Cog Processes MID 1

Mind

Systems that creates mental representations of the world and controls mental functions such as preception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning

Cognition

The mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory, language, problemsolving, reasoning, and decision making

Cognitive Psychology

Branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory, language, problem-solving, reasoning and decision making,

Concerned with the scientific study of the mind and mental processes

Reaction Time

Time it takes to react to a stimulus. Determined by measuring the time between presentation of a stimulus and the response of the stimulus

Simple Reaction Time

Reacting to the presense or absence of a single stimulus

Choice Reaction Time

Time to response to one of two or more stimuli

Structuralism

Explained perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations

Analyctic Introspection

A procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli

Savings

Measure used by Ebbinghaus to determine the magnitude of memory left from initial learning. Higher savings indicated greater memory

Saving Curve

Plot of saving versus time after original learning

Behaviourism

Approach founded by John B. Watson that focuses only on observable behaviour, excluding consciousness and other mental processes that cannot be directly observed from psychological study.

Clasical Conditioning

Pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response causes the neural stimulus to elicit that response

Operant Conditioning

A learning process by which behaviours are made more likely to recur by the inclusion of reinforcers or less likely to recur by the inclusion of punishments.

Can be used to shape behaviour toward a more desirable outcome

Cogntive Map

Mental conception of a spatial layout

Cognitive Revolution

Shift in psychology during the 1950s from focusing on observable behaviour to studying mental processes, such as thinking, memory, and attention. It led to the information-processing approach to understanding the mind.

Scientific Revolution

Occurs when there is a shift in thinking from one scientific paradigm to another

Paradigm

A system of ideas, which guide thinking in a particular field

Paradigm Shift

A shift in thinking from one paradigm to another

information-Processing Approach

The approach to psychology, developed beginning in the 50s, in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages

Cocktail Party Effect

The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli, especially at a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human intelligence

Neuropsychology

The study of the behavioural effects of brain damage in humans

Electrophysiology

Techniques used to measure electrical responses of the nervous system

Brain Imaging

Techniques such as fMRI that results in images of the brain that could represent brain activity

Cogntive Neuroscience

Field concerned with studying the neural basis of cognition

Levels of analysis

A topic can be understood by studying it at a number of different levels of a system

Neurons

Cell that is specialized to receive and transmit information in the nervous system

Nerve Net

A network of continuously interconnected nerve fibers

Neuron Doctrine

The idea that individual cells called neurons transmit signals in the nervous system, and that these cells are not continuous with other cells, as proposed by nerve net theory

Cell Body

Part of the cell that contains mechanisms that keep the cell alive. In some neurons, it and the dendrites associated with it recieve information from other neurons

Dendrites

Structures that branch out from the cell body to receive electrical signals from other neurons

Axons

Part of the neuron that transmits signals from the cell body to the synapse at the end of the axon

Nerve Fibers

Part of the neuron that transmits signals from the cell body to the synapse at the end of the axon

Synapse

Space between the end of an axon and the cell body or dendrite of the next axon

Neural Circuits

Group of interconnected neurons that are responsible for neural processing

Receptors

Specialized neural structures that respond to environmental stimuli such as light, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli

Resting Potential

Difference in charge between the inside and outside of a nerve fiber when the fiber is at rest

Microelectrodes

Small wires that are used to record electrical signals from single neurons

Recording Electrode

When used to study neural functioning, a very thin glass or metal probe that can pick up electrical signals from single neurons

Reference electrode

A reference electrode measures electrical charge differences compared to a recording electrode. Because the reference electrode is placed where the electrical signal stays constant, changes in charge reflect activity near the recording electrode’s tip.

Nerve Impulse

An electrical response that is propagated down the length of an axon (nerve fiber).

Action Potential

Propagated electrical potential responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons. Action potentials typically travel down a neuron’s axon

Neurotransmitters

Chemical that is released at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials.

Principle of Neural Representation

Everything a person experiences is based on representations in the person’s nervous system.

Feature Detectors

Neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli.

Experience-Dependent Plasticity

A mechanism that causes an organism’s neurons to develop so they respond best to the type of stimulation to which the organism has been exposed.

Visual Cortex

Area in the occipital lobe that receives signals from the eyes.

Temporal Lobe

The lobe on the side of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for language, memory, hearing, and vision.

Hierarchical Processing

Processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain.

Problem of Sensory Coding

The problem of determining the neural representation for the senses.

Sensory Code

How neural firing represents various characteristics of the environment.

Specificity Coding

Sparse coding is when a specific stimulus is represented by the firing of a small number of neurons that respond to that particular stimulus, such as a neuron that responds only to one person’s face.

Population Coding

Neural representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons.

Sparse Coding

Neural coding based on the pattern of activity in small groups of neurons.

Localization of Function

Localization of function is the idea that specific areas of the brain are responsible for particular functions, such as processing movement, recognizing shapes, understanding speech, and forming memories.

