Exam 3 Flashcards
What is cognitive control
Our “executive” control of other brain systems
Outsourcing
PFC
*-short-term/working memory
-goal oriented behavior
*-top-down control (filtering of relevant info)
-task-monitoring/conflict monitoring
PFC & role of working memory in cog. control
Needs to:
- reactivate stored info
- keep info active
LTM in lab setting
- working memory task vs. associative memory task
- > use associative rule to choose reward
1. WM task - dorsolateral PF lesions -> impaired
- > “out of sight, out of mind”
2. Associative memory task (LTM & cue recog.) - PF lesion OK
- Hippocampal lesion -> impaired
- DOUBLE DIS
PFC maintains currently relevant info by interacting with more specialized cortical areas
PFC & role in goal-oriented behavior/task-switching
EXAMPLE- W.R. (lawyer lost ambition when PFC lesion)
Behaviorally stimulus-driven
Card sorting task:
frontal lobe patients:
-perseverate (apply old rule after new rule instantiated)
->trouble task-switching
-difficulty keeping track of previous outcomes
->selection or inhibition based on temporal order
Task-switching study:
switching cost
-slower response associated with trials where goal changes
->PF patients worst when goal needs to be retrieved from LTM & brought into working memory
Temporal structure of memory
-inability to keep track of the order in which things happened or should happen
Source memory
-where a specific fact was learned
Recency
-temp. lobe have deficit
Top-down control by PFC of brain regions involved in face/scene processing
Double dis
FFA
-fusiform face area, shows activation during fMRI for faces in humans
PPA
-parahippocampal place area, shows activation during fMRI for scenes in humans
Results:
- actively inhibit task irrelevant
- lateral PFC
Medial frontal cortex & error detection and task monitoring
Deviation between goal and current status
MFC (ACC) often active during conflict
Results:
comp-incomp. -> slower RT because increased conflict
increase was present regardless of whether correct or not
Suggests ACC related to monitoring conflict
Anatomy of frontal brain areas
Frontal pole
Lateral prefrontal cortex
Patient MR and Phineas Gage: what they say about brain and social behavior
Gage
-OFC damage: unable to eval. and control own social behaviors
MR
-OFC damage: deficits in interpreting the meaning of social cues
Both
- suggest a specific neural network devoted to social cognition (a “social brain”)
- > utilization of behavior: cannot regulate social appropriateness
Social knowledge and orbital frontal damage
Personal question study:
- disclosed personal info
- when watching info of this, reported change in emotion
Results:
- overest. appropriateness of own answers
- increased embarrassment after watching
- lack immediate insight into behavior but can observe it as if they are another person
OFC & social norms
- failed to take context into social reasoning
- may be necessary for learning and using new social knowledge
- NOT NEC. for representing knowledge of social rules, after they have been acquired
Self-referential processing
Self-referent effect: we are more likely to remember the adjective “happy” if we judge how well it describes ourselves vs. how well it describes the president
Results: better memory for words seen in the context of self
- memory of info depends on depth of processing involved during encoding
- info of self is encoded in separate system of by diff. process than other info that leaves stronger memory traces
- “self” may be special structure with its own org. elements
Increased activity for self relevant info in MPFC and Posterior Cingulate
Self-descriptions do not prime episodic memories that involve trait
Self & VMPFC
VMPFC is more active for self-referential judgements
Understanding others (theory of mind) & DMPFC
ToM
- requires ability to infer something about the person’s internal state
- MPFC not activated by impression formation of inanimate things
Consciousness in PVS patients with fMRI
Able to understand spoken commands and respond to them w/o speech or movement
PVS patients able to adopt arbitrary yes/no codes to communicate
What is consciousness and why is it a hard problem?
Two extremes
- Metaphysics: cosmic consciousness
- Determinism: consciousness arises from chemical and electrical activity within the brain
Many unanswered questions remain
Dual aspect theory (e.g., access versus phenomenal conscious)
Mental events and the awareness of these events
Physical states can cause mental states (drugs)
Mental states can cause physical states (placebo & expectation effect)
- access conscious: reportable info in rather SPARSE
- phen. conscious: a continuous stream of rich and detailed sights?
- > cannot be accessed or repotted
Rensink (2004) study
Main findings
-sensing can occur before seeing
Potential alternative interpretations
- > response bias
- > familiarity vs. recollection
