Chapter 4: Cognition, Consciousness, and Language

Question 1

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Answer 1

Sensorimotor- (birth to two) learning to manipulate the environment to meet needs; circular reactions and representational thought (marked by developing object permanence)

Preoperational stage- (2 to 7) symbolic thinking (pretending, using imagination), egocentrism (inability to understand others points of views), and centration (can’t understand conservation, eg two pieces of pizza are more than one slice of pizza that made up the two slices)

Concrete operational- (7-11) understand conservation and can empathizel can logically think about concrete things, not abstract ideas

Formal operational- (11+) can think logically and abstractly, working with multiple variables

Question 2

Adaptation: Assimilation vs Accomodation

Answer 2

Assimilation is taking new information and adding it to an existing schema (a concept)

Acommodation is when the new information doesn’t fit the existing schemata so you modify the schemata

Question 3

Heuristics

Answer 3

Simplified principles used to make decisions

• Availability Heuristic: making decisions based on the availability of information that we personally have
• -Representative heuristic: trying to fit information into a category based on stereotype or an imagined idea of the category; base rate fallacy, using stereotypes for analysis rather than data

Question 4

Confirmation bias

Answer 4

Choosing to focus on information that fits your beliefs while ignoring the evidence against your belief. Leads to overconfidence

Question 5

States of consciousness

Answer 5

Alert, sleep, dreaming, altered states of consciousness

Question 6

What happens in the alert stage of consciousness

Answer 6

awake and able to think; reticular formation keeps the cortex awake
Beta wave = alert and performing tasks
alpha waves = relaxed but still awake

Question 7

Sleep stages

Answer 7

Stage 1: theta waves
Stage 2: theta
Stage 3 and 4: delta waves. difficulty waking someone up; associated with cognitive recovery, memory, and increase growth hormones

Question 8

Order of brain waves

Answer 8

BAT-D

beta and alpha (awake, and beta in REM), theta (immediately after dozing), delta (deep sleep)

Question 9

Circadian rhythm

Answer 9

controlled partially by melatonin from pineal gland via the retina, which senses light; and by corisol from the adrenal cortex (goes through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (ie CRF–>ACTH–>cortisol)

Question 10

Theories of dreaming

Answer 10

Activation-synthesis theory: dreams caused by widespread, random activation of neural circuitry ; mimics incoming sensory info

Problem-solving dream theory: dreams a a way to abstractly solve problems while sleeping

Cognitive processing dream theory: counterpart of stream-of-consciousness thinking

neurocognitive models of dreaming: unifying biological and psychological ideas on dreaming

Question 11

Types of sleep disorders

Answer 11

Mostly occur in non-REM sleep
Two categories:
-Dyssomnias: disorders that make it hard to fall asleep, stay asleep. or avoid sleep (insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea)
-parasomnia: abnormal movements or behaviors during sleep (night terrors and sleepwalking)

Question 12

Depressants

Answer 12

Reduce nervous system activity, generally increase GABA activity

• Alcohol: causes generalized brain inhibition in higher brain functioning, increases dopamine levels; alcohol myopia (logical reasoning and consequences of actions are dampened); can lead to liver failure, gastrointestinal ulcers, and Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome
• Barbiturates and Benzodiazepines: anti-anxiety medications, highly addictive

Question 13

Stimulants

Answer 13

Increases arousal (and heart rate and bp) by increasing frequency of action potentials

• Amphetamines: increase release of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin while decreasing reuptake
• Cocaine: decreases reuptake of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin; anesthetic and vasoconstrictive properties
• Ecstasy (MDMA): similar to amphetamine

Question 14

Opiates and Opiods

Answer 14

bind to opioid receptors in the PNS and CNS and cause decreased reaction to pain and sense of euphoria (OD causes brain to stop sending signals to the respiratory system to breathe)
examples: heroin, morphine, oxycodone

Question 15

Hallucinogens

Answer 15

Thought to affect interactions btwn neurotransmitters, esp. serotonin
cause: distortion in reality, enhancing sensory experiences. increase heart rate and bp, sweating

Question 16

Marijuana

Answer 16

Active chemical = THC that acts on cannabinoid, glycine, and opioid receptors
Is both a stimulant (inc. GABA), depressant, and hallucinogen

Question 17

Drug addiction is related to what pathway in the brain?

Answer 17

Mesolimbic reward pathway, which is a dopaminergic pathway

Question 18

Controlled processing vs automatic processing

Answer 18

• controlled processing: undivided attention to the task
• automatic processing: dividing attention to focus on different tasks at the same time; doesn’t allow for new or rapid responses to change

Question 19

The 5 Basic Components of Language

Answer 19

1. Phonology: sound of language; phonemes; categorical perception- ability to tell difference between changes in meaning of words depending on their sound
2. Morphology: word structure; morphemes; the way the word is built determines its meaning
3. Semantics: associating meaning with a word, e.g. putting a category and word together
4. Syntax: how words are put together to form a sentence; word order matters
5. Pragmatics: the way we use language depends on the context, like who our audience is and what our relationship is to them.

Question 20

The stages of language development

Answer 20

1. 9-12 months: babbling
2. 12-18 months: learn about 1 word per month, and uses 1 word sentences
3. 18 to 20 months: explosion of language, combining words
4. 2 to 3 yrs: long sentences, grammatical errors (like errors of growth) happen as child learns rules of grammar
5. 5+ : language is generally mastered

Question 21

3 theories on language acquisition

Answer 21

1. Nativist (biological theory): learning language is an innate ability; Language acquisition device (pathway in baby’s brain that processes language rules); critical period for learning a new language (between 2 yrs and puberty)
2. Learning (behaviorist) Theory: language is acquired to operant conditioning and reinforcement, and this is how babies learn to distinguish important phonemes from unimportant ones (cannot explain explosion in vocab)
3. Social interaction theory: interplay between biological and social processes; learning language is driven by desire to communicate and interact with others, certain brain circuits are reinforced as child interacts successfully

Question 22

What is the linguistic relativity hypothesis

Answer 22

language affects the way we think rather than the other way around

Question 23

What connects Werickes area (for language comprehension) and Broca’s area (for motor speech function)?

Answer 23

Arcuate fasciculus, allows association between language comprehension and speech production