Chapter 14- Cognitive Functions

Question 1

The left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex is

Answer 1

connected to skin receptors and muscles mainly on the right side of the body

Question 2

Left hemisphere only sees…

Answer 2

right half side of the world

Question 3

Auditory information, each hemisphere gets information

Answer 3

from both ears but slightly stronger information from contralateral ear than from ipsilateral ear

Question 4

Left side is specialized for

Answer 4

language

Question 5

Visual field

Answer 5

what is visible at any moment

Question 6

light from right half of visual field

Answer 6

shines onto left half of both retinas

Question 7

left half of each retina connects to

Answer 7

left hemisphere, sees right visual field

Question 8

right half of each retina connects to

Answer 8

right hemisphere, sees left visual field

Question 9

damage to the corpus callosum

Answer 9

prevents the two hemispheres from exchanging information

Question 10

split-brain people

Answer 10

people who have undergone surgery to corpus callosum

maintain their intellect and motivations, walk normally and use two hands together on familiar tasks

struggle with less familiar tasks, respond differently to stimuli presented to only one side of the body, can use their hands independently in ways others can’t

Question 11

Sperry’s studies…

Answer 11

two halves of the brain could communicate with each other, use left hand to point to what right hemisphere had seen, use right hand to point to what left hemisphere had seen

Question 12

left hemisphere is dominant for speech production in more than

Answer 12

90% of right handed people and 80% of left-handed people

Question 13

Split-brain patients cannot name objects

Answer 13

in left visual field

Question 14

The right hemisphere

Answer 14

is better at perceiving emotions in people’s gestures and tone of voice

better at comprehending spatial relationships, focuses on overall patterns

Question 15

Damage to left hemisphere

Answer 15

prevents it from interfering with right, free to make reliable judgment

Question 16

People with damage to the right hemisphere

Answer 16

speak in a monotone voice, do not understand people’s emotional expressions, usually fail to understand humor or sarcasm

Question 17

Do hemispheres differ anatomically?

Answer 17

yes

Question 18

Planum Temporate

Answer 18

temporal lobe- larger in left hemisphere for 65% of people

difference in size is slightly greater for strongly right-handed people, bigger ratio of left to right planum temporate performed better on language tests

children with equal hemispheres were better on nonverbal takss

Question 19

Corpus Callosum matures

Answer 19

gradually over first 5-10 years of life, thickens as myelin around certain axons from childhood through adolescence

because connections can take years to develop their mature adult pattern, young children can exhibit certain behaviors similar to those of split-brain adults

Question 20

Those born without corpus callosum

Answer 20

enables left hemisphere to feel both left and right hands,

brains other commissures become larger than usual

Question 21

Most left- handers have

Answer 21

left hemisphere dominance for speech

Question 22

Language as a by-product of intelligence

Answer 22

but not all people with full sized brains have normal language, genetic conditions can impair language without impairing other aspects of intelligence

Question 23

Williams syndrome

Answer 23

caused by deletion of several genes from chromosome 7, people can speak grammatically and fluently but are far from perfect in language, are poor at tasks related to numbers, visuospatial skills and spatial perception

Question 24

Language as specialization

Answer 24

LAD, novel sentences and naming explosion

Question 25

Sensitive period for language development

Answer 25

4-5 years

Question 26

Broca’s Aphasia

Answer 26

Nonfluent Aphasia- only produces brief or minor language impairment productions

comprehensions deficits when sentence structure is complicated, slow and awkward with all forms of expressions, speaking writing and gesturing, omit pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and helping verbs, trouble understanding the words they omit

Question 27

Wernicke’s Aphasia

Answer 27

Patients can speak and write, but language comprehension is poos, impaired ability to remember the names of objects

articulate speech, difficulty finding the right word, anomia, make up names

Question 28

Dyslexia

Answer 28

specific impairment in reading in someone with adequate vision and adequate skills in other academic areas

more common in boys, linked to at least four genes that produce deficits in hearing or cognition, mild abnormalities in the structure of brain areas, more likely to have bilaterally symmetrical cerebral cortex

Question 29

Dysphonetic dyslexics

Answer 29

have trouble sounding out words and try to remember each word as a whole

Question 30

Dyseidetic Dyslexics

Answer 30

sounds out words okay, but fail to recognize word as a whole

Question 31

Dualism

Answer 31

belief that the mind and brain are different kinds of substance and exist independently

Question 32

Descartes main problem?

Answer 32

how does the immaterial mind work on the body?

solution- mind and body interact at a single point in space- the pineal gland

Question 33

Monism

Answer 33

the belief that the universe consists of only one kind of substance

Question 34

Masking

Answer 34

a brief visual stimulus preceded and followed by longer interfering stimuli, used to prevent consciousness

Question 35

Backward masking

Answer 35

just the later stimulus is presented

Question 36

Binocular Rivalry

Answer 36

slow and gradual shifts in perception from one eye to the other

each shift in perception is accompanied by a shift in the pattern of activity over a large portion of the brain

Question 37

Meaningful stimuli capture our attention

Answer 37

faster than meaningless stimuli, somehow your brain had to know it was meaningful before it became meaningful

Question 38

phi phenomenon

Answer 38

if you see a dot in one position, alternating with a similar dot nearby, it will seem to you that the dot is moving back and forth

Question 39

Bottom- up attention

Answer 39

reaction to stimulus

Question 40

Top-down attention

Answer 40

intentional and controlled

Question 41

Deliberate top=down direction of attention depends on parts of the

Answer 41

prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex

Question 42

Spatial Neglect

Answer 42

a tendency for many people with damage to parts of the right hemisphere to ignore the left side of the body or left side of objects

main problem is attention, not impaired sensation

Question 43

Many patients with neglect also have deficits with

Answer 43

spatial working memory and with shifting attention even when location is irrelevant