Week 1 Flashcards
what is the relationship of cognition and the mind
cognition are the mental processes that the mind creates
what is the responsibility of the mind
the mind makes representations of the world around us and helps us to control mental functions (cognitions) - this helps us to act within the world and achieve our goals
who did the first cognitive psych experiment by measuring reaction time
Donders
what was the significance of Donders experiment
that mental processes can be inferred from observable behaviour
Describe the components of the information processing model
How we acquire knowledge
How we store knowledge
How we use knowledge
Describe Wundt’s Structuralism approach
overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience (sensations)
used analytic introspection (trained participants to describe responses and thought processes)
Problems with analytic introspection
variable results that are difficult to verify
What is Watsons Behaviourism
Observable behaviour provides the only valid data for psychology (consciousness and unobservable mental processes not worthy of study)
○ Purely objective
○ Goal is prediction and control of behaviour
William Jame’s Principles
Best known for observations of the nature of attention
Paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things
Considered thinking, consciousness, attention, memory, perception, imagination and reasoning
Philosophy views of nativism vs empiricism
Nativism (Plato)
- We have some understanding when we are born
Empiricism (Aristotle)
Born with nothing, all acquired
what is the way of thinking that focuses on how behaviour is strengthened or weakened by positive or negative reinforcers
Operant conditioning
What was Tolmans rat behaviour experiment and its significance
Rats develop a cognitive map - a layout of the maze they are placed in
○ Cognition was occurring (rat knew where food was even when placed in a diff starting point)
Something other than stimulus-response connection is occurring
□ Outside of behaviourism
What was the big paradigm shift of the cognitive revolution in the 1950s
shift from the behaviourism system to the cognitive system to account for the minds role in creating behaviour
very influenced by the digital computer
what is the methodology of introspection
psychology is something that can be productively studied
how to study the mind in a strict hard science way - goal to figure out the basic elements of thought
functionalism has an eye toward survival
The famous players in introspection
Wundt: structuralism (processes and experiences)
James: functionalism (how mind functions)
Issues with introspection
cannot test subjective observations
inconsistent results
some things are unconscious
some processes too rapid
training bias in reports (what experimenter wants to hear)
what does behaviourism assume about behaviour (especially Skinners view)
it can be conditioned/learned if someone is exposed to the right stimulus at the right time
significance of behaviourism
unconcerned with mind/conscious, just on observable behaviour
- wants to explain complex behaviour from learning about simple behaviour
- logic is that if you know simple behaviour and have a theory for learning, you can predict complex behaviour
What goes against behaviourism
Instinct: implicit knowledge
Language: generative and cannot be accounted for by stimulus-response reward notions
- can make sense of or say sentence you have never heard before
Real-world problems: info overload in WWII pilots
what is the computer metaphor for cognitive psychology
mind has representations: stores of info/content
mind has processes: program that manipulates info
mind stores info as patterns of neural activity
Atkinson and Shiffrins modal of memory
3 stages
- sensory memory
-STM
-LTM
what is neuropsychology
the study of people with brain damage
provides insight to functions of different parts of the brain
Tulving proposed that LTM is subdivided into 3 compartments which are
Episodic memory
§ Memory for events in life
Semantic memory
§ Memory for facts
Procedural memory
§ Physical actions
What is positron emission tomography
PET: good spatial, bad temporal
see which areas of the brain are activated during certain cognitive activity
involves radioactive tracers - a limitation to speed
functional magnetic resonance imaging
fMRI
capable of higher resolution: fantastic spatial resolution, a bit limited by temporal
paradigm shift
oxygenated blood consumption in brain during activity (binds to Hb, increases magneticness)
Explain the concept of levels of analysis
the idea that there are multiple ways of looking at or studying something, and that each dimension of doing so offers new information to our understanding
- Whole brain - Structures within the brain - Chemicals in the brain
what did the description of a nerve net imply
the brain/neurons are conitnuous and interconnected network
What is the neural doctrine
The idea that individual cells transmit signals in the nervous system, and that these cells are not continuous with other cells as proposed by the nerve net theory
what were Cajals techniques and what was the main finding
Golgi stain - come cells fully visualized
Compare brain of baby animals to adults
Determined nerve net was not continuous
introduced the idea of neural circuits
why do we have to be careful with correlations
they’re not causational and do not tell us the direction of the relatedness
could be confounding variables
what are the two key principles of cortical functioning
contralateral functioning: receptive/control centres for one side of body in opposite side of brain (exception eyeballs, visual field is contralateral)
hemispheric specialization: structurally but not functionally symmetric (although have similar representations)
the brain and plasticity, short term retentiation
Actions/responses have immediate consequences on the connections of neurons responsible for it
- Improve and increase the rate of the reaction
○ Short term retentiation: Efficiency of communication between the neurons gets better
○ Can create structural changes to the brain
§ Doesn’t take long
§ Increase number of synapse, making new connections, and often new pathways
Big difference in experiments to correlational studies
Experiments use random assignment. - takes away biases of groups
what does localizing of brain function mean
the idea that specific areas of the brain are responsible for specific functions
methods: lesion, trauma, surgery- - l
-limited to case studies
supported by double dissociations (Broca’s and Wernicke’s
main functions of the four areas of the cortex
frontal: reasoning, planning, emotion
Parietal: sensory info perception
Temporal: hearing and memory
Occipital: vision
principles of neural representation
everything a person experiences is based on representations in the persons nervous system - likely based on an interaction of multiple neurons
electrical recordings have high or low temporal resolution?
high, low spatial
transcranial magnetic stimulation
temporary lesions to the brain to prevent AP - test certain pathways/functions to see what is affected
different brain recording mechanisms have different strengths and weaknesses, so how should we get around this
converge methods
representations
Representations: everything we experiences is the result of something that stands for that experience
what is an experiment that demonstrates experience-dependent plasticity
kitten study (horizontal or vertical stimuli) by Hubel and Wiesel
supports the idea that neurons in the visual system fire to specific types of stimuli, and each can be used as building blocks for putting together the whole image
what is the problem of neural representation for the senses?
sensory coding: how neurons represent various characteristics of the environment
Hierarchal processing
Progression of processing from lower to higher areas of the brain (ex. simple visual in occipital, complex visual in temporal) - gross’s monkeys
what is the unit of measurement in fMRI
voxels
the types of sensory coding
Specificity coding - unlikely
- object represented by firing of a neuron that fires only for that object
Population coding
○ Representation of a particular object by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons
Sparse coding - well supported
○ Representation of a particular object by the pattern of firing of a small number of neurons, with majority of the neurons remaining silent
prosopagnosia
difficulty perceiving faces - damage to the fusiform face area
parahippocampal place
perceives indoor and outdoor scenes by providing info about spatial layout
Extrasiate body area
activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies
the principle in cognition of multidimensionality means __
experience is multidimensional, and a specific cognition activates many areas of the brain (distributed representation)
4 principles of neural networks
- complex structural pathways that are an information highway
- in these structural paths there are functional paths
- operate dynamically
- resting state of brain activity, so parts of brain are active all of the time even when there is no cognitive activity
Track weighted imaging
detection of how water diffuses along neurons
the structural description of the network of elements and connections forming the brain is called the
connectome
functional connectivity is determined by __ and measured by
the extent to which neural activity in two brain areas are correlated, resting state fMRI
Default Mode Network
network that responds when people are not engaged in tasks (brain function at rest)
when active - mind wandering
