Midterm Flashcards
What is the science of Cognition?
The science of how the mind is organized to produce intelligent thought and how it is realized in the brain.
When was the theory of Behaviourism binned?
1950-1970 by Chomsky
What happened in 1990?
Brain imaging! Changed from the “computer” to the “brain” model of mind
What do Glial cells do?
May facilitate permanent synaptic changes that underly learning
How many neurons are in the brain?
100 billion, each connecting to 1000 others
How fast do spikes travel down axons?
From 0.5m/s (non-myelinated) to 130m/s (myelinated)
What is the space between the terminal boutons and dendrites called?
A synapse (Synaptic gap)
How do neurons communicate?
Using chemicals called neurotransmitters.
How is information represented in the brain?
Dont know, possibly just patterns of activation to represent objects and faces.
How would you describe the direction of inside to outside in the brain?
Lateral
How would you describe the direction of the outside to the inside in the brain?
Medial
How would you describe the direction towards the front of the brain?
Anterior
How would you describe the direction towards the back of the brain?
Posterior
How would you describe the direction towards the top of the brain?
Dorsal
How would you describe the direction towards the bottom of the brain?
Ventral
What are the main planes from which the brain is viewed?
Sagittal, Coronal, and Horizontal sections
What is the name for the groves and valleys over the surface of the brain?
Sulci (Sulcus)
What is the name for the ridges and bumps over the surface of the brain?
Gyri (Gyrus)
What separates the frontal and temporal lobes?
Sylvian or lateral fissure.
What is DTI?
Diffusion tensor imaging - Tracks movement of molecules revealing brain pathways
What did the Auditory Shadowing theory find?
Cherry (1953) found subjects noticed changes of voice to tone, volume and gender changes. But not much else.
What is Filter Theory?
Broadbent found sensory information is processed until a bottleneck is reached (early selection theory).
Whos theory states “Messages are attenuated but not filtered on basis of physical characteristics”?
Treisman’s Attenuated theory.
What is late selection theory?
Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) moves the bottleneck to the response system, so all info is processed, even if unconsciously.
Who did the unconscious word priming experiment?
Marcel
Who did the unconscious numerical priming experiment?
Dehaene (found perception without awareness)
Whos is the most prominent visual search theory?
Treisman’s (Feature Integration theory).
What are the features of Treisman’s Feature Integration theory?
Colour, Orientation, Motion, Curvature, Depth -> Spotlight of attention.
What does the Stroop effect demonstrate?
Word reading is an automatic process that is hard to inhibit. It interferes with processing other information about the word.
What did Mandler and Ritchey find?
(1977) Memory for visual information. People are sensitive to meaning significant changes in a picture.
What did Gernsbacher find?
(1985) Meaning was retained, but perceptual detail (e.g. orientation) declines rapidly.
Pros and Cons of fMRI?
Very precise location-wise, not time accurate.
What is dual coding theory?
William Kelley et al. proposed that pictures are associated with two codes (word and visual), which leads to better recognition accuracy.
What did Paivio (1971) find?
Support for dual coding.
What did Wada testing reveal?
Different hemispheres for different things (Left=words, Right=faces (right and left for familiar faces) and Both=objects.
Why is combining fMRI and Wada techniques helpful?
Gain a richer understanding of the neural architecture of memory formation (location and time accurate).
What is Hierarchical Network theory?
Collins and Quillian (1969) How memory is structured and accessed. Properties are stored only at the highest level they are true.
What are some problems with the Hierarchical network theory?
Not all links are created equal
Describe spreading activation theory.
Collins and Loftus (1975) response to HNM. Links vary in length depending on strength of connection, and activation spreads down those links.
What is a schema?
General knowledge structure to aid comprehension.
In an experiment, when do error rates in RT have an effect on results?
When the highest error rates are in the faster condition. (Speed accuracy trade-off). Or there are no errors
In the experiment by Dehaene et al. (1998) what result would indicate participants picked up information on the prime?
If RTs were faster in the same number condition, or congruent condition, priming has occurred.
In the Arabic experiment, how do we know semantic priming has occurred?
Because the meaning has been extracted from the prime, whether it was a number or a word, priming still occurred.
Why is a catch trial necessary?
To catch participants who can read the prime, which means they aren’t being unconsciously primed.
