PSY 120 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Language Acquisition Device, Universal Grammar, Genetic Marker
Document Summary
Evolutionary psychology: a field of psychology emphasizing evolutionary mechanisms that may help explain human commonalities in cognition, development, emotion, social practices, and other areas of behaviour. Behavioural genetics: an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with the genetic bases of individual differences in behaviour and personality. Epigenetics: the study of this type of stable change in gene expression. Genes: the functional units of heredity; they are composed of dna and specify the structure of proteins. Chromosomes: within every cell, rod-shaped structures that carry the genes. Each sperm cell and egg cell contains 23 chromosomes, once they are united, they contain 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs. Chromosomes consist of threadlike strands of dna molecules. Dna: the chromosomal molecule that transfers genetic characteristics by way of coded instructions for the structure of proteins. There are approximately 25,000 genes, referred to as the human genome.
