Cognitive Neuroscience Flashcards
Cognitive Science
○ Mental representations of perceived info
Overlaps with philosophers- “what is a representation”
Cognition
○ Mental processes that allow organisms to perceive, remember, and generate actions
○ Focuses not on the representations themselves, but what an organism does with those representations to generate actions
What’s going on in the mind
Cognitive Neuroscience
○ Focuses on the brain (input into the brain and actions controlled by the brain)
Brain based account of cognitive processes
Penfield and the Mind Brain Connection:
• Discovered that electrical stimulation to different parts of the brain produces different sensations rather than the sensation that the brain is being stimulated
○ i.e. Stimulating the visual cortex results in seeing things, stimulating olfactory cortex results in smelling things…etc
Dualism
Mind and body are separate substances (Descartes)
• Mind and body interact in the pineal gland, which is in the center of the brain Stimulation of sense organs would cause vibrations in the body/brain that would be picked up by the pineal gland, and would create a non-physical sense of awareness
Dual-aspect Theory
§ Mind and body are 2 levels of explanation of the same things
§ Looks at higher levels of analysis
□ i.e. networks of brain regions rather than individual molecules
Analogous to wave-particle theory (light is both a wave and a particle)
Reductionism
§ Mind is explained solely by physical/biological theory
§ Looks at basic elements (individual cells, synapses, molecules…etc)
Phrenology
○ Form of pseudoscience
○ Suggested that large bumps on the different parts of brain meant you were good at different things (FALSE)
§ i.e. Bump on area important for memory means you have a good memory
Notion that different brain regions are responsible for different things was correct
Broca vs. Wernicke:
• Broca had a patient with a brain lesion could not speak, but otherwise had good cognitive abilities
○ Suggests that there is an area in the brain that specializes in language
• Wenicke had a patient that also had a brain lesion, and had poor speech comprehension, but good production Suggests that language comprehension and production are localized in different parts of the brain
Cognitive Neuropsychology:
• Before neuroimaging techniques were developed, cognition was studied by looking at individuals with brain damage
• Inferences made without necessarily knowing where in the brain they were located
• Focuses on behaviourism
○ How stimuli
affects behaviour
Only looks at the
observable
Information Processing Model:
• Uses computers as a metaphor for cognitive processing
• Info is perceived, processed at various stages, produces outputs
• However, models have constrains
○ i.e. Computers don’t have emotions, but emotional salience of something can affect cognition
§ i.e. Seeing a bear can capture your attention
Metaphors are used because the brain is complex and a model makes it easier to understand, but need to understand that it has constraints
Scientific Approaches to Mind and Brain:
• Aristotle noted that the ratio of brain to body size was greatest in intellectually advanced species like humans
○ Believed that cognition was a product of the heart, rather than the brain
○ Believed that the brain was a coolant system- higher intellect= larger cooling system needed
• Galen observed brain injury in gladiators and noted that nerves project to and from the brain
○ Believed mental experiences resided in the ventricles of the brain
For a long time, ventricles were believed to be responsible for cognition
Interactivity
• Stages in processing may not be strictly separate and later stages can begin before earlier stages are complete
Neural Network/Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)/ Connectionist Approach:
• Composed of nodes
○ Information carrying units
○ Respond to a particular set of inputs (i.e. letters, sounds) to produce an output
Response of a node depends on how strongly it is connected to other nodes in the network, and how active the other nodes are
