340 ❯ GlossaryNeural network—clusters of neurons that are inter-
connected to process information.
Neurocognitive (organic) disorders—characterized
by a decline from a previous level of cognitive func-
tion in complex attention, learning and memory,
executive function, language, perceptual-motor
skills, and social cognition. Linked to disease or
brain damage.
Neurodevelopmental disorders involve disturbances
in learning, language, and motor or social skills
showing up in infancy, childhood, or adolescence.
Neurodevelopmental disorders include intellectual
disability, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,
and autism spectrum disorder.
Neurogenesis—the growth of new neurons.
Neuroleptics—antipsychotic drugs to reduce hal-
lucinations, delusions, and jumbled thought
processes; include Thorazine (chlorpromazine),
Haldol, Clozaril.
Neuron—the basic unit of structure and function
of your nervous system. Neurons perform three
major functions: receive information, process it,
and transmit it to the rest of your body.
Neuropsychologists—neuroscientists who explore
the relationships between brain/nervous systems
and behavior. Neuropsychologists are also called
biological psychologists or biopsychologists, behav-
ioral geneticists, physiological psychologists, and
behavioral neuroscientists.
Neuroticism—Eysenck’s personality dimension
that measures our level of instability, how moody,
anxious, and unreliable we are; as opposed to
stability, how calm, even-tempered, and reliable
we are.
Neurotransmitters—chemical messengers released
by the terminal buttons of the presynaptic neuron
into the synapse.
Night terrors—childhood sleep disruptions from
stage 4 sleep characterized by a bloodcurdling
scream and intense fear; rare in adults.
Nightmares—frightening dreams that occur during
REM sleep.
Nodes of Ranvier—spaces between segments of
myelin on the axons of neurons.
Nomothetic methods—personality techniques such
as tests, surveys, and observations that focus on
variables at the group level, identifying universal
trait dimensions or relationships between different
aspects of personality.
Nonconscious—level of consciousness devoted to
processes completely inaccessible to conscious
awareness such as blood flow, filtering of blood
by kidneys, secretion of hormones, and lower levelprocessing of sensory information such as detect-
ing edges, estimating size and distance of objects,
recognizing patterns, etc.
Nondeclarative memory—implicit memory.
Non-REM or NREM sleep—sleep stages 1–4 during
which rapid eye movements do NOT occur.
Normal distribution—bell-shaped curve that repre-
sents data about how lots of human characteristics
are dispersed in the population.
Normative social influence—going along with the
group, even if you do not agree with its decisions,
because you desire to gain its social approval.
Norms—(in social psychology), rules either implicit
or explicit that govern the behavior of group mem-
bers; (in testing), scores established from the test
results of the representative sample, which are then
used as a standard for assessing the performances of
subsequent test takers.
Object permanence—awareness that objects still
exist when out of sight; milestone of Piaget’s sen-
sorimotor period from ages 0–2.
Observational learning—learning that takes place
by watching and imitating others’ behavior.
Obsession—an involuntary recurring thought, idea,
or image.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder—recurrent,
un wanted thoughts or ideas and compelling urges
to engage in repetitive ritual-like behavior.
Occipital lobes—region in the back of the cerebral
cortex that is the primary area for processing visual
information.
Olfaction—chemical sense of smell with receptors
in a mucous membrane (olfactory epithelium) on
the roof of the nasal cavity that transduce chemical
energy of dissolved molecules to electrochemical
energy of neural impulses.
Omission training—removal of a rewarding conse-
quence that follows a voluntary behavior thereby
decreasing the probability the behavior will be
repeated.
Operant conditioning—learning that occurs when
an active learner performs certain voluntary behav-
ior and the consequences of the behavior (pleasant
or unpleasant) determine the likelihood of its
recurrence.
Operational definition—a description of the specific
procedure used to determine the presence of a vari-
able (such as a smile for happiness).
Opponent-process theory for color vision—
proposed mechanism for color vision with oppos-
ing retinal processes for red-green, yellow-blue,
white-black. Some retinal cells are stimulated by
one of a pair and inhibited by the other.BM.indd 340 27-05-2018 15:32:47