chapter 2 (cognitive neuroscience) Flashcards
cognitive neuroscience
field concerned with studying the neural basis of cognition.
levels of analysis
a topic can be understood by studying it at a number of different levels of a system.
neuron
cell specialized to receive and transmit information in the nervous system.
synapse
space between the end of an axon and the cell body or dendrite of the next axon.
neural circuits
group of interconnected neurons that are responsible for neural processing.
receptors
specialized neural structures that respond to environmental stimuli such as light, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli.
microelectrodes
small wires used to record electrical signals from single neurons.
nerve impulse/action potential
electrical response propagated down the length of an axon.
neurotransmitter
chemical that is released at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials.
principle of neural representation
everything a person experiences is based on representations in the person’s nervous system.
feature detectors
neurons that respond to specific visual features such as orientation, size, or more complex features that make up environmental stimuli. like bars at certain orientations.
experience-dependent plasticity
mechanism that causes an organism’s neurons to develop so they respond best to the type of stimulation to which the organism has been exposed.
visual cortex
area in occipital lobe that receives signals from eyes.
temporal lobe
lobe on side of the brain that contains mechanisms for language, memory, hearing, and vision.
hierarchical processing
processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of brain.
sensory code
how neural firing represents various characteristics of the environment.
specificity coding
representation of a specific stimulus by the firing of neurons that respond only to that stimulus. one neuron per stimuli.
population coding
neural representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing on a large number of neurons.
sparse coding
neural coding based on the pattern of activity in small groups of neurons. prob correct.
localization of function
location of specific functions in specific areas of brain. many cognitive functions in cerebral cortex.
cerebral cortex
3-mm-thick outer layer of brain that contains mechanisms responsible for higher mental functions such as perception, language, thinking, and problem solving.
cortical equipotentiality
idea popular in 1800’s that brain operates as indivisible whole (not specialized areas.)
broca’s area
area in frontal lobe associated with production of language. damage causes broca’s aphasia.
broca’s aphasia
condition associated with damage to broca’s area (frontal lobe) characterized by laboured ungrammatical speech and difficulty understanding some types of sentences.
wernicke’s area
area in temporal lobe associated with understanding language. damage causes wernicke’s aphasia.
wernicke’s aphasia
condition caused by damage to wernicke’s area characterized by difficulty understanding language, and fluent, grammatically correct, but incoherent speech.
occipital lobe
lobe at back of brain that is devoted primarily to analyzing incoming visual info.
parietal lobe
lobe at top of brain that contains mechanisms responsible for sensations caused by stimulation of the skin and also some aspects of visual information.
frontal lobe
lobe in the front of the brain that serves higher functions such as language, thought, memory, and motor functioning.
prosopagnosia
condition caused by damage to temporal lobe characterized by inability to recognize faces.
double dissociation
situation in which a single dissociation can be demonstrated in one person and the opposite type of single dissociation can be demonstrated in another person.
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
brain imaging technique that measures how blood flow changes in response to cognitive activity.
fusiform face area (FFA)
area in temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces.
parahippocampal place area (PPA)
area in temporal lobe that contains neurons that are selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes.
extrastriate body area (EBA)
area in temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies, but not by faces or other objects.
multidimensional
multidimensional nature of cognition refers to the fact that even simple experiences involve combinations of different qualities.
distributed representation
occurs when a specific cognition activates many areas of brain.
episodic memories
memories for events in person’s life.
semantic memories
memories for facts.
neural networks
groups of neurons/structures that are connected together.
track-weighted imaging (TWI)
technique for determining connectivity in the brain that is based on detection of how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers.
functional connectivity
extent to which the neural activity in separate brain areas is correlated with each other.
default mode network
networks of structures that are active when a person is not involved in specific tasks.
