Ch. 4: Cognition, Consciousness, and Language

Question 1

Explain Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.

Answer 1

1. Sensorimotor - manipulating the environment to meet physical needs
2. Preoperational - symbolic thinking, egocentricity, concentration
3. Concrete operational - understanding feelings of others and manipulating physical objects
4. Formal operational - abstract thought and problem solving

Question 2

What is a mental set?

Answer 2

Pattern of approach for a given problem

Question 3

What are heuristics?

Answer 3

Shortcuts used to made decisions

Question 4

What are biases?

Answer 4

Exist when information cannot be able to objectively evaluate information

Question 5

What is Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory?

Answer 5

Linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Musical
Visual-spatial
Bodily-kinesthetic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal

Question 6

What is the reticular formation?

Answer 6

nerual structure in brainstem that keeps the cortex awake and alert

Question 7

What is electroencephalograpy (EEG)?

Answer 7

records electrical patterns within the brain during sleep

Question 8

What are beta waves?

Answer 8

high frequency and occur when a person is alert or attending to a task that requires concentration

Question 9

What are alpha waves?

Answer 9

occur when we are awake but relaxing with our eyes close

Question 10

What occurs in stage 2 in sleep cycle?

Answer 10

theta waves with sleep spindles (bursts of high frequency waves) and K complexes (singular higgh amplitude waves)

Question 11

What occurs in stage 3 in the sleep cycle?

Answer 11

slow-wave sleep (SWS)
slow EEG, only a few waves per seconds
delta waves
cognitive recovery, memory consolidation

Question 12

What occurs in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep?

Answer 12

HR, breathing patterns, and EEG mimic wakefulness but individual is asleep
memory consolidation
where most dreaming occurs

Question 13

What is the sequential order of brain waves?

Answer 13

BAT-D
1. beta
2. alpha
3. theta
4. delta

Question 14

Explain melatonin.

Answer 14

sleepiness
decreated from the pineal gland and usually triggered be decreasing light (from retina)

Question 15

Explain cortisol.

Answer 15

helps you wake up
produced in the adrenal cortex

Question 16

What are dyssomnias?

Answer 16

disorders making it hard to fall asleep, stay asleep or avoid sleep
insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea

Question 17

What are parasomnias?

Answer 17

abnormal movements or behaviors udring sleep
night terrors and sleepwalking (usually during NREM)

Question 18

Explain depressants.

Answer 18

alcohol, barbiturates, benzodiazepines
promote or mimic GABA activity in the brain

Question 19

Explain stimulatants.

Answer 19

amphetamines (cocaine and ecstasy)
increase dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin

Question 20

Explain opiates and opiods.

Answer 20

heroin, morphine, opium, oxycodon and hydrocodone
can cause death by respiratory depression

Question 21

Explain hallucinogens.

Answer 21

LSD, peyote, mescaline, ketamine, and mushrooms

Question 22

Explain drug addiction.

Answer 22

mediated by the mesolimbic pathway

Question 23

What is phonolgy?

Answer 23

actual sound of language, individual speech sounds are phonemes

Question 25

What is morphology?

Answer 25

structure of words
words are composed of builing blocks called morphemes

Question 26

What are semantics?

Answer 26

association of meaning with a word

Question 27

What is syntax?

Answer 27

how words are put together to form sentences

Question 28

What are pragmatics?

Answer 28

how we speed depending on the audience

Question 29

Explain language development.

Answer 29

9-12 months: babbling
12-18 months: one word per month
18-20 months: explosion, combining words
2-3 years: longer sentences
5 years: knows most language rules

Question 30

What is the nativist (biological) theory?

Answer 30

language aquisition is innate and controlled by the language acquisition device (LAD) - theoretical pathwy in the brain that allows infants to process and absorb language rules

Question 31

What is the learning (behaviorist) theory?

Answer 31

language acquisition is controlled by operant conditioning and controlled by parents and caregivers

Question 32

What is the social interactionist theory?

Answer 32

language development is driven by a motivation to communicate and interact with others

Question 33

What is the Whorfian/linguistic relativity hypothesis?

Answer 33

our perception of reality (lens that we observe and interperet through) is determined by the context of language

Question 34

What is Broca’s area?

Answer 34

in the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe
conrols the motor function of speach

Broca’s aphasia makes it difficult to generate words

Question 35

What is Wernicke’s area?

Answer 35

located in the superior temporal gyrus of the temporal lobe
responsible for language comprehension

Wernicke’s aphasia does not make it possible for comprehension

Question 36

What is the arcuate fasciculus?

Answer 36

connects Wernicke’s area dn Broca’s area

damage = conduction aphasia which makes it not possible to repeat words hear although they they were comprehended and there’s intact speech generation