Psychology 2210A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Circadian Rhythm, Hummingbird, Freerunning

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2210A/B
• Professor: Krista Macpherson

Document Summary

Lecture 9 timing cyclical activity like the timing for the day. Interval timing short durations: no cyclical activity has no rhythms. Not perfect but use day and night to train cycle and keep cycle accurate: entrainment synchrony with day/night. Free-running rhythm: with no external cues to train circadian rhythms our internal clock runs close to 24hrs but not exactly, so it"s basically our circadian cycles just without entrainment. Mechanisms for time and place: suprachiasmatic nucleus, the scn gets visual input which is how we entrain our circadian rhythm. The scn is the main mechanisms to circadian rhythms: birds and humans have it. Birds showed that they have it as when they put them in an environment without entrainment cues, their time intervals were slightly shifted. Timing intervals stimuli that govern this can occur at any time of dayy. Interval timing is important for associative learning (trial and error). Peak procedure how interval timing is studied: fixed interval operant task.