash landing, or aborted attempt. High levels of aborted attempts would be seen as an indicator of low-risk taking.
Saliva samples were also collected at the conclusion of the experiment to measure testosterone. Heart rate was measured by having participants wear a Nordic sports watch. Measurements were taken immediately prior to the test and then measured throughout the task.

Question 35

what were the results of Ronay and von Hippel (2010

Answer 35

As expected, participants took greater risks on the difficult tricks in the presence of the female researcher - that is, they aborted the trick fewer times. In addition, testosterone levels were higher in the men that skateboarded in front of the female researcher than in front of the male researcher. There was no significant difference in the measure of heart rate between the two groups.

The study showed that young men take great physical risks when in the presence of an attractive woman and that testosterone may account for this behaviour.

Question 36

Pheromones and Attraction

Answer 36

Wedekind (2005)
Doucet et al (2009)

Question 37

what was the aim of Wedekind (2005)

Answer 37

The aim of the study was to determine whether one’s MHC would affect mate choice

Question 38

what is the procedure of Wedekind (2005)

Answer 38

the sample had 49 females and 44 males taken from a university in Switzerland. each participant was tested for their type of MHC and it was noted if any of the women were taking oral contraceptives. the men were then asked to wear a t-shirt for 2 days and two night then put it in a plastic bag, they were also asked to not smoke or drink or have sex during these two days. In addition the men were given odor free detergant and perfume free soap. the women were then asked to rank the smells of the mens shirts through 1-7. they were asked to smell it on the 2nd week after begining their period as thats when their smell is most hightened.

Question 39

what is the results of Wedekind (2005)

Answer 39

Three of the seven boxes contained T-shirts from men with MHC similar to the woman’s own; three contained T-shirts from MHC dissimilar men; and one contained an unworn T-shirt as a control. Alone in a room, every woman scored the odours of the T-shirts for intensity (range 0-10) and for pleasantness and sexiness (range 0 -10, 5 = neutral).
Women scored male body odours as more pleasant when they differed from their own MHC than when they were more similar. This difference in odour assessment was reversed when the women rating the odours were taking oral contraceptives. This suggests that the MHC may influence human mate choice.

Question 40

what was the aim of Doucet et al (2009

Answer 40

To examine the role of secretion of the areola glands in suckling behavior in 3-day old infants

Question 41

what was the procedure of Doucet et al (2009

Answer 41

it was a repeated measure lab experiment.Researchers administered the different secretions to 19 three-day-old infants nasally and then monitored their breathing rate and behavior

• They compared the infants reactions to the seven different secretions (AG, sebum, human milk, cow milk, formula milk, vanillin, familiar milk)

Question 42

what was the results of Doucet et al (2009

Answer 42

Researchers found that infants only began suckling when exposed to the areola gland secretions. The infants showed an increase in their breathing rate as well (secretion may cause a chain reaction of behavioral and physiological events)

Question 43

Genetics and Behaviour

Answer 43

Bailey & Pillard (1991)
Hamer (1993)

Question 44

what was the aim of Bailey & Pillard (1991)

Answer 44

the aim was to see the effect of being twins and not and genetics in general on the sexuality of a participant

Question 45

what was the procedure of Bailey & Pillard (1991)

Answer 45

The researchers recruited monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins as well as adoptive brothers through gay publications. All of the sample was voluntary and male. All twins in the study were raised together – which means that we can reasonably assume that the environment was highly
similar. Sexual orientation of relatives was assessed either by asking relatives directly, or when this was impossible, asking the gay participant who had volunteered for the study.
In addition, the researchers used questionnaires to assess the participants’ level of Childhood Gender Non-conformity (CGN)

Question 46

what is child hood gender nonconformity

Answer 46

Childhood gender nonconformity is a phenomenon in which pre-pubescent children do not conform to expected gender
related patterns, and/or identify with the opposite gender. Gender non-conformity in children can have many forms, reflecting various ways in which a child relates to his or her gender. These behaviours include, but are not limited to:
* Cross gender clothing and grooming preferences;
* Playing with toys generally associated with the opposite sex;
* Preference for playmates of the opposite sex;
* Identification with characters of the opposite sex in stories, cartoons or films.

