Sensation & Perception: Cortex, Action Potentials, Neurotransmitters, Receptive Fields - P, Study notes of Psychology

Download Sensation & Perception: Cortex, Action Potentials, Neurotransmitters, Receptive Fields - P and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Sensation and Perception Psych 4030/5030 Sp 2013 HW#1b (Ch 2 materials) Due Sun. 3 Feb. 2013 by 11:59 PM. 1. What are the four lobes of the cerebral cortex and what senses send information, as a primary target, to the different lobes? To what lobe do we find a primary projection for the sense of taste?  The Occipital Lobe is the primary area for vision.  The Temporal Lobe is the primary area related to our hearing.  The Parietal Lobe is the area that belongs to our skin senses: feeling, touching, temperature, pain.  The Frontal Lobe is the area in the cortex that receives all the senses. This lobe is important because it helps our perceptions when we are receiving two or more senses.  The sense of taste is connected to the parietal lobe. Information is sent to the primary gustatory cortex which is located in the ventral parietal lobe. 2. Briefly, define what an action potential is and what function it serves in the nervous system. Explain how it is chemically generated and propagated down an axon.  An action potential is a fast increase in positive charge in a nerve fiber that goes down the fiber. This is part of the process that happens during the firing of a neuron. Information is sent down by a neuron to an axon, going away from the cell body. Neurons communicate with each other by using potential (small pulse of electrical activity). It’s basically the exchange of some positive charged sodium and potassium ions with the negative charged chloride and protein ions. This is the resting potential. When the charge on the nerve fiber gets to +40 mv, its electrical impulse shoots down the nerve fiber… creating action potential. The function or purpose of action potential (why it is important for our nervous system) is because it helps receive and analyze information in the brain. An important part of action potential is that it is a propagated response. When the response is produced, it then travels all the way down the axon without getting smaller. It is a very important part of action potential because allows the neurons to send out signals for long distances. 3. What are neurotransmitters? What is their function in the nervous system?