Chapter 18: Psychobiology Flashcards
Thomas Bouchard (1937-present)
American, Headed a research program that featured the study of identical and fraternal twins reared together and apart. Results indicated that intelligence and several personality traits are highly heritable
Twin studies, including the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA), to investigate the relative contributions of nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) to various psychological characteristics.
Donald Hebb (1904–1985)
Canadian, Under the influence of Lashley, did pioneering research in psychobiology
Proposed that when a neuron repeatedly and consistently contributes to the firing of another neuron, the synapse between them strengthens, leading to the establishment of a “cell assembly.” And discovered the sequential activation of cell assemblies called “phase sequence”
Karl Lashley (1890–1958)
American, An early supporter of Watsonian behaviorism who eventually left the behavioristic camp when his neurological research failed to support the switchboard conception of the brain upon which behaviorism was based
Lashley is best known for his research on the neural basis of learning and memory. His experiments involved lesioning specific areas of the rat brain to understand how these lesions affected the animals’ ability to navigate mazes and perform learned tasks.
Lashley’s concept of the “engram,” a hypothetical physical trace of memory in the brain, was central to his work. Despite not finding a specific location for the engram, his research contributed to the understanding of distributed memory systems.
Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
Austiran, A Nobel Prize–winning ethologist. He is best known for his work on imprinting in geese and on human aggression
He discovered that certain birds form strong attachments to the first moving object they see during a critical period after hatching.
His book “On Aggression” (1963) explored the evolutionary and biological aspects of aggressive behavior in animals, contributing to the understanding of instinctual behavior.
Roger Sperry (1913–1994)
American, The psychobiologist who used the split-brain preparation to study hemispheric specificity in humans and nonhuman animals. Using this technique, Sperry and his colleagues discovered that a number of cognitive and emotional phenomena are specific to either the right or left hemispheres of the cortex
Niko Tinbergen (1907–1988)
Dutch, A Nobel Prize–winning ethologist. Among psychologists, he is best known for his outline of the aims of ethology—to understand the function, ontogeny, causation, and evolution of behavior
He formulated the original four aims of ethology: to understand the function, ontogeny, causation, and evolution of any given behavior. These aims became fundamental to the ethological approach
Behavioral Genetics
The study of genetic influence on cognitive and behavioral traits
Biogrammar
The innate genetic predisposition influencing social behaviors.
Cell Assembly
A group of interconnected neurons forming a functional unit
Engram
A hypothetical physical trace of memory in the brain
Equipotentiality
The idea that different brain areas have equal learning and memory capacities.
Ethology
The scientific study of animal behavior in natural settings.
Evolutionary Psychology
Applying Darwinian principles to study the evolution of the human mind.
Heritability
The proportion of variability in a trait within a population attributable to genetic differences.
Instinctual Drift
The interference of instinctive behaviors with learned behaviors over time.
