Psychology Test 3

Which brain area is most important for hearing, the ability to recognize complex patterns (such as faces), language comprehension, and emotion?

temporal lobe

In binocular rivalry, you see one image in the left eye and an incompatible image in the right eye. What do you perceive?

an alternation between one image and the other

If we measure how strongly people react to sudden loud noises, what can we use those measurements to predict?

attitudes toward use of police and military power

What is the long fiber that conducts impulses from a neuron's cell body toward another cell?

axon

Otto Loewi devised a clever experiment that demonstrated neurons communicate

by releasing chemicals.

In which condition does the brain show a low, steady rate of activity and no response to any stimulus?

coma

What is one important function of sleep?

conserving energy

Which of the following often produces spatial neglect for half of the body?

damage in the right hemisphere of the brain

An adult who suddenly became blind continues to have visual imagery and visual dreams. What caused the blindness?

damage to the eyes

The part of a neuron receiving messages is the ____. The part sending messages is the ___

dendrites ... axon

The three parts of a neuron are the cell body, the __________, and the __________.

dendrites...axon

Parietal lobe damage interferes with which aspect of vision?

detecting the location of objects

Parkinson's disease results from a deficiency in which neurotransmitter?

dopamine

Research examining the content of dreams in American and Japanese college students found that

dream content was similar in both cultures.

Damage to the right hemisphere of the brain often leads to which of the following?

tendency to be unconscious of the left side of the body and the world

true or false: A less synchronized brain is a more active brain.

true

true or false: A person is considered conscious if they are aware of themselves and their surroundings

true

true or false: Detecting electric fields on the head is a way to detect and measure brain activity.

true

true or false: Dopamine is a neurotransmitter.

true

true or false: Glia cells support neurons.

true

true or false: Gray matter refers to the cortex.

true

true or false: Sleep spindles tend to occur during stage 2 sleep.

true

true or false: The CNS is the brain and spinal cord.

true

true or false: The size and shape of neurons can vary.

true

true or false: The strength of an action potential stays the same.

true

true or false: To produce an experience of scent, the brain detects molecules.

true

true or false: Unpleasant dreams are called nightmares.

true

true or false: the brain is an electro-chemical device

true

When researchers measured brain activity during a binocular rivalry task, what did they find?

A consciously perceived image activated large portions of the brain.

What evidence indicated that a woman in a vegetative state may be conscious?

Her brain activity responded to commands such as "imagine playing tennis."

If a drug prevents the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA from attaching to its receptors, what happens to the postsynaptic cell?

It produces more action potentials than usual.

How would the activation-synthesis theory explain why people dream of an inability to move?

It really is difficult to move the muscles during REM sleep.

What does it mean if you wake up and find yourself temporarily unable to move?

Part of your brain is awake and another part is asleep.

Why is it impossible for sleepwalking to occur during REM sleep?

The postural muscles are so relaxed that they would not support a person.

Suppose your finger touches something. WHEN do you get the sensation?

A split second later, after the message travels to the brain.

You would feel a pinch on your shoulder (very slightly) sooner than a toe pinch. Why?

Action potential from the shoulder travels a shorter distance to the brain

What is the advantage of an action potential over electrical conduction in the nervous system?

An action potential does not diminish in strength.

In which of these does a person have the LEAST amount of brain activity and responsiveness?

Brain death

Why do cats sleep more than sheep?

Cats are in less danger while they sleep.

Which of the following best describes the relationship between light-dark cycles (from the rising and setting sun) and circadian rhythms?

Circadian rhythms are generated by the body, but reset by light-dark cycles.

After split-brain surgery, what can a person NO LONGER do?

Describe in words what he/she feels with the left hand

In which way does the cerebral cortex control the body?

Each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body.

What was Otto Loewi's evidence that neurons communicate by releasing chemicals?

He transferred fluid from one frog's heart to alter activity of another frog's heart.

Which of the following is NOT characteristic of REM sleep?

Heart rate, breathing rate, and temperature are steady

What evidence suggested that some people in a vegetative state are conscious?

Instructions to imagine something activated the same brain areas as in intact people.

What does the right hemisphere of the brain do, in most people?

It feels the left half of the body and controls muscles on the left side.

How does dreaming differ from other thinking?

It has less sensory input and less voluntary control.

What happens to the strength of an action potential as it travels along an axon?

It remains constant.

Male ground squirrels awaken from hibernation before the females do, and before food is available. Why is this theoretically interesting?

It shows that internal timing mechanisms prepare animals for predictable needs.

How does L-DOPA affect someone with Parkinson's disease?

It temporarily relieves the symptoms.

Which of the following is true of an action potential?

Its strength remains the same from start to finish.

Which of the following is a widely used treatment for Parkinson's disease?

L-DOPA, a chemical that the brain converts into dopamine

A worker at International Amalgamated, Inc., is currently working from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The company wants to shift her to a different work time. For the sake of her physical and mental health, which of the following would be best?

Move her to the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, then to midnight to 8 a.m. shift.

Which of the following is caused by a loss of dopamine in the brain?

Parkinson's disease

Which of the following is evidence in favor of the idea of monism?

People who lose part of their brain lose part of their mental ability.

During which stage of sleep is the brain most active?

REM

The terms "light sleep" and "deep sleep" are not very useful because

REM sleep is deep in some ways and light in others.

If a person goes without sleep for several days, what happens?

Sleepiness decreases at the end of each sleepless night, as morning arrives.

During an action potential, which ions cross the axon membrane, and in which direction?

