Chapters 1-6

Question 1

subconscious

Answer 1

Brain processing that occurs without conscious awareness.

Question 2

hierarchy of needs

Answer 2

The term coined by Abraham Maslow that describes the relationship between the basic and higher human needs—from physiological needs like food to emotional needs like self-actualization.

Question 3

fundamental attribution error

Answer 3

A psychological term that refers to the tendency to ascribe the actions of others to internal motives and attributes rather than external situational factors.

Question 4

confirmation bias

Answer 4

A cognitive bias to support beliefs we already hold, including the tendency to notice and accept confirming information while ignoring or rationalizing disconfirming information.

Question 5

valid

Answer 5

An argument in which the logic is proper and not fallacious.

Question 6

cognitive dissonance

Answer 6

An unpleasant emotion generated by the simultaneous existence of mutually exclusive beliefs.

Question 7

default mode

Answer 7

A common behavior that results from evolved emotions and subconscious processes without metacognitive insight.

Question 8

inattentional blindness

Answer 8

This phenomenon refers to the lack of attention to sensory information, especially while attending to other sensory input. Significant information right before our eyes can be completely missed and is simply not processed.

Question 9

McGurk effect

Answer 9

The phenomenon that the consonant sounds we hear are affected by the lip movements we see.

Question 10

optical illusion

Answer 10

The common term for the failure of constancy, or a breakdown in the process of creating a constant and consistent view of reality. Illusions occur when what our brain constructs does not match reality or when there is an inherent contradiction or ambiguity in the way perceptual information is constructed.

Question 11

change blindness

Answer 11

The experimentally verified tendency of humans not to notice changes in their environment.

Question 12

synesthesia

Answer 12

When more than one sensory modality is combined or when one sensory modality is interpreted as another, such as smelling colors.

Question 13

neocortex

Answer 13

The neocortex is the most recently evolved portion of the human brain—specifically, the frontal lobes, which provide executive function, among other things.

Question 14

pseudoscience

Answer 14

A practice that superficially resembles the process of science but distorts proper methodology to the point that it is fatally awed and does not qualify as true science.

Question 15

multitasking

Answer 15

Dividing attention between two or more tasks or sensory inputs.

Question 16

logic

Answer 16

A formal process or principle of reasoning.

Question 17

metacognition

Answer 17

Thinking about thinking; examining the processes by which we think about and arrive at our own beliefs.

Question 18

What are the various factors that make eyewitness testimony unreliable?

Answer 18

Eyewitnesses are subject to suggestion; they have a false confidence in their own accuracy and are subject to confabulation, or making up details.

Question 19

constancy

Answer 19

The fact that our brains construct a constant and consistent model of what we perceive that generally matches reality.

Question 20

confabulation

Answer 20

The filling in of details missing from either perception or memory. The brain invents the missing details to construct a consistent narrative.

Question 21

critical thinking

Answer 21

Applying systematic logic and doubt to any claim or belief; thinking carefully and rigorously.

Question 22

Why is critical thinking important to the average person—and to society as a whole?

Answer 22

Critical thinking is, in fact, a defense mechanism against all the machinations that are trying to deceive us—whether for ideological, political, or marketing reasons. Critical thinking also liberates us from being weighed down by the many false beliefs, and perhaps mutually incompatible beliefs, that we tend to hold because of our emotional makeup.

Question 23

delusion

Answer 23

A fixed, false belief that is vigorously held even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence.

Question 24

heuristic

Answer 24

A cognitive rule of thumb or mental shortcut that we subconsciously make that may be true much of the time but is not logically valid.

Question 25

How does the brain process sensory information, and how does this affect what we think we perceive?

Answer 25

Perception is a construct – each individual sensory stream is interpreted and modified: The different streams are combined, compared, and then altered based on that comparison. We attend to a very small subset of that information, which we weave into a complete story by adding confabulating pieces as needed. The end result is a story that is largely fiction.

Question 26

scientific skepticism

Answer 26

A comprehensive approach to knowledge that emphasizes critical thinking and science. Skepticism combines knowledge of philosophy of science, scientific methods, mechanisms of self- deception, and related fields to approach all claims to truth in a provisional and systematic way.

