Lecture 5 Flashcards
In Neuro psych what 2 approaches are their to investigate the neural correlation of WM
Sing studies
Group studies
Explain how single case studies investigate the neural correlation of WM
A lot of studies of single cases primarily responsible for function in the brain of a particular area
- Accumulate evidence across single cases and see if you get similar patterns instead of averaging their data
What are the major areas of the brain and what are they “functional” for?
Frontal lobe - personality, emotions, problem solving
Parietal lobe - language, touch, perception
Temporal lobe - hearing and sequencing and understanding
Occipital lobe - vision
Cerebellum - coordinate muscle movements, maintain posture, and balance.
What are the names to indicate top/bottom/back/front in the brain?
Top - dorsal
Bottom - ventral
Front - rostral
Back - Posterior
What are Brodmann’s areas?
regions of the cerebral cortex, in the brain defined by their cytoarchitecture, or histological structure and organization of cells.
Who studied patient KF and what happened to him?
What effect did it have on memory and span
Warrington and Shallice, (1969). Head injury from
motorbike accident. Left parietooccipital fracture.
Long-term memory was normal, short-term recall of verbal sequences very poor. Visual largely unaffected.
Auditory digit span 1.7
Who studied patient PV and what happened to him?
What effect did it have on memory and span
Neuropsychological evidence for what?
Vallar & Baddeley, (1984)
Stroke causing damage to left temporal and parietal cortex. Long-term memory and most everyday function normal, could speak fluently. Short term poor.
Auditory Digit Span = 2.5
Visual Digit Span = 3.6
His verbal short term memory was impaired - couldn’t use the phonological loop
Clear phonological similarity effects when verbally presented sequences, but no effect when visually presented. Cannot use subvocal rehearsal which is a crucial part of the PL, relies on his visual storage.
Who studied patient HM and what happened to him?
What effect did it have on memory and span
Wickelgren, (1968)
Severe epilepsy – controlled by surgery
but with damage to hippocampi.
Severe long-term memory impairment
but intact short-term memory
What did Milner, Corkin; Teuber, 1968 show about HM
jigsaw doing it more quickly even though they aren’t aware of doing it before (short term memory loss)
Intact perception and general intelligence
and intact ‘implict learning’ – e.g. mirror drawing or movements
What were the initials of the patient with a
visual feature binding impairment?
Patient ES
What was the name of the main researcher to study patient ES and when was the research published?
Parra et al. (2009)
Where was the lesion in patient ES and
what caused it?
Diagnosed with a meningioma pressing
against her left temporal lobe. This was surgically removed. E.S. performed well on a large battery of standard neuropsychological test.
What was impaired for patient ES and
what was not impaired?
Shape only pretty similar, colour similar
Shape colour binding dramatic difference
Binding issues?
No problems at all with binding when using the verbal names
- Only issues when it was abstract objects, difficult to name
Who studied Patient Jon
Baddeley, Allen, & Vargha-Khadem (2010)
Where was patient Jon damaged in the brain?
Damage to both hippocampi
What was impaired in patient Jon and
what was not impaired? What does this show?
Episodic LTM damage, little difficulty on stm tests.
Baddeley Allen, & Vargha-Khadem (2010) studied if hippocampi is required for stm binding, Jon had no deficits in colour and shape binding, the hippocampus is not needed for this.
What is Perceptual Neglect?
Failure to report one half of the visual field,
or to be aware of half of the visual field in
the absence of primary visual deficits
What is Representational Neglect?
Failure to report one half of a familiar
scene being recalled from memory
ADD Explain the Bisiach & Luzzatti (1978) experiment and their findings
Asked to imagine the Milan Cathedral Square
- failed to report half of the square when recalling from memory
Can Perceptual neglect occur without Representational neglect and visa versa
Yes
Who Studied Patient NL after the second injury
Beschin, Cocchini, Dela Salla Logie (1997)
What happened to patient NL
Stroke resulting in lesion in the right parietal lobe
Also left-sided hemiparesis
When asked to draw a familiar scene from memory what did patient NL do and why?
What was this evidence for?
Draws details on right but cannot recall details on left
Representational neglect but not perceptual
Not a single unitary system
What combination of impairments was observed in the patient studied by Beschin, Basso, & Della Sala (2000)?
What was he evidence for?
Signor Piazza, a patient with a left parieto-occipital haemorrhage and a right thalamic stroke.
right perceptual neglect and left representational neglect
Signor Piazza’s pattern of performance suggests dissociation between imagery and perception within the neglect syndrome.
