Chapter 4: Cognition, Consciousness, and Language Flashcards
Which lobe is much larger in humans?
Frontal lobe
What is cognitive development? How is it limited during early childhood?
- The development of one’s ability to think and solve problems across the lifespan
- Limited by the pace of brain maturation
Jean Piaget divided the lifespan into four stages of cognitive development. What are they?
- Sensorimotor
- Preoperational
- Concrete operational
- Formal operational
- Each stage prepares the individual for the stage that follows
According to Piaget, how do infants mainly learn?
Through instinctual interaction with the environment (ex: grasping reflex)
Piaget referred to organized patters of behaviours and thought as schemata. What can a schema include?
- Concept, behavior, or a sequence of events
According to Piaget, how is new information processed in a child?
- Processed via adaptation
- As a child proceeds through the stages, new information has to be placed into the different shcemata
According to Piaget, adaptation comes about by two complementary processes, what are they?
Assimilation and accomodation
What is assimilation?
The process of classifying new information into existing schemata
What is accommodation?
The process by which existing schemata are modified to encompass this new information
How long does the sensorimotor stage last? What does the child need to learn?
- From birth until 2 years old
- Learns to manipulate his or her environment in order to meet physical needs
Differentiate the two types of circular reactions? Why are they repeated?
Primary: repetition of a body movement that originally occurred by chance (sucking thumb), repeated since child finds it soothing
Secondary: when manipulation is focused on something outside the body (throwing tows from high chair), repeated since child gets a response from the environment
What is the key milestone that ends the sensorimotor stage?
The development of object permanence, which is understanding that objects continue to exist even when outside of view (ex: peek-a-boo is entertaining since infants lack object permanence)
Object permanence marks the beginning of what?
Representational thought, in which the child has begun to create mental representations of external objects and events
How long does the preoperational stage last? What is it characterized by?
- 2 to 7 years old
- Symbolic thinking, egocentrism and centration
Define symbolic thinking.
Refers to the ability to pretend, play make-believe, and have an imagination
Define egocentrism.
Refers to the inability to imagine what another person may think or feel
Define centration.
The tendency to focus on only one aspect of a phenomenon or inability to understand the concept of conservation (ex: 1 large slice vs 2 small slices = same size BUT child will want 2 slices of pizza)
How long does the concrete operational stage last? What do they understand? They can engage in logical thought as long as what? Can they think abstractly?
- 7 to 11 years
- Can understand conservation and consider the perspectives of others
- Able to engage in logical thought as long as they are working with concrete objects or information that is directly available
- NO ability to think abstractly
When does the formal operational stage start? What is it marked by?
- At around 11 years old
- Marked by the ability to think logically about abstract ideas
- Problem-solving
Who proposed that the engine driving cognitive development is the child’s internalization of her culture?
Lev Vygotsky
Compare fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. When do they peak? Do they decline?
Fluid: problem-solving skills (peak in early adulthood)
Crystallized: use of learned skills and knowledge (peak in middle adulthood)
They both decline with age
What is delirium? What can it be caused by?
- Rapid fluctuation in cognitive function that is reversible and caused by medical (nonpsychological) causes
- Electrolyte and pH disturbances, malnutrition, low blood sugar, infection, drug reaction, alcohol withdrawal, and pain
Define mental set.
The tendency to approach problems in the same way.
Define functional fixedness.
The inability to consider how to use an object in a nontraditional manner.
What is the trial-and-error problem-solving approach? When is it effective?
- Various solutions are tried until one is found to work.
- Only effective when there are relatively few possible solutions
What is the algorithm problem-solving approach?
A formula or procedure for solving a certain type of problem
What is the deductive (top-down) reasoning problem-solving approach?
Starts from a set of general rules and draws conclusions from the information given
What is the inductive (bottom-up) reasoning problem-solving approach?
Seeks to create a theory via generalizations. This type of reasoning starts with specific instances, and then draws a conclusion from them.
Define heuristics. What are they also called?
- Simplified principles used to make decisions
- Called rules of thumb
- Efficient, although sometimes inaccurate, method for problem-solving
What is the availability heuristic? Provide an example.