Question 27

false memory syndrome

Answer 27

The implantation of false memories that are thought to be real by the possessor of the memory, often resulting from strong suggestion, imagining, or hypnosis.

Question 28

flashbulb memory

Answer 28

A detailed memory or snapshot of a sudden, unexpected, and emotionally significant event.

Question 29

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Answer 29

Application of magnetic resonance imaging, a type of medical scanner, that can be used to image the degree to which different parts of the brain are active.

Question 30

long-term memory

Answer 30

Memories that have been consolidated into long- term storage.

Question 31

recall

Answer 31

The act of bringing to the conscious mind memories stored in long- term memory.

Question 32

short-term memory

Answer 32

Memory for immediate sensory or internal information that lasts from seconds to a few minutes (hippocampus)

Question 33

source amnesia

Answer 33

The tendency to forget the source of information more easily than the information itself.

Question 34

working memory

Answer 34

A type of memory that is distinct from short-term memory because it consists of information that the brain can manipulate, such as performing mental calculations.

Question 35

data mining

Answer 35

The process of sifting through large sets of data and looking for apparent patterns. This is a legitimate way to generate hypotheses— but not of confirming them—because this process lends itself to finding illusory patterns.

Question 36

electronic voice phenomenon (EVP)

Answer 36

The phenomenon of apparent words or phrases being found in audio recordings of allegedly haunted locations. Believers ascribe EVP to ghost phenomena, but they are more easily explained as audio pareidolia.

Question 37

hyperactive agency detection

Answer 37

The human tendency to detect a conscious agent behind natural or random behavior or events—for example, believing that random events are a conspiracy to punish us.

Question 38

pareidolia

Answer 38

The tendency to see patterns in random noise—for example, seeing a human face in the random features of a cloud.

Question 39

pattern recognition

Answer 39

The phenomenon of perceiving patterns—whether in visual information, other sensory information, or even events or behavior. Humans generally have a great ability to recognize patterns and a tendency to see patterns even when they are illusory.

Question 40

psychosis

Answer 40

A psychiatric condition characterized by impaired reality testing.

Question 41

reality testing

Answer 41

A cognitive process by which the brain compares any new information to its internal model of reality to see if the new information makes sense.

Question 42

alien hand syndrome

Answer 42

A neurological syndrome in which a person’s limb, such as a hand, feels as if it is acting on its own—without conscious control. This results from damage to the brain pathways that compare the intention to move with actual movements.

Question 43

executive function

Answer 43

A function of the frontal lobes of the brain, specifically the ability to control and plan one’s behavior to meet long-term self-interest and social integration.

Question 45

free will

Answer 45

The ability of a sentient being to make voluntary choices and decisions. Philosophers argue about whether humans have true free will or just the illusion of free will.

Question 46

global workspace

Answer 46

A controversial theory (disputed by recent research) that posits that a distributed network in the brain is the common pathway for all conscious experience.

Question 47

hypnosis

Answer 47

Although not a trance, hypnosis is a state of mind characterized by alertness but also by high suggestibility.

Question 48

ideomotor effect

Answer 48

Subconscious muscle movements that conform to expectations.

Question 49

intuition

Answer 49

Decision making or feelings, such as responses to social cues, that derive from subconscious brain processes.

Question 50

ownership module

Answer 50

The part of the brain that creates the sensation that we own the various parts of our body.

Question 51

phantom limb

Answer 51

An illusory limb that does not exist but that the subject can feel and even have the sense that they can move. It is commonly, but not exclusively, the result of amputation.

Question 52

split-brain experiment

Answer 52

An experiment on a subject who had the connection between their two brain hemispheres surgically cut that helped reveal the functions of the two hemispheres and how they work together.

Question 53

methodological naturalism

Answer 53

The philosophical assumptions that underlie scientific methodology; specifically, the assumption that all effects have natural causes.

Question 54

supernumerary phantom limb

Answer 54

A phantom limb that is not simply a replacement for a missing limb but is experienced in addition to the four natural limbs.

Question 55

theory of mind

Answer 55

A psychological term that refers to the ability to understand and think about the fact that other people have their own conscious existence with their own feelings and motivations.

Question 56

transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Answer 56

Technology that uses magnetic fields to either increase or decrease activity in specific regions of the brain.