Prelim 3

Episodic memory

Memory for personally experienced events including their time and place

Semantic memory

Memory for general knowledge, concepts, and facts independent of personal experience

Procedural memory

Memory for skills and habits that are performed automatically such as riding a bike

Declarative memory

Conscious memory for facts and events including episodic and semantic memory

Anterograde amnesia

The inability to form new long-term memories after brain damage

Preserved learning

The phenomenon where some forms of learning such as procedural learning remain intact despite memory impairments

Pattern separation

The hippocampal process of making similar experiences or inputs more distinct to reduce interference

Pattern completion

The retrieval of a full memory from partial or degraded cues

Relational memory

Memory for relationships between different items, places, or events

Contextual fear conditioning

A learning process where an organism associates a context or environment with an aversive event

Replay

The reactivation of neural activity patterns representing previous experiences often during sleep or rest

Reactivation

The re-emergence of neural patterns associated with previously encoded memories

Baddeley model

A model of working memory including the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer

Central executive

The component of working memory responsible for attentional control and coordination of cognitive processes

Phonological loop

Working memory subsystem that temporarily stores and rehearses verbal information

Visuospatial sketchpad

Working memory subsystem that temporarily stores and manipulates visual and spatial information

Episodic buffer

Working memory component integrating information across modalities into coherent episodes

dlPFC

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex involved in working memory, executive control, and goal-directed behavior

Internal attention

Attention directed toward internally maintained information such as thoughts or memories

Dorsal attention network

Brain network involved in goal-directed and voluntary allocation of attention

Ventral attention network

Brain network involved in detecting unexpected or behaviorally relevant stimuli

Vigilance

The ability to sustain attention and alertness over prolonged periods

Yerkes-Dodson law

The principle that performance is best at moderate levels of arousal and decreases when arousal is too low or too high

Reticular activating system

A brainstem network involved in regulating arousal, wakefulness, and attention

Biased competition

The theory that stimuli compete for neural representation and attention biases this competition

Endogenous attention

Voluntary and goal-driven attention directed internally or intentionally

Exogenous attention

Automatic attention captured by sudden or salient external stimuli

Right parietal damage

Damage often associated with hemispatial neglect where attention to the left side of space is impaired

Task sets

Mental configurations preparing the brain to perform a specific task or rule

Inhibition

The suppression of irrelevant responses, thoughts, or actions

Executive control

Higher-order cognitive processes involved in planning, attention, inhibition, and task management

Monitoring

The process of evaluating performance and detecting errors or conflicts

ACC

Anterior cingulate cortex involved in conflict monitoring, error detection, and cognitive control

Flexibility

The ability to adapt behavior or thinking in response to changing goals or rules

Motivation

Processes that energize and direct behavior toward goals

Stroop task

A task measuring inhibitory control by requiring naming ink colors while ignoring conflicting words

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

A test of cognitive flexibility where sorting rules change without warning

Attentional blink

A temporary reduction in the ability to detect a second target shortly after detecting a first target

Basic emotions theory

The theory that certain emotions are biologically innate and universally recognized

Constructed emotion theory

The theory that emotions are constructed from bodily states, context, and prior experience rather than fixed categories

Fight or flight response

The body’s physiological reaction to threat involving activation of the sympathetic nervous system

Fast pathway

A rapid subcortical route for emotional processing especially threat detection involving the amygdala

Cortisol

A stress hormone released by the adrenal glands involved in energy mobilization and stress responses

Body states

Physiological conditions of the body such as heart rate or tension that contribute to emotional experience

Valence

The positive or negative quality of an emotion or experience

Arousal

The level of physiological and psychological activation or alertness

Salience

The quality of a stimulus that makes it stand out and capture attention

Suspense

A state of uncertainty or anticipation that heightens emotional and attentional engagement

Default mode network

A brain network active during rest and internally focused thought such as self-reflection and mind-wandering

Consciousness states

Different levels or forms of awareness including wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, and altered states

EEG

Electroencephalography, a method for recording electrical brain activity with high temporal resolution