Describe what was wrong with Della Sala et al. (2004) patients
Right-sided brain damage and contralateral representational neglect
Describe how Della Sala et al. (2004) patients were tested (2 parts)
Shown a window with 4 fruits, had to recall objects as shown (standard) or from the opposite perspective (reversed)
Also verbally presented material, there is a banana, on the right is an apple and pear, omit the fruit on the left side still with verbal presentation
Why do studies of patients with perceptual neglect and representational neglect cause a problem for the Atkinson and Shiffrin theory of working memory?
If perception is intact, then representation should also be intact. So, representational neglect without perceptual neglect should be impossible.
Sensory - memory
Findings of Della Sala et al (2004)
Patients with representational unilateral neglect were impaired in immediate recall of novel material on the neglected side as presented.
they successfully mentally rotated the images using the information available to them from their impoverished side. Not purely a result of an attentional deficit
Suggested that the disorder arises from damage to temporary storage functions of visuo-spatial working memory.
What do patients with alzheimer’s struggle with?
Experience difficulties when they have to perform two tasks concurrently (e.g. walk and talk, or typing and talking).
What tasks did Logie (2004) get alzheimer’s patients to do for their dual task vs single task design?
tracking and digit span
What did Logie et al (2004) find with regard to dual task capacity of Alzheimer’s patients?
Alzheimers patients really struggle to do 2 things at once comparatively to health adults and elderly adults
No effect of ageing
Why does Logie et al (2004) experiment cause an issue for Cowan’s (2005) model
He would argue general attention impairment is why Alzheimers’ patients do worse
However if this is the case it is a drop with ageing why do older people not show this too
How does the multicomponent model explain the Alzheimers’ results?
Impairment of communication between WM components, not of individual components themselves
What do patients with alzhiemers’ struggle with?
Easily forget the name of people during conversations and what they said
Who and how did Para, Logie, & Della Salla (2010) test whether Alzheimer patients had feature binding issues?
Compared 30 healthy controls, 30 carries of the gene and 22 AD sufferers caused by gene mutation.
Undertook neuropsychological test batteries and visual STM test –> Presented with coloured shapes, then taken away and presented with a colour swap of 2 shapes
What did Para, Logie & Della Salla (2010) find?
AD patients and gene carriers dramatic drop in performance in feature binding tasks compared to healthy controls
However - no difference between gene carriers and healthy control neuropsychological test battery result tests
What else did Para et al (2010) find with regard to predicting Alzhiemers’?
AD and gene carriers have a large deficit in feature binding tasks. This is seen 10 years before diagnosis of AD.
Suggestion here that short term binding impairments can not only diagnose but predict
Binding combines sensitivity and specificity diagnosis and prediction Patients and carriers have visual STM deficits, which can be a preclinical marker of AD.
What is a limitation to Para et al (2010) that short term binding impairments can not only diagnose but predict
The study may be insensitive to effects of normal ageing? (Sample ranged from age 24 - 58)
Whether it will predict disease much later in life in people who don’t have this gene mutation
Have to wait for longitudinal study results to confirm
What are some of caveats about using brain imaging techniques to study human cognition? (4)
- Assumptions regarding link between cognitive function and activation patterns. Conceptual models might work to explain cognition, but not
map directly onto brain areas. Recruitment of additional areas. (Nijboer et al., 2014) - People can do tasks in different ways depending on the nature of their cognitive functions (Logie et al., 2011).
- Physical environment (noise, anxiety, posture) may change cognitive
activity (Hommel et al., 2012) - Imaging might be informed by cognition, but might add little or nothing to what we already know about cognition. (Coltheart, 2013)
What is generally agreed among researchers on
working memory?
(3)
- Supports temporary memory and moment-to-moment monitoring and processing in a wide range of everyday tasks
- Conceptual model of on-line cognition
- Accounts for aspects of:
- temporary memory, memory development, cog ability, memory loss with brain damage, thinking, problem solving
What remain as the main sources of disagreement among working memory
researchers?
(8)
- Representations, Encoding and Retrieval
- Monitoring and control
- A single general system or a collection of specialist
systems - The nature of its limitations
- Role in complex cognition
- Relationship with long-term memory and
prior knowledge - Relationship with attention and consciousness
- Link with brain organisation
Can you think of how the sources of disagreement might be resolved – or is a
resolution not possible?
TIE IT TOGETHER!
Discuss fMRI
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Maps blood flow to areas of the brain, when a task is completed - the region in the brain required for it increases oxygenation.
NEGATIVES:
However, require patients to be restrained and sitting in a tube - will effect hydrostatistics. Biological and physical constraints
Naturalisitic? No
Reflects mass neural activity
White noise - influences cognitive control and results
POSITIVES:
Non-invasive
Widely avaliable
Used to monitor the entire brain network with a particular activity
Can ‘read minds’ better than behavioural tests
