Unit 2 Overview: Biological Bases of Behavior

From the College Board

Develop your Understanding of this Unit

Guiding Questions

1. How can biology influence our behavior and mental processes?
2. What happens when a particular neurotransmitter is absent from the body?
3. How do biological and environmental factors interact to influence our behaviors and mental processes?

Contextualizing the Unit

Key Facts

Psychologists to Know

• Charles Darwin (1896)-- Darwin is known for his principle of natural selection and his other contributions to evolution. He established the idea that all species of life come from the same ancestor.
• Paul Broca (1861)-- Paul Broca discovered Broca's area in the brain, which is associated with language and speaking.
• Carl Wernicke (1874)-- Wernicke studied nerve disease and parts of the brain. He discovered Wernicke's area, which is essential in understanding language and speech.
• Roger Sperry (1950s)-- Roger Sperry was one of the few key neuropsychologists to claim that we have two brain hemispheres, and each has its own specialized functions. He studied split-brain patients and conducted experiments to learn more about each half of the brain. He actually won a Nobel Prize for his research.
• Michael Gazzaniga (1979)-- Gazzaniga helped with the understanding of lateralization. He also worked with split-brain patients to advance his research and began to understand how the two hemispheres of the brain work together.
• William James (1890)-- James coined the term "stream of consciousness." He is considered the Father of American Psychology.
• Sigmund Freud (1897)-- Freud is the father of psychoanalysis and studied many areas of psychology through his psychoanalytic perspective. For this unit, in particular, he came up with three levels of consciousness: the conscious, preconscious, and the unconscious.

Vocabulary