Terry Ming
During lecture, Professor Prendergast described how an early pulse of testosterone
masculinizes and defeminizes the brain and allows the early bipotential gonads to develop male
characteristics while having no pulse causes female characteristic
SexualityandGender
Mechanisms
o Positedtoexplain/predictthevarianceinbehavior
o Canbeproposed/studiedatdifferentlevelsofanalysis
o Sexdifference,sexualdifferentiation
Towhatextentareanimalmodelsvalid?
Sexisafundamentalaspectofthehumanexperience
o Research
GenexEnvironmentInteraction
Complexbehaviortendstohavecomplexunderlyingmechanisms
o Implicit&explicit
o Conscious&nonconscious
o Nature&nurture
Mind:behavior,brain,andgenome
Darwin&Lamarck
o Darwin:infinitesimaltheoryofnaturalselection,yourbodyhastosui
EmotionandMotivation
Whatisanemotion?
Workingdefinition:biologicallybasedresponsestosituationsthatareseenas
personallyrelevant
Shapedbylearningandusuallyinvolvechancesinperipheralphysiology,
expressivebehavior,andsubjectiveexperience
Emotionvs.Mood
o M
EarlyBilingualMind
Howdoeslanguageaffectcognition?
o Theory1:LinguisticRelativity(Whorf,1956)
Structureoflanguagedirectlyimpactsourcognitiveprocessesand
consequently,thewayweconceptualizeourworld
Peoplewhospeakdifferentlanguagesthinkdifferently
o Theor
TheDevelopingMind
Natureandnurtureintheearlydaysofscientificpsychology
o Watson,Gesell,&Piaget(19001930s)
JohnB.Watson
o Humanabilitiesaremoldedbyenvironmentalcontingencies
o Fatherofbehaviorism
o LittleAlbertstudies:trainingandgeneralizationofemotionalr
HowGestureInfluencesThought
QuestionsofToday
o Howdoactionsontheworldaffectthought
Online&offline
o Howdogesturesaffectthethought
Onlineandoffline
Thinkingaboutmechanisms
Actioncaninfluencethoughtonline
o Usetheenvironmenttohelpunderstandthings,torotat
AgingMinds
TheAgingBrain
Graymatterdensitiesdecrease
Whitematteratrophy
Frontallobesarehitthehardest
Incrediblevariability:
o Cardiovascularhealthisamajorfactor
Declines
o Sensorysystems
o Motorsystems
o Processingspeed
o Workingmemoryandattentioncon
Mechanism:asystemofcausallyinteractingpartsandprocessesthatproduceoneor
moreeffects
Homosexuality
1. PhysiologicalMechanism
a. Increasedexposuretoprenatalandrogens(Williams)
b. Mothersbodyremembersprevioussongs(Williams)
c. VolumeofSCNvs.VolumeofINAH3(Gor
Terry Ming
During lecture, Professor Cloutier discussed how humans have brain regions devoted only to
face processing and how humans are among the only animals that process faces. When talking
about face processing, the effect of a first impression pops u
During the lecture, Professor Gallo mentioned that episodic memory is prone to errors such as
forgetting information or having false information, and presents the cases of Clive Wearing and
HM as examples that damage to certain parts of the brain can caus
Ming 1
Terry Ming
Professor Jaz Cloutier
SOSC 14200 Section 6
18 March 2013
Mechanisms of Aging and Stress
Both stress and aging are common everyday occurrences. As discussed in lecture, stress
can be acute or chronic, with chronic stress having more last
Terry Ming
From the results of Sternberg and McClelland (2012), we see that when there is little to no time
to react, learning generally happens by pathway strengthening, which is a more biological
mechanism to learning. Since the tests described in Green
Terry Ming
During lecture, Professor London mentioned the importance of studying the effects of both
nature and nurture in the development of an individuals mind. Belsky et al. (2009) delineates
this fact well in their discussion about certain genes predi
Terry Ming
During lecture, Professor Norman described that though chronic stress can lead to a variety of
problems in the body, stress is not always a bad thing. This is further supported by Sapolsky
(2012), who noted that leadership positions, which requ
Terry Ming
Last quarter, we discussed the basics of language and how infants had a set of phonemes they
all recognize regardless of what culture they were raised in. We also discussed how it was
impossible for some animal species, such as gorillas and mon
Terry Ming
When communicating, seeing the speaker helps since the speaker may present social cues that
aid in understanding. Professor Nusbaum also mentioned during lecture that seeing a speaker
speak increases perception. Skipper et al. (2009) found that
Terry Ming
During lecture, Professor Gallo discussed how the existence Alzheimers and dementia makes
us believe that aging is a process which causes the brain to deteriorate. As described by
Carstensen and Lockenhoff (2003), although the elderly process n
