Exam 2 Terms and Names To Know Flashcards
the extended fiber of a neuron through which nerve impulses travel from the soma to the terminal buttons.
Axon
neuron that carries messages away from the central nervous system toward the muscles and glands.
Motor neuron
pioneered the use of electrical stimulation to probe structures deep in the brain.
Walter Hess
the part of the nervous system composed of the spinal and cranial nerves that connect the body’s sensory receptors to the CNS and the CNS to the muscles and glands.
Peripheral nervous system (PNS)
the subdivision of the autonomic nervous system that deals with emergency response and the mobilization of energy.
Sympathetic division
the region of the brain attached to the brain stem that controls motor coordination, posture, and balance as well as the ability to learn control of body movements.
Cerebellum
region of the brain located above the lateral fissure and in front of the central sulcus; involved in motor control and cognitive activities.
Frontal lobe
the biological transmission of traits from parents to offspring
Heredity
the global capacity to profit from experience and to go beyond given information about the environment.
Intelligence
behavioral style; emotional style; response to environment; strongly related to personality.
Temperament
type of intelligence defined as the abilities to perceive, appraise, and express emotions accurately and appropriately, to use emotions to facilitate thinking, to understand and analyze emotions, to use emotional knowledge effectively, and to regulate one’s emotions to promote both emotional and intellectual growth.
Emotional intelligence
the mass of nerve fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the cerebrum.
Corpus callosum
the nerve impulse activated in a neuron that travels down the axon and causes neurotransmitters to be released into a synapse.
Action potential
a recording of the electrical activity of the brain.
EEG
Darwin’s theory that favorable adaptations to features of the environment allow some members of a species to reproduce more successfully than others.
Natural selection
injury to or destruction of brain tissue.
Lesion
the region of the parietal lobes that processes sensory input from various body areas.
Somatosensory cortex
adapted Binet’s test questions for US schoolchildren and standardized the administration of the test, and he developed age-level norms by giving the test to thousands of children.
Lewis Terman
information entering a neuron that signals it to fire.
Excitatory input
this hemisphere generally deals with activities of making judgments about spatial relationships and facial expressions.
Right hemisphere
developed the eight dimensions of temperament: sensory threshold, distractibility vs. persistence, rhythmicity or regularity, activity level, approach vs. withdrawal, adaptability (long-term), positive vs. negative mood, and intensity.
Thomas and Chess
further stimulation, no matter how intense, cannot cause another action potential to be generated.
Absolute refractory period
electrical level the cell must reach before firing—causes a dramatic change in electrical activity
Threshold
region of the brain found below the lateral fissure; contains auditory cortex.
Temporal lobe
the area of study that evaluates the genetic component of individual differences in behaviors and traits.
Human behavior genetics
the threat associated with being at risk for confirming a negative stereotype of one’s group.
Stereotype threat
an index derived from standardized tests of intelligence; originally obtained by dividing an individual’s mental age by chronological age and then multiplying by 100; now directly computed as an IQ test score.
Intelligence quotient (IQ)
set sail from England on HMS Beagle for a five-year cruise to survey the coast of South America. The book for which he is most remembered is The Origin of Species, published in 1859 which set forth science’s grandest theory: the evolution of life.
Charles Darwin
characteristic that is influenced by more than one gene.
Polygenic trait
also proposed a theory that expands the definition of intelligence beyond those skills covered on an IQ test. He identifies numerous intelligences that cover a range of human experience. The value of any of the abilities differs across human societies, according to what is needed by, useful to, and prized by a given society.
Howard Gardner
brain neuron that relays messages from sensory neurons to other interneurons or to motor neurons.
Interneuron
one of the branched fibers of neurons that receive incoming signals.
Dendrite
the outer surface of the cerebrum.
Cerebral cortex
chemical messenger released form a neuron that crosses the synapse from one neuron to another, stimulating the postsynaptic neuron.
Neurotransmitter
the parts of the cerebral cortex in which many high-level brain processes occur.
Association cortex
the region of the occipital lobes in which visual information is processed.
Visual cortex
the neuron will fire only in response to a stimulus stronger than what is ordinarily necessary.
Relative refractory period
the part of the nervous system consisting of the brain and spinal cord.
Central nervous system (CNS)
the relative influence of genetics—versus environment—in determining patterns of behavior; measured on a scale of 0 to 1, if estimate is near 0, it suggests that the attribute is largely a product of environmental influences; if an estimate is near 1, it suggests that the attribute is largely a product of genetic influences.
