Cognitive Psych 3 Flashcards
What are executive functions?
The functions that coordinate all of the other modules in our brain, for example when we do complicated tasks that require several functions that need coordinating
Why are executive functions considered ‘meta-cognitive’?
they aren’t specific to one domain, like language, memory or motor
Explain the anatomy of the pre-frontal cortex
- Dorsolateral: towards the top
- Ventrolateral: towards the bottom side
What are the three surfaces of the PFC and what are they responsible for?
- Lateral, medial and orbital
- Lateral is responsible for ‘cold’ control processes e.g. cognitive tasks
- Medial and orbital are responsible for ‘hot’ control processes e.g. social/ emotional regulation of behaviour
What are the five general situations that Norman and Shallice (1986) claimed involved executive functions?
- planning or decision making
- error correction
- situations deemed dangerous of technically difficult
- where responses are not well learned
- resisting temptation/ overcoming a strong habit
What is the main assumption of Petrides’ non-unitary Theory of Working Memory?
- Assumes that there is a division of the PFC into at least two separate processes: maintenance (retention) and manipulation (updating)
According to Petrides’ Theory of Working Memory, where does manipulation take place and where does maintenance take place?
- Manipulation and monitoring: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- maintaining and retaining information: ventrolateral prefrontal cortex
- These are both FRONTAL
According to Petrides’ Theory of Working Memory, where is the storage side of information
- NOT FRONTAL : posterior cortex
What is evidence that supports Petrides’ Theory of Working Memory?
Owen (1996) found that in PET scans the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was active during short term maintenance of spatial information, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was active during updating of new locations
In terms of functional specialisation, what did Frith (2000) claim that the LEFT DLPFC is responsible for?
- sculpting a response, active in free will e.g. choosing which finger to put up
In terms of functional specialisation, what is the RIGHT DLPFC responsible for, and when is activity
- Monitoring and sustaining attention, for both externally presented information (perception tasks) and internally generated information (memory tasks)
- Activity has shown to be greater in conditions of uncertainty e.g. tip of the tongue states
What do unitary accounts of executive functions argue?
they are that there are no executive function, just one underlying function
What was Miller and Cohen (2001)’s evidence for unitary accounts of executive function?
- Single- cell recordings in monkeys showed that any part of their PFC could do any executive function depending on the task and circumstance
What is the multi-demand network? (unitary account)
- the idea that there is a single set of fronto-parietal brain regions called the multi-demand network that is active during all tasks that we consider to involve executive functions
How do Tschentscher, Michel and Duncan (2017) explain that the multi-demand network works?
- The MDN divides complex tasks into a sequence of ‘attentional episodes’, which is where we break down a complex task into smaller, less complex tasks
What is Woolgar (2018) ‘s evidence to support the multi-demand network
- he studied 80 adults with focal adult-onset brain lesions and found that those with lesions within their MD system showed poorer fluid intelligence
How could it be possible that there isn’t objective separate parts of executive function to carry out complex tasks?
- Instead, their may simply be one underlying high level ability in healthy humans to break down a complex task into manageable parts and complete them in the correct order.
What is everyday memory?
Memory phenomena/ memory operations that occur in one’s everyday life
What are autobiographical memories?
memory of events in one’s own life
What are schema?
integrated knowledge of things that allows us to form expectations and draw inferences
What is the difference between schema relevant, schema congruent, schema incongruent and schema irrelevant?
- Schema relevant: relevant info (e.g. things related to a restaurant if we’re in a restaurant) this can be congruent or incongruent
- Schema congruent: schema can provide retrieval cues (like familiar information??)
- Schema incongruent: attracts attention, elaborates
- Schema irrelevant: no good memory
What is remembering and what is rationalisations?
remembering: reproduction/ reconstruction of an event
rationalisations: making information in line with our own cultural expectations
What is childhood amnesia?
an almost complete lack of autobiographical memories in our first 3 years of life
What are the 5 explanations for childhood amnesia?
