week 1 Flashcards
empiricism
knowledge is learned
nativism
born with knowledge
empiricism
knowledge comes from experience
first cognitive experiment - who and what did it prove
Donders - studied reaction time and showed that mental processes are not instantaneous
what were the 2 key parts of introspection
structuralism and functionalism
how do your eyes move
jumps (saccades) and periods of stability (fixations)
behaviourism
quantifiable and observable behaviour eg. skinner, stimulus and response
what are some downfalls of behaviourism?
conditioning doesnt explain everything, language is generative, cannot be accounted for by a stimulus/response/reward
what can cognition be compared to ?
computers - representation/process
who presented work on short term memory
miller
explain the independent variable
what the experimenter manipulates
explain the dependent variable
what the experimenter measures
confounding variable?
variable that correlates with IV
low-intensity neuron _ firing
slow firing
Excitatory neurotransmitters?
increases chance neuron will fire
inhibitory neurotransmitters
decreases chance neuron will fire
front of brain
anterior
back of brain
posterior
reasoning, planning emotional part of brain
frontal lobe
hearing and memory part of brain
temporal lobe
perceptions of touch, pressure, temperature, pain
parietal lobe
vision
occipital
Two key principles of cortical functioning
Contralateral, Hemispheric Specialization
contralateral functioning?
structure or function on one side of the brain is related to or controls the opposite side of the body.
hemispheric functioning
unique roles of the two hemispheres of the brain eg. left language right spatial abilities
limitations of lesion studies?
challenging to attribute changes to specific areas, individual differences,
single cell electrical recording limitation
animal studies, cant look at language, narrow brain function
Event related potentials (ERP’s) ? and limitations?
Electrical activity recorded with sensors on scalp, Good temporal resolution bad spatial resolution
PET
Measurement of cerebral blood
flow (correlated with neural activity)
Injected with radioactive oxygen that is concentrated in areas that consume more blood
pet limitations ?
spatial good temporal bad
fMRI?
Measurement of cerebral blood flow - areas of greatest oxygen usage. spatial good, temporal bad (worse than pet)
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
creating virtual lesions, a very strong and direct magnetic field to a region of cortex
explain key points of Herman Ebbinghaus’ study
learned info forgotten over time, repeated lists of 13 nonsense syllables, memory drops rapidly first 2 days then learning levels out
paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things? who said this
william james (principles of psychology)
Rat exploring maze, revealing cognition and a maze layout in the rat’s mind - behaviour inferring mental processes (who did this)
edward chase tolman
scientific revolution as a shift from one paradigm to another
thomas kuhn
who created the first flow diagram of the mind
donal broadbent (broadbent filter model)
