electric sense

the ability of some species to generate and sense electric fields within their environment. Specialized muscle cells can be coupled to generate a significant electric field, and specialized neural receptors or other organs can detect changes in electric fields. Sea lampreys and eels generate an electric current that is used to stun and disable their prey, but these animals do not appear to sense electric fields. Dogfish sharks hide in the sand and use specialized receptors called Lorenzini ampullae to detect electric currents from prey. Several families of fish found in the tropics both generate and detect electric signals, adjusting signal production to avoid jamming with nearby fish and to change discharge rates to communicate aggression or reproductive status.

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Psychology term of the day

July 27th 2024

script

1. a cognitive schematic structure—a mental road map—containing the basic actions (and their temporal and causal relations) that comprise a complex action. Also called script schema.

2. a structured representation consisting of a sequence of conceptual dependencies grouped together to capture the semantic relationships implicit in everyday human situations. It was designed for the purpose of computer-based story understanding. [created in 1966 by U.S. cognitive and computer scientist Roger C. Schank (1946– ) and U.S. psychologist Robert P. Abelson (1928–2005)]

3. see prescription drug.

4. see script analysis.