Week 4.1 Cog Neuro

Question 1

Why study the brain

Answer 1

• Knowing when + where cog processes happen in the brain = help understand nature of them
• Important for understanding + treating neurological disorders

Question 2

Knowing where + when effects occur in the brain can

Answer 2

Constrain cognitive theories of those effects

Question 3

Understanding neural basis of beaviour allows us to

Answer 3

Understand cog disorders + predicts effects of damage to brain

Question 4

There are two ways to investigate neural activity and cognitive functions in relation to one another

Answer 4

• change behaviour and measure effect on the brain
  or
• change state of the brain and measure effect on behaviour

Question 5

reading action words is correlated with

Answer 5

• greater activity in the motor cortex
• when people process actions words they simulate the action (helps understand the world)

Question 6

damage to the motor cortex is associated with

Answer 6

• impaired action word understanding
• activation of the motor cortex is necessary to understand action words

Question 7

What are recording methods for IVs and DVs in cog neuroscience?

Answer 7

IVs:
- conditions that manipulate behaviour/cog processes

DVs:
brain activity: electrophysiology/EEG/MEG
blood flow - fMRI (accuracy/RTs to confirm validity)
permits correlational technique

Question 8

What are inference methods for IVs and DVs in cog neuroscience?

Answer 8

IVs:
- lesion
- brain stimulation (conditions manipulating behaviour as validity check)

DVs:
behaviour/cognitive process
permits causal inference

Question 9

Why are inference studies better/worse

Answer 9

Allow stronger inference about necessity of brain region
But have issues e.g. plasticity + reorganisation of function

Question 10

Why are recording studies better

Answer 10

• Greater flexibility in experimental design
• Often richer source of data
• Sample across multiple brain regions with high spatial resolution
• Sample at very high temporal resolution

Question 11

the term cognition refers to

Answer 11

a variety of higher mental processes i.e. thinking, perceiving, imagining, speaking, acting and planning

Question 12

dualism

Answer 12

the mind and brain are made up of different kinds of substance

Question 13

dual aspect thoery

Answer 13

mind and brain = two different levels of explanation for the same thing

Question 14

reductionism

Answer 14

psychology will eventually reduce to biology as we learn more about the brain

Question 15

phenology

Answer 15

individual differences in cognition can be mapped on to differences in skull shape

Question 16

issues with phrenology

Answer 16

not constrained by theories of cognition
not empirically derived
skull shape has nothing to do with cognitive function

Question 17

functional specialization

Answer 17

different regions of the brain are specialized for different functions

Question 18

information processing

Answer 18

an approach in which behaviour is described in terms of a sequence of cognitive stages

Question 19

interactivity

Answer 19

later stages of processing can begin before earlier stages are complete

Question 20

top-down processing

Answer 20

influence of later stages on the processing of earlier ones

Question 21

parallel processing

Answer 21

different info is processed at the same time

Question 22

neural network models

Answer 22

computational models in which information processing occurs using many interconnected nodes

Question 23

nodes

Answer 23

basic units of neural network models that are activated in response to activity in other parts of the network

Question 24

temporal resolution

Answer 24

the accuracy with which one can measure when an event occurs

Question 25

spatial resolution

Answer 25

the accuracy with which one can measure where an event is occuring

Question 26

modularity

Answer 26

certain cog processes for regions of the brain are restricted in the type of info they process

Question 27

domain specificity

Answer 27

a cog process/brain region is dedicated solely to one particular type of info (colors, faces, words etc.)

Question 28

modules

Answer 28

demonstrate domain specificity

Question 29

central systems

Answer 29

domain-independent - info processed is non-specific e.g. memory/attention/exec functions