Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each bodily change by the autonomic branch driving it.
Groups: Sympathetic (fight-or-flight) · Parasympathetic (rest-and-digest)
- Salivating and digesting during a calm dinner
- Airways widen and heart pounds before a sprint
- Pupils dilate as headlights swerve toward you
- Heart rate settling as you drift toward sleep
Hints
- Sympathetic mobilizes energy for a threat; parasympathetic conserves it and runs digestion.
- Digestion ramping up and heart slowing are rest-and-digest; pounding heart and dilated pupils are fight-or-flight.
Show the answer
Sympathetic (fight-or-flight): Pupils dilate as headlights swerve toward you, Airways widen and heart pounds before a sprint
Parasympathetic (rest-and-digest): Salivating and digesting during a calm dinner, Heart rate settling as you drift toward sleep
Why
Dilated pupils and a pounding heart mobilize the body (sympathetic); active digestion and a slowing heart conserve it (parasympathetic). Digestion is the tell: it runs under parasympathetic control and halts under sympathetic.
Practise The Nervous System
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Psychology I is free to start.
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