PSYC 3270 Study Guide - Final Guide: Olfactory Bulb, Taste Bud, Piriform Cortex

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3270
• Professor: Laurie Wilcox

Document Summary

Chemical senses: gatekeepers for things about to enter the body. Id things for survival, harmful things, causes good and bad affective responses. Neurogenesis: 5-7 weeks for olfactory, 1-2 weeks for taste receptors. Olfactory sense: functions, macrosmatic: in animals, keen sense of smell that is crucial to survival, microsmatic: humans, less keen and not crucial, menstrual synchrony: pheromones (chemical signals released that affect the physiology and behavior of others) Women who saw each other often synchronized periods after school year. Underarm secretions from women in initial phase of cycle shortened cycles of recipients, and secretions from ovulatory phase lengthened them: thus 2 pheromones at work. In both cases, recipients did not consciously detect pheromone: anosmia: inability to smell, thus cant taste many foods, detection, detection threshold: Yes/no procedure: classic detection of presence (absolute), subject to bias. Forced choice procedure: differentiate between weak odor and strong: measure difference threshold, can also measure absolute threshold: one trial has no odor.