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Psyc 365 > Ch. 1, Cognitive Neuroscience > Flashcards

Ch. 1, Cognitive Neuroscience Flashcards

1
Q

Define cognitive psychology

A

Scientific study of the mind and mental processes

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2
Q

Mind vs. mental processes

A

Mind: useful for everyday functions, role in mental abilities
Mental Processes: perception, attention, memory, knowledge, and problem solving

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3
Q

Monism

A

Monism: mind and body (brain) are one
Mental events correspond to physical vents in th ebrain

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4
Q

Hobbes/Locke perspective

A

Hobbes/Locke: British empiricists, stated that how we gain knowledge is through scientific observatio

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5
Q

Donders Decision Making Experiment

A

Two conditions: both conditions involve the same perceptual and motor processes
Only difference is choice RT condition involves a decision
SIMPLE REACTION TIME: One condition asks participants to press J on a keyboard when the light goes on: tests sensory and motor
CHOICE REACTION TIME: press J for left light, K for right, TESTS SENSORY, DECISION AND MOTOR

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6
Q

Results and conclusion of the Donders Decision making experiment

A

RESULTS: Choice reaction time was about 0.1 seconds longer than simple reaction time condition
CONCLUSION: TAKES ABOUT 0.1 SECOND TO MAKE A SIMPLE DECISION
Example: inferring mental processes from behaviour

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7
Q

Hermann Ebbinghau’s Memory Experiment

A

Conducted first research into the nature of memory and “forgetting”
Made lists of nonsense syllables
Created the “forgetting curve”: memory decreases very quickly early on, and then slows down with time
Ebbinhaus’ forgetting curve was extremely fast, likely because he memorized 420 different lsists of non-words
Also interested in how quickly he could re-memorize a list

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8
Q

Structuralism and Wundt

A

What are the basic pieces of the mind/how do they fit?
Structuralism: mind can be studied by breaking it down into its tiniest components
Wundt: beginning of modern psychology, clear departure from philosophical approaches, ESTABLISHED FIRST PSYC LAB
Wund’ts Method: Analytic introspection TECHNIQUE WHICH TRAINED PARTICIPANTS TO DESCRIBE THEIR EXPERIENCES AND THOUGHT PROCESSES IN STIMULI
SENSATION IS INVOLVED IN CREATING EXPERIENCE

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9
Q

Functionalism and James

A

What does the mind do, and how is it useful?
Describe the adaptive/evolutionary function of the mind
James: wrote principles of psychology
James’ Method: naturalistic observation, influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, stressed how adaptions helped organisms survive and reproduce

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10
Q

Behaviorism

A

Watson
Study of overt/observable behaviours; argued that introspection was not scientific
DIRECTLY opposes “mentalism” of structuralism, functionalism, and of Freud’s psychodynamics (introspection is unreliable, consciousness is not directly observable empirically)
People are blank slates, and when behaviours are rewarded/punished they become less likely

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11
Q

Radical Behaviourism

A

Behaviour is governed by lawful principles
Good consequences=behaviour mor elikely
Skinner: we don’t need to resort to mental events as explanations of behavior
We can describe/understand/and predict behaviour without ever guessing if an animal was “hungry”

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12
Q

Cognitive Insight:

A

perception of a relationship between two seemingly disconnected ideas that helps solve a problem; remote association task and opposite of math questions

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13
Q

Cognitive Map

A

Mental map representation of space

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14
Q

Why do children not develop language abilities through reinforcement?

A

Children do not develop language abilities through reinforceement
Children are unlikely to be rewarded for saying “i hate you” to their parents
Noam Chomsky: language is not a product of reinforcement, inspired others to consider the possibility that complex behaviours may not be solely explained conditioning

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15
Q

How did early psychologists define humans as computers?

