Module 5: Biological Bases of Behaviour Flashcards
Is acetylcholine excitatory or inhibitory? What does it lead to? What disease does decreased levels cause?
excitatory
causes muscle contractions
Alzheimer’s disease
Is GABA excitatory or inhibitory? What do low levels lead to?
inhibitory
anxiety
What does a lack of dopamine cause?
Parkinson’s Disease
Is serotonin excitatory or inhibitory?
inhibitory
What does the corpus callosum do?
connect two hemispheres and allows them to communicate
What are the hills and furrows of the cerebral cortex called?
gyri
sulci
What do primary areas of the brain do? What about primary motor areas?
process raw sensory information
primary motor areas initiate movement
What do association areas of the brain do?
complex mental process
meaningful perceptual experience
What is the frontal lobe responsible for?
thinking, planning, problem solving, Broca’s area (speech and grammar)
What is the temporal lobe responsible for?
hearing, Wernicke’s area (language comprehension)
What is the occipital lobe responsible for?
vision, association (visual pattern recognition)
What is the parietal lobe responsible for?
somatosensory
spatial orientation
nonverbal thinking
How is epilepsy treated?
cutting corpus callosum
What wavelength of light is visible?
400-700 nm
What do cones and rods measure?
colour
amount of light and movement
What is pitch?
highness or lowness (Hz)
What is loudness?
physical intensity (decibels)
What is timbre?
complexity
very few sounds only have 1 frequency and 1 amplitude (eg. tuning fork)
What steps does a sound go through from soundwaves to an action potential? (7)
soundwaves –> ear drum –motion–> treossicles –amplified–> stapes (most inner ossicle) –> oval window (membrane) –motion–> cochlea (pressure waves in fluid) –hair cells bend–> action potential
What steps does a smell go through in the brain? (3)
odor molecule information –> olfactory bulb –> cortex
What is proprioception?
body position and movement
What is the vestibular sense?
position by sensing gravity and movement (hair cells in inner ear)
What is kinesthesia?
position of limbs relative to one another
What are the three basic principles of sensation and perception?
- physical reality and experience are quantitatively different (psychophysics)
- sensation + perception are active processes
- sensation + perception are adaptive (learn from experience)
What is transduction?
transferring physical energy to nerve impulses
What is the absolute threshold?
minimum amount of stimulus to produce a response
What is the difference threshold?
minimum amount of stimulus needed to distinguish between stimuli
What does the signal perception theory propose?
that two distinct processes are required for detecting stimuli
What is Weber’s Law?
regardless of the magnitude of two stimuli, the second must differ by a constant proportion from the first to be perceived as different
What is Fechner’s Law?
the magnitude of a stimulus grows logarithmically as the subjective experience of intensity grows arithmetically
What is Steven’s Power Law?
subjective intensity increase in a linear fashion as actual intensity grows exponentially
What is the bottom up process?
detection of individual stimulus elements –> breakdown/analysis of stimuli –> combination + interpretation of ‘whole’
What is top down processing?
concept/expectation –> guide analysis (Yes? No?) –> interpretation of incoming stimuli
What are the Organising (Gestalt) rules? (7)
figure (ground segregation)
similarity (group together similar elements)
proximity (group elements close together)
good continuation (experience lines as continuous even when interrupted)
closure (fill in small gaps to make wholes)
simplicity
grouping
What is ambiguity?
multiple perceptions
What is an illusion?
experience is incorrect or impossible
What are binocular cues?
two eyes
convergence
What are monocular cues?
one eye
clarity, patterns of light, relative size, texture, gradient, motion parallax
About how many cones and how many rods do we have?
cones: 6 million
rods: 120 million
`What is conduction deafness?
problems with mechanical system, hearing aid used
What is nerve deafness?
damaged receptors within inner ear, loss of hairs
Two important structures in the limbic system are:
hippocampus
amygdala
The overall charge inside a resting neuron:
is negative
A(n) ____________ is any drug that decreases the effect of a neurotransmitter.
antagonist
In terms of positive emotions, such as joy and happiness, which general region of the brain has been shown to be more active?
left hemisphere
The function of the descending reticular formation is to:
allow higher brain regions to block out or admit sensory information.
In humans, the cortex makes up what percentage of the brain?
80%
Hearing aids correct many forms of __________ deafness, but do little to rectify problems caused by _________ deafness.
conduction
nerve
The absolute threshold is defined as the lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected ______ of the time.
50%
The experimental procedure where a participant is presented with two auditory messages (i.e. one in each ear) and then is asked to repeat one of the messages word-for-word is called:
shadowing