Heritability
a technique that uses narrow beams of X-rays passed through the brain at several angles to assemble complete brain images.
CT/CAT
brain image produced by a device that obtains detailed pictures of activity in the living brain by recording the radioactivity emitted by cells during different cognitive or behavioral activities.
PET scan
the biological unit of heredity; discrete section of a chromosome responsible for transmission of traits.
Gene
the aspect of intelligence that involves the ability to see complex relationships and solve problems.
Fluid intelligence
insulating material that surrounds axons and increases the speed of neural transmission.
Myelin sheath
the brain structure that relays sensory impulses to the cerebral cortex.
Thalamus
the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain; may be used as a messenger in as many as a third of all brain synapses; appears to play a critical role in some forms of psychopathology by inhibiting neural activity; when levels of this neurotransmitter in the brain become low, people may experience anxiety or depression.
GABA
region of the brain behind the frontal lobe and above the lateral fissure; contains somatosensory cortex.
Parietal lobe
condition in which individuals have IQ scores of 70 to 75 or below and also demonstrate limitations in the ability to bring adaptive skills to bear on life tasks.
Intellectual disability
argued that people’s performance on ability tests is influenced by stereotype threat.
Claude Steele
captures people’s ability to deal with novel problems. This type of intelligence involves skills used to create, invent, discover, imagine, suppose, or hypothesize.
Creative intelligence
showed that adolescents, adopted in the first few months of life, did not resemble their adoptive parents or other children adopted into the same family.
Scarr
the period of rest during which a new nerve impulse cannot be activated in a segment of an axon.
Refractory period
the region of the brains tem that regulates breathing, waking, and heartbeat.
Medulla
using more advanced factor analytic techniques, determined that general intelligence can be broken down into two relatively independent components, which he called crystallized and fluid intelligence.
Raymond Cattell
dramatic “gene pool change” has to do with changes in education and healthcare, and is therefore environmental, NOT genetic.
Flynn effect
the terminal button of the sending neuron
Presynaptic membrane
the area where neurotransmitters attach that are embedded in the postsynaptic membrane.
Receptor molecules
genes set limits on potential phenotype, but do not determine the person.
Range of reaction
the key figure in the development of Western intelligence testing, who published the book Hereditary Genius in 1869.
Sir Francis Galton
the region of the brain that regulates emotional behavior, basic motivational urges, and memory, as well as major physiological functions.
Limbic system
changes in the performance of the brain; may involve the creation of new synapses or changes in the function of existing synapses.
Plasticity
some chemicals are taken back up into the terminal and stored for re-use
Re-uptake process
the facet of intelligence involving the knowledge a person has already acquired and the ability to access that knowledge; measures by vocabulary, arithmetic, and general information tests.
Crystallized intelligence
the genetic structure an organism inherits from its parents.
Genotype
constancy or equilibrium of the internal conditions of the body.
Homeostasis
a region of the brain that allows fluent speech production and comprehension.
Wernicke’s area
a neurotransmitter that is produced by neurons in the brain stem, which is involved in arousal and many autonomic processes; LSD appears to produce its effects by suppressing the effects of this neurotransmitter; abnormal levels of this transmitter in the brain are associated with mood disorders.
Serotonin
the cells that hold neurons together and facilitate neural transmission, remove damaged and dead neurons, and prevent poisonous substances in the blood from reaching the brain.
Glia
devised situations that could allow visual information to be presented separately to each hemisphere in order to test the capabilities of the separated hemispheres of epileptic patients. His methodology relies on the anatomy of the visual system.
Roger Sperry
irregular; initially withdraw from new; slow adaptation to change; low to moderate intensity.
Slow to warm up child
the rule that the size of the action potential is unaffected by increases in the intensity of stimulation beyond the threshold level.
All-or-none law
the subdivision of the autonomic nervous system that monitors the routine operation of the body’s internal functions and conserves and restores body energy.
Parasympathetic division
the researcher who researched slow-to-warm up children.
Kagan
extent to which biology controls a trait
Canalization
the study of the inheritance of physical and psychological traits from ancestors.
Genetics
a neurotransmitter found in both the central and peripheral nervous systems; Alzheimer’s disease is believed to be caused by a deterioration of neurons that secrete this neurotransmitter; is excitatory at junctions between nerves and muscles.