- Used when we try to decide how likely something is, can lead to an incorrect answer at times
- ex: Are there more words in the English language that start with the letter “K” or that have “K” as their third letter? Ans: third letter, but availability heuristic leads to the wrong answer
What is the representativeness heuristic?
- Categorizing items on the basis of whether they fit the prototypical, stereotypical, or representative image of the category.
- Can also lead us astray
What is the base rate fallacy?
Using prototypical or stereotypical factors while ignoring actual numerical information
What is the disconfirmation principle?
- The evidence obtained from testing demonstrated that the solution does not work
- The presence of a confirmation bias may prevent an individual from eliminating this solution
What is the confirmation bias? What do they contribute to?
- The tendency to focus on information that fits an individual’s beliefs, while rejecting information that goes against them
- Contribute to overconfidence
What can seriously impede a person’s analysis of available evidence?
Confirmation bias and overconfidence
Define intuition. How is it developed?
- The ability to act on perceptions that may not be supported by available evidence.
- Developed by experience
What is the recognition-primed decision model? What does it explain?
Decision-making model in which experience and recognition of similar situations play a large role in decision-making and actions; also one of the explanations for the experience of intuition
How can emotion effect decision-making? (2)
- The way the person feels when making a decision (angry = more risky)
- The way the person expects to feel once a decision has been made (car will make them more powerful = buys car)
The theory of multiple intelligences presents 7 different types of intelligence. What are they? Who’s theory is it?
- Howard Gardner
- Linguistic
- Logical-Mathematical
- Musical
- Visual-Spatial
- Bodily-Kinesthetic
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal
What is the original formula used to calculate the Intelligence Quotient (IQ)?
IQ = (mental age/chronological age) x 100%
Define consciousness.
One’s level of awareness of both the world and one’s own existence within that world
What are the 4 accepted states of consciousness?
- Alertness
- Sleep
- Dreaming
- Altered states of consciousness
What is alertness? What levels are higher?
- When we are awake and able to think
- Cortisol levels tend to be higher, and EEG waves indicate a brain in the waking state
How is alertness maintained? What causes a coma?
- Neurological circuits in the prefrontal cortex communicate with the reticular formation (brainstem) to keep the cortex awake and alert
- Brain injury that results in the disruption of these connections results in a coma
How is sleep studied?
By recording brain wave activity occurring during the course of a night’s sleep with an EEG, which records an average of the electrical patters within different portions of the brain
What are the five characteristic EEG patters correlated with different stages of waking and sleeping? These sleep stages form a complete cycle lasting how long?
- Beta
- Alpha
- Theta
- Delta
- Wave for REM
- Complete cycle lasts about 90 minutes
Which waves characterize wave activity when we are awake? Which wave is faster? When does it occur? Which is slower? Which is more synchronized?
- Beta and Alpha
- Beta waves have a high frequency and occur when the person is alert or attending to a mental task that requires concentration (neurons randomnly fire)
- Alpha waves occur when we are awake but relaxed with our eyes closed
- Alpha waves are more synchronized
What waves are detected in Stage 1 of sleep? How are the frequencies and voltages?
- Theta waves
- Irregular waveforms, slower frequencies, higher voltages
What waves are detected in Stage 2 of sleep?
- Theta waves
- Sleep spindles (high frequency)
- K complex (high voltage then drops to low voltage)
What waves are detected in Stages 3 and 4 of sleep? What is this sleep also called? How are the frequencies and voltages? What is likely to occur?
- Delta waves
- Low-frequency, high-voltage
- Slow-wave sleep (SWS)
- Declarative memory consolidation
Which stage(s) is it difficult to rouse someone from sleep?
Stages 3 and 4
What stages are part of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep?
Stages 1 through 4
When does rapid eye movement (REM) sleep occur? What happens? What is it also called? Why?
- Interspersed between cycles of the NREM sleep stages
- Arousal levels reach that of wakefulness, muscles are paralyzed
- Paradoxical sleep, since one’s heart rate, breathing patterns, and EEG mimic wakefulness (but person is asleep)
What is the sequential order of the brain waves when someone is awake and then falls asleep?
