| A | B |
|---|
| empiricism | the idea that knowledge is gained through experience and that we should rely on experimentation and observations to study science |
| cognitive map | a mental representation of one's environement |
| delta waves | the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep |
| association areas | the areas of the cerebral cortex that are not taken up by the motor or sensory cortexes. This part is involved in higher mental functions such as learning, remembering, thinking and speaking. |
| action potential | brief alectrical charge that travels down the axon stimulated by pressure, heat, or light. Generated by movement of positive atoms in and out of cell channels in the axons membrane. |
| threshold | how much stimulation you need to trigger a neural impulse. |
| synapse | the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dentrite of the receiving neuron. The gap between the two is less than a millionth of an inch wide and is called the sunaptic gap. |
| formal operational stage | the stage of cognitive development in which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts |
| cross-sectional study | a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another |
| longitudinal study | research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period of time |
| doucle-blind procedure | the double blind procedure keeps both the research participants and the research staff in the dark. this allows the placebo effect to seem as real as possible to the participant. |
| nature-nurture issue | the idea that who we are today reflects on our up bringing; the people we surround ourself with, our surroundings, how much we are nurtured, etc. |
| hindsight bias | "i knew it all along" phenomenon |
| shaping | a procedure in which reinforcers gradually guide behavior toward a desired goal |
| intinsic motivation | a desire to perform a behavior for it's own sake and to be effective |
| extrinsic motivation | a desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishment |
| sleep apnea | a disorder in which people stop breathing during sleep and the decreased blood oxygen wakes the sleeper |
| narcolepsy | uncontrollable sleep attacks, usually lasting about 5 minutes |
| barbiturates | tranquilizers: mimic the affect of alcohol, can depress nervous system to a point that it can stop functioning. |
| opiates | depress neural functioning, mimic endorphins, repeated use causes the brain to stop producing it's own endorphins. |
