Biological Psychology Exam 1 (Chapters 1 & 2)

Chapter 1
Section 1.1
Biological Psychology: the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of
behavior and experience.
Biological psychologists study the animal roots of behavior, relating actions and experiences to genetics
and physiology.
3 major issues:
1. the relationship between mind and brain
2. the roles of nature and nurture
3. the ethics of research
The universe has four fundamental forces:
1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. The strong nuclear force
4. The weak nuclear force
String theory: theory that proves mathematically the existence of the universe and how this is the only
possible way it can be.
David Chalmers (philosopher) and his hard problem: Given this universe composed of matter an
energy, why is there such a thing as consciousness?
Mind-brain problem: What is the relationship between mental experience and brain activity?
Two kind of cells in the brain: neurons and the glia cells
Physiological explanation: relates a behavior to the activity of the brain and other organs.
Ontogenetic explanation: describes how a structure or behavior develops, including the influences of
genes, nutrition, experiences, and their interactions.
Evolutionary explanation: reconstructs the evolutionary history of a structure or behavior.
Characteristic features of an animal are almost always modifications of something found in
ancestral species.
Functional explanation: describes why a structure or behavior evolved as it did.
Within a small, isolated population, a gene can spread by accident through a process called
genetic drift.
Section 1.2
Genes: units of heredity that maintain their structural identity from one generation to another.
Chromosomes: strands of gens that come in pairs.
Sex-linked genes: genes on the sex chromosomes X and Y
All other chromosomes are autosomal chromosomes & their genes are known as autosomal.
Sex-limited genes: generally on autosomal chromosomes and include, for example, genes that control
the amount of chest hair in men, breast size in women, amount of crowing in roosters, and the rate of
egg production in hens.
Epigenetics: deals with changes in gene expression without modification of the DNA sequence.
Researchers rely mainly on two kinds of evidence to determine the contributions of heredity and
environment:
I. Comparing monozygotic (from one egg) twins and dizygotic twins (from two egg).
II. Adopted children