BAT-D
Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta
Which sleep stage is there most likely dreaming? What is it also associated with?
- REM sleep
- Procedural memory consolidation
Which sleep state predominates early in the night? Which sleep state predominates later in the night?
Early: SWS
Late: REM
What is the length of the sleep cycle in children? What about in adults? Children spend more time in which sleep cycle?
- Children: 50 minutes
- Adults: 90 minutes
- Children spend more time in SWS
What regulates sleep? What external cues is it affected by? How long is the cycle?
- Circadian rhythm
- Light
- Around 24-hours
Sleepiness can be partially attributed to blood levels of what? What is it derived from? Where is it secreted from?
- Melatonin
- Derived from serotonin
- Pineal gland
How can decreasing light cause the release of melatonin?
Retina has direct connections to the hypothalamus, which controls the pineal gland
What other hormone is related to the sleep-wake cycle? What does it contribute to? What kind of hormone is it? Where is it produced?
- Cortisol
- Contributes to wakefulness
- Steroid hormone
- Produced in the adrenal cortex
How does early morning stimulate cortisol release?
- Increasing light causes the release of corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) from the hypothalamus
- CRF causes the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from the anterior pituitary, which stimulates cortisol release
75% of dreaming occurs during REM; dreams tend to be longer and more vivid than those experienced during NREM sleep. When does dreaming occur during NREM sleep?
After we enter Stage 2 sleep, our mental experience starts to shift to a dreamlike state
What does the activation-synthesis theory state? What kind of dreams do they produce?
- Dreams are caused by widespread, random activation of neural circuitry.
- The cortex tries to stitch this unrelated information, resulting in a dream that is both bizarre and somewhat familiar
What does the problem-solving dream theory state?
Dreams are a way to solve problems while you are sleeping; allow interpretation of obstacles differently than during waking hours
What does the cognitive process dream theory state?
Dreams are merely the sleeping counterpart of stream-of-consciousness
What do neurobiological models of dreaming seek to do?
Unify biological and psychological perspectives on dreaming by correlating the subjective with measurable physiological changes
Compare dyssomnias and parasomnias.
Dyssomnias: disorders that make it difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep, or avoid sleep
Parasomnias: abnormal movements or behaviors during sleep, include night terrors and sleepwalking
When do most sleep disorders occur?
During NREM sleep
Define insomnia.
Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
Define narcolepsy.
Lack of voluntary control over the onset of sleep; falling asleep whenever in relaxed surroundings
What are the two characteristic symptoms of narcolepsy?
- Cataplexy: loss of muscle control
- Sudden intrusion of REM sleep during waking hours
Define sleep paralysis.
Being unable to move despite being awake
Compare hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations.
HypnaGogic: hallucinations when Going to bed
HypnoPompic: hallucinations when Popping out of bed
Define sleep apnea.
Inability to breathe during sleep; awaken in the night in order to breathe
Compare obstructive and central sleep apnea.
Obstructive sleep apnea: occurs when a physical blockage in the pharynx or trachea prevents airflow
Central sleep apnea: when the brain fails to send signals to the diaphragm to breathe
What are night terrors? When do they occur? Who do they affect the most? Why are they difficult to wake?
- Periods of intense anxiety
- Occur during slow-wave sleep (SWS)
- Most common in children; will thrash or scream
- Occurs during SWS, difficult to wake; do not remember next morning
When does sleepwalking occur? What is it also called?
- During SWS sleep
- Somnambulism
What do people who are permitted to sleep normally after sleep deprivation often exhibit?
REM rebound, an earlier onset and greater duration of REM sleep compared to normal
Define hypnosis.
A person appears to be in control of his or her normal functions, but easily succumbs to the suggestions of others
How does hypnosis start? What does it require?
- Hypnotic induction: relaxes the subject and increases his/her concentration
- Requires willing personality and lack of skepticism
What does meditation resemble on an EEG?
Stage 1 sleep with theta and slow alpha waves
What are the 4 different groups of consciousness-altering drugs?
Depressants, stimulants, opiates and hallucinogens
What effects does marijuana possess? (3)
Depressant, stimulant, and hallucinogenic
What are depressants? What is the most common depressant?