Acetylcholine
the tendency of cultures to respond adaptively, through learning, to environment change; has given rise to major advances in toolmaking, improved agricultural practices, and the development and refinement of industry and technology.
Cultural evolution
the region of the cerebral cortex that controls the action of the body’s voluntary muscles.
Motor cortex
the relaying information from one neuron to another across the synaptic gap.
Synaptic transmission
carried out an early and influential application of factory analysis in the domain of intelligence. He discovered that the performance of individuals on each of a variety of intelligence tests was highly correlated.
Charles Spearman
a brain-imaging technique that combines benefits of both MRI and PET scans by detecting magnetic changes in the flow of blood to cells in the brain.
fMRI
a neurotransmitter that has a primary role in psychological disorders such as anxiety, mood disorders, and schizophrenia
Dopamine
patients who undergo the surgery in which the corpus callosum is severed to eliminate transfer of information back and forth between the two hemispheres (epilepsy).
Split-brain
the region of the brain that regulates higher cognitive and emotional functions.
Cerebrum
a set of uniform procedures for treating each participant in a test, interview, or experiment, or for recording data.
Standardization
the area of the temporal lobes that receives and processes auditory information.
Auditory cortex
the surface of a dendrite or soma of a receiving neuron.
Postsynaptic membrane
the gap between one neuron and another.
Synapse
the cell body of a neuron, containing the nucleus and cytoplasm.
Cell body (soma)
three part theory of intelligence with the three types being analytical, creative, and practical. Each represents a different way of characterizing effective performance. Sternberg suggests that successful intelligence reflects performance in all three domains.
Triarchic theory
neuron that carries messages from sense receptors toward the central nervous system.
Sensory neuron
the genetic information for an organism, stored in the DNA of its chromosomes.
Genome
a technique for brain imaging that scans the brain using magnetic fields and radio waves.
MRI
information from this area goes to the right hemisphere (eye)
Left visual field
the polarization of cellular fluid within a neuron, which provides the capability to produce an action potential.
Resting potential
Contains the hypothalamus, limbic system, and cerebral cortex
Forebrain
rearmost region of the brain; contains primary visual cortex.
Occipital lobe
the region of the brain that translates thoughts into speech or signs.
Broca’s area
standard based on measurement of a large group of people; used for comparing the scores of an individual with those of others within a well-defined group
Norms
for most people, speech is a dominant function of this hemisphere.
Left hemisphere
information from this area goes to the left hemisphere (eye)
Right visual field
a group of chemicals that are usually classified as neuromodulators; play an important role in the control of emotional behaviors and pain; drugs like opium and morphine bind to the same receptor sites in the brain’ have been called the “keys to paradise”
Endorphins
says that heritability = 80% and therefore ethnic group differences are inherited (intelligence)
Jensen
according to Spearman, the factor of general intelligence underlying all intelligent performance.
General intelligence (g)
the part of the limbic system that controls emotion, aggression, and the formation of emotional memories.
Amygdala
also stresses the importance of cognitive processes in problem solving as part of his more general theory of intelligence. He outlines a triarchic—three-part—theory (analytical, creative, and practical).
Robert Sternberg
in Binet’s measure of intelligence, the age at which a child is performing intellectually, expressed in terms of the average age at which normal children achieve a particular score.
Mental age
responded to the call of the French minister of public instruction for the creation of more effective teaching methods for developmentally disabled children. With his colleague Theodore Simon he attempted to devise an objective test of intellectual performance that could be used to classify and separate developmentally disabled from normal schoolchildren.
Alfred Binet
the part of the limbic system that is involved in the acquisition of explicit memory.
Hippocampus
the subdivision of the peripheral nervous system that connects the central nervous system to the skeletal muscles and skin.
Somatic nervous system
the observable characteristics of an organism, resulting from the interaction between the organism’s genotype and its environment.
Phenotype
the brain structure that regulates motivated behavior (such as eating, drinking, and sexual arousal) and homeostasis (temperature).
Hypothalamus
a cell in the nervous system specialized to receive, process, and/or transmit information to other cells.
Neuron/nerve cell
a bulblike structure at the branched ending of an axon that contains vesicles filled with neurotransmitters.
Terminal button
information entering a neuron that signals it not to fire.
Inhibitory input
provides the basic information-processing skills that people apply to life’s many familiar tasks. This type of intelligence is defined by components, or mental processes, that underlie thinking and problem solving.
Analytical intelligence
