EXAM 1

Question 1

What is the Mind-Body problem?

Answer 1

do mental and physical states connect? are the separate? Is one a sub-class of the other?

Question 2

What is the cognitive research behind the Mind-Body problem?

Answer 2

It can help show interactions and associations between neuroscience and behavior

Question 3

What is behaviorism?

Answer 3

study of observable behavior and makingpredictions about behavior can be taught and learned using conditioning

Question 4

How do cognitive approaches to understanding the mind differ from behaviorism?

Answer 4

Behaviorists study observable behavior through manipulation of experiments, and believe that there is nothing meaningful about cognition and introspection. Other cognitive approaches take mental state into account and aim to understand the mental processes behind behavior.

Question 5

What is the massive modularity hypothesis?

Answer 5

The mind is modular through and through because they are necessary for the evolution of complex biological systems or are evolutionarily adaptive

Question 6

How is massive modularity different from Fodor’s view on modularity?

Answer 6

Massive modularity argues that all mental processes are modular in some way, whereas Fodor argues that modules are the intermediate step in processing

Question 7

What is the difference between interactionist and epiphenomenal dualism?

Answer 7

Interactionist: Physical and mental affect eachother (works both ways)
Epiphenomenal: Physical affects the mental

Question 8

What is reductionism?

Answer 8

Reducing mental prossesses to most basic physical properties (water = H2O)

Question 9

What kind of research would be considered reductionist?

Answer 9

Modularity and double dissociation, informational encapsulation, Most of cognitive psych is reductionist in that it tries to explain behavior through mental processes ( Behaviorism: stimulus - response cycle)

Question 10

what is a perceptron?

Answer 10

A perceptron is a machine that performs linear classification.

Question 11

How can perceptrons be used to model computational systems?

Answer 11

They can be used as building blocks for single and multilayer models. Symbols are not needed for computation in contrast to turing machines

Question 12

What is a module?

Answer 12

Modules are types of cognitive processing tools. Modules are domain specific, informationally encapsulated, automaticity, functionally dissociable (one function does not depend on another), fast.

Question 13

What are two key features of a module?

Answer 13

functional dissociability, domain specificity, automaticity, and locality

Question 14

Why are the features of a module important?

Answer 14

Domain specificity is important because it makes modules neural localizable, so we can identify what parts of the brain are performing which functions. Informationally encapsulated is important because it states that beliefs and desires will not impact what is actually happening and how you interpret what’s happening.

Question 15

Can a neural network function as a module? Why or why not?

Answer 15

if we are looking at the connectionist model as a whole: no
BUT if we look at the internal neural networks making one up: yes because largely because they are domain specific in functionality (e.g., the visual system vs the auditory system)

Question 16

What does the success of being able to draw a reverse inference based on brain imaging suggest about modularity?

Answer 16

Success of reverse inference may suggest greater modularity in the brain because of domain specificity. Modularity within that region or pathway. Supports domain specificity and the localizability of massive modularity.

Question 17

What does the failure of being able to draw a reverse inference based on brain imaging suggest about modularity?

Answer 17

While failure of reverse inference doesn’t necessarily disprove modularity for that region, it doesn’t suggest that that region is modular. Need to perform double dissociation.