H3 The electrophysiological brain

Question 1

single-cell recordings

Answer 1

measure the responsiveness of a neuron to a given stimulus (in terms of action potentials/second)

Question 2

EEG

Answer 2

electroencephalography= measurements of electrical signals generated by the brain through electrodes placed on different points on the scalp

Question 3

ERP

Answer 3

event-related potential = average amount of change in voltage at the scalp is linked to the timing of particular cognitive events

Question 4

intracellular recording

Answer 4

single-cell recording where electrode is planted into the neuron

Question 5

extracellular recording

Answer 5

single-cell recording where electrode is placed outside the membrane

Question 6

multi-cell recording

Answer 6

the electrical activity of many individually recorded neurons recorded at one or more electrodes

Question 7

grandmother cell

Answer 7

hypothetical neuron that just responds to one particular stimulus (e.g. the sight of ones grandmother)

Question 8

local representation

Answer 8

type of representation found at neural level → all info about stimulus is carried in 1 of the neurons (grandmother cell)

Question 9

fully distributed representation

Answer 9

all info about stimulus is carried in all neurons of a given population

Question 10

sparse distributed representation

Answer 10

small proportion of neurons carry info about stimulus

Question 11

rate coding

Answer 11

informational content of a neuron may be related to the number of action potentials/sec

Question 12

temporal coding

Answer 12

synchrony of firing may be used by a population of neurons to code = stimulus/event)

Question 13

alpha waves

Answer 13

oscillations of EEG waves in the 7 to 14 Hz range

Question 14

beta waves

Answer 14

oscillations of EEG waves in the 15 to 30 Hz range

Question 15

gamma waves

Answer 15

oscillations of EEG waves in the 30 Hz and above range

Question 16

mental chronometry

Answer 16

the study of the time-course of information processing in the human NS

Question 17

additive factors method

Answer 17

general method for dividing reaction times into different stages

Question 18

ERP components

Answer 18

the different peaks and troughs of the ERP signal

Question 19

N170

Answer 19

an ERP component (negative potential at 170ms) linked to perceiving facial structure

Question 20

inverse problem

Answer 20

difficulty of locating the sources of electrical activity from measurements taken at the scalp in ERP research