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Midterm 1 Flashcards

1
Q

What is memory?

A

the retention of information over time - it is imperfect and changeable

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2
Q

What is sensory memory?

A

Sensory memory holds sensory information - 1 to 2 second retention for visual, 2-4 seconds for auditory with a large capacity

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3
Q

What is short term memory?

A

When sensory memory is encoded, it becomes short term memory. Short term memory holds information temporarily for analysis for up to 30 seconds without rehearsal, limited to holding 5-9 items

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4
Q

What is long term memory?

A

Short term memory encodes to become long term memory with relatively permanent storage and capacity. Long term memory retrieves from short term memory

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5
Q
A
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6
Q

Who is Clive Wearing?

A

A well known British composer and musicologist with retrograde & anterior amnesia due to damage to his hippocampus. Memory reset every 7-30 seconds

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7
Q
A
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8
Q

What is meant by Iconic?

A

Visual memory that last’s about 1/2 seconds

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9
Q

What is meant by echoic?

A

Auditory memory that lasts about 2-4 seconds

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10
Q

What is meant by the Conceptual Model?

A

Developed by Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) - it is the three interlocking sensory, short and long term memory systems, however in reality memory is more of a continuum where one system verges into the next

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11
Q

What is one of the best way to get good grades?

A

Attend class and link course material

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12
Q

How does the mind function in every day situations?

A

Perception, attention, learning, memory, language, problem solving and decision making

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13
Q

What did the results of Fowler & Barkers research about highlighting suggest about using highlighting as a study method?

A

Their research found highlighting to be an ineffective study strategy.

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14
Q

What did Rothkopf’s study about re-reading text results show?

A

Re-reading anymore than 2-3 times saw diminishing returns on knowledge retention.

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15
Q

Roediger & Karpicke (2006) researched studying vs testing for knowledge retention. what were the results of their work?

A

Repeated testing has greater results in knowledge retention than studying.

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16
Q

What does the brain regulate in the human body?

A

Sleep & wakefulness cycles, Breathing, Eating & body function, Sensation, Cognition, Movement & Behaviour

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17
Q

How would you describe a neuron, specifically in cognitive psychology?

A

Neurons are specialized nerve cell that acts as the building block of the nervous system, responsible for receiving, processing & transmitting electrical signals throughout the brain, enabling body functions

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18
Q

Describe the at rest state of a neuron.

A

A neuron at rest is polarized, negative pole inside, positive pole outside.

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19
Q

What state are neurons in during an action potential?

A

Depolarized

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20
Q

Briefly describe the two parts of the Synaptic Network

A

1.) A presynaptic neuron which sends charges & 2.) A postsynaptic neuron which receives signals.

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21
Q

Do neurons touch?

A

No, neurons do not touch. They have a small gap in between the pre & post synaptic dendrites, in the synaptic gap vesicles that are full of neurotransmitters in the base of the axon terminal. There is a fusion that releases the neurotransmitters into the synaptic gap and travel across the gap to the receptors in the postsynaptic dendrites

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22
Q

What is meant by spontaneous firing rate?

A

Neurons are firing randomly without stimulation

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23
Q

What are Meissner’s Corpuscles?

A

Sensory receptors in the skin responsible for detecting touch and vibration.

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24
Q

With a large force/large stimulus, what sort of firing rate would you expect?

