11 Cognitive Control II Flashcards
What is abstract thought? Give examples.
Using concepts to make and understand generalisations. Thought where concepts are not tied directly to specific experiences.
- Humour
- Imagination
- Social Rules
Tested in:
- WCST
- DNMS
Abstract Rules vs Concrete Rules
Abstract rules describe the interactive and casual associations between objects, events and responses. These abstract rules can evoke completely different responses to the same stimulus exemplar depending on the goal and context e.g. WCST second block.
Concrete Rules describe simple Spatio-temporal links between objects: A red light means stop (stimulus-response or stimulus - outcome) e.g. WCST first block.
What is Ravens Progressive Matrices
A test of non-verbal reasoning. Like an army inductive reasoning test where you have to decide what comes next in the order.
What are the rule-responsive neurons in monkey DLPFC neurons?
Neural activity is dependent on the rule irrespective of the object or cue used to instruct the rule.
What did the study on interpreting proverbs: ‘Rome was built in a day show? hint: abstract thought and prefrontal cortex.
Damage to prefrontal cortex varied, however, for the most part there was a problem in interpreting the abstract nature of the proverb.
An experiment that manipulates ‘Abstraction’
The idea that the further forward you go in the PFC the high the abstract processing gets.
The proposed organisation of the PFC
It is more of the “How” and the “What”
PFC involvement in planning
Goal planning often requires the development of an action heirachy.
Cognitive control during goal-planning and execution involves:
- Identifying primary goals and sub-goals
- Retrieval and selection of relevant information
- Simultaneously maintain subgoals
- Determine what is required to achieve goals
- Anticipating Consequences
What does the multiple errands test, test?
Prefrontal lesions and the ability to organisae behaviour.
The role of the dorsolateral PFC is too…
Define a set of responses suitable for a particular task and the biased selection.
E.g. Cognitive Control and Creativity
This idea suggests that the PFC may inhibit creativity.
Two study that tested if PFC inhibits creativity.
Roman Numeral Test. Patients were significantly better than controls in the atypical group
Participants were required to read sentences with the final word missing and were instructed to complete the sentence with the upcoming ending.
Frontal Lobe Syndrome
Cognitive Impairments
- Deficits in temporal ordering, goal-directed behaviour and abstract reasoning, and poor decision-making.
Emotional changes
- Apathy, anergia, socially inappropriate outbursts
Behavioural deficits
- Utilization behaviour perseveration, environmental dependency, socially inappropriate behaviour, risky behaviour.
Human brain neurons with regard to primates and mammals and rodents.
- Not brain size
- Brain mass does not predict the total number of neurons in mammals.
Neruon packaging is more dense in primates to other mamels - Primates have a larger number of neurons concentrated in brains
What is the idea of a central executive
Promotes the idea that our brain operates by a person in our head who moves bottoms. But this doesn’t explain anything because you would need another man in that man.