Cerebral Cortex

The 3-mm-thick outer layer of the brain that contains the mechanisms responsible for higher mental functions such as perception, language, thinking, and problem solving.

Subcortical Regions

Areas of the brain below the cerebral cortex. Two examples of subcortical structures are the amygdala and the hippocampus.

Neuropsychology

The study of the behavioral effects of brain damage in humans.

Cortical Equipotentiality

The idea, popular in the early 1800s, that the brain operates as an indivisible whole, as opposed to operating based on specialized areas.

Brocas Area

An area in the frontal lobe associated with the production of language. Damage to this area causes Broca’s aphasia.

Brocas Aphasia

A condition associated with damage to Broca’s area, in the frontal lobe, characterized by labored ungrammatical speech and difficulty in understanding some types of sentences.

Wernickes Area

Area in the temporal lobe associated with understanding language. Damage to this area causes Wernicke’s aphasia.

Wernickes Aphasia

A condition, caused by damage to Wernicke’s area, that is characterized by difficulty in understanding language, and fluent, grammatically correct, but incoherent speech.

Occipital Lobe

The lobe at the back of the brain that is devoted primarily to analyzing incoming visual information.

Parietal Lobe

The lobe at the top of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for sensations caused by stimulation of the skin and also some aspects of visual information.

Frontal Lobe

The lobe in the front of the brain that serves higher functions such as language, thought, memory, and motor functioning.

Prosopagnosia

Condition caused by damage to the temporal lobe that is characterized by an inability to recognize faces.

Double Dissociation

A situation in which a single dissociation can be demonstrated in one person and the opposite type of single dissociation can be demonstrated in another person

Electroencephalography

A non-invasive neuroimaging method used to record electrical activity of the brain that involves placing electrodes on the scalp to detect and measure the electrical signals produced by neurons.

Magnetoencephalography

Measures the magnetic fields produced by neural activity in the brain. These magnetic fields are generated by electrical currents in neurons

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Uses near-infrared light to measure changes in blood oxygen levels and blood flow in the brain, helping researchers estimate brain activity.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Uses magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in specific brain areas, temporarily changing their activity without surgery.

Diffusion Tensor imaging

Type of MRI that tracks how water molecules move through brain tissue to map the pathways of white matter fibers and show how different brain regions are structurally connected.

fMRI

A brain imaging technique that measures how blood flow changes in response to cognitive activity.

Voxels

Small cube-shaped areas in the brain used in the analysis of data from brain scanning experiments.

Task-Related fMRI

The fMRI response that occurs in response to a specific cognitive task.

Fusiform Face Area (FFA)

An area in the temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces.

Fusiform Gyrus

A brain structure that spans the basal surface of the occipital and temporal lobes of both hemispheres.

Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA)

An area in the temporal lobe that contains neurons that are selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes.

Extrastriate Body Area (EBA)

An area in the temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies, but not by faces or other objects.

Multidimensional

The multidimensional nature of cognition refers to the fact that even simple experiences involve combinations of different qualities.

Distributed Representation

Occurs when a specific cognition activates many areas of the brain.

Neural Networks

Groups of neurons or structures that are connected together.

Structural Connectivity

The physical connections between different brain regions, established through neural pathways.

Track-Weighted Imaging

A technique for determining connectivity in the brain that is based on detection of how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers.

Connectome

A map of the brain that details the complex network of neurons and their connections.

Functional Connectivity

The extent to which the neural activity in separate brain areas is correlated with each other.

Resting-State fMRI

The fMRI response recorded when a person is at rest (not involved in any cognitive tasks).

Resting-State Functional Connectivity

A method for determining functional connectivity that involves determining the correlation between the resting-state fMRI in separated structures.

Seed Location

The area of the brain associated with carrying out a specific cognitive or motor task that serves as the reference area the resting-state functional connectivity method.

Time-Series Response

The way the fMRI response changes over time.

Test Location

When measuring resting-state functional connectivity, the activity at the test location is compared to the activity at the seed location to determine the degree of functional connectivity between the two locations.

Default Mode Network (DMN)

Network of structures that are active when a person is not involved in specific tasks.

Sensation

Sensation is the process of detecting stimuli from our environment through our senses and converting them into neural signals that the brain can process.

Perception

Conscious experience that results from stimulation of the senses

Machine Learning

A form of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms and statistical models enabling computers to perform specific tasks by learning from data and improve their performance over time (instead of using explicit instructions).

Deep Learning

Deep learning is a type of AI that uses multiple layers of neural networks to recognize complex patterns in large amounts of data, such as images, speech, and language.

Inverse Projection Problem

Task of determining the object that caused a particular image on the retina.

Occlusion

The perceptual phenomenon in which part or all of an object or scene are obscured (blocked or hidden) from view.

Viewpoint Invariance

The ability to recognize an object seen from different viewpoints.