L10 (week 11): How do we decide what to do?

Question 1

Given that the Cerebral cortex accounts for all sensory, motor and association areas, what does the Association cortex account for?

AKA non-sensory cortex (all other that aren’t responsible for deciphering…)

Answer 1

All other regions across the cortex that are not responsible for deciphering sensory input or executing movement.

Question 2

What do executive functions allow for?

think above the basics of movement or autonomic functions, think GD behaviour, P, MF, Self-M.

Answer 2

Goal directed behaviour, planning, mental flexibility and self monitoring.

Question 3

Name 5 key forms of executive function

I (stopping yourself), WM (keeping track of what youve packed already), P/DM (what order do i do things in, whats the closest petrol station), M/U (keeping track in general), S (shifting attention between tasks).

Answer 3

Inhibition, Working memory, planning/decision making, monitoring/updating AND Switching.

Question 4

What is a lobotomy?

seperation of BLANK from rest of the brain.

Answer 4

‘Surgical’ Seperation of a portion of the frontal lobes from the rest of the brain.

Question 5

Name 3 side effects after a lobotomy

Relationship with society, cognition, reduction in BLANK AND BLANK (taking the …. and the thing that stops you doing things)

Answer 5

Detached from society, decreased cognition, reduction in initiative and inhibition.

Question 6

Lateral pre-frontal cortex

Question 7

Orbitofrontal cortex

Question 8

What does ‘inhibition’ refer to?

tuning out stuff in order to focus, conscious or subconscious function?

Answer 8

The ability to tune out irrelevent or distracting noise to focus on a specific stimuli or goal. E.g avoiding eating the cake as you are on a diet. Can be conscious or subconscious.

Question 9

What does cognitive flexibility refer to?

another phrase for ‘shifting’

Answer 9

An executive function that allows us to switch between tasks/behaviours.

Question 10

What is top-down control?

from our pre-existing knowledge

Answer 10

When our intentions/goals influence our actions

Question 11

Answer the following questions on the ‘Tower of London’ task:
1) Who coined this task and when?
2) what did the task involve?
3) How did patients with lateral PFC damage perform?

1) S…. 198…
2) pegs and balls task
3) speed/amount of moves?

Answer 11

1) Shallice, 1982
2) re-arranging the coloured balls onto the different pegs in X amount of moves to match an order given.
3) Slower and took more moves to solve

Question 12

Answer the following questions on the ‘stroop’ task:
1) Who coined this task and when?
2) what did the task involve?
3) What was the test designed to measure?
4) What are the words used to describe the matching pairs (correct colour of written word) and the opposing pairs (incorrect colour of written word)?

1) this is pretty obvious come on…. 193…
2) colour word task
3) the ability to do what to a response?
4) C and I-C

Answer 12

1) Stroop, 1935
2) words for colours e.g red, blue being shown in a different colour to the word that is written, the participant is asked to state the colour that is written not the print colour.
3) the ability to inhibit a prepotent response
4) congruent and incongruent

Question 13

Answer the following questions on the ‘Wisconsin card sorting’ task:
1) Who coined this task and when?
2) what did the task involve?
3) What was the test designed to measure?
4) How did pateints with frontal lobe damage perform in the task?

1) G&B, 194…
2) classifying cards
3) adapting to….
4) had longer…

Answer 13

1) Grant & Berg, 1948
2) participants were given cards with differing amounts of shapes in different colours. They could categorise them by colour, by shape or by number of shapes on the card. The given category would change every 10 cards and the participants would have to realise this and change the cards they would select.
3) How well people adapt to changing rules.
4) They made more errors and had longer reaction times and couldn’t keep track of the rule changes.

Question 14

Answer the following questions on the ‘Iowa gambling’ task:
1) Who coined this task and when?
2) what did the task involve?
3) What was the test designed to measure?
4) How did pateints with OFC dysfunction perform in the task?

1) B et al, 199…
2) betting
3) decision
4) perservered

Answer 14

1) Bechara et al., 1994
2) A pretend system where a participant is alocated money and they ‘bet’ this money by selecting cards from different decks, some decks had a better outcome than others.
3) To test someones decision making ability to see if it is impaired.
4) They continued to perservere with the bad decks even though they were losing money.

Question 15

Answer the following questions on the ‘delay discounting’
1) which study focused on this in regards to patients with OFC lesions?
2) what does delay discounting refer to?
3) How did pateints with OFC/VM lesions choose?

1) B et al, 199…
2) preference for…
3) impulse

Answer 15

1) Bechara et al.,1998
2) The preference that people have for a smaller immediate reward over a larger delayed reward.
3) They exhibit impulsive behaviour and opted for the immediate reward.

Question 16

Answer the following questions on the ‘multiple errands’ task:
1) Who coined this task and when?
2) what did the task involve?
3) Why was this task invented?
4) What were the main impairments shown up by the task?

1) S&B, 199…
2) basic tasks in damaged participants
3) ecological
4) failure in P & O

Answer 16

1) Shallice & Burgess, 1991
2) Having participants with damage to the front cortex perform basic day-to-day tasks that most people would be able to complete such as buying a loaf of brown bread or finding out the price of 1 pound of tomatoes.
3) It was an ecological approach to test what abilities were impaired as some of the other tests would give normal results on certain brain damage patients and the problems could only be seen by using real world examples of tasks.
4) failure in planning and organisation