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Human Cognitive Processing > Test #1 - Chapters 1, 2 And 3 > Flashcards

Test #1 - Chapters 1, 2 And 3 Flashcards

Based on TA Review - What she said to focus on :)

1
Q

What is a Neuron

A

A cell that receives and transmits electrochemical activity in the nervous system.

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2
Q

How many active neurons are there in the human brain?

A

100 billion

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3
Q

What are the four types of neurons?

A

Pyramidal, Purkinjie, Motor, Sensory

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4
Q

What are the basic anatomical structures of a neuron?

A

Dendrites, cell bodies (soma), axon, myelin sheath, nodes, receptor cells

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5
Q

What is the function of dendrites?

A

receive information from adjacent neurons (the connectors)

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6
Q

What is the function of the axon?

A

Provides the fixed path by which neurons communicate with one another.

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7
Q

What is the function of a terminal bouton?

A

They form synapses with other neurons, contain neurotransmitters

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8
Q

What is a neurotransmitter?

A

Chemical that crosses the synapse from one neuron to communicate with the next.

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9
Q

What is the function of the Occipital Lobe?

A

Contains the primary visual areas. Visual perception, depth and distance perception, visual recognition.

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10
Q

What is the function of the Parietal Lobe?

A

Spatial awareness. Organization of sensory input (stimuli), perception of shape and size.

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11
Q

What is the function of the Temporal Lobe?

A

Primarily involved in processing auditory information, language comprehension, memory and facial recognition

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12
Q

What is the function of the Frontal Lobe?

A

Primarily involved in higher-level processing, motor functions, voluntary movement, and personality expression.

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13
Q

What is the concept localization of function about?

A

The idea that certain parts of the brain are specific to certain functions or activities.

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14
Q

What is Broca Aphasia?

A

Due to damage in the left frontal lobe; difficulty speaking, small vocab, still have good comprehension.

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15
Q

What is Wernicke Aphasia?

A

Due to damage to the left temporal lobe; incoherent speech at times, impaired language comprehension.

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16
Q

What is apperceptive agnosia?

A

challenges in recognizing objects, even though the individual can see them; they can see clearly but they cannot comprehend what they are seeing.
Ex: shown picture of cat and can describe certain features about it but not recognize it as a cat)

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17
Q

What is associative agnosia?

A

They can perceive simple shapes but have difficulty identifying complex objects.

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18
Q

What synapses onto what to reach the optic nerve?

A

photoreceptors synapse to bipolar cells which synapse to ganglion cells which form together to create the optic nerve

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19
Q

What is the function of photoreceptors?

A

detect light and convert it into electrical signals.

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20
Q

What is the function of rods?

A

Night vision and peripheral vision

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21
Q

What is the function of cones?

A

detect bright light and colors, sharp, detailed vision.

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22
Q

What is the function of bipolar cells?

A

Receive input from photoreceptors and pass it on to ganglion cells.

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23
Q

What is the function of ganglion cells?

A

collect and transmit information from bipolar cells and sends it to the brain. Their axons form the optic nerve.

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24
Q

What is the function of the optic nerve?

A

Carries the processed visual signals from the retina to the brain.

25
Q

What is the function of the retina?

A

The retina contains photoreceptors which contain rods and cones. This leads to converting light to electrical signals that get passed on.

26
Q

What is the “What” pathway from the primary visual cortex?

A

It is responsible for object recognition, identification, and determining what an object is. The pathway is from the occipital lobe to the temporal lobe.

27
Q

What is the “Where” pathway from the primary visual cortex?

A

It is responsible for spacial awareness, motion detection, and determining where objects are in the environment. The pathway is from the occipital lobe to the parietal lobe.

28
Q

What is the texture gradient?

A

a visual depth cue that helps us perceive the distance and spatial arrangement of objects.
Closer = textures appear larger and more detailed
Farther = textures appear smaller and less detailed

29
Q

What is the gradient effect?

A

Allows for depth perception. Gradual transitions in visual properties (like texture, color, or light) create the perception of depth, volume, or motion

30
Q

What is stereopsis?

A

Each eye views the world from a slightly different angle. The brain processes the two slightly different images from the left and right eyes and merges them into a single 3D perception.

31
Q

What is motion parallax?

A

Objects that are closer to the observer appear to move faster, while objects that are farther appear to be moving slower. The brain uses this information to estimate depth.

32
Q

Gestalts Principle of Proximity

A

Objects that are close to each other are perceived as being part of the same group.
Ex: A cluster of dots arranged close together is seen as a single group rather than individual dots.

