Nerve (sensorineural) deafness—loss of hearing that
results from damage to the cochlea, hair cells, or
auditory neurons; cochlea implants may restore
some hearing.
Neural network—clusters of neurons that are inter-
connected to process information.
Neurogenesis—the growth of new neurons.
Neuroleptics—antipsychotic drugs to reduce hallu-
cinations, 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, anx-
ious, 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 level
processing 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 deci-
sions, 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 senso-
rimotor 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 consequencesof the behavior (pleasant
or unpleasant) determine the likelihood of its
recurrence.
Operational definition—a description of the spe-
cific procedure used to determine the presence of a
variable (such as a smile for happiness).
Opponent-process theory for color vision—pro-
posed mechanism for color vision with opposing
retinal processes for red-green, yellow-blue, white-
black. Some retinal cells are stimulated by one of a
pair and inhibited by the other.
Opponent-process theory of emotions—following
a strong emotion, an opposing emotion counters
the first emotion lessening the experience of thatGlossary Ü 329