Chapter 4

Question 1

x-shaped bundle of fiber on the underside of the brain

Answer 1

optic chiasm

Question 2

side of the body opposite to the side on which a particular condition occurs

Answer 2

contralateral

Question 3

part of the thalamus that receives inputs from the optic nerve

Answer 3

lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)

Question 4

area in the brain that is involved in controlling eye movements and other visual behaviors

Answer 4

superior colliculus

Question 5

area in the brain where signals from the retina and LGN first reach the cortex

Answer 5

visual receiving area

Question 6

visual receiving area of the cortex, located in the occipital lobe

Answer 6

striate cortex

Question 7

neuron in the visual cortex that responds best to bars of a particular location

Answer 7

simple cortical cell

Question 8

function relating the firing rate of a neuron to the position of the stimulus

Answer 8

orientation tuning curve

Question 9

neuron in the visual cortex that responds best to moving bars with a particular orientation

Answer 9

complex cell

Question 10

neuron that responds best to lines of a specific length moving in a particular direction

Answer 10

end-stopped cell

Question 11

neuron that responds selectively to a specific aspect of the stimulus such as orientation

Answer 11

feature detector

Question 12

concept that firing causes neurons to eventually become fatigued, or adapt

Answer 12

selective adaptation

Question 13

minimum intensity difference between two areas that can just barely be seen

Answer 13

contrast threshold

Question 14

procedure in which animals are brought up in special environments

Answer 14

selective rearing

Question 15

capacity of the nervous system to change in response to experience

Answer 15

neural plasticity

Question 16

process where neurons adapt to a specific environment where a person or animal lives

Answer 16

experience-dependent plasticity

Question 17

visual system map that indicates locations on the system that corresponds to locations on the retina

Answer 17

retinotopic map

Question 18

activation of a large area on the cortex by stimulation of a small area on the receptor surface

Answer 18

cortical magnification

Question 19

column in the visual cortex that contains neurons with the same receptive field locations on the retina

Answer 19

location column

Question 20

column in the visual cortex that contains neurons with the same orientation preference

Answer 20

orientation column

Question 21

unit that combines location, orientation, and ocular dominance columns that serve a specific area on the retina

Answer 21

hypercolumn

Question 22

adjacent, often overlapping, location columns working together to cover the entire visual field

Answer 22

tiling

Question 23

collective term for visual areas in the occipital lobe known as V2, V3, V4, and V5

Answer 23

extrastriate cortex

Question 24

removal of an area of the brain

Answer 24

ablation

Question 25

connections in the brain that conduct signals from the striate cortex to the temporal lobe (also called the what pathway)

Answer 25

ventral pathway

Question 26

connections in the brain that conducts signals from the striate cortex to the parietal lobe (also called the where, how, or action pathway)

Answer 26

dorsal pathway

Question 27

in brain damage, when function A is present and function B is absent in one person, and vice versa

Answer 27

double dissociation

Question 28

area of the brain outside the striate cortex, involved in object perception and facial recognition

Answer 28

inferotemporal (IT) cortex

Question 29

subcortical structure in the brain that is associated with forming and storing memories

Answer 29

hippocampus

Question 30

change in response to a stimulus presented within the receptive field caused by stimulation outside of the receptive field

Answer 30

contextual modulation