Chapter 2: Cognitive Neurosci Flashcards
What is the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies
-We are only aware of the activity of our nerves and we cannot be directly aware of the world itself
-important is WHICH nerves stimulated and not HOW they are stimulated
Identify major structures of a typical neuron
Cell body: contain nucleus and most cell organelles
Dendrites: receive information from other neurons
Axon hillock: generates action potential
Synapse: Axon terminates there
How is stimulus intensity coded/ represented by neurons?
What are feature detectors?
How did Hubel and Wiesel study these cells in visual system?
- Individual neurons that respond best to a specific stimulus
- Basic unit
Differentiate between Nerve Net Theory and the Neuron Doctrine
Neurone doctrine replaced nerve net theory
-show cells of the nervous system were discrete units
Define and describe distributed representation/processing
Stimulus causes patterns of neural activity in several brain areas
Differentiate between specificity coding, population coding, and sparse coding.
Specificity coding: representation of a stimulus by the firing of specifically tuned neurons specialised to respond only to a specific stimulus
Population coding: representation of a stimulus by pattern of firing a large number of neurons (firing at diff rates)
Sparse coding: Representation of a stimulus by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons with majority neurons silent
Localization of function
The idea that specific cognitive functions are served by neurons in specific brain areas
Brain (four major lobes)
Frontal: Speech/ motor control / concentration problem solving
Parietal: Touch and pressure/ taste / body awareness
Temporal: Hearing
Occipital: Vision
Cerebellum: Concentration
Double dissociation
- What does it reveal about cognitive processes?
Two related mental processes are shown to function independently of each other
-Allow us to identify functions that are controlled by different parts of the brain
Associated processing function of Fusiform Face Area & Deficit
-highly responsive to faces or face like stimuli
Deficit: Prospoagnosia (inability to recognise faces)
Event related potential & Polarity/ Latency measurement
-Measurements of subpopulations of neurons response to a particular stimuli
Polarity : +/- direction
Latency: Time
Subtraction technique used in modern neuroimaging methods
Measure brain activity before and during stimulation presentation
-finding the difference between activation states to indicate active brain areas during simulation