- Reduce nervous system activity
- Resulting in a sense of relaxation and reduced anxiety
- Alcohol
What are the two main effects of alcohol on the brain?
- Increases activity of the GABA receptor, a chloride channel that causes hyperpolarization of the membrane; generalized brain inhibition
- Increases dopamine levels, causing a sense of mild euphoria
What is alcohol myopia?
The inability to recognize consequences of actions, creating a short-sighted view of the world (logical reasoning affected)
What are long-term consequences of alcohol?
- Cirrhosis
- Liver failure
- Pancreatic damage
- Gastric or duodenal ulcers
- Gastrointestinal cancer
- Brain disorders, including Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome (deficiency of thiamine) - severe memory impairment with changes in mental status and loss of motor skills
What are the two other depressants that increase GABA activity?
- Barbiturates
- Benzodiazepines (less prone to overdose)
- Both are highly addictive, and can result in coma or death if taken with alcohol
What are stimulants? What do they increase?
- Increase in arousal in the nervous system
- Increases the frequency of action potentials, through different mechanisms
How do amphetamines cause increased arousal? What does it cause?
- Increasing release of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin at the synapse and decreasing their reuptake
- Reduction in appetite and decreased need for sleep
- Euphoria, hypervigilance, anxiety, paranoia
How does cocaine cause increased arousal? Why is cocaine sometimes used in surgery?
- Decreases reuptake of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin
- Anesthetic and vasoconstrictive properties
What is crack?
A form of cocaine that can be smoked
Ecstasy acts as a _______ combined with an ______.
hallucinogen, amphetamine
What does ecstasy cause physiologically and psychologically?
Physiologically: increased heart rate, increased BP, blurry vision, sweating, nausea, hyperthermia
Psychologically: euphoria, increased alertness, overwhelming sense of connectedness
What is opium derived from? What is cocaine derived from?
Opium: poppy plant
Cocaine: coca plant
Compare opiates and opioids. Give examples.
Opiates: naturally occurring forms (morphine, codeine)
Opioids: semisynthetic forms (oxycodone, heroin)
How does opium cause a decreased reaction to pain and a sense of euphoria?
Bind to opioid receptors in the peripheral and central nervous system
How does overdose of opium occur?
By respiratory suppression, in which the brain stops sending signals to breathe
When heroin is smoked or injected, what does the body metabolize it to?
Morphine
What does the mechanism of hallucinogens involve? Give examples.
- Various neurotransmitters, especially serotonin
- LSD and certain mushrooms
What are the physiological and psychological effects of hallucinogens?
Physiological: increased heart rate and BP, dilation of pupils, sweating, increased body temperature
Psychological: distortions of reality and fantasy, enhancement of sensory experiences, introspection
What two plants does marijuana come from? What is the active chemical in marijuana?
- Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica
- THC
What are the neurobiological effects of marijuana?
- Increases GABA activity (causing neural inhibition)
- Increases dopamine activity (causing pleasure)
What 4 drugs are known to increase GABA activity in the brain?
Alcohol, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and marijuana
Which 3 drugs (or drug classes) are known to increase dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin activity in the brain?
Amphetamines, cocaine, and ecstacy
What are the 3 main structures in the mesolimbic reward pathway?
The nucleus accumbens, medial forebrain bundle, and ventral tegmental area
What is the mesolimbic reward pathway’s primary neurotransmitter?
Dopamine
What is the mesolimbic reward pathway activated by?
- By all substances that produce psychological dependence
- Drugs
- Gambling
- Falling in love
Define attention.
Refers to concentration on one aspect of the sensory environment, or sensorium
What is selective attention?
Focusing on one part of the sensorium while ignoring other stimuli. It therefore acts as a filter between sensory stimuli and our processing systems
What is the cocktail party phenomenon?
If a stimuli is particularly important, our selective attention can shift
What is divided attention?
The ability to perform multiple tasks at the same time
Which tasks require controlled (effortful) processing? Which tasks can be performed with automatic processing?
Controlled processing + Undivided attention: new tasks
Automatic processing + divided attention: familiar or routine actions
What is the function of the filter used in selective attention?
