Section 2-1: Systematically Observing the Brain

1. What are the three major subdivisions of the brain?
2. What are the main functions of the brain stem?
3. What are the main functions of the limbic system?
4. What are the main functions of the cerebral cortex?
5. What are the ultimate goals of brain research?
6. What are the main functions of the CNS?
7. What are the main functions of the PNS?
8. How would you define the concept of a "motor message" in your own words?
9. What is an example of a motor message not mentioned in the text?
10. If the spinal cord were cut just below the point where it enters the skull, what problems would result?
11. What are examples of spinal-cord reflexes?
12. What happens in cats when their cerebral cortex is surgically removed?
13. What happens in humans when there is excess electrical activity in the limbic system?
14. What happens in humans when there is extensive damage to the limbic system?
15. How would you describe in your own words the main functions of the amygdala?
16. What is the role of the amygdala in interpreting the emotions of others?
17. What happens in humans when the amygdala is electrically stimulated?
18. What is the role of the amygdala in learning and memory?
19. How would you describe in your own words the main functions of the amygdala?
20. What happens in humans when the hippocampus on each side of the brain is damaged?
21. How is antergrade amnesia similar to retrograde amnesia?
22. How does antergrade amnesia differ from retrograde amnesia?
23. What were the main findings of the studies by Olds & Milner during the 1950s?
24. What are the two major structures in the dopamine circuit?
25. What happens when the dopamine circuit is electrically stimulated?
26. How is the dopamine circuit involved in the development of addictive behaviors?
27. What did Robert Heath discover in his studies of psychiatric patients?
28. In Heath's patients, with what set of emotions was stimulation of the dopamine circuit associated?
29. How would you describe in your own words the functions of the thalamus?
30. What are the two major limitations of scientific theories?
31. Why are theories capable of giving only a broad outline of reality and the causes of phenomena?
32. What are the three major functions of theories?
33. With respect to the existence of modern humans, which theory better fulfills the three functions of theories: the theory that humans were created by an "intelligent designer" approximately 6000 years ago or the theory that humans have evolved over millions of years from other primate species?
34. How does your preferred theory (in the previous question) fulfill each of the three functions?
35. What is an example of a generalization that you've made in your everyday life?
36. Earlier in this section, I claimed that, one day (relatively soon), I no longer will exist. What generalization justifies this claim?
37. What observations were used to make the inductive inference that "all humans (organisms) eventually stop existing (die)? Based on the discussion in this section, is it possible that this inductive inference is incorrect? Why or why not?
38. What is the fundamental problem with induction?
39. What does it mean to systematically observe?
40. In general, what must be true of observations if they are to lead to accurate generalizations?
41. How would you define a "sample" in your own words?
42. How would you define a "population" in your own words?
43. What is a representative sample?
44. If you wanted to find out what most students at your college plan to do with their education, how would you go about obtaining a representative sample?
45. How is a biased sample similar to a representative sample?
46. How does a biased sample differ from a representative sample?
47. What is epilepsy?
48. When do researchers need to control for the effects of extraneous variables?
49. How do researchers control for the effects of extraneous variables?
50. Use the example above to design a study that tests the following claim: "In a six-row classroom, consistently sitting in the first three rows causes students to do better on tests than sitting in last three rows.

Section 2-2: Studying the Cerebral Cortex

1. The cerebral cortex makes up about what proportion of the human brain?
2. Damage to the cerebral cortex causes what kinds of problems in humans?
3. What is meant by the term "laterality of functioning"?
4. In most people, which side of the cerebral cortex is most closely tied to verbal functions?
5. How does Usher's Syndrome illustrate the importance of verbal communication to humans?
6. How is sensation similar to perception?
7. How does sensation differ from perception?
8. What are the four major lobes of the brain and where are they located?
9. How have the sensory and other functions of the cerebral cortex been discovered by researchers?
10. Where is the primary visual cortex located?
11. What kinds of information are processed by the primary visual cortex?
12. Which hemisphere of the primary visual cortex is activated by stimuli in the left visual field?
13. Which hemisphere of the primary visual cortex is activated by stimuli in the right visual field?
14. If the occipital lobes were destroyed, what would be the most likely result?
15. Where is the primary somatosensory cortex located?
16. What kinds of information are processed by the primary somatosensory cortex?
17. Which hemisphere of the primary somatosensory cortex is activated by tactile stimuli on the left side of the body?
18. Which hemisphere of the primary somatosensory cortex is activated by tactile stimuli on the right side of the body?
19. What determines how sensitive a part of the body will be to tactile sensations?
20. What are phantom-limb sensations?
21. How would you describe the main functions of the somatosensory cortex and related areas in the parietal lobes?
22. What is "left-side neglect" and what is its primary cause?
23. In which lobes of the cerebral cortex are sounds initially processed?
24. When schizophrenics claim to hear voices, are they actually hearing voices? (Please explain your answer.)
25. Could the hallucinated voices heard by schizophrenics be so loud that the patients would have trouble hearing what someone was saying to them?
26. What is the name of the disorder in which a person is able to see but is unable to recognize faces?
27. Which area (and which hemisphere) in the brain is damaged in a person who can see but not recognize faces?
28. Does a person who can write but cannot speak have aphasia? Why or why not?
29. What are the main symptoms of Wernicke's aphasia?
30. Which part of the brain is damaged in a person with Wernicke's aphasia?
31. Do people with Wernicke's aphasia have trouble with being understood by others or with understanding other people?
32. How much awareness do people with Wernicke's aphasia have regarding their language impairment?
33. Do people with anomia forget what objects are used for?
34. If you tell people with anomia the name of an object and they repeat the name several times, will they then remember the name the next time they are shown the object?
35. The frontal lobes make up about how much of the cerebral cortex?
36. Why had it been so difficult until relatively recently to understand the major functions of the frontal lobes?
37. What are the three major functions of the frontal lobes?
38. Which part of the frontal lobes controls movement of the skeletal muscles?
39. What happens if the primary motor cortex in the right hemisphere is damaged?
40. According to Figure 5, if the part of the motor cortex that controls movements of the eyeball and eyelid is damaged, what other movements might a person have difficulty performing?
41. What does Broca's Area do?
42. How is Broca's aphasia similar to Wernicke's aphasia?
43. How does Broca's aphasia differ from Wernicke's aphasia?
44. How might difficulties in comprehending grammatical words cause the reduced ability of Broca's patients to produce language?
45. If a person has no damage to either Broca's or Wernicke's Areas, can that person still have aphasia? Why or why not?
46. What is working memory?
47. How is working memory related to problem-solving abilities?
48. In what specific ways does damage to the frontal lobes impair working memory and problem-solving?
49. What does it mean to say that frontal-lobe patients have difficulty using their internalized knowledge?
50. Why are frontal-lobe patients so easily distracted?
51. What personality changes occurred in Phineas Gage after he received frontal-lobe damage?
52. What are the two main types of personality changes seen in people with damage to the frontal lobes?
53. In what ways are young children similar to frontal-lobe patients? Why do they show these similarities?
54. What are mental representations and how are they related to frontal-lobe activity?
55. How are mental representations important for problem-solving?
56. By what age does the ability to mentally represent the world develop sufficiently to allow children to develop complex language skills and to engage in pretend play?
57. With respect to what we know about the development of the frontal lobes, why might teenagers engage in more impulsive and risky behaviors, on average, than adults?

