Chapter 2

Question 1

Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 1

The marriage of neuroscience and cognitive psychology.

Question 2

Nerve Net Theory

Answer 2

19th Century anatomist’s belief that the brain was made up of a continuous complex pathway of uninterrupted conducting signals. Nerve Net

Question 3

Camillo Golgi

Answer 3

Staining procedure used to identify single neurons from other tissue.

Question 4

Myelin Sheath

Answer 4

Myelin is a fatty white substance that surrounds the axon of some nerve cells, forming an electrically insulating layer.

Question 5

Nodes of Ranvier

Answer 5

Gaps between the Myelin that allow ions in to trigger and speed up action potential

Question 6

Dendrites receive two types of chemical signals from the presynaptic neuron:

Answer 6

Excitatory: Increases chance neuron will fire
Inhibitory: decreases chance neuron will fire

Question 7

Localization of Function in the Brain

Answer 7

The idea that specific cognitive functions are served by neurons in specific areas of the brain.

Question 8

Name the four lobes of the brain

Answer 8

Frontal Lobe
Parietal Lobe
Temporal Lobe
Occipital Lobe

Question 9

Frontal Lobe

Answer 9

• Front, forehead area
• Broca’s area
• Movement, motor planning,
  judgment & reasoning

Question 10

Parietal Lobe

Answer 10

Located behind frontal lobe and on top of temporal lobe.

- Input for touch, temperature & pain

Question 11

Temporal Lobe

Answer 11

• Wernicke’s area
• Object recognition
• Includes primary auditory cortex
• By temples

Question 12

Occipital Lobe

Answer 12

- Located in the back of the head
Visual centers
Color perception
Motion
Spatial organization

Question 13

Define Fusiform face area (FFA) and where it is located.

Answer 13

Thought to respond specifically to faces

Temporal lobe

Question 14

Prosopagnosia

Answer 14

inability to recognize faces

Question 15

Parahippocampal place area (PPA)

Answer 15

Helps you identify where things are - “place”

Question 16

Extrastriate body area (EBA)

Answer 16

Helps you identify body parts - “body”

Question 17

Broca’s area

Answer 17

Language production

Question 18

Broca’s Aphasia

Answer 18

Inability to speak

Question 19

Wernicke’s area

Answer 19

Language comprehension

Question 20

Wernicke’s Aphasia

Answer 20

Inability to understand language

Question 21

Agnosia vs Aphasia

Answer 21

language impairment vs visual impairment

Question 22

Double Dissociation

Answer 22

When two related mental processes are shown to function independently of each other
Example: Broca’s Aphasia (deficit in production) and Wernicke’s Aphasia (deficit in comprehension)

Question 23

Electro-Encephalography (EEG)

Answer 23

Measures electrical activity
Lowest $
Accurate temporal resolution
“Noisy” data
Lower spatial resolution

Question 24

Event-Related Potential (ERP)

Answer 24

An ERP is an average of many trials of stimulus presentation. Used with EEG’s.

ERP Components:
Polarity = -/+ Direction
Latency = Time

Question 25

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

Answer 25

Measures changes in blood flow
good spatial resolution
Very $ radioisotopes needed ($1,000-$1,200 cost per scan!)
Low accessibility

Question 26

functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

Answer 26

Measures changes in blood flow.
Excellent spatial resolution. (over a large area)
Okay temporal resolution.
No radioisotopes! 
Subject must remain STILL
Expensive
Low accessibility

Question 27

Subtraction technique during fMRI

Answer 27

measures brain activity before and during stimulation presentation

Question 28

Hubel & Wiesel

Answer 28

Feature Detectors

Question 29

Hubel & Wiesel Neural Code

Answer 29

Pattern of neural firing when the object is present is the representation of the object

Question 30

Specificity Coding

Answer 30

The representation of a specific stimulus by the firing of specialized neurons that fire only to those specific stimuli. ( Jennifer Aniston neuron)

Question 31

Distributed Processing / Coding

Answer 31

Activation of a number of different brain areas

Question 32

Specificity coding

Answer 32

Representation of a specific stimulus by firing of specifically tuned neurons specialized to just respond to a specific stimulus.

Sparse coding: small number of neurons
Population coding: large number of neurons