While Hanging Up a Picture,Joy Hits Her Thumb with a Hammer,causing

question 64

Multiple Choice

While hanging up a picture,Joy hits her thumb with a hammer,causing agonizing pain.Joy immediately puffs out her cheeks and blows air onto her thumb over and over again.Her roommate Bethany laughs and then remarks,"Are you drying nail polish or hoping to blow away the pain?" However,Joy's thumb does in fact feel better.Why?

• A)She is simply buying time until the pain receptors enter a refractory period;blowing air onto the thumb plays only a psychological role.
• B)She is hyper-stimulating the pain receptors in her skin,causing the sensation of pain to fade away quicker.
• C)She is activating a competing sensory pathway,which dilutes the amount of pain information getting to the brain.
• D)She is redirecting her attention toward a random behavior,which will activate areas of the cortex involved in higher order processing.

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Definitions:

Chunking

A process by which individual pieces of information are bound together into a meaningful whole, often used to enhance memory retention.

Semantic Memory

A kind of permanent memory specifically for retrieving words, concepts, or numerals, imperative for understanding and applying language.

Autobiographical Information

Information related to one's own life and experiences, often stored as episodic memory.

Hierarchies of Information

Organizational structures that arrange data, ideas, or objects in ranked order or levels, often used to improve understanding and decision-making.