A

Earlier work used the laptop as a metaphor for how the mind works: complex, multipurpose machine that processes information in stages
Limited capacity processor
Humans are information processors whose behaviour is governed by thought

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16
Q

Forgetting curve
Savings Measure

A

Savings Measure = original time to learn the list — time to relearn the list after the delay
Savings Curve: plot percent of savings vs. time showed that memory drops rapidly for the first two days after learning and then level soff

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17
Q

Why does Watson rejects introspection as a measure>=?

A

Watson rejects introspection as a measure, observable behaviour, NOT CONSCIOUSNESSS is the main topic of study
Classical Conditioning: how pairing one stimulus with another previously neutral stimulus causes changes in response to the neutral stimulus

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18
Q

Skinner, Verbal Behaviour:

A

arguedthat children learn language through operant conditioning; imitate speech that they hear and repeat correct speech because it is rewarded

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19
Q

Chomsky’s criticisms of Skinner

A

disagreed strongly with Skinner; children are not reinforced for saying “bad things” yet they still do; viewed language as an inborn biological program that holds across cultures

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20
Q

Tolman Rat Experiment

A

Placed a rat in maze, watched them develop cognitive maps: conception within the mind of the maze’s layout
First needed to turn right to obtain food, but when placed in a diff location knew that it needed to turn left: CREATED COGNITIVE MAP

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21
Q

Kuhn, Scientific revolution:

A

shift from one paradigm to another, where a paradarigm is a system of ideas that dominate science at a particular time; MUST INVOLVE A PARADIGM SHIFT TO BE A SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

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22
Q

Cognitive Revolution

A

Shift in psychology from the behavioruists focus on stimulus-response relationships to an approach of understanding the mind

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23
Q

Cherry and auditory messages

A

Cherry: two auditory messages in either ear, when people focus on the attended message they could hear the sounds of the unattended message but not the content

24
Q

Difference between behaviorism and radical behaviorism

A

Radical Behaviourism: behaviour is governed by lawful principles
Behaviourism: humans are the products of their learning environments

