Lecture 16, 17, & 18 - Language, Cognitive Control, Decisions Flashcards
How might have language begun?
Gestures
How are mirror neurons in the region that control hands and mouth movements relate to language?
These areas are analogous to Broca’s area in humans
Language is ____ lateralized
Left
Talk about vervet communication
They dont call when they’re alone, and theyre more likely to call something out when theyre with kin
What are the structures of human language? (Not in the brain)
- phoneme: smallest unit of sound that makes a difference to meaning
- morpheme: smallest meaningful linguistic unit (words)
- semantics: meaning of words
- syntax: grammar
What is the mental lexicon?
The storehouse of a persons vocab and knowledge of words
Includes:
- semantics
- syntax
- visual
- sound
- context
Are language areas the same for people around the world?
No theyre semi different
What brain regions are involved in language?
- superior temporal gyrus
- wernicke’s area
- supramarginal gyrus
- Broca’s area
What is the superior temporal gyrus involved in?
Sound & phonetics
What is Wernicke’s area involved in?
Sensory integration & comprehension
What is the supramarginal gyrus involved in?
Sensory integration, phonological processing
What is Broca’s area involved in?
Language production
Where is the superior temporal gyrus?
As described lol, right below the Sylvian fissure
Where is Broca’s area?
Right above and anterior to the superior temporal gyrus
Where is Wernicke’s area?
Posterior to the superior temporal gyrus
Where is the supramarginal gyrus?
Above Wernicke’s area
Is language variable across people?
Yes
Does language lateralization emerge early on or later in development?
Early on
Are there critical periods for second language learning? If so how does it manifest
Yes, it manifests in the languages overlapping in the brain if you learned a second language early in life and it doesnt overlap if you learned it in adulthood
Can damage to regions beside Wernicke’s lead to impaired comprehension?
Yes
What leads to conduction aphasia (ability to repeat simple phrases while still having comprehension and expression in tact)?
Damage to the left arcuate fasciculus (connection between wernicke’s and brocas)
How fast does the prefrontal cortex develop?
Slowly
The control network evolved and develops ____
Slowly
What are the hubs of the control network?
MFG - middle frontal gyrus
IFG - inferior frontal gyrus
IPS - intraparietal sulcus
DACC - dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
What are the two parts of the MFG?
DLPFC
VLPFC
What is the DLPFC in charge of?
Maintenance
What is the VLPFC in charge of?
Manipulation
What is the IFG in charge of?
Response inhibition
What is the dACC in charge of?
Conflict processing, monitoring, decision making
What is the IPS in charge of?
Space, number
As you go more medial in the brain, processes become more ___
Internal
As you go more external in the brain, processes become more ___
External
As you go more posterior in the brain, processes become more ____
Concrete
As you go more anterior in the brain, processes become more ___
Abstract
What is working memory?
Mental workspace, interface of current info and stored knowledge
How does working memory relate to maintenance?
Holding goal-relevant information in mind
how does working memory relate to manipulation?
Working with goal relevant information
Is working memory involved in tasks?
Yes, allows you to remember sequences of objects positions, digits, faces, scenes, flavors, and repeat sequences in forward or reverse order, and determine whether an item was in the sequence or whether an item was presented “n” trails ago
Prefrontal neurons are ___ selective
Task
When are prefrontal neurons active?
During delays
What does the “what” cell do?
Activates once stimulus leaves and holds what the object was
What does the “where” cell do?
Fires more during the second stimulus and after the second delay, remembers where an object was
What does the PFC interact with to support WM?
Perceptual areas
What peaks first when seeing faces?
FFA
What peaks second after seeing faces?
PFC
What is believed to cause the delay between PFC and FFA?
FFA communicates to PFC to activate working memory which is why PFC peaks higher than FFA during delay
How does the PFC influence visual areas in working memory tasks? (In this case told to remember scenes or remember faces or just passively view)
When told to remember faces, the right PPA is inhibited, when told to remember places the right FFA is inhibited
How does inhibition line up with cognitive control?
The ability to stop yourself form doing something not aligned with your goals
What is the stop signal task?
You are cued to do something but you have to react to stop yourself if the stop signal is activated before you do the thing
Describe the Go No Go task?
Press button when you see a dog
Do not press the button when you see a cat
Describe the stroop task
It’ll tell you to say the color but it’ll be words with mismatched colored (ex. The word will say red and it’ll be the color blue)
Which area of the cortex is involved in inhibition?
Right inferior frontal
What is flexibility in cognitive control?
The ability to switch between goals
Describe A not B error
Showing a baby initially that something is underneath something, let the baby find it, then switch the hole, the baby will usually look at the first hole
How do rhesus monkeys react to A not B experiment with a DLPFC lesion?
They do the same thing as babies and fuck up the second time
How do rhesus monkeys react to A not B experiment with a parietal lesion?
They perform normal
What does A not B error reflect?
Issues task switching
What are some symptoms of lateral frontal damage?
- perseveration
- problems with goal directed behaviors
- utilization behavior
What’s a positive thing lateral pre frontal damage associated with?
Better insight
What are some factors that go into decisions?
Cost, ambiguity, risk, delay, quantity, commodity
What is temporal discounting
Getting more money in time than you would right now
What parts of the brain are correlated with subjective value?
ACC - anterior cingulate cortex
OFC - orbitofrontal cortex
VTA/SN
NAcc - nucleus accumbens
What area of the brain had a large increase in activity when shown snacks that the participant really enjoyed?
VMPFC
What area of the prefrontal cortex are involved in probability payoff and cost?
ACC
What are the parts of the limbic system involved in decision making?
Orbitofrontal cortex or vmPFC
What are the parts of the control network that are involved in decision making?
DLPFC & ACC
What does the limbic network do for the decision making process?
Codes subjective value (what do i want)
What does the control network do in terms of decision making?
DLPFC - exerts control over actions
ACC - integrates decision variables
What happens to the amount of APs in the DA neurons in the VTA when given an award?
Increase in APs
What happens to the DA neurons in the VTA when a reward is predicted?
Increase in APs
What happens to the APs of DA neurons in the VTA when a reward is predicted but a reward doesnt come?
The APs go up during the prediction then are suppressed when its recognized a prediction error occurred
When does risk taking peak in the world?
In adolescence
Do reward regions develop faster or slower than the prefrontal cortex?
Faster
What area of the brain is ESPECIALLY sensitive to reward in adolescents?
Nucleus accumbens
What area in the brain is highly sensitive to negative emotions?
Amygdala
What are the steps of using the mental lexicon?
- Accessing words from mental lexicon, match the input to stored representation in the mental lexicon
- Selecting most appropriate words from lexicon to convey meaning in context, involves factors such as word frequency, semantic, relatedness, and syntactic constraints
- Integrating selected words into a larger semantic and syntactic structure to build meaning, involves creating mental representations of the relationships between words and combining them into larger phrases and sentences
