Cognitive Psychology Semester 1 Flashcards
Are brain areas specialised for particular functions?
LOW-level processes have SOME degree of FUNCTIONAL SPECIALISATION.
What is an example of functional specialisation?
The primary visual cortex
How does the brain work for complex processes?
Coordination and integration of different areas across the brain.
What does cognitive neuroscience mean?
Focuses on the influence of brain structures on mental processes and shows the areas of the brain responsible for different cognitive processes
What studies are usually used with neuropsychology?
Case studies
What is the definition of cognitive neuropsychology?
Study of brain-damaged patients to understand cognition
What are three assumption of neurospychology?
- Modularity
- Dissociation
- Double Dissociation
What is an assumption of cognitive neuroscience?
Functional specialisation
What is Modularity?
Assumes the mind is constructed by different modules (each being a cognitive process e.g. language module). And processes can be separated out.
What is a module and why is it different to functional specialisation?
A module is a theoretical system that is a cognitive process whereas functional specialization is a specific area of the brain controlling a function.
What is dissociation in terms of neuropsychology?
If part of a brain gets damaged and then you lose a particular function, as it can be assumed that that part of the brain is responsible for that function.
What is double dissociation?
Two related mental processes are shown to function independently of each other using two case studies.
What is a famous case study of double dissociation?
HM (Scolville & Milner, 1957)
- Had epilepsy
- Surgical removal of hippocampus
- After surgery, STM is good
- Can’t transfer information to LTM
&
KF (Shallice & Warrington, 1970)
- In a motorcycle accident
- Damaged his Parietal Lobe
- Had poor STM after damage
- STM tested by memorising numbers
- Average ppl remember 5-7, KF only remember 2
- Could still make LTM
Name 2 positive evaluation points for cognitive neuropsychology
- Enables identification of brain regions required for cognitive tasks.
- Double dissociation is good evidence of processing modules
Name 2 negative evaluation points for cognitive neuropsychology
- Difficult to compare case studies given the nature of damage being individualized
- Not clear that patient had intact functioning before injury other than patient not reporting difficulties prior
What two parts is computational cognitive science broken down into?
-Computational modelling
-Artificial intelligence
What is Computational Modelling?
Constructs models that helps us understand human cognition.
- modelling underline processes
What is artificial intelligence?
Designed to produce outcomes that resemble human behaviour
- internal processes may not resemble those in human cognition.
What is the connectionist network?
The idea that the brain is a big network that is made up of neurons and units that are all connected to each other.
What does it mean by activation state?
How ‘busy’ your network is.
- How quickly the neurons are firing.
What is the weighting of connections?
How big are the connections between two places in the brain depending on the amount of activity.
What are the learning rules?
Adding and linking new pieces of information together.
Name three positive evaluation points for computational modeling
- Theoretical assumptions are explicit and go into detail.
- Some models can demonstrate learning effects, reflecting human learning behaviour
- If we can recreate processes, we can damage it to understand how damage may impact human processing.
Name two negative evaluation points for computational modeling
- These models can be mathematically and computationally complex.
- The computational models don’t recognize motivational, emotional, and social factors.