TMS and Perception (1) Flashcards

1
Q

What did Donders (1818-1889) do?

A
  • he developed mental chronometry

- he also created the reaction-time experiment

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2
Q

What is a reaction-time experiment?

A
  • measures interval between stimulus presentation and person’s response to stimulus
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3
Q

What is mental chronometry?

A
  • a measure of how long a cognitive process takes
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4
Q

What is the simple RT task?

A
  • participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears

- steps: perceive the light, generate the response

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5
Q

What is the choice RT task?

A
  • participant pushes one button if light is on the right side and another if the light is on the left side
  • steps: perceive the light, select a button to push, generate the response
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6
Q

What is the subtraction method?

A
  • Choice RT - Simple RT = Time to make a decision
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7
Q

How much longer does choice RT take compared to simple RT?

A
  • 0.1 s or 100 ms
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8
Q

What are the assumptions of the subtraction method?

A
  • assumption of serial stages: that processes are non-overlapping or parallel
  • assumption of pure insertion: that the addition of a choice does not affect length of other processes
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9
Q

According to Donders, how can mental processes be measured?

A
  • cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from a participants behaviour
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10
Q

What did Ebbinghaus do?

A
  • he created the savings curve method for studying forgetting
  • aimed to look at the contents of the mind including what’s unconsciously there
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11
Q

What is the task involved with the savings curve method?

A
  • view a series of nonsense syllables (ex. DAX or LUH)
  • repeat and predict what the next syllables will be until you can do it correctly
  • after a period of time, see if you remember
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12
Q

What do people experience when doing the savings curve method?

A
  • they have to repeat a fewer amount of times to ‘relearn’

- even if they have no conscious memory, at 31 days they have 20% savings

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13
Q

How is ‘savings’ calculated in the savings method?

A

savings = (initial reps - relearning reps) / initial reps

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14
Q

What happened during the cognitive revolution?

A
  • birth of the digital computer
  • theory of computation
  • information theory
  • computer science
  • artificial intelligence
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15
Q

What did Alan Turing do?

A
  • computability: anything that can be computed is computable by a simple “universal machine”, i.e. a Turing machine
  • to the extent that what the mind does is compute, it can be specified as a computer program
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16
Q

What did George Miller say?

A
  • I date the moment of conception of cognitive science as 11 September, 1956…”
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17
Q

What is cognitivism?

A
  • mental functions can be explained by the use of experiments following the scientific method
  • cognition consists of internal mental states whose manipulation can be described in terms of algorithms
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18
Q

What is cognitive psychology?

A
  • the scientific study of how people perceive, learn, remember and think about information
  • rejects introspection as a primary tool
  • accepts the existence of internal mental states
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19
Q

What are some famous phrenologists?

A
  • Franz Joseph Gall

- Johann Spurzheim

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20
Q

What is phrenology?

A
  • interested in how the brain relates to the mind
  • brain is the organ of the mind (not heart)
  • parts of the brain represent different faculties with the size of the part indicating the “strength”
  • studied from the outside of the brain using bumps and depressions
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21
Q

How many traits were identified in phrenology?

A
  • 27 traits
  • 19 common to human and animals (reproduction, courage)
  • 8 unique to humans (Wisdom, vanity, satire, religion)
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22
Q

Which groups opposed phrenology?

A
  • anti-localizationists: argued brain functions are an indivisible unit (brain not in sections)
  • anti-materialists: argued mental/spiritual faculties are not of organic matter (mind not tied to physical part of body)
  • both were wrong
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23
Q

What two psychologists provided evidence for localization in the 19th century?

A
  • Paul Broca’s Tan
  • Carl Wernicke
  • found specific functions to be associated with specific locations
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24
Q

What did Paul Broca observe?

