Chapter 1 Biopsychology as a Neuroscience:
A term that refers to higher intellectual processes such as thought, memory, and attention is
"cognition."
According to the textbook, the science of biopsychology as it is practiced today emerged as a discipline in about
1949.
Discuss biopsychology's (behavioral neuroscience's) special role in neuroscientific research, and describe four other disciplines of neuroscience.
20% for explaining that the study of behavior is biopsychology's special role 80% for naming and defining four other disciplines of neuroscience
Discuss the concept of converging operations, explain its critical role in biopsychological research, and give a specific example.
40% for defining and discussing converging operations and how they work in biopsychology 60% for providing a specific example of converging operations in biopsychology (e.g., research on Korsakoff's syndrome)
It is important to think critically about biopsychological claims. Discuss and provide an example
40% for describing the difficulties of interpreting biopsychological claims and discussing the importance of critical evaluation 60% for providing an example of misinterpretation in biopsychological research (e.g., prefrontal lobotomy or the caudate taming center) to argue for the importance of critical evaluation
Compare experimental and quasiexperimental research
50% for defining and discussing both experiments and quasi experiments 50% for contrasting experiments and quasiexperiments, emphasizing the fact that only experiments permit the study of causation
Compare physiological psychology and neuropsychology, and discuss how these two approaches to biopsychological research complement one another.
50% for describing physiological psychology and neuropsychology 50% for explaining how these two fields compensate for each other's weaknesses; students should discuss the concept of converging operations, and their answer could be strengthened by providing examples
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of humans as subjects in biopsychological research.
50% for the advantages: they have human brains; they are often less expensive; they can communicate verbally 50% for the disadvantages: their brains and behavior are particularly complex; there are strict ethical constraints; research that focuses totally on humans lacks a comparative perspective
__________ research is research intended to bring about a direct benefit to humankind.
Applied
The __________ effect refers to the fact that a copulating male that becomes incapable of continuing to copulate with one sex partner can often recommence copulating with a new sex partner.
Coolidge
According to the text, __________ played a key role in the emergence of the field of biopsychology by writing a book published in 1949.
Hebb
The man who played a key role in the emergence of biopsychology as a discipline by writing "The Organization of Behavior" is
Hebb.
Delgado's claim of a caudate taming center should have been dismissed immediately because it violated __________.
Morgan's canon
Morgan's canon is
Morgan's canon is the scientific principle that precedence should be given to simple explanations.
The principle that precedence should be given to the simplest interpretation of a behavior when more than one interpretation is possible is called
Morgan's canon.
__________ are the biopsychologists who focus on the study of human patients with brain damage.
Neuropsychologists
What do Hubel, Sperry, Axelrod, Moniz, Pavlov, and Golgi have in common? They are all
Nobel Prize winners.
The Coolidge effect refers to the fact that
a sexually-fatigued animal will often resume sexual activity if its current partner is replaced with a new one.
The human brain weighs about
about 3 pounds
Research that is intended to bring about direct benefit to humankind is
applied research.
The advantage of humans over other primates as subjects in biopsychological research is that they
are often cheaper. can report their subjective experiences. can follow verbal directions.
Many psychophysiological measures are indicators of the activity of the __________ nervous system, which regulates the body's inner environment.
autonomic
Psychology is often defined as the scientific study of
behavior.
A __________ -subjects design is an experimental design that involves testing a different group of subjects under each condition of the experiment.
between
Biopsychology is the scientific study of the
biology of behavior.
Which of the following is the youngest scientific discipline?
biopsychology
Psychobiology, behavioral biology, and behavioral neuroscience are all approximate synonyms for
biopsychology.
Scientists in many fields study the unobservable
by scientific inference.
The cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of the
cerebral hemispheres.
Which of the following is not regarded as one of the major divisions of biopsychology?
clinical psychology
The division of biopsychology that makes the greatest use of functional brain imaging is __________.
cognitive neuroscience
Common participants in the conduct of cognitive neuroscientific research are
cognitive psychologists. computer experts. biopsychologists. mathematicians.
According to the text, the division of biopsychology that deals generally with the biology of behavior, rather than specifically with the neural mechanisms of behavior, is
comparative psychology
There is more to biopsychology than the study of the neural mechanisms of behavior. The division of biopsychology that best illustrates this point is __________.
comparative psychology
Which of the following makes it difficult to make causal interpretations of experimental results?
confounded variables
Scientific progress is most likely when different approaches are focused on a single problem, particularly when the strengths of one approach compensate for the weaknesses of the others. This is called
converging operations.
