Psychology 5b - Brain and Behaviour

Question 1

List the stages of memory

Answer 1

• Input from our senses into the memory system (registration)
• Processing and combining of received information (encoding)
• Holding that input in the memory system (storage)
• Recovering stored information from the memory system (retrieval)

Question 2

Describe different durations of memory

Answer 2

• Sensory
• Working or short term memory (7 plus minus 2)
• Long-term memory

Question 3

Describe a model of memory

Answer 3

• Information in to sensory
• Sensory to long term memory (eg. trauma - treatment involves shifting this pattern)
• Sensory to working memory (attention)
• Rehearsed information will stay in the working memory, otherwise it is lose
• Storage of some information into long term memory
• Retrieval from long term to working memory

Question 4

List types of long-term memory

Answer 4

• Long term memory may be declarative or non-declarative
• Declarative (episodic or semantic)
• Non-declarative (procedural, priming, conditioning, non-associative loss)

Question 5

What is priming?

Answer 5

• Priming is the implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus.
• Used in associative learning

Question 6

Where is declarative memory performed?

Answer 6

Medial temporal lobe and diencephalon

Question 7

Which part of the brain is used in episodic memory?

Answer 7

Medial temporal lobes, hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, mammilary bodies and parahippocampal cortex

Question 8

Describe the case of HM

Answer 8

• Hippocampus surgically removed to treat epilepsy
• Resulted in anterograde amnesia (with some retrograde)
• Episodic memories were lost, but he had procedural memory

Question 9

What is the hippocampus important for?

Answer 9

• Sematic - knowledge
• Procedural - how to do things
• Working - short term

Question 10

What is often intact in memory disorders?

Answer 10

Implicit memory (learning)

Question 11

Describe the case of Clive Wearing

Answer 11

• Muscian, composer, scholar
• Herpes simplex encephalitis
• Temporal lobe damage
• Severe amnesia (could still play the piano and recognise his wife)
• In a permanent state of having just woken up

Question 12

Compare effect of left sided to a right sided lesion

Answer 12

• Lesions left verbal informaton processing

- Lesion right non-verbal information processing, including face processing (prosopagnosia)

Question 13

Describe serial position effect

Answer 13

• Primacy effect (memory of the beginning things of a list - lost in Alzheimers)
• Recency effect (memory of the end things in a list)

Question 14

What is the probability of recalling a word related to?

Answer 14

• Order in the list
• Personal salience of words
• Number of words
• Chunking or other encoding strategy (frontally mediated deficits result in difficulty with this)
• Delay time
• Distraction

Question 15

List clinical implications of recall

Answer 15

• Give important information at the beginning and end of the consultation
• Emphasise and repeat important information
• Make salient to the person
• Chunk information into meaningful categories
• Avoid overloading with information

Question 16

What is language?

Answer 16

• System of symbols and sounds governed by rules
• No humans let discovered without language
• May be due to innate (critical periods of language acquisition) or exposure
• Both organic and environmental factors are important

Question 17

Describe structure of language

Answer 17

• Phoneme: smallest unit of speech sound in a language that can signal a difference in meaning (44 in english)
• Morphenes: smallest units of meaning in a language (typically consist of syllables combined into words)
• Words form phrases, which form sentences which forms conversational discorse

Question 18

What is syntax?

Answer 18

• Rules and principles which govern the way in which morphemes and words can be combined to communicate meaning in a particular language
• Universal grammar - under normal conditions humans will develop language with particular properties (eg. distinguising nouns from verbs)
• Following exposure to non-grammatic language there is formation of a structured language in children

Question 19

Describe language development

Answer 19

• 1-3 months (crying and cooing, can distinguish speech from non-speech sounds)
• 4-6 months (babbling sounds begin)
• 7-11 months (babbling sounds narrow to form phonemes, tongue is moved with vocalisations and imitations)
• 12 months (first recognisable words spoken as one word utterances)
• 12-18 months (use of single words to express whole phrases or requests)
• 18-24 months (50-100 words spoken, li usually consists of two words)
• 2-4 years (expansion of several hundred words every 6 months, basic language syntax and longer sentences)
• 4-5 years (basic grammatical rules are known)

Question 20

What happens if a child is not exposed to language?

Answer 20

• Genie - deprived of social interaction from birth until discovered aged 13
• Completely without language, and after 7 years of rehabilitation she still lacked linguistic competence

Question 21

When is the critical period in language acquisition?

Answer 21

• Between ages of 5 and puberty language acquisition becomes harder (based on feral children, children with brain injuries, second language acquisition)
• Hardest at age 12
• Exposure to other people is therefore required

Question 22

Describe brain structures underlying language

Answer 22

• Hemispheric specialisation
• 95% right handed people left hemisphere dominance, 18.8% left handed right hemisphere dominance
• 19.8% left handed have bilateral language distribution

Question 23

How can memory be enhanced?

Answer 23

• Chunking
• Repetition
• Acronyms

Question 24

What is expressive aphasia?

Answer 24

• Requires lots of effort to express yourself
• Non-fluent speech
• Impaired repetition
• Poor ability to produce syntactically correct sentences
• Intact comprehension
• Affecting Broca’s region

Question 25

What is receptive aphasia?

Answer 25

• Affecting Wernicke’s area
• Problems in comprehending speech
• Fluent meaningless speech
• Paraphasias (errors in producing specific words)
• Semantic paraphasias (substituting words similar in meaning) and phonemic paraphasias (substituting words with similar sounds)
• Neologisms (non words such as galump)
• Poor repetition and impairment in writing

Question 26

Describe the language circuit when speaking a heard word (repetition)

Answer 26

• Informaiton about sound analysed by primary auditory cortex and transmitted to Wernicke’s area
• Wernicke’s area analyses the sound information to determine the word that was said
• Transmitted through arcuate fasciculus to Brocas area
• Broca’s area forms a motor plan to repeat the word and sends that information to the motor cortex
• Motor cortex implements the plan, manipulating the larynx and related structures to say the word

Question 27

List forms of aphasia

Answer 27

• Global aphasia (difficulty with all aspects)
• Mixed transcortical aphasia (impaired fluency and comprehension with intact repetition)
• Broca’s aphasia (comprehension but no fluency or repeats)
• Transcortical motor aphasia (intact repetition impaired fluency)
• Wernickes aphasia (fluency but no comprehension or repeats)
• Transcortical sensory aphasia (intact repetition, impaired comprehension)
• Conduction aphasia (lesion in the connection - fluent and comprehends with no repeats)
• Anomic aphasia (deficit in naming specifically, with fluency, repetition and comprehension)

Question 28

List conditions associated with aphasia

Answer 28

• Stroke
• Traumatic brain injury
• Cerebral tumour
• Progressive neurodegenerative conditions

Question 29

What is dysexecutive syndrome?

Answer 29

• Disruption of executive function, closely related to frontal lobe damage
• Executive functioning skills are mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions and juggle multiple tasks successfully
• Encompasses cognitive, emotional and behavioural symptoms
• Dysexecutive syndrome can result from head trauma, tumours, degenerative diseases, cerebrovascular disease and several psychiatric conditions
• Eg. Phineas Gage

Question 30

List behavioral and emotional aspects of dysexecutive syndrome

Answer 30

• Hypoactivity
• Lack of drive
• Apathy
• Poor initiation of tasks
• Emotional bluntness
• Theory of mind difficulties and reduced empathy

Could instead have:

• Hyperactivity
• Impulsive
• Disinhibitive
• Perseverative
• Emotional dysregulation
• Socially inappropriate
• Rude, crass, prone to swearing

Question 31

Describe cognitive aspects of dysexecutive syndrome

Answer 31

• Attentional and working memory difficulties
• Poor planning and organisation
• Difficulty coping with novel situations
• Difficulty multitasking
• Difficulty moving from task to task
• Difficulty with complex/ abstract thinking

Question 32

Which areas of the brain are different aspects of dysexecutive syndrome associated with?

Answer 32

Different areas of the frontal lobe

• Orbito-frontal (impulsivity and disinihibition)
• Medial (loss of spontaneity, initiation - akinetic mutism)
• Lateral (inability to formulate and carry out plans)
• Connection to cortical and subcortical (basal ganglia, cerebellum, thalamus) structures can result in similar behaviour changes (eg. Parkinsons)

Question 33

Describe conductive aphasia

Answer 33

• Lesions of the arcuate fasciculus
• Disrupts the transfer from Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area, so the patient has difficulty repeating
• However, retains comprehension and fluency as the Wernickes and Broca areas are intact