6 - Neurophysiology of Higher Cognition Flashcards
What are the components of cognition?
Language Social cognition (recognizing others emotions) Decision-making Executive functioning Memory Visuospatial Perception
Cognition requires extensive synaptic interactions between _________ cells of all neocortical association areas.
Pyramidal
What are the steps in language to reach spoken language?
Language Conceptual System —
Language Mediational System —
Language Implementation System —
Spoken Language
For language, the final common pathway (the Language Implementation System) for speaking involves what?
Wernicke’s Area
Arcuate Fasciculus
Broca’s Area
Facial area of Motor Cortex
Surrounding the areas of the Language Implementation System as well as parts of the temporal, parietal, and frontal association areas is the ________ ________ ________. This relays information to the Implementation system from the Language Conceptual System.
Language Mediational System
This system for language is a broadly distributed set of structures that provides the concepts underlying our language. For example, the noun mediation area receives input from the ventral visual pathway and provides us with the names of things.
Language Conceptual System
Babies younger than 6 months are referred to as _________ _________ because they recognize all sounds that might be language as distinct sounds.
Language universalists
T/F. For babies between 6-9 months old, their brains change and start to recognize the specific language sounds of their native language. With this change, babies “drop” the use of phonemes that don’t occur in their language. Process is complete at about 1 year old, when “babbling” begins to convert to true spoken language.
True
Functional imaging reveals that a second language learned (AFTER/DURING) the language acquisition phase activates the same pathway as the first language, but if a second language is learned (AFTER/DURING) the language acquisition phase it activates an adjacent region of Broca’s Area.
During
After
Social cognition is an important factor in our ability to function in interpersonal and social situations. It is divided into at least two components, which are…
Emotion Comprehension (recognition) Theory of Mind
This is an individual’s ability to infer the emotional state of another from observable information, such as prosody and facial expression.
Social Cognition
T/F. For the emotion comprehension component of social cognition, it appears that the neural circuits for recognizing emotion in others are also involved in producing that emotion in ourselves.
True
What is step 1 for the emotion comprehension component of social cognition?
Step 1 – Perception of facial expressions requires that we identify a face as something special.
What areas of the brain are required to perform step 1 of emotion comprehension?
Superior Temporal Sulcus Fusiform Gyrus (Fusiform face area)
What is step 2 for the emotion comprehension component of social cognition?
Step 2 – Bring in the emotional component
***Remember that the same emotional circuitry that produces emotion in us also recognizes it in someone else.
What areas of the brain are required to perform step 2 of emotion comprehension?
Prefrontal Cortex
Anterior Cingulate Cortex
Amygdala (***Master emotional spot)
The facial details that cue us as to what emotion we are seeing in another person are “concentrated” in very specific areas. They are in a triangle containing the…
Eyes
Nose
Mouth
A normal person’s gaze scans another person’s face in roughly a triangle, with their eyes spending more time on the other person’s eyes, nose, and mouth. The _________ controls the uses of the eyes and directs the gaze to that triangle (particularly the eyes) when looking at human faces.
Amygdala
What happens with emotion comprehension if an individual has damage to their amygdala?
This person will spend very little time looking at the eyes of another and they won’t methodically scan the face.
This system fires both when you do something (i.e., smile) and when you see someone else do that same action. It has a role in imitation and imitative learning, but is important in emotional processing as well.
Mirror neuron system
Imitation of other people’s motions requires 3 steps. What are these steps and where do they occur?
1) Provide visual input – Posterior sector of Superior Temporal Sulcus
2) Identify the motor action – Posterior Mirror Neuron System
3) Identify the goal/purpose of the action – Anterior Mirror Neuron System
Imitative behavior is crucial to developing social cognitive skills. We tend to imitate emotional state/behavior as well as motor behavior. The circuit for imitating is believed to interact with limbic structures via the _________.
Insula
This is the term for the study of the tune and rhythm of speech and how these features contribute to meaning. It looks at the aspects of speech that typically apply to a level above that of the individual phoneme and very often to sequences of words.
Prosody
The perception of prosody is part of emotion comprehension (component of social cognition), and has 3 steps. Step 1 requires the use of the _______ _______ _______ for the basics of sound processing, including identify of pitch, loudness, and other characteristics of the sound.
Primary Auditory Cortex
