Midterm Flashcards
What is cognitive science?
The interdisciplinary study about how the mind works
Describe cognitive science
Studying human behavior
Studying the brains of animals
Figuring out how to program robots to complete tasks
What problems are solved by the brain (H: 5 items)?
Sensation and Perception
Cognition
Communication
Action
Emotion
What is sensation and perception?
Internalizing the physical world
What are examples of cognition (H: 5 items)?
Understanding and Thinking
Planning and Imagining
Decision-Making and Problem-Solving
Attention
Learning and Memory
What are examples of communication (H: 4 items)?
Speech and Language
Gestures and Facial Expression
Body Language and Posture
Gait
What are examples of action (H: 3 items)?
Manipulating the Environment
Actively Exploring New Environments
Navigating Known Environments
What are the human emotions (H: 6 items)?
Fear
Happiness
Sadness
Anger
Surprise
Disgust
What are some capabilities that other organisms possess that humans don’t (H: 3 items)?
Rattlesnakes can detect infrared light
Bats, porpoises, and some birds have echolocation
Cows and some birds have magnetoreception
What are the disciplines of cognitive science (H: 4 items)?
Philosophy
Psychology
Neuroscience
Computer Science, Engineering, Robotics
What is philosophy?
Reason-based approach to understanding the mind
What is psychology?
Study of the mind and behavior
What are some methods used in psychology (H: 3 items)?
Scientific: Empirical and Hypothesis Testing
Cause-and-Effect: X -> Y
Non-Scientific: Clinical, Analytical, and Introspective
What is neuroscience?
Study of the nervous system
What are some methods used in neuroscience (H: 4 items)?
Neuroanatomy: Structure of neurons and neural tracts
Neurophysiology: Function of neurons
Neuropsychology: Global functions of brain areas
Neuroimaging: Imaging of the brain
How are computer science, engineering, and robotics involved in cognitive science?
You can build machines that stimulate functions of perception, cognition, communication, and action
How can you combine all disciplines?
When working through an experiment
- Philosophy: Brainstorming
- Psychology: Test performance, document, hypothesize, and retest
- Neuroscience: Take it apart and see what’s important
- Computer Science, Engineering, and Robotics: Try to build a model
What is reverse engineering?
You have a solution and want to understand the design
How is cognitive science a reverse engineering problem?
We have the brain and we want to know how it works
When was the first mention of the brain?
1700 BC
What civilization viewed the heart as the seat of the mind and intellect?
Egyptians
Who was the first to champion the brain as the seat of cognition in the body?
Alcemeaon
What is the Medieval Cell Doctrine?
The different functions of the brain are localized in the ventricles
What are the functions of the different cells in the MCD (H: 3 items)?
Cell 1: Lateral - Common Sense - Multimodality
Cell 2: Middle - Reason and Thought
Cell 3: Memory
Why was dissection important in establishing the brain as the seat of cognition?
They found that the ventricles aren’t the seat of the soul and mind and that animals have ventricles too
What is phrenology?
The theory that the shape of size of the cranium can be used to indicate character and mental abilities
Who founded phrenology (H: 2 items)?
Franz Josef Gall and J.C. Spurzheim
How was phrenology studied?
Skulls were examined from insane and criminals to intelligent and accomplished people by detecting bumps on the skull
What was Broca’s patients name and why?
Tan, because it was the only word he could say
What is Broca’s Aphasia?
You can’t speak, but can understand language
How does Broca’s Aphasia occur?
Damage to the left frontal lobe
Why was Broca’s report important?
It showed that there’s localization of function in the brain
Why are women and minorities unrepresented in the history of cognitive science (H: 3)?
Educational Barriers
Discrimination in the Academy
Institutional Discrimination
Describe Donder’s reaction time experiment
A reaction time task to make inferences about cognitive processing
- Simple RT: Press J when the light goes on
- Choice RT: Press J for left light, K for right light
People take longer to respond when they have to make a choice, which is a mental process
Describe Ebbinghaus’s memory experiments
Used quantitative measurements of memory and developed the concept of association
Studied memory by
- Creating 2,300 lists of non-sense syllables
- Memorizing these lists
- Testing himself after various delays
Found the forgetting curve
Describe Calkin’s contribution to cognitive science
Setup the first women’s psychology lab
Created the Paired-Associates Memory Task
Denied a doctorate for being a women
Describe Tolman’s mental map experiment
A mental representation of your spatial environment
He used mice in his experiments
Learning Types
- Response Learning: Learn where to go based on previous movements or response
- Place Learning: Learn where to go based on cues in the environment
Describe Miller’s ‘Magic Number 7’ paper and his contribution to the cognitive revolution
The paper revealed that the capacity of short-term memory seems to be about seven items (+/- 2 items)
Chunking: Grouping items in a meaningful way
What is behaviorism?
Focuses on how people learn through interacting with the environment and that behaviors are acquired through conditioning
What was the cognitive revolution?