- Freud: repression of sexual feelings towards parents
- Neurological: hippocampus and frontal lobes are still developing
- Underdeveloped schemas/ semantic memory
- lack of language development
- Lack of self recognition: usually 18 months until they recognise themselves as a unique and identifiable entity
When do we have the best autobiographical memories? (the reminiscence bump)
15-25 years old
What are explanations of the reminiscence bump? (3)
-Neurological view: brain is at its ‘peak’ at that age
-Identity formation view: this age window is the time for having experiences of your own and a time of important life events, so are brains are developing a life narrative
-Cognitive view: Primacy effect (having better memories of first time events, as there is less proactive interference)
What are flashbulb memories?
Highly detailed and vivid memories of surprising events in our lives, such as 9/11
Are flashbulb memories more accurate than normal memories?
no - they have been shown to be EQUALLY as accurate as normal memories
If flashbulb memories aren’t more accurate, why are they often remembered better?
-Because they are often mentioned more in conversations, so are therefore more rehearsed
Is cross racial or inter-racial identification easier?
inter-racial identification is easier; e.g. being attacked by someone of the same race as you is easier to identify
people are also better at remembering people in their age group
At what different stages can factors influence eye-witness memory? (4 stages)
- Perceptual stages (distance, darkness)
- Encoding stage (stress, violence; consider yerks-dodson law)
- Storage stage (time; decay, interference)
- Retrieval stage (questioning)
According to Ebbinghus’ forgetting curve, how much information has remained after 20 mins, 1 hour, 1 day and 6 days?
- 20 mins: 58% left
- 1 hour: 44% left
- 1 day: 33% left
- 6 days: 25% left
What are the three core memory processes?
- encoding/ acquisition: attention used to select what is relevant enough to be transformed into attentional focus
- Storage/maintenance: memory being kept in STM or LTM
- Retrieval/ remembering: bringing back into focus of attention
According to the multi-store memory model, what are some features of the sensory store?
- keeps sensory information in mind so we can attend to it if we want to. Information has not been interpreted yet. Unattended information is quickly lost. capacity is 4-5 items, duration is 250-500ms
According to the multi-store model, what are some features of short-term memory?
- information that has been paid attention to in the sensory store goes to STM. capacity is around 7 items, chunking helps to remember more. Duration is 15-20 seconds if not rehearsed, due to decay
What are some criticisms of STM in the multi-store memory model?
-forgetting isn’t just due to decay (e.g. pro-active (old interferes with new)/ retro-active (new interferes with old) )
- info in STM does not always need to be processed and consciously paid attention to e.g. implicit learning
- simple rehearsal has not always been shown to ensure LTM storage, and vice versa
According to the multistore memory model, what are some features of LTM?
Its function is to organise and store information. There are different systems such as explicit/declarative and implicit/ non-declarative. capacity has been assumed as unlimited and duration is assumed as permanent
According to Bradley and Hitch’s working memory model, what are some features of the central executive?
Attentional system, used to maintain goals and goal related information and use this to direct all other processing. Can switch between strategies and take over jobs if needed. Probably in PFC. Modality free and has no real storage
According to Bradley and Hitch’s working memory model, what are some features of the phonological loop?
responsible for speech based information, and has two primary structures: phonological store (inner ear) and articulatory loop (inner voice). code is speech based and duration (around 2 secs) and capacity are limited
What are the four pieces of evidence for the phonological loop?
- Phonological similarity effect: errors are more likely to be made in similar sounding items
- Word length effect: the memory span for short words is greater than the memory span for long words (this is due to articulation duration, not number of syllables)
- Unattended speech effect: performance can be impaired if there is other verbal information that needs to be ignored e.g. tv on while having a conversation
- Articulatory suppression: memory performance is inhibited when having to perform irrelevant articulations
According to Bradley and Hitch’s working memory model, what are some features of the visuospatial sketchpad?
A system for setting up and manipulating images and spatial movement. Limited capacity. Two components: visual cache (shape and colour, the ‘what) and inner scribe (spatial and movement, the ‘where’). Is modality specific
According to Bradley and Hitch’s working memory model, what are some features of the episodic buffer?
Integrates information into single complex structures/ episodes. Can hold 4 pieces of info. Interacts with both perception and LTM. Assists in binding, which is integrating info about everything