A

An increased firing rate

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25
What did research by Hubel & Weisel (1964) aim to understand?
Their research studied the development of the visual cortex in kittens by depriving them of vision in one eye during a critical period early in life. The deprivation led to a significant decrease in the number of neurons responding to input from the deprived eye, proving that early visual experience is necessary for proper visual development.
26
Describe where the parietal lobe is in relation to the temporal lobe: is it superior/dorsal, posterior, anterior, or inferior/ventral?
Inferior/ventral
27
What is the occipital lobe primarily responsible for?
Vision
28
What is the parietal lobe primarily responsible for?
Touch, pain, attention, cognitive effort
29
What is the temporal lobe primarily responsible for?
Sound, emotion, memory
30
What is the frontal lobe primarily responsible for?
executive & cognitive control, judgement & decision making, creativity
31
What is the fusiform face area (FFA)?
The FFA is a part of the brain that specializes in recognizing faces, in the inferior temporal lobe of the brain, in the fusiform gyrus
32
What is anterior/posterior?
Front to back
33
What is superior dorsal/inferior ventral?
Top to bottom
34
What is lateral/medial?
Outside to inside
35
Brain functions are not distributed AND localized? T or F
False
36
What is the enteric nervous system?
Neurons wrapped around the gastrointestinal system and the brain - the flora of gut can communicate with the brain
37
What are sulci and gyri in the brain?
Sulci are grooves on the surface, gyri are raised ridges between sulci
38
What area of the brain do left and right hemispheres communicate through?
The corpus callosum
39
What is the hypothalamus primarily responsible for?
Manages stress, fear, sleep and food processing
40
What area of the brain is primarily responsible for memory?
The hippocampus
41
Is fMRI better for spatial or temporal measurements?
Spatial
42
Are EEG's better for spatial or temporal measurements?
Temporal
43
Is vision only in the occipital lobe?
No, vision happens across the brain with a lot in the occipital lobe - the professor would call this bias of function, not localization of function
44
What is localization of function?
Specific areas of the brain perform specific cognitive functions, it's the concept that brain functions are not uniformly distributed but localized in distinct regions.
45
Where is the fusiform face area located in the brain?
In the ventral portion of the anterior lobe
46
What is meant by distributed processing of interpreting faces in the brain?
Evaluation of Attractiveness is in the frontal lobe, Emotional reactions underneath and initial visual processing happens in the anterior lobe, awareness of gaze of direction is in the medial area
47
What is prosopagnosia?
Inability to recognize faces, including ones own, in 2.5% of people, reliant on hair colour, clothes and other aspects to recognize people - caused by damage to fusiform gyrus and congenital abnormalities
48
What does BOLD stand for?
Blood Oxygen Level dependent (oxygen fuels action potentials that we see in fMRI's)
49
What is an EEG?
Electroencepholography is the fluctuations of voltages measured from sensors measured on scalp - measuring electrical field generated by action potentials
50
What is an event related potential?
An ERP is a measurable brain response, recorded by EEG, that measures the timing and localization of brain activity related to a particular mental process by analyzing the voltage fluctuations on the scalp following the presentation of a stimulus
51
What is the oddball paradigm?
The oddball paradigm studies automatic novelty processing. A sequence of standard stimuli and other stimulus is randomly interspersed.
52
What is neuromarketing?
Marketing using neuroscience to sell product, but it is unethical because it has bias - eg: selling yoghurt for brain and gut health
53
What are neuroethics?
An interdisciplinary field focusing on ethical issues raised by increased understanding of the brain and our ability to monitor and influence it
54
What is sensation?
Nervous system encoding and/or detecting information from the environment
55
What is perception?
How we interpret nerve sensations or give meaning to them
56
What is predictive coding theory?
The brain predicts upcoming sensory input rather than passively registering it. Things we expect are not deeply processed, perception is heightened for unexpected events
57
What is the McGurk effect?
Perception is multi-modal - we watched the video of the man saying "baabaabaa" and watched it with his mouth appearing to say "faafaafaa" so that's what we heard, but it was actually baabaabaa - we need visual and sound cues to understand
58
What is the heirarchy within predictive coding theory?
The cortex constantly generates predictions of incoming stimuli at multiple levels of processing. Responses to auditory mismatches & omissions are interpreted as reflecting the prediction error when these predictions are violated.
59
What is Broadbent's Filter Model?
A theory that attention acts like a selective filter, allowing only certain sensory information to pass through for further processing while blocking out irrelevant stimuli, acting as a bottleneck to prevent information overload; suggesting all sensory information initially enters a sensory buffer before being filtered based on physical characteristics like which ear a sound came from
60
What is inattentional deafness?
An inability to perceive information you are not actively listening to
61
What is the cocktail party effect?
The ability to focus on a single conversation or auditory stimulus while filtering out other background noise, like being able to follow a conversation with one person at a noisy party while ignoring other conversations around you - developed by E Colin Cherry
62
What is the azimuth plane?
Horizontal
63

Cognitive Psychology (2 decks)

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