Neuroscience Flashcards
Bottleneck theories
- explain the narrowing of attention that enters conscious awareness
- Helps one to understand stages of information flow
capacity theories
-explain how attention is distributed to different informational sources
-Help to understand influences on the allocation
of attention
Broadbent’s filter model of attention
-only filtered/processed content from one input channel gets paid attention to and stored in short-term
memory, the rest is tuned out
Broadbent’s two tracks
Track 1:
- pre-attentive
- pre-conscious
- perceptual
Track 2:
- semantic
- attentive
- conscious
Attenuation model
- allows the mind to switch between two channels and filter semantically important content
- Attenuation often represents input by its signal strength
Treisman’s Attenuation Model
- there is an attention filter that lowers the strength of the sensory signal on the unattended channel
- degree of perception depends on signal strength
- top-down
- semantic hierarchy
Early selection
Attention is required for the selection of input
Late selection
Attention is required for the selection of a
response
Johnson & Heinz’s Multimode Model of Attention
- Allows for selection to take place early or late.
- The filter is ‘moveable’ and can take place at various stages of processing based on the observer’s needs
- Selection can be based on physical or semantic characteristics
Kahneman’s Capacity Model of Attention
- attention levels vary
- arousal determines capacity
- task demands vary
Attention is: (4 things)
- selective
- divisible
- shiftable
- sustainable
William James’ Attention (6 things)
- Can be divided
- Can involve objects of sense
- Can involve ideal or represented objects (intellectual attention)
- Can be immediate or derived
- Can be passive, reflex-driven, non-voluntary, effortless
- Can be active and voluntary
4 memory types
- procedural
- declarative
- episodic
- prospective
3 different types of memory
- long-term
- sensory (very short term), can often be involuntary
- working (short term)
characteristics of memory systems
- duration
- capacity
- coding
types of sensory memory
- iconic memory (visual, less than one second)
- echoic memory (auditory, a few to several seconds long)
masking
when sensory information in the buffer is ‘overwritten’ by material in the inter-stimulus interval
Cognitive Blink Suppression
when blinking interferes with object identity
location
working memory
- Short-term
- Faster access
- Rapid decay
- Limited capacity: 7 ± 2
- we can chunk, erase, or rehearse information
how can chunking extend STM?
Some people draw from their episodic memory and declarative memory to create chunks from specific associations and analogies
Types of coding in STM
- phonemic
- acoustical
- visual
- alternate
- semantic
consilidated short term memories
occurs through rehearsal and meaningful association
long term memory
- slower, larger
- Virtually unlimited capacity
- slow access, little decay
- Complicated operation that depends on recent access
Explicit Knowledge/Learning
Acquired with conscious awareness
Implicit Knowledge/Learning
Acquired without conscious awareness
-tacit knowledge: knowing more than you can tell
semantic memory
- a type of declarative memory
- unlimited capacity, recall is the bottleneck
Anderson’s associative memory
- Memories are stored as linked concepts
- More links support faster retrieval – the paradox of the expert
3 Memory Models
- Modal Memory Model
- ACT (aka. ACT-R)
- Model of Working Memory
working memory model
- requires effort
- may be a process rather than a separate memory representation.
- Central Executive (CE) operations could take place on LTM stores
front
anterior
back
posterior
top
dorsal
bottom
ventral
middle
medial
side
lateral
above (relative)
superior
below (relative)
inferior
Direction towards the tip of the frontal lobe
rostral
Direction towards the end (tail) of the brain
caudal
frontal lobe function
- problem-solving
- language production
parietal lobe (dorsal) function
- attention
- spacial processing
primary somatosensory cortex (dorsal) function
somatosensory processing
temporal love (ventral) function
- auditory processing
- pattern recognition
- language processing
occipital lobe function
visual processing
what connects the two hemispheres of the brain?
corpus callosum
What is a gyrus?
a bump or fold of cortical tissue
what is a fissure?
a cleft or separation between gyri
what is a suculus?
a smaller fissure that connects two regions of brain tissue
What is posterior parietal damage?
the inability to reach for objects and adjust for size, shape, and orientation in a grasping task
What is occipitotemporal damage?
inability to describe objects
neocortex function
- higher mental functions
- general movement, perception, and behavioural responses
amygdala function
- emotional responses
- aggressive behaviour
hippocampus function
consolidation, the transfer of information from STM to LTM
corpu striatum function
- connection between cerebral cortex and cerebellum
- helps regulate automatic movement
orbitofrontal cortex function
- deeper decision making
- moral judgement
- reflection
- forming expectations
What is the claustrum?
Not even proven to exist, but some people think it is the home of a person’s consciousness
Where is semantic (declarative) memory stored?
limbic cortex
Where are emotions processed?
limbic system
anterograde amnesia
-likely STM damage
-An inability to retain new information
following the traumatic accident that caused the
damage
-forgetting the present and future
retrograde amnesia
- likely LTM damage
- an inability to remember information acquired prior to the damage-inducing event
- forgetting the past
What does the basal ganglia (aka corpus stratum) do?
regulates and inhibits behavior as well as coordinates between deliberation (thought) and action
Information from one side of the environment or
body is mapped onto the _____
contralateral side
In split brain patients, the _______ is
severed
corpus callosum
Case study vs lesion study
- In a case study, the patient already has brain damage
- in a lesion study, the patient’s brain tissue is intentionally destroyed
What connections were severed in Phineas Gage’s brain?
the limbic (emotional) system and the frontal (intellectual) cortices
What did Karl Lashey want to find and what were his results?
- he wanted to find the engram, the physical location of memory
- he discovered that in monkey’s brains, memory was distributed to many parts of the brain (aka “equipotentiality”)
what does a dendrite do?
receives neuronal impulses from the previous
neuron
what is an axon?
an insulated “cable” that passes along the electric
signals away from the current neuron
what is a synapse?
the junction structure where one neuron sends a
signal to another neuron
Adrenaline
Fight or flight
noradrenaline
concentration
dopamine
pleasure
seratonin
mood
ϒ-Aminobutyric Acid
calming
Acetylcholine
learning
Glutamate
memory
synaptic plasticity
- a synapse might strengthen or weaken its activation potential over time
- Learning requires a change in the structure of a synapse
Long-term Potentiation
A chain of neurons can be actively firing into each other so much, that the connection seems to be “warm”
plasticity
- Inference from texture to object
- Pattern recognition inference(s) based on colours and textures
Hebb rule
-if two connected neurons are active simultaneously,
the synapse between them will be strengthened
-It is possible for each brain region to simulate the functions of other regions outside of their domain-specificity