Sodium ions flow from outside to inside the membrane.

After a prolonged period of sleep deprivation, what happens to the brain?

Some neurons are active but others are as inactive as in sleep

What happens to the brain's representation of a sensory stimulus on occasions when people are conscious of it, that does not happen when they are unconscious of it?

The activity spreads through much more of the brain.

If a drug prevents sodium from crossing an axon membrane, what happens?

The axon stops transmitting action potentials.

What is the relationship between neurotransmitters and their receptors?

The brain has many neurotransmitters, and each has several types of receptor.

Someone with right-hemisphere damage ordinarily neglects the left side of objects. What happens if the person closes his/her eyes and tries to describe a scene form memory?

The description neglects the left side.

Which of the following is characteristic of REM sleep?

The major postural muscles are highly relaxed.

After damage to the upper spinal cord, what happens?

The person loses voluntary muscle control, but continues to have many reflexes.

After neurotransmitter molecules detach from their receptor, some of them diffuse away. What happens to the others?

The presynaptic cell takes them back to use them again.

What problem do people with sleep apnea experience?

They often stop breathing while they are asleep.

Researchers wanted to present a stimulus that would become conscious on some trials and not on others, while keeping the stimulus itself the same. Which of these methods did they use to make the stimulus unconscious?

They presented interfering stimuli before and after the stimulus.

What evidence suggests that we sometimes consciously perceive a stimulus afterward, instead of simultaneously with it?

We don't perceive a brief masked stimulus, but a slightly longer one seems to last the whole duration.

Which of the following statements about the nervous system is NONSENSE?

We use only about 10% of the brain.

If you were on a submarine with constant artificial light and no sunlight, what would happen to your sleep-wake cycle?

You would alternate between sleep and wakefulness on a 24-hour cycle.

If you were "motion blind," what disability would you have?

You would find it difficult to see that something is moving.

What is a neurotransmitter?

a chemical that travels from one neuron to another

Our tendency to feel wakeful and sleepy on a 24-hour basis depends mainly on

a cycle generated by a mechanism in the brain.

Narcolepsy may be caused by

a deficiency of the brain chemical orexin.

Someone who stays in a cave with no light alternates between sleepiness and wakefulness on about a 24 hour cycle. Why?

a rhythm generated within the person's own brain

During a voluntary eye movement, people suffer a temporary impairment in which of these?

ability to see that something is moving

The all-or-none law applies to

action potentials along an axon.

Under what circumstances do some people experience "blindsight"?

after damage to much of the visual cortex

During REM sleep,

dreaming is likely to occur.

After staying awake late many nights, Gloria has become accustomed to going to sleep late and awakening late. Now she tries to shift to going to bed earlier and waking up earlier. This shift is similar to the difficulties people face when they travel

east

true or false: A lucid dream refers to a dream someone forgets.

false

true or false: Communication between neurons is by the axon.

false

true or false: Most dreams do not include visual content.

false

true or false: The cortex is the inner structure of the brain.

false

true or false: The ears are most like a radio antenna

false

true or false: There is no way to measure brain activity.

false

Which lobe of the cerebral cortex includes the motor cortex, which controls fine movements?

frontal

The study of axons and action potentials enables us to understand

how Novocain and other anesthetic drugs block pain.

An adult who became blind because of eye damage (with the brain intact) can still do what?

imagine visual scenes and experience vision in dreams

One of the main symptoms of Parkinson's disease is

impairment of initiating voluntary movement.

Someone who has control of speech in the left hemisphere and whose corpus callosum has been split can describe what he or she sees if and only if it is seen

in the right half of the visual field

Which of the following is true of brain activity during sleep?

increased inhibitory messages prevent excitation from spreading in the brain.

The ability of newborn infants to imitate facial expressions suggests which of these?

mirror neurons

What neurons are active when you do something and when you watch others do the same thing?

mirror neurons

For most people, REM sleep occurs

mostly toward the end of the night's sleep.

When an axon membrane is at rest, the inside has what kind of charge, relative to the outside?

negative

The nervous system is made up of two types of cells called __________ and __________.

neurons... glia

Under what circumstances can a split-brain person feel something and say what it is?

only after feeling it with the right hand

Which lobe of the cortex processes touch sensation and the location of objects in space?

parietal

What do a neuron's dendrites do?

receive information from other neurons

A brain scan records the activity of various brain areas during a memory task. Before we can draw conclusions about those brain areas, what other information do we need?

recordings of brain activity during a comparison task

What happens at a synapse?

release of a chemical that affects another cell

Various parts of the cortex--such as the occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes--control different

sensory systems.

The brain activity associated with REM sleep is most similar to that associated with

stage 1 sleep

Which part of a neuron releases neurotransmitters into the synapse?

terminal button

The central nervous system consists of

the brain and spinal cord.

The corpus callosum connects which two structures?

the left and right hemispheres of the cortex

In most people, the control of language depends mostly on

the left hemisphere of the brain

A mouse, a dog, and a giraffe get toe pinches at the same time. Which responds fastest?

the mouse

When a normal, healthy person falls asleep, REM sleep is least likely when

the person has been asleep less than an hour.

In comparison to other body cells, what is distinctive about neurons?

their varied shapes.

For what medical purpose have surgeons sometimes cut the corpus callosum?

to control epilepsy

Axons travel throughout the brain.

true

What would be most impaired after damage to the occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex?

vision

What does fMRI measure?

which brain areas are using the most oxygen