Permits us to focus on one set of stimuli while scanning other stimuli in the background for important information (such as our name)
Define phonology.
Refers to the actual sound of language
How many speech sounds (phonemes) are in the English language?
40 speech sounds
What is categorical perception?
The ability to discern subtle differences between speech sounds and if they represent a change in meaning or not
Define morphology.
Refers to the structure of words
What are morphenes? Explain the example with the word “redesigned”.
Building blocks of works, each of which connotes a particular meaning
ex: re- (to do again), -design- (verb root), -ed (action in the past)
Define semantics.
The association of meaning with a word
Ex: young children referring to all women as mommy
Define syntax.
Refers to how words are put together to form sentences. The effects of word order on meaning
Define pragmatics.
Refers to the dependence of language on context and pre-existing knowledge. The manner in which we speak may differ depending on the audience and our relationship to that audience
What is prosody? What does it affect?
- Affects pragmatics
- The rhythm, cadence, and inflection of our voices
What happens in terms of language development at 9 to 12 months?
Babbling
What happens in terms of language development at 12 to 18 months?
About one word per month
What happens in terms of language development starting at 18-20 months?
“explosion of language”, learning dozens of words and combining them
What happens in terms of language development at 2 to 3 years old?
Longer sentences, vocabulary grows, grammatical errors
What are errors of growth?
Child applies a grammatical error (often a morpheme) where it does not apply: runned instead of ran
When is language mastered?
By age 5
What does the nativist (biological theory) state? Who is behind it?
- Noam Chomsky
- Advocates for the existence of some innate capacity for language
What does Noam Chomsky call the innate capacity for language?
Language acquisition device (LAD), a theoretical pathway in the brain that allows infants to process and absorb language rules
How did Noam Chomsky form his theory?
He studied transformational grammar (I took the MCAT vs the MCAT was taken by me), realized that children learn to make these transformations effortlessly, so there must be something innate
Nativists believe in a critical period for language acquisition. When does that occur?
Between two years and puberty
What is a sensitive period? When is the sensitive period for language development?
- Time when environmental input has maximal effect on the development of an ability
- Before the onset of puberty
What does the learning (behaviorist) theory state? Who is behind it?
- B. F. Skinner
- Language acquisition by operant conditioning, by reinforcement
What does the social interactionist theory state?
Language acquisition is driven by the child’s desire to communicate and behave in a social manner, such as interacting with caregivers and other children
What is the Whorfian / Linguistic Relativity hypothesis? Who proposed it?
- Benjamin Whorf
- Our perception of reality is determined by the content of language; language affects the way we think rather than the other way around/
What are the two areas of the brain that are responsible for speech production and language comprehension? Where are they located generally?
- Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area
- Located in the dominant hemisphere, usually the left
Where is Broca’s area located specifically? What does it control?
- Inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe
- Controls the motor function of speech via connections with the motor cortex
Where is Wernicke’s area located specifically? What does it control?
- Superior temporal gyrus of the temporal lobe
- Responsible for language comprehension
How are Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area connected? What does it allow?
The arcuate fasciculus, a bundle of axons that allows appropriate association between language comprehension and speech production
Define aphasia.
Deficit of language production or comprehension
If a patient’s speech comprehension is intact, but they have a reduced/absent ability to produce spoken language, which area of the brain is damaged? What is this known as? What symptoms does the patient exhibit?
- Broca’s area
- Broca’s (expressive) aphasia
- Patients are frustrated; sensation of having every word on the tip of their tongue
If a patient’s motor production and fluency of speech is retained but comprehension of speech is lost, which area of the brain is damaged? What is this known as? What symptoms does the patient exhibit?
- Wernicke’s area
- Wernicke’s (receptive) aphasia
- Patients speak nonsensical sounds and inappropriate word combinations; believe that they are speaking perfectly well; frustrated
If a patient is unable to repeat something that has been said, but speech production and comprehension are intact, which area of the brain is damaged? What is this known as?
- Arcuate fasciculus
- Conduction aphasia
- Connection between Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area has been lost
- Very rare form of aphasia
