Cognitive Neuroscience Final Exam Flashcards
Harper is experiencing odd behavioral issues since a traumatic brain injury. For example, when she goes to pour herself coffee, she cannot seem to stop and the cup overflows. Tests show she has longer than normal reaction times suggesting difficulty initiating behavior. Which area did Harper most likely damage?
supplementary motor area SMA
Dr. Bridge uses tDCS to stimulate part of the cortex. The stimulation impacts participants’ ability to
create attentional sets in a cued-Stroop Task and their ability to sequence on the Tower of London. Which
part of the cortex did Dr. Bridge most likely stimulate?
DLPFC
Noah finds activation of a large network of brain regions, including the anterior cingulate, premotor
cortex, supplementary motor area, and superior parietal sulcus during the time when participants had to shift their attentional set based on changes in feedback. Which task did Noah most likely use in their study?
Wisconsin Card Sorting
Elise finds activation of a large network of brain regions, including the right prefrontal cortex, the pre-
putamen during the time when participants had to inhibit a prepotent
supplementary motor area, and the putamen during the time when participants had to inhibit a prepotent response. Which tasks did Elise most likely use in their study?
Stop signal, Flanker, Go-No Go
“all of the above”
Skylar wants to examine developmental changes in EF. She has participants from 8 to 80 years old
complete a task where they connect a series of dots, alternating between numbers and letters. Which EF is she most likely measuring and which brain area supports it?
Sequencing; DLPFC
If we happened to be recording brain activity while you take this quiz, which ERP component would
we likely see is larger in amplitude for your errors compared to correct responses?
ERN
According to Banich’s EF model, the role of the posterior DLPFC in the Stroop task is…
A. to bias activation of color representations in posterior brain regions.
B. to bias information selection towards the appropriate response.
C. to compare the response to the original goal state.
D. to compare the task relevant and irrelevant information.
A. to bias activation of color representations in posterior brain regions.
According to Banich’s EF model, the role of the anterior dorsal ACC in the Stroop task is…
A. to bias activation of color representations in posterior brain regions.
B. to bias information selection towards the appropriate response.
C. to compare the response to the original goal state.
D. to compare the task relevant and irrelevant information.
ann
C. to compare the response to the original goal state.
Camila tells Jonas he has a heart of gold. Jonas informs her that no one’s heart is made of gold. Jonas took Camila’s words literally, which may mean he has damage to his…
A. Right hemisphere.
B. left hemisphere.
C. thalamus.
D. brain stem.
A. Right hemisphere.
Older adults tend to perseverate on the first rule the learn in the Wisconsin Card Sorting task compared to younger adults. Reduced activation of which brain area is associated with that behavior?
DLPFC
Penelope designs a task where participants press a key when they see a square. On 10% of the trials, a circle appears instead of a square. Penelope is interested in how the brain responds to the rare circles.
Which ERP component will she likely see increase in amplitude for the circles?
P300
Patients with frontal lobe damage show a reduced sympathetic nervous system response, as measured by _______ , to anticipation of negative outcomes.
SCR
You design an ERP study of self-monitoring. Which assessment (task) would you use and why? Which ERP component will you be looking for and which brain region is it thought to originate from?
Could use any task to measure self-monitoring, BUT the stroop task could be used to measure ERN ERP that arises from the ACC brain area.
Several research techniques have been used to determine the brain’s role in EFs, including fMRI, patient populations, and tDCS. Based on the collective findings we’ve discussed, which brain region(s) would you say
is/are most important to EFs? Describe at least one piece of evidence from class that supports your answer.
Most brain areas are intertwined in all EFs, but some big areas are the ACC (involved in error monitoring) and LDPFC (involved in sequencing behaviors)
Denise has filed her own taxes ever since she got her first job at 16. When she completes this year’s forms, the schema that drives her actions will be selected by the
contention scheduler.
Donald has somehow avoided using any form of social media his whole life. He was recently hired by
a marketing firm and must help clients manage their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Donald’s success in
this novel situation will be managed by the
supervisory attentional system. SAS
As adults, Denise and Donald have a large store of schemas to help guide their thoughts and behaviors. The Norman and Shallice model of EFs would refer to this store as a
data base
Mia is homeschooled. Their mother devised a schedule of classes and uses a timer to let Mia know when to swap subjects. The timer goes off and Mia stops working on math and starts reading their social studies book. Which executive function allows them to do that?
