Psychology 101 (6)

-Right Hemisphere Dominant for: Visual-Spatial Relations, mental imagery, facial recognition, recognizing emotional expressions, recognizing musical melodies -III. Brain Plasticity -The Brains capacity to modify/organize itself -Plasticity is greatest when we are younger: general principle -Brain Damage: Methods of natural recovery -Presynaptic neurons can adapt by releasing a greater amount of neurotransmitters -Postsynaptic neurons may develop more receptor sites -Neurons can extend their axons; sprout more dendrites -Hydrocephalus: Water head -Basic Concepts: -Sensation: a stimulus is detected by a sensory receptor -Transduction: The stimulus is converted into a neural code that is sent to the brain -Perception: the brain organizes and interprets the neural code; gives its meaning -I. The Study of sensation -How do our sensory systems work -What are the capabilities of our sensory systems -Absolute threshold: -The lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected 50% of the time -Difference threshold: -The smallest difference between two "similar stimuli that can be detected 50% of the time -Subliminal stimuli -Sensory adaptation -Signal Detection -What factors (including psychological factors) influence our ability to detect stimuli) -II. Perception -A. Object Perception/Social Perception -Social Perception -Self perception -B. Bottom up vs. Top Down Processing -The brains ability to analyze and integrate the individual components of a stimulus into a perception