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
The perception of prosody is part of emotion comprehension (component of social cognition), and has 3 steps. Step 2 takes the information from step 1 (from primary auditory cortex) and sends it to the _______ _______ _______ _______ where, along with other acoustical information from secondary auditory processes, we begin to piece together the ‘meaning’ of the loudness, pitch, etc., of the vocalization.
Right Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus
The perception of prosody is part of emotion comprehension (component of social cognition), and has 3 steps. Step 3 takes the information from steps 1 and 2 and makes a judgment of the emotional stimulus within the _______ _______.
Frontal Cortex
***This is why kids have poor judgment and can’t always recognize anger or other emotions in adults. Their frontal cortex is not fully developed yet.
This is the ability to understand the mental states (beliefs, desires, and intentions) of others and to appreciate how these differ from our own. It allows us to answer the question “Why are they doing what they’re doing?”
Theory of Mind
***Remember, this is the second component of social cognition. The first component was emotion comprehension (involved facial expression and prosody)
T/F. It is likely that Theory of Mind is required for Emotion Comprehension to exist.
False. It is likely that Emotion Comprehension is required for Theory of Mind to exist.
Theory of Mind has a core pathway and “accessory” pathways. What is part of the core pathway?
Amygdala
Connections to Medial Temporal Lobes (memory, sensory processing)
Orbitofrontal Areas (sensory and emotional processing)
Theory of Mind has a core pathway and “accessory” pathways. What is part of the “accessory” pathways?
Language – believed to serve as the ‘scaffold’ for Theory of Mind (may become less important with age)
Executive functioning – Frontal lobes (forward planning, anticipation, reasoning)
What are the three neuronal components of decision making, and what type of decisions are they involved with?
Stimulus encoding system – decisions with known risks
Expected reward system – decisions with ambiguous risks
Action selection system – decisions with ambiguous risks
This neural component of decision making evaluates the evidence available in making the decision. It predicts the consequences of actions.
Stimulus encoding system
What are the components of the stimulus encoding system for decision making?
Orbitofrontal Cortex
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex
Striatum
This neural component of decision making learns and encodes the subjective value of the results. It is also involved in error detection (learn from mistakes).
Action selection system
What are the components of the action selection system for decision making?
Anterior Cingulate Cortex
This neural component of decision making predicts the expected reward.
Expected reward system
What are the components of the expected reward system for decision making?
Basal Ganglia
Amygdala
Insular Cortex (processing of social emotions)
Intraparietal Cortex (somatosensory processing and planning/intent)
A decision in which the risks are explicit (known) relies most heavily on the…
Stimulus encoding system
***i.e., There is pile of red and blue boxes. How much are you willing to bet that a token lies under a blue box? (You make the bet of say $10, so you KNOW the risk that you are making)
Decisions in which the risks are unknown rely most heavily on…
Expected reward system
Action selection system
***i.e., A line of playing cards are laying face down. You will win or lose whatever the card says (could say win $100 or lose $500). You DO NOT know the risk you are making because you don’t know what the cards say. That is ambiguous risk.