Shifting
Mia plays Rocket League online with friends. When mom leaves the room, they think about opening Rocket League instead of doing their school work, but stop themselves from opening the game. Which executive function allows them to do that?
inhibition
Mia is helping mom cook dinner. They’ve memorized the Istat ingredients, but need to keep track of which ones have already been added and which ones still need to be added. Which executive function allows
them to do that?
updating
Tests of Miyake and Friedman’s model frequently fail to find an inhibition-specific latent variable. What interpretation of this finding has become the most accepted?
Inhibition is common to all other EFs
A group of adolescents are asked to complete a Stroop Task and the Marshmallow Test. Which
executive function is the researcher most likely trying to assess?
inhibition
Dr. Campbell would like to study the effects of an all-soup diet on executive function. She decides to measure sequencing ability. Which two tasks should Dr. Campbell use?
Letter-Number and Tower of Hanoi
Which executive function would NOT be assessed by the Stroop task?
A. inhibition
B. sustained attention
C. Error monitoring
D. sequencing
D. Sequencing
Liam wants to get an overall assessment of executive functioning using existing tasks. Liam’s professor explains that this will require having people complete multiple EF tasks. Is Liam’s professor correct
and why?
Yes, because most existing tasks do not capture every known EF.
An operational definition of EFs describes how…
we measure or assess the EFs.
Briefly define executive functions and give an example of how you are using them to
complete this quiz.
EFs: an ability to control one’s thoughts/behaviors regarding attaining of a goal.
- goal is to do well on the quiz so I have been inhibiting distractors in the room to focus.
Dr. Bailey wants to examine the effect of caffeine on EFs in college students. She can only have participants complete two tasks. Pick any TWO of the tasks we discussed in class and briefly describe what
the participant must do in that task AND b) identify one EF that the task measures (e.g., shifting, inhibition, sequencing, goal maintenance, etc.).
1: Tower of Hanoi (participant must move all disks from first peg to the 3rd following rules, like the disk must never be smaller than the one above it– sequencing)
2: Stroop (participant must inhibit reading of the words and say the font colors during the test— inhibition)
Which of the following descriptions best reflects the findings of Furley & Schweizer (2014)?
A. Non-athletes were more accurate at estimating game score based on the athletes’ body language.
B. All participants were reasonably accurate at estimating the game score based on body language.
C. Children were more accurate than adults at estimating the game score based on body language.
D. Experienced athletes were more accurate at estimating the game score based on body language.
B. All participants were reasonably accurate at estimating the game score based on body language.
One difference between a fake and genuine smile is that a fake smile only involves contraction of the….
zygomaticus.
Roxana suffered a stroke in her right hemisphere. She is finding it difficult to perceive and interpret emotion in her daughter’s face. Which area of her right hemisphere was most likely impacted by the stroke?
fusiform face area
After a surgical procedure to severe the corpus callosum, Ari participated in a study with similar patients that found they could more accurately identify the emotion in a face when the face was displayed to
their left visual field. Based on these findings, which hemisphere of Ari’s brain is identifying emotion?
right
Wyatt had a particularly devastating case of meningitis that has drastically altered his behavior. He eats indiscriminately, explores non-edible objects with his mouth, shows abnormal emotional responses, and displays hypersexual behavior. Which area of the brain was most likely damaged by the meningitis?
amygdala
Emery underwent a surgical procedure that severed the connections between their prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain. With which of these tasks are they most likely to struggle?
A.Drinking a cup of coffee.
B. Watching a thunderstorm.
C. Planning a birthday party.
D. Hiking a familiar trail.
The procedure Emery experienced is called a
performed in the US despite little evidence supporting their validity as a treatment.
C. Planning a birthday party.
frontal lobotomy
The _____ influences our autonomic arousal to emotional stimuli, while the ________ helps
us select appropriate behaviors.
amygdala; prefrontal cortex
Thanos severely injures several people to reach his goal of collecting all the Infinity Stones. Thanos’ behavior in this case is an example of ________ aggression
instrumental
If using aggression to achieve goals is a common pattern of behavior for Thanos (i.e., he has psychopathic tendencies), then which brain areas might be dysfunctional (assuming his brain is like a human’s)?
amygdala and vmPFC
Groot has played several hours of violent video games a day for many years. If we were to show Groot violent and nonviolent images while recording his brain activity with ERPs, we may find
if we also asked Groot to determine whether there was an emotional face in a crowd of neutral faces while recording his brain activity with ERPS, we may find that the amplitude of the ERPS would be
a reduced P300 to violent images.
reduced for happy faces