Section 2-3: Experimental Studies of the Brain

1. How would you define "brain plasticity" in your own words?
2. How can brain plasticity help us to understand why people regain intellectual functions lost by brain damage?
3. Why is brain plasticity important for our abilities to learn and remember information?
4. What is the corpus callosum?
5. Where is the corpus callosum found in the brain?
6. What does the corpus callosum do?
7. Based on the case study of the 41-year-old policeman, what problems can we expect to find in individuals with severely damaged corpora callosa?
8. What is a major limitation of using the case study of the policeman to answer the previous question?
9. How would you define a causal relationship in your own words?
10. If we find that a drug that reduces dopamine activity also causes a decrease in the symptoms of schizophrenia, have we shown that there is a causal relationship between dopamine activity and the symptoms of schizophrenia? Why or why not?
11. How is a correlational study similar to an experimental study?
12. How does a correlational study differ from an experimental study?
13. Why can we make cause-and-effect interpretations from an experimental study but not from a single correlational study?
14. How does random assignment control for the effects of extraneous variables in an experimental study?
15. How does manipulation of the independent variable control for the directionality problem in an experimental study?
16. How is the experimental group similar to the control group?
17. How does the experimental group differ from the control group?
18. I wish to test the following hypothesis: using humor when teaching a class causes students to pay more attention to the class discussion. What are the independent and dependent variables in this example?
19. How would you design an experimental study to test the hypothesis that increasing dopamine activity in the brain causes the development of psychotic symptoms in normal people? (Note: in your answer, please describe the independent variable, the dependent variable, the experimental group, and the control group.)
20. In an experimental study, we are able to discover causal relationships between variables because we control the research situation in order to accomplish what goal?
21. What was the hypothesis that Triplett (1898) was trying to test?
22. How could you use Triplett's results in your everyday life?
23. What are the four major methods for experimental studies of the functions of brain structures and pathways?
24. Which of these methods seem to you to be the least dangerous? Why?
25. Which of these methods seem to you to be the most dangerous? Why?
26. How would you describe the Wada Test in your own words?
27. According to the results of Rasmussen and Milner (1977), activity in which of your cortical hemispheres causes your ability to produce and comprehend language?
28. Why were you unable to give a definite answer to the previous question?
29. According to the results of Rasmussen and Milner (1977), activity in which of your cortical hemispheres probably causes your ability to produce and comprehend language?
30. What is split-brain surgery?
31. When is split-brain surgery used?
32. What can we infer about the localization of mental functions in humans based on studies of split-brain patients?
33. What is a major limitation of the use of split-brain studies when generalizing the results to all humans?
34. If you wanted to generalize the results of a study of the lateralization of language abilities to all humans, would you use right-handed individuals, left-handed individuals, or both? Why?
35. Would a person born without a corpus callosum show the same unusual behaviors as a person whose corpus callosum is destroyed during adulthood? Why or why not?
36. How would you describe alien-hand syndrome in your own words?
37. What usually causes alien-hand syndrome?
38. Based on what you've learned, what is your best guess about why alien-hand syndrome disappears quickly in almost all split-brain patients?
39. How would you define "illusory correlation" in your own words?
40. What is an example of an illusory correlation not mentioned in the textbook?
41. What are the main causes of the development of illusory correlations?
42. Why is it so difficult for us to reject our illusory correlations even when we are presented with undeniable evidence proving that they are false?
43. Thomas Gilovich stated that the development of illusory correlations is due to which human tendency?
44. How is this tendency adaptive for humans, even if it does sometimes lead us into error?

Section 2-4: XXXXXX

1. xxxxx