Question 47

what were the results of bailey and pillard

Answer 47

ailey & Pillard found that 52% of MZ twins were both self-identified homosexuals, 22% of DZ twins were so, and 11% of non-related adopted brothers were so. Later study showed that non-twin brothers had a rate of 9.2%. This evidence shows that the more closely genetically linked a pair is, the more likely they both are to exhibit gay or straight tendencies.
The researchers found that the participants’ self-reported history of childhood gender non-conformity did not predict homosexuality in any of the three samples. Thus, childhood gender nonconformity does not appear to be correlated with the development of homosexuality. However, monozygotic pairs were very similar in their level of childhood gender nonconformity.

Question 48

what was the aim of Hamer (1993)

Answer 48

to see if the x chromosome in males inherited from their mothers has any relation on sexual orientation

Question 49

what was the procedure of Hamer (1993)

Answer 49

since males always inherit their copy of the X chromosome from their mothers. Differences in the X chromosome were analyzed for 40 families to see if a specific marker was shared by a disproportionate amount of brothers who were both gay

Question 50

what were the results of Hamer 1993

Answer 50

This study examined 114 families of gay men in the United States and found increased rates of homosexuality among maternal uncles and cousins, but not among paternal relatives.he results showed that among gay brothers, the concordance rate for markers from the Xq28 region of the X chromosome were significantly greater than expected, indicating that a link did exist in that small sample. It was concluded that at least one form of male homosexuality is transmitted through the maternal side and is genetically linked to the Xq28 region

Question 51

Animal Research

Answer 51

Martinez & Kesner (1991)
Rosenzweig, Bennet & Diamond (1972)

Question 52

what was the aim of Martinez & Kesner (1991)

Answer 52

to investigate the role of ACh in learning and memory.

Question 53

what was the procedure of Martines and Kesner

Answer 53

rats were trained to go through a maze at the end of which they received food. Once the rats were able to do this, they injected one group of rats with an antagonist substance (scopolamine) that blocks ACh receptor sites, thus decreasing available ACh. They then injected the second group of rats with an agonist (physostigmine) that led to the increase of ACh and stopped the synapse returning to its ‘resting state’. A third group, the control group, were not given any injections. THerefore, the researchers either boosted or blocked levels of Ach in two groups of rats. The DV was memory and was measured by how fast the rats could run a maze

Question 54

what was the results of Martinez and Kesner

Answer 54

The rats had their Ach levels boosted, were better at running the maze and found food more quickly.

Question 55

what was the aim of Rosenzweig, Bennet & Diamond (1972)

Answer 55

In this classic study, Rosenzweig, Bennet & Diamond wanted to see if changing the level of stimuli in the environment would result in physical changes in the brain. The aim of the study was to investigate whether environmental factors such as a rich or an impoverished environment would affect the development of neurons in the cerebral cortex.

Question 56

what is neuroplasticity

Answer 56

Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change as a result of one’s experience

Question 57

what was the procedure of rosenweig, Bennet and Diamond 1972

Answer 57

Three male rats from a common litter were randomly allocated to one of three environments. In the control condition [CC] there were three rats in the cage. In the impoverished condition [IC], the researchers placed each rat in individual cages. The individual cages lacked the toys and the maze which were in the enriched environment. For the enriched condition [EC], the researchers placed 10 - 12 rats in a cage containing different stimulus objects to explore and play with. All groups had free and adequate access to food and water.
The rats typically spent 30 to 60 days in their respective environments before they were killed in order for the researchers to study changes in the brain’s anatomy.

Question 58

what were the results of Rosenweig, Bennet and Diamond

Answer 58

The anatomy of the brain was different in the EC and the IC. There was an increased thickness and higher weight of the cortex in EC rats compared to that of IC rats. The researchers also noted that rats in the EC condition had developed significantly greater activity in the neurons in the cerebral cortex associated with transmission of acetylcholine, which is an important neurotransmitter for learning and memory. It appears that the thickness of the cortex and the overall weight of the brain increased as a result of the enriched environment. A follow-up to this research indicated that just 30 minutes a day in an enriched environment produced the same changes in the brain in rats as had been observed in the original experiment where rats were exposed to the EC condition for a much longer period of time.