The Cognitive Revolution Flashcards
Behavioral measures
- accuracy
- reaction time
Physiological measures
- invasive (single-cell, lesions)
- non- invasive (imaging, eg; MRI, fMRI)
- post-mortem
- clinical (brain injury/trauma)
Experiments measuring accuracy
- Ebbinhaus’s Savings experiment
- Roediger and Karicke
- letter span task
Experiments measuring reaction time
- stroop test
Action potentials
- they are nerve impulses
- all or nothing
- frequency = strength
Human brain anatomy
- frontal lobe
- temporal lobe
- parietal lobe
- occipital lobe
Temporal lobe
receives signals from sound
Occipital lobe
receiving area for vision
Parietal lobe
receiving area for the skin sense; touch, temperature and pain
Frontal lobe
coordination of information
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
machine that allows you to take pictures of the different anatomy of your body: bones, muscles, organs, etc
Limitation of MRIs for cognitive psychology
takes pictures of the anatomy but it doesn’t shows how the anatomy is working
Functional magnetic resonance iamging (fMRI)
measures small changes in blood flow associated with the brain activity - detects changes in the brain’s blood oxygenation levels that occur in response to neural activity
Feature of fMRI
high spatial resolution, poorer temporal resolution
EEG
measures electrical activity in the brain
ERP
measures changes in the ongoing EEG activity due to an output
Feature of EEGs and ERPs
high temporal resolution, poorer spatial resolution
Broca’s aphasia
left frontal lobe
loss of connectors, limited fluency, reduced output overall
Wernicke’s Aphasia
left temporal lobe
fluent but meaningless, made-up or misused words
2 methodological approaches to figure out mental processes
- ruling out alternatives
- the subtraction method
Ruling out alternative experiment
Korsokof’s patients experiment
Donders
study of the time course of mental processes through subtractive method
Subtractive method
each stage receives information from the previous stage, transforms the information, sends the information to the next stage
calculate the cost of the inhibition on processing
allows to draw inferences about the mental processes given 3 assumptions
Subtractive method example
Stroop test
Donder’s method key contributions
identify & measure mental processes indirectly
reaction time procedure
Donder’s method criticism
assumption of stages
assumption of additivity
assumption of pure insertion
Assumption of stages
assumes you already know what the stages are
underestimate decision time
overestimate decision time
Assumption of additivity
the duration of all stages add together to yield the reaction time
underestimates decision time
stages might operate in parallel therefore only take into account part of the decision/detection time
Assumption of pure insertion
all stages remain the same when the new one is added
overestimate decision time
What method does PET use
the subtraction technique
What method does MRI & fMRI use
subtraction technique
3 types of pseudo-science
mesmerism, physiognomy, phrenology
mesmerism
humors were key to health & carried magnetic charge
- earth
- fire
- air
- water
physiognomists
contours of the face revealed his or her intellectual and emotional characteristics
phrenology
the shape of a persons skull revealed his or her intellectual and emotional characteristics
Mesmerism legacy
MRI machine
magnets to move humor
Physiognomy legacy
Ekman
Phrenology legacy
Broadman’s area
