L1: Introduction / L2: Methods of Cognitive Neuroscience

Question 1

What is cognition?

Answer 1

Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experiences and the senses.

Question 2

What is phrenology?

Answer 2

Phrenology is the study of the physical shape of the human head, it is based on the belief that variations in the skulls surface can reveal specific intellectual and personality traits (today it is understood to lack validity).

Question 3

What is aggregate-field theory?

Answer 3

Aggregate-field theory postulates that all individual mental functions are performed by the brain as a whole, not by discrete parts.

Question 4

What did Marie-Jean Pierre do to try and prove/disprove the localisationist’s view?

Answer 4

He legions certain parts of pigeons brains and found no evidence for specific behavioural deficits and therefore argued against localised function.

Question 5

What did Marie-Jean Pierre believe?

Answer 5

He believed cognition was the result of the interaction of brains, not specific areas.

Question 6

What did John Hughlings believe (localised or aggregate-field)?

Answer 6

The localisationist’s view.

Question 7

1What did John Hughlings observations of epileptic patients give rise too?

Answer 7

The Topographic Organisation of Muscle Representation in the Cortex.

Question 8

What were Broca and Wernicke able to associate?

Answer 8

They were able to associate specific language production and comprehension deficits with specific brain legions (localisationist’s view).

Question 9

Who divided the brain into 52 distinct areas?

Answer 9

Braodman

Question 10

How many areas did Broadman divided the brain into?

Answer 10

52 distinct regions.

Question 11

Which theory did Broadman’s work support? Localisationist’s view or Aggragate-Field Theory?

Answer 11

Localisation’s perspective as it suggested each area serves a different purpose.

Question 12

Golgi and Cajal argued that…

Answer 12

… the nervous system is made up of discrete individual cells, a.k.a, neurons.

Question 13

Who developed The Neuronal Doctrine?

Answer 13

Golgi and Cajal.

Question 14

What were Thorndike and Waston instramental in developing?

Answer 14

The foundations of behaviourism.

Question 15

Thorndike and Watsom (behavourists) argued that ___ and ___ are the main determinants of all behaviour.

Answer 15

learning, conditioning

Question 16

What aspects of learning did Miller and Chomsky realise could not be explained by conditioning?

Answer 16

Language.

Question 17

What is a mental represenation?

Answer 17

A mental represenation is a hypothetical entity that is presumed to stand for a perception, thought, memory, or the like during cognitive operations.

Question 18

What task is used to study mental representations and mental operations?

Answer 18

Posner’s letter matching task.

Question 19

What is the terms used when time measures are used (reactions times) to infer the workings of the brain?

Answer 19

Chronometry.

Question 20

What does the Posner’s Letter Matching Task involve?

Answer 20

Mulitple different conditions. e.g., vowels and consonants. Participants asked to press same or different response. Understanding reactions times vary for different conditions (Chronometry).

Question 21

Posner (Letter Matching Task) argued that the different latencies reflect…

Answer 21

… the degree of processing required to do the task.

Question 22

Can we usefully subdivide mental operations?

Answer 22

Yes, by using memory comparison tasks.

Question 23

Describe the memory comparison task.

Answer 23

The subject is shown a set of one, two or four letters and is asked to memorise them, after a delay, a single probe letter appears, and the subject indicates whether that latter was a memory of the memory set

Question 24

What are the hypothesised stages of the memory comparison task?

Answer 24

Encode (fixed time), compare, decide, and repond (fixed time).

Question 25

What does the fact that the reaction time increases with set size indercate? (Memory comparison task)

Answer 25

It indercates that the target letter must be compared with the memory set sequentually (one at a time) rather than in parallel (simultaneously).

Question 26

When the target letter is or is not apart of the orginal set, the reaction times are the…

(Memory comparison task)

Answer 26

… same.

Question 27

When the target letter is or is not apart of the orginal set, the reaction times are the same. This is suprising because?

(Memory comparion task)

Answer 27

when the latter is not present in the memory set it should require more comparisons.

Question 28

When the target letter is or is not apart of the orginal set, the reaction times are the same. This is surpising because when the letter is not present in the memory set, it should require more comparisons. What does the fact that the reaction times are the same suggest?

Answer 28

It suggests that the whole set is compared irrespective of whether the target letter is present or not.

Question 29

What does cognitive neuroscience attempt to do?

Answer 29

1. Reveal brain areas involved in specific cognitive operations.
2. Reveal neuronal processes.
3. Reveal the interareal communication.
4. Reveal the neural basis of mental representations.
5. Reveal the molecular processes involved.

Question 30

What are different methods used in cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 30

• Electrophysiological
• Electroencephalogram
• Functional neurosurgery
• Functional brain imaging (e.g., PET and fMRI)

Question 31

What is brain lesion analysis?

Answer 31

Brain lesion analysis involves comparing people with brain lesions in the region of interest (ROI) with people who have the ROI intact (i.e., experimental vs, control group).

Question 32

Define Thalmatic reticular nucleus (TRN)

Answer 32

The thalmatic reticular nucleus (TRN) is a thin layer of neurons surrounding the nuclui of the thalamus, which receives inputs fro the cortex and sub-cortical structures and sends projections to the thalamic relay nuclei.

Question 33

Define Superior colliculus

Answer 33

The superior colliculus is a sub-cortical visual structure located in the midbrain. The superior colliculus receives input from the retinal system and is interconnected with the sub-cortical and cortical systems. It plays a key role in visuomotor processes and may be involved in the inhibitory component of reflexive attentional orienting.

Question 34

Define Ventral attention network

Answer 34

The ventral attention network is a proposed attention control network, involving ventral frontal cortex and the temporo-partietal junction of the right hemisphere, that mediates reeflexive attention on the basis of stimulus novelty and salience.

Question 35

Define Visual search

Answer 35

Visual search is the visual task of finding a specific stimulus in a display or scene with multiple stimuli.