A
  • speech loss not due to paralysis
  • “loss of memory of movements needed to pronounce words”
  • Broca’s area in left frontal lobe
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25
What did Carl Wernicke observe?
- cases of lost speech comprehension | - Wernicke's area in left temporal lobe
26
What were the implications of Broca's and Wernicke's discoveries?
- shift towards physiologically real functions (motor and sensory) - localization of higher mental functions
27
How did cognitive neuropsychology start out?
- identifies the mechanisms that underlie cognition by studying the effects of brain damage - localizes these mechanisms to particular neural structures or processes - identifies the functions of brain regions
28
What does cognitive neuropsychology look like today?
- invention of non-invasive techniques to image the human brain - the most influential technique being fMRI
29
How did cognitive neuroscience start?
- merging of two streams - cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology - measure brain function and behaviour
30
Who coined the term cognitive neuroscience?
- George Miller and Michael Gazzaniga
31
What are the basic goals of cognitive neuroscience?
- determine how the brain mediates cognition and behaviour | - relate neural structures to mental functions
32
Why is measurement and manipulation a methodological issue?
- Is the method measuring brain activity or manipulating it? | - What specifically is it measuring or manipulating?
33
What are some safety concerns?
- Is it invasive? - What are the risks? - What are the contraindications
34
What is spatial resolution?
- how detailed an image is | - a low resolution image will be very pixelated
35
What is temporal resolution?
- frames/second | - a low resolution image will look 'jumpy' whereas a high resolution will be smooth
36
Why is fMRI so revolutionary?
- in general imaging methods that are more invasive have better temporal and spatial resolution - fMRI has good spatial and temporal resolution despite being non-invasive
37
Why are parameters a methodological issue?
- need to consider what the options or settings are | - ex. ERPs: number of electrodes
38
Why are experimental limitations a methodological issue?
- need to consider the complications/limitations of the experimental design - ex. fMRI: noisy, can't move
39
Why is experimental design a methodological issue?
- need to consider the typical experimental design for a certain type of measurement
40
Why is data preprocessing and data analysis a methodological issue?
- Need to consider what has to be done to the data before it can be analyzed - need to consider how data is typically analyzed
41
Why is interpreting results a methodological issue?
- need to consider what we can and can't conclude
42
How did transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) begin?
- wanted to manipulate brain without invasion | - early attempts struggled to generate necessary field strength (Thompson)
43
When was the first successful TMS on humans?
- 1985 - Barker et al - they used a smaller coil and stronger magnetic fields
44
How does TMS work?
- run a strong current through a coil to produce a magnetic field
45
What are the types of TMS coils?
- round coil - figure eight coil - double coil - H coil
46
How does TMS stimulate the brain?
- the magnetic field induces current in the brain | - in other words causes neural activity or changes in resting potentials
47
Where do the strongest voltage effects occur?
- for the round coil: in a circular shape that mirrors the coil - for the figure eight coil: between the two coils giving a more precise reading - the activity is localized but non-specific!!
48
What is important for inducing the current?
- rapid change in magnetic field, not the strength of the magnetic field
49
What technology uses the same principle as TMS?
- wireless (inductive) charging | - induce current in phone using coils to charge
50
What are the two types of effects TMS can have?
- activation/facilitation: muscle movements, phosphenes | - inhibition/disruption: impaired movement, scotomas
51
What are the (physical) safety risks of TMS?
- seizure induction: caused by spread of excitation - Hearing loss: because of loud click in the most sensitive frequency range - local neck pain and headaches: caused by stimulation of local muscles and nerves (particularly over fronto-temporal regions)
52
When is seizure induction most risky?
- for single-pulse TMS, only seizures in patients have been induced - with rTMS seizures can be induced in patients and normal volunteers
53
What are the (psychological) safety risks of TMS?
- effect on cognition: improved verbal memory, delayed recall and better motor rt - effect on mood in normals: dependent on site and frequency, can worsen or improve - long-term effects: if multiple sessions of rTMS
54
What must be considered to make rTMS safe?
- limit on duration based on frequency - ex. at 1 Hz, duration can be 1800+ s and at 25 Hz, duration can be .84 s - guidelines are not perfect however
55
What is a motor threshold?
- calibrated for each participant
56
What are some contraindictions (reasons not to be a participant) for TMS?
- metallic hardware - history of seizures - pregnancy - history of head trauma or substance abuse - stroke - brain surgery - other medical conditions or medications associated with seizures
57
What are some guidelines to follow when administering TMS?
- safety screening - informed consent - potential benefit must outweigh risk - equal distribution of risk (vulnerable patient populations should be avoided)
58
How is TMS spatial resolution?
- depends on coil shape and size - as good as a few millimeter for peak effect - peripheral areas also effected
59
How is TMS temporal resolution?
- single pulse TMS: about 1 millisecond! | - rTMS: depends on duration of pulse train (less than one second to greater than a minute)
60
What are the parameters of TMS?
- pulse sequence, frequency and duration - location and orientation - intensity (motor threshold used as a reference point)
61
What are the experimental limitations of TMS?
- limited stimulation depth (can't reach medial and sub-cortical areas) - difficulty to localization - spread of activation (connected effects and paradoxical effects) - noise (distracting) - risks
62
What are connected effects?
- when regions are affected due to a connection to the region being stimulated
63
What are paradoxical effects?
- when the region that you are applying TMS to normally inhibits another region, but the TMS causes a release of the inhibition
64
What are the experimental designs used with TMS?
- mapping in space (virtual lesion): where things are being processed - mapping in time (chronometry): when things are being processed - may use multiple coils - may combine with EEG, PET, fMRI..
65
How are the results f TMS interpreted?
- virtual lesion: infer role by resulting deficit - chronometry: infer timing of neural processing - functional connectivity: infer connectivity between brain areas by effects of spreading activation