Biological Psyc 1

- the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behaviour and experience

- it relates a behaviour to the activity of the brain and other organs

ex. the chemical reactions that enable hormones to influence brain activity and the routes by which brain activity ultimately controls the contractions of muscles

- the development of a structure or a behaviour

ex. it traces the influences of genes, nutrition, experiences, and the interations among these influences in producing behavioural tendencies

- a structure or a behaviour in terms of evolutionary history

ex. when people become frightened, they sometimes get goose bumps, in our ancestors this would cause their hairs to stand up making them look bigger and more intimidating

- describes why a structure or behaviour evolved as it did

ex. within a small population, such as an isolated community, a gene can spread by accident through genetic drift

- the belief that mind and body are different kinds of substances (thought substance and physical substance) that exist independently but somehow interact

Understanding the relationship between the mind and the brain

• - the belief that the universe consists of only one kind of exsistence
• -materialism
• -mentalism
• -identity position

- a form of monism that views everything that exists as material, or physical

- a form of monism that believes only the mind really exsists

- a form of monism that believes mental processes are the same thing as certain kinds of brain processes by described in different terms

- they pertain to many phenomena that we call consciousness, such as the difference between wakefulness and sleep and the mechanisms that enable us to focus out attention

- the question of why and how any kind of brain activity is associated with consciousness

- the philosophical position that I alone exist, or I alone am conscious

- the difficulty of knowing whether other people (or animals) have conscious experiences

- units of heredity that maintain their structural identity from one generation to another

- strands of genes

- a biological catalyst that regulates chemical reactions in the body

- an individual that has an identical pair of genes on the two chromosomes

- an individual that has an unmatched pair of genes

- genes that are located on the sex chromosomes

- all genes except for sex-linked genes

- is present in both sexes but has an effect limited or almost limited to one sex. The genes become active only under the influence of sex hormones

- a new combination of genes, some from one parent and some from the other, that yields characteristics not found in either parent

- an estimate of how much of the variance in some characteristic within some population is due to difference in heredity

- if genetic or prenatal influences produce even a small increase in some activity, the early tendency will change the environment in a way that magnifies that tendency

evolution through the inheritance of acquired characteristics

- it deals with how social behaviours have evolved

- the number of copies of one's genes that endure in later generations

- an action that benefits someone other than the actor

- the idea that animals help those who help them in return

- selection for a gene because it benefits the individual's relatives

- people who agree that some animal research is acceptable but wish it to be minimized and regulated

- people who see no room for comprimise, they maintain that all animals have the same rights as humans