The largest neural pathway that connects the left and right halves of the brain is called the __________.
corpus callosum
In a successful experiment, the independent variable affects the
dependent variable.
Many schizophrenics have
difficulty in the smooth visual tracking of regularly moving objects.
The term "within-subjects design" refers to experiments in which
each subject is exposed to each condition of the experiment.
The EEG, or __________ , is commonly recorded from the scalp.
electroencephalogram
In psychophysiology, the usual measure of brain activity is the
electroencephalogram. EEG
Some comparative psychologists study behavior in the laboratory, whereas others conduct
ethological research.
The experiment of Lester and Gorzalka (1988) is significant because it constitutes the first strong evidence of a Coolidge effect in
females.
The major method of cognitive neuroscience is
functional brain imaging
The main difference between human brains and the brains of their mammalian relatives is that human brains tend to be bigger and
have more cortex.
A volunteer with curarized eye muscles, who viewed a stationary target, saw the target move
in the same direction as he attempted to move his eyes.
In a well-designed experiment, there is only one systematic difference between the conditions. This difference is manipulated by the experimenter and is called the
independent variable.
The posture of lordosis in a female rodent indicates that she
is sexually receptive.
What distinguishes biopsychology from the other subdisciplines of neuroscience?
its focus on the study of behavior
Jimmie G., the man frozen in time, had a severe problem with
memory.
The corpus callosum is a
neural pathway that connects the left and right hemispheres.
Structure of the nervous system is to function of the nervous system as
neuroanatomy is to neurophysiology.
The human brain is composed of various cells, including about 100 billion that are specialized to receive and transmit electrochemical signals. These specialized cells are called
neurons.
The study of nervous system disorders is called __________.
neuropathology
Which subdiscipline of neuroscience focuses on the study of brain disorders?
neuropathology
Which subdiscipline of biopsychology is most likely to be identified with the assessment of the memory deficits of patients with damage to the frontal portions of the neocortex?
neuropsychology
Biopsychology is a branch or division of
neuroscience.
The study of the nervous system is called
neuroscience.
The first prefrontal lobotomy performed on a human was
performed by Lima. based on the study of Becky. performed with a leucotome.
The division of biopsychology that studies the neural mechanisms of behavior through the direct manipulation of the brains of laboratory animals in controlled experiments is
physiological psychology.
Research has now established that the brain is
plastic.
Which part of the brain is illustrated (the shaded area) in the accompanying drawing?
prefrontal cortex
The research of a biopsychologist working for a drug company would likely be
psychopharmacological. applied.
Biopsychologists who use drugs to manipulate the brains and behavior of their subjects are called __________.
psychopharmacologists
Which subdivision of biopsychology is most likely to be identified with an experiment in which the effects of Prozac on the ability of mice to learn a maze is studied?
psychopharmacology
Which subdiscipline of biopsychology is identified with the measurement of scalp EEG activity and ANS activity in humans?
psychophysiology
In some studies, subjects are not assigned to particular conditions; instead subjects are selected because they are already living under these conditions (e.g., alcohol consumers and alcohol nonconsumers). Such studies are
quasiexperiments.
Which of the following animals are currently the most common subjects of biopsychological research?
rats and mice
The visual system bases its perception of motion on a comparison between movement of the image on the
retina and the neural commands sent from the brain to the eye muscles.
The general method that scientists use to study unobservable objects and events is called __________.
scientific inference
Scientists study past ice ages, evolution, neural inhibition, gravity, evaporation, and thinking by
scientific inference.
The primary symptom of Korsakoff's syndrome is
severe memory loss.
An advantage of biopsychological research on nonhuman animals as opposed to humans is that
the brains of nonhumans are simpler. there are fewer ethical constraints in studying nonhumans. research in several species makes it possible to use the comparative approach.
The comparison of brain-behavior relations in different species is called
the comparative approach.
A major shortcoming of case-study research is that
the degree to which the results can be generalized is unclear.
Korsakoff's syndrome is often associated with a __________ deficiency.
thiamine
Experimental evidence suggests that the brain damage commonly observed in people who consume a lot of alcohol is caused by
thiamine deficiency. vitamin B1 deficiency. the direct toxic effects of alcohol on the brain.
Which of the following is a major theme of your text?
thinking creatively about biopsychology clinical implications the evolutionary perspective neuroplasticity
If an object is moving to the left at a constant speed and you are rotating your eyes to the left at twice the speed, you will see the object moving
to the left.