C&B psych week 1 flashcards

A series of flashcards covering key concepts from the lecture on biological and cognitive psychology, including foundational theories, historical figures, and research methods.

What is the main goal of scientists in behavioural neuroscience?

To explain the phenomena they study.

What are the two forms of scientific explanations?

Generalisation and reduction.

Who was the first to name the brain as the source of emotions and thoughts?

Hippocrates.

What is dualism?

The theory that the mind and body are separate.

What is monism?

The theory that everything consists of matter and energy, and that the mind is a phenomenon produced by the nervous system.

According to Descartes, where does the interaction between the human mind and brain occur?

In the pineal gland.

What did Galvani discover about stimulating a nerve?

It causes a contraction in the connected muscle, even when disconnected from the rest of the body.

What did Müller's doctrine of specific nerve energies propose?

That although all nerves carry the same impulses, they are perceived differently based on the channel.

What effect did Fritsch and Hitzig find concerning brain stimulation?

That stimulating specific brain regions caused contractions of specific muscles on the opposite side of the body.

What was Helmholtz known for in neuroscience?

Being the first to attempt to measure the speed of conduction through nerves.

What is the method of experimental ablation?

Removing parts of the brain in animals and observing the behavioral changes.

Who applied the principle of experimental ablation to humans?

Broca.

What is neuroethics?

A field dedicated to understanding the implications and developing best practices for neuroscience research involving human participants.

Who is considered the father of experimental psychology?

Wilhelm Wundt.

What method did Wundt use to study subjective experience?

Introspection.

What were Watson's main criticisms of introspection?

Extremely variable results and difficulty in verification.

What is classical conditioning as demonstrated by Pavlov?

Pairing a neutral stimulus with one that naturally produces a response until the neutral stimulus alone triggers the response.

What is operant conditioning?

Learning where behavior is shaped by rewards and punishments.

What were the findings of Tolman regarding rats navigating a maze?

Rats could develop a mental map of their environment.

What shift in psychology is known as the cognitive revolution?

A new focus on mental processes after the limitations of behaviorism were acknowledged.

What is Broadbent's filter model of attention about?

It suggests that attention has a limited capacity and filters out messages not being focused on.

What does the Donders' subtraction method measure?

The duration of mental processes by comparing reaction times in different tasks.

What do fMRI and PET primarily measure?

Blood flow in the brain, indirectly indicating brain activity.

What does TMS allow researchers to examine?

Whether certain brain regions are causally involved in specific cognitive functions.

What are some common methods discussed to examine cognitive processes?

Reaction times, event-related potentials (ERPs), brain imaging (fMRI, PET), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

What is converging evidence in