PSYC 110 Lecture 16: Biological Rhythms
1 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Human behavior is governed more by daily cycles than by seasonal cycles. Biological clocks: behavior is not simply driven by external cues from the environment, rhythms are endogenous (control comes from within, biological clock. Allows animals to anticipate events before they happen. Time required to complete a cycle of activity. Free running rhythms: rhythms the body"s own devising in the absence of all external cues, without input from external cues, our bodies have their own rhythms with periods of. Sleep-wake cycle shifts an hour or so everyday: animals expand and contract their sleep periods as the sleep-related lighting period expands or contracts. In constant light, free-running periods for diurnal animals are short than 24 hours. Zeitgeber: zeitgeber: environmental event that entrains biological rhythms; a time giver . Light resets the biological clock: entrainment. Determine or modify the period of a biorhythm: an entrained biological clock allows an animal to synchronize its daily activity across seasonal changes, jet lag.