33
Q

Gestalts Principle of Similarity

A

Objects that are similar in appearance are perceived as belonging to the same group.
Ex: In a pattern of circles and squares, all circles will be grouped together, and all squares will form another group.

34
Q

Gestalts Principle of Continuity

A

The mind prefers to see continuous, smooth lines or patterns rather than disjointed or abrupt ones.
Ex: In a wavy line crossing a straight line, we perceive two separate lines instead of a series of segments

35
Q

Gestalts Principle of Closure

A

The brain tends to fill in gaps to perceive a complete, whole object, even when parts of it are missing.
Ex: A broken circle with gaps is still seen as a complete circle because our brain “closes” the gaps

36
Q

What is Feature Analysis?

A

we recognize and process complex stimuli by breaking them down into their basic components or features.

37
Q

What is Template Matching?

A

we identify objects by comparing them to stored mental templates or prototypes of previously encountered images or objects.

38
Q

What is Categorical Perception?

A

Categorical perception is the brain’s way of simplifying the continuous sensory world into discrete, meaningful categories

39
Q

What is the role of the Fusiform Gyrus in Face Recognition?

A

Within the fusiform gyrus, a specific region known as the fusiform face area (FFA) is highly specialized for recognizing faces and distinguishing them from other objects.

40
Q

What would damage in the temporal lobe do to Face Recognition?

A

May result in prosopagnosia (face blindness) and difficulty in processing facial features.

41
Q

What is top-down processing?

A

perception is influenced by prior knowledge, experiences, expectations, and context. Rather than building an understanding of the world solely from incoming sensory information (bottom-up processing)

42
Q

What is Massaro’s FLIMP?

A

known in the context of speech perception, where it has been applied to understand how people process and combine visual lip movements.

43
Q

What is change blindness?

A

phenomenon in which people fail to notice significant changes in their visual environment, especially when those changes occur during a disruption or distraction.

44
Q

What are serial bottlenecks?

A

constraints in human cognitive processing that arise because the brain can only handle a limited amount of information at one time

45
Q

What is the Dichotic Listening Task?

A

studies selective attention; participants wear headphones and are simultaneously presented with different auditory messages in each ear. Their job is usually to focus on and process the information from one ear while ignoring the other. Participants typically perform well in recalling the attended ear’s message but struggle to recall the content from the unattended ear.

46
Q

What is the Cocktail Party Effect?

A

phenomenon where people can focus on a single conversation in a noisy environment, such as at a party, while filtering out other background sounds

47
Q

What is the Filter Theory?

A

Filter Theory is a model of attention that explains how the brain selects which information to process from the vast amount of sensory input it receives at any given time.

48
Q

What is the late selection theory?

A

suggests that all sensory information is processed to a high level (including its meaning) before being filtered for further processing or conscious awareness

49
Q

What is Treisman’s attenuation theory?

A

Suggests that unattended information is not completely blocked out, but weakened at an early stage of processing

50
Q

What is Deutsch’s Late Selection Theory?

A

all incoming sensory information—regardless of whether it is attended to or not—is processed for meaning before the brain selects what to focus on

51
Q

What is Neisser’s and Becklen’s Experiment?

A

people fail to notice certain visual stimuli when focusing on another task. Video of people passing the basketball around with something happening in the background.

52
Q

What is O’Craven and Colleagues Experiment?

A

examines how the brain processes object recognition and face recognition using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)

53
Q

What is the Stroop Task?

A

delay in reaction time or increased difficulty when individuals are asked to name the color of a word that spells a color name.

54
Q

What is Automaticity?

A

Automaticity is the ability to perform tasks with little or no conscious effort, typically developed through extensive practice

55
Q

What is Unilateral Vision Neglect?

A

a condition in which a person fails to pay attention to stimuli on one side of their visual field, typically the left side, despite having intact sensory and motor systems

56
Q

How does one get Unilateral Vision Neglect?

A

Damage in the right parietal lobe leads to left-side neglect. This region is crucial for spatial awareness and attention. Damage in the frontal lobe leads to disruption in the ability to shift attention, leading to neglect of one side

57
Q

A person with damage to their prefrontal region would result in difficulty completing which task?

A

a. ACHIEVING AND SETTING GOALS (right)

b. moving their right arm

c. moving their left arm

d. seeing

58
Q

What is the Inhibition of return?

A

the phenomena in which a person is slower to detect a target at a location that they recently attended.

Human Cognitive Processing (2 decks)

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