25
What coding method is most efficient?
Specifity Coding: very inefficient Population Coding: everything is firing, also inefficient Sparse Coding: MOST EFFICIENT, MOST SUPPORTED
26
Localization of Function:
specific cognitive functions are supported by specific areas of the brain
27
Neuropsychology:
study of brain-behaviour relationships in humans
28
Neuropsyc Tests:
tests verbal and non-verbal functions affected by brain damage;
29
3 components of neuropsychology tests
assess simple to complex functions, determines which functions are impaired, determines severity of impairments (used to infer the extent of brain damage), standardized (able to cross compare between samples easily to determine extent of the damage)
30
Broca's area and Wernicke's area; symptoms if damaged
Broca’s Area (responsible for speech production) and Wernicke’s Area (speech comprehension), reached this conclusion by studying their own patients Broca’s Area: inferior frontal lobe, speech production (damage = difficulty speaking and articulating, but you can still understand speech) Wernicke’s Area: SPEECH COMPREHENSION temporal lobe, speech comprehension and written words (difficulty understanding and cannot respond appropriately, respond in ways that aren’t related at all)
31
Why is ablation important for causality?
Remove or damage parts of the brain to see the different function: can attribute causality to different brain areas IMPORTANT FOR CAUSALITY, typically done on animals
32
Surgical-elicited lesions: r
result from surgery based on clinical needs (epilepsy patients may require removal of parts of brain tissues to control for seizures)
33
Working Memory Capacity Neuropsyc Test
Test how much info you can hold in your brain Digit Span Test: remember numbers in reverse order after they are said
34
Stimulation
Stimulation of brain areas through mild electric current Can ENHANCE OR DISRUPT COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH BRAIN AREA: not always meant to enhance
35
Wilder Penfield:
one of the first to document the outcomes of his stimulation of patient’s brain while being awake during surgery, highly invasive; Nowadays we do this anyways, make sure we don’t remove any sensory/motor/language functions,), there are no pain receptors in CNS so a local anesthetic is fine, patients describe their sensations and surgeions note changes in behaviour
36
CAT Scan , advantages criticisms
Similiar to a powerful, sophisticated x-ray Take images of slices of brain, then pieces together to create 3D image of the brain ADVANTAGES: revealing larger structural issues like tumors or lesions (when there is matter missing in the brain), instantaneous, non-invasive Disadvantages: exposure to radiation, poor spatial resolution of the image, difficult to determine borders of the exact lesion, homogenous and cannot differentiate between grey and white matter in the brain
37
MRI
Magnet reveals brain structure by taking images of the brain Higher resolution than CAT scan ADVANTAGE: reveal grey and white matter abnormalities in the brain (soft tissue abnormalities), much higher resolution, non-invasive, mostly low risk (if you have a magnet in your body it would get pulled out which would be a huge problem) Disadvantages: if you have a magnet its a problem, not readily accessible everywhere (usually only big cities have these because of the cost)
38
EEG
Electroencephalagram, records electrical ctivity of large group of neurons ADVANTAGE: only method that directly measures neural activity, excellent temporal resolutions and pick up how fast (milliseconds), non-invasive, low risk Disadvantages: poor spatial resolution can’t say what region of the brain the activity is coming from so it cannot be localized properly, sensitive to movement and movement blurs the activity
39
Microelectrodes:
: record activity of a single neuron, VERY RARE, only be inserted in patients that already have elctrodes in the brain for medical reasons
40
FMRI
Measures blood flow via changes in oxygen in hemoglobin during a task More activity= more blood oxygen = more hemoglobin ADVANTAGES: great spatial resolution and we can see specific regions, non-invasive, mostly low risk Disadvantages: low accessibility, contradictions, same as MRI
41
FMRI, BOLD SIGNAL:
blood oxygen level-dependent constrast
42
Cerebral Cortex:
wrinkly exterior layer of the brain; contains 80% of neurons in entire brain; OUR RATIO OF CORTEX TO BRAIN SIZ IS WHAT DIFFERENTIATES US FROM ANIMALS
43
Frontal Lobe Primary AreaL
primary olfactory and motor cortex
44
Temproal Primary Area
primary auditory cortex
45
Parietal Primary Area:
primary somatosensory cortex
46
Occipital Primary Area:
Occipital Primary Area:
47
Functions of the 4 lobes
Occipital Lobe: visual processes, color, form, spatial Parietal Lobe: somatosensory processes (touch, temperature), high level visual processes Temporal Lobe: auditory processes, high level visual processes, memory function, contains hippocampus Frontal Lobe: high level cognitive functions
48
IF PREFRONTAL CORTEX IS DAMAGED:
unable to carry out sequences of actions, unable to predict what will happen, problems with impulse control, lack of empathy
49
Contrasting Left Brain vs. Right Brain
LEFT SIDE, LOGIC: logic, words, numbers, analytical thinking, language, math, CONTROLS RIGHT SIDE OF THE BODY AND FACE RIGHT SIDE, CREATIVITY: spatial functions, emotional intelligence, facial recognition, spatial navigation, music, CONTROLS THE LEFT SIDE OF THE FACE AND BODY
50
CORPUS CALLOSUM:
allows the two hemispheres to work together for most tasks, however sometimes a specific side may be more active (especially pronounces in males and right-handed people), left handed people are more creative
51
LATERIALTY
Both hemispheres have the capacity to perform a given function: LATERIALTY IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE CONCEPT (NOT JUST ONE SIDE OR THE OTHER FOR EVERY FUNCTION)
52
Dichotic Presentation:
sound to left ear goes to right hemispheres, right ear goes to left hemisphere
53
Comissurotomy:
cutting of corpus callosom to disconnect the two hemispheres to prevent the spread of the seizure (where the seizure has been localized to)
54
Split Brain Patient: p
patients with comissurotomy, severe epilespsy, allows us to study hemispheric organization and corpus callosum function by limiting info to one hemisphere
55
Neural circuit
A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated.

Psyc 365 (15 decks)

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