A movement in the 1950s as an interdisciplinary study of the mind and its process, from which emerged a new field of cognitive science
Describe the Simon Task
Rules
- Raise your LH for a blue box
- Raise your RH for a yellow box
Congruent: The response and box are on the same side
- People are faster at congruent responses
Incongruent: The response and box are on opposite sides
- People are slower at incongruent responses
Simon Effect: Incongruent RT - Congruent RT
- The larger values mean greater interference
What are the most common outcomes measured in cognitive tasks (H: 3 items)?
Accuracy
Error or Omissions
Reaction or Response Time
Why do cognitive psychologists use models to study how the mind works?
To analyze processes that they can’t directly observe
What are advantages of using a model (H: 2 items)?
Can provide a testable hypothesis
Allows for simulation
What are disadvantages of using a model (H: 1 item)?
It can be over-simplified and lead to incorrect solutions
What are examples of models used (H: 2 items)?
Conceptual Model: Explains how the mind processes information
Computational Model: Explains how the brain would process information
What is ecological validity?
A measure of how test performance predicts behavior in real-world settings
What are the lobes of the brain and provide one function of the lobe?
Occipital: Visual processing
Parietal: Processes information from the senses throughout the body
Temporal: Processing auditory information
Frontal: Higher level executive functions (planning, judgement)
What is localization of function?
There are functions in a specific area of the brain
What is distributed processing?
Specific functions activate many areas of the brain
How are localization of function and distributed processed connected?
Many localized processes can happen at the same time which in turn activates many
Describe MRI?
A picture is represented with regions of the brain that are active
Blood-oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal is used when measuring
Advantage: No radioactive tracer needed
Disadvantage: Requires participant to be still
Describe PET
Shows how the brain and its tissues are working
A tracer is used to look for disease or injury in the brain
Advantage: Able to detect injury or disease
Disadvantage: Radioactive tracer
Describe DTI?
Detects the white matter fibers that connect different parts of the brain and how water travels along the white matter tracts
Helps to map specific brain areas before surgery
Advantage: Visualize white matter
Disadvantage: Artifacts and noise
Describe EEG?
Measures electrical activity on the scalp and make inferences about underlying brain activity
Advantage: Continuous and rapid measurements
Disadvantage: Poor spatial resolution and can only measure cortical activity
Describe MEG
Measures magnetic fields produced by your brain’s electical currents to map out brain function and identify the exact location of the source of epileptic seizures
Advantage: Very high temporal and spatial resolution
Disadvantage: Requires highly sensitive instrumentation
Describe TMS
Uses electromagnetic induction to induce weak currents inside the brain
The weak current can either excite or inhibit neurons in the targeted area
Advantage: Less invasive
Disadvantage: Still experimental
What are the different parts of a neuron and their function (H: 6 items)?
Dendrites: Take in information
Cell Body (Soma): Collects the information from the dendrites and contains the nucleus
Axons: Long extension that reaches out and helps connect neurons
- Axon Hillock: Controls the initiation of an electrical impulse based on the inputs
- Axon Terminal: Converts an electrical signal into a chemical signal
Myelin Sheath: Protects the axon and helps speed nerve transmissions
Describe spatial integration in a neuron
The extent and direction of the dendrites
Describe temporal integration in a neuron
The time window of the refractory period
How do neurons communicate?
They use electrochemical signals
What are neurotransmitters?
Chemicals that affect the electrical signal of the receiving neuron
What are different types of neurotransmitters (H: 2 items)?
Excitatory: NT that increases the chance a neuron will fire
Inhibitory: NT that decreases the chance a neuron will fire
What is a two-state neuron?
Theoretical model of a neuron
What is a perceptron?
Simplified model of a neuron
How are two-state neurons and perceptrons similar?
Both models of artificial neurons
How does a two-state neuron produce a binary output?
Based on a threshold function
How is the perceptron different from the two-state neuron?
It takes in multiple inputs and produces a single output based on weighted sums
What is lateral inhibition?
The ability to inhibit excitation in neighboring neurons
How does lateral inhibition work in the human eye?
It inhibits surronding cells making visual perception better by enhancing image contrast, color discrimination, and light adaptation
What are receptive fields?
Area in which stimuli can influence the electrical activity of sensory cells
What are ganglion cells?
Specialized neurons in the eye that take input from photoreceptors and integrate their information together in a specific signal
How do receptive fields work in ganglion cells?
It alter the firing of a ganglion cell
- Light in center -> Rapid firing
- Light in surround -> Slow firing
What is Hebbian learning?
An increase in synaptic efficiency arises from a presynaptic cell’s repeated and persistent stimulation of a postsynaptic cell
Learning and memory are represented in the brain by physiological changes at the synapse
“Cells that fire together, wire together”
What are semantic networks?
Concepts are arranged in networks that represent the way concepts are organized in the mind
How are semantic networks used to categorize concepts in the world around us?
They help create relationships between different concepts and ideas allowing for better understanding about different concepts