md2 Flashcards
Semantic Externalism
-movement tracing back to 1960-70s
-words get meaning from casual chains connecting us to things in world
-shakespeare, caveman, scientist all mean the same thing when they say “water”
Semantic Internalism
-words get meaning from images/descriptions that speakers associate those words with in their minds
Sematic Externalism and Scepticism; Brain in a Vat (Hilary Putnam)
-Hilary Putnam 1981 argued that “I am now a brain in a vat” cannot be understood by anyone who is actually brain in a vat
-inspired immediate backlash
-someone just placed in a vat could understand this sentence
Matrix Movie
-1999 Science fiction
-Neo’s life is simulation; war against machines have been lost
-Humans now trapped in VR pods
-Red pill (leave matrix) or blue pill (remain in matrix)
David Chalmers BIV
-Brain in vat is better off
-everyday beliefs about surroundings are true; not actually being deceived
-when BIV talks about ‘small book’ actually referring to subroutines in supercomputer; BIV is still right to say they are holding a book
Defense from Skepticism
-avoid skeptics; no point in arguing
-diagnose the appeal of skepticism; good thing (suspending judgement temporarily) taken too far
Reliabilism
-popular view of justification
-a belief is justified if it’s produced by a reliable psychological process (wishful thinking vs. standard perceptual processes, good reasoning, introspection)
Implicit Bias
-automatically activated, unconscious attitude or stereotype
Implicit Association Task (IAT)
-Nosek et al. examined 700,000 subjects on race-evaluation IAT
-over 70% of white participants more easily associated black faces with negative words (e.g., bad, war) and white faces with more positive words (e.g., good, peace)
Colour memory/perception
-Memory of colour effects perception of colour
-bananas appear slightly yellow even if achromatic
Cognitive Penetration of Perceptual Experience (+example)
-Occurs when cognitive states (e.g., belief, desires) influence content of perceptual experience
-e.g., people more likely to misidentify object as gun if primed with face of black man
Moral Judgements
-arbitrary factors can alter how we make judgements without our knowledge
-e.g., how immoral/moral is sex between 1st cousins?
Plato and Theory of Recollection (Anamnesis)
-in Plato’s Meno, Socrates attempts to illustrate that uneducated boy “already knew” how to find diagonal of square by asking a series of question
-Plato’s theory of knowledge: learning is actually recollection
-nativist
Direct Priming Effect
-when required to complete fragments of recently presented words and of new words, subject succeed more often with presented words
-experience of stimulus primes brain so that further experience W stimulus is processed faster
Implicit memory/knowledge (formation and examples)
-performance on task is facilitated in absence of conscious recollection
-non-declarative memories
-form though automatic processes and bypass conscious encoding track
-procedural memory, perceptual representation system (perceptual priming), classical conditioning, nonassociative learning
Explicit memory/knowledge
-revealed when performance on task requires conscious recollection of previous experiences
Species knowledge
-information acquired/contained within entirety of species
-e.g., literature, science
-individual (but not all) portions accessible to individual at any given time
Semantic memory
-“i know that” – knowing about things learned in past
-memory for word knowledge
-timeless; does not rely on ‘mental time travel’
-does not involve conscious recollection
Episodic Memory
-“i remember that” – remembering the past
-memory for episodes distinct in time and space
-associated with ‘mental time travel’
-conscious recollection of personal past experience
-based on 1st person experience
Explicit knowledge and brain
-medial-temporal/frontal lobes
-hippocampus: spatial memory/recognition
-rhinal cortex: object recognition
-mediodorsal nucleus: Korsakoff’s symptoms
-Basal forebrain: alzheimers symptoms
Mhrb
Hippocampus size
-larger in food storing birds than non-food storing birds
-larger in taxi cab drivers; volume increases with more time on job
Basic factors of memory as knowledge
-encoding: building a representation of new knowledge, ‘learning’
-storage: maintenance of that knowledge representation
-retrieval: accessing pre-existing knowledge, ‘remembering’
H.M, 1953
-1953, 27 yr old man H.M. underwent brain surgery to alleviate epilepsy
-had around one generalized convulsion every week and a number of partial convulsions daily
-medications weren’t working
-EEGs suggested convulsions originated from both temporal lobes
-underwent bilateral medial temporal lobectomy
H.M Bilaterial Medial Temporal Lobectomy
-unilateral medical temporal lobectomy had proven to be effective in pts with epileptic focus on 1 medial temporal lobe
-both lobes removed in H.M.
-involved removal of medial portion of both temporal lobes, hippocampus, amygdala, and adjacent cortex (rhinal cortex)
-succesful in terms of epilepsy; generalized convulsions almost completely eliminated, partial seizures greatly reduced
-IQ increased from 104-118
-resulted in severe amnesia
H.M. Post-Surgical Assessment
-normal, bright, good language and social skills
-could discuss childhood, teens
-lost ability to form new memories that he could consciously recall until death at age 82
-favourite uncle died – relived grief each time he heard news
-memory for events contained little after 1953
Tests to assess H.M.’s Amnesia
-mirror drawing test
-pavlovian conditioning
Mirror-Drawing Test
-showed that HM’s anterograde amnesia was not for all types of long-term memories
-performance improved across days despite never remembering having done the task before
Pavlonian Conditioning (HM)
-tone sounded before puff of air administered to one eye; eventually tone elicits eyeblink
-learned the task – response still present 2 yrs later
Implicit Knowledge and Brain
-amygdala: memory for emotional significance of experience
-inferotemporal cortex: role in storing memories of visual/auditory patterns
-cerebellum: stores memories of sensorimotor skills
Aic
Sensory Habituation
-Reduces consistent non-informative sensory experiences
Neurological Memory
-Hebb rule: if axon of presynaptic neuron is active while post-synaptic neuron is firing, synapse will be strengthened (fire together, wire together)
-when cell persistently activates another nearby cell, the connection between the two cells becomes stronger
Brain states
-Network based activation appear correlated to cognitive states; not location dependent
-specific patterns of activation relate to specific perceptual experience and behaviours
-“Brain makes decisions before you even know it”
John Locke’s Tabula Rosa
-minds are ‘blank sheets’ when born
-all ideas acquired through experience
-empiricism
Nativism and Empiricism
theoretical frameworks for the character of the psychological systems that underlie the acquisition of psychological traits