Terms and Techniques Flashcards
Cognitive psychology approach.
Focuses on the mind and mental processes for cognitive tasks.
Cognitive neuropsychology approach.
Focuses on disorders of functioning through brain-damaged patients.
Cognitive neuroscience approach.
Focuses on the underlying biological structure of cognition.
Brain plasticity.
The ability of the brain to adapt and change based on behaviour and experiences.
Critiques of cognitive psychology.
- Modularity and seriality assumptions often dismissed by evidence (such as parallel processing streams).
- Assumption of brain damage only impairing processes is wrong.
Critiques of cognitive neuropsychology.
- Focuses on single-case studies.
- Relies on shallow box-end-arrow theorising.
Critiques of cognitive neuroscience.
- Not driven by real-world application.
- Not driven by scientific techniques.
- Not driven by relating function to structure (levels of description are independent).
Different notions of the term “level”.
- Levels of description.
- Level of processing.
- Level of organisation/structure.
Levels of description.
Theoretical separations of a phenomenon based on the different types of questions that can be asked about it.
Two types: algorithmic (specific procedure to carry out task) and implementational (detailed description of how the task is carried out at neuronal level).
Levels of processing.
Not a pre-determined, rigid sequence of events: it is flexible.
Levels of organisation/structure.
Description of the type of structure being studied.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
Implementation of a magnetic field onto the brain which can evoke or stop brain activity in that region through electromagnetic induction.
Productive effects of TMS.
Evoke brain activity in the region.
Phosphenes.
Sensations of light.
Disruptive effects of TMS.
Inactivate brain activity in the region.
Scotomas.
Visual field abnormality or a blind spot.
Two different modes of TMS.
- Single pulse (examining brain functioning).
- Repetitive TMS (changes in brain activity that lasts after stimulation pulses).
Six TMS features.
- Spatially restricted, so no additional lesion confounds.
- Interference is immediate, so no plasticity in the brain.
- Can be repeated in the same participant, so allows for controlled experimental designs.
- Different, close-by brain regions can be targeted sequentially, so allows for precise mapping.
- Different, neighbouring brain areas can be targeted simultaneously through double-coil, so allows for testing of functional connectivity
- Chronometry (time measurement) of brain functions possible.
Double-coil TMS.
Two pulses through two areas.
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
Consistent electrical low-direct current to brain through electrodes. Can induce productive and disruptive effects.
BOLD-fMRI (blood-oxygenation level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging).
Measures brain activity through blood flow and oxygen changes.
Spatial resolution.
Where.
Temporal resolution.
When.
Forward interference in BOLD-fMRI.
What brain region is associated with the experimental condition (manipulate the environmental factors -> measure the brain).
Positives of using fMRI techniques.
- Allows for localisation of a given cognitive process.
- Newer procedures can measure connectivity of regions.
- Allows the process of interest to be separated through experimental design.
Differences between fMRI and TMS.
fMRI cannot reveal whether the brain is required for that function, only that it correlates.
TMS can indicate this through inducing disruptive effects on activity.
Reverse inference in BOLD-fMRI.
What cognitive processes are happening because of the brain activity.
Critiqued because inferring cognitive processes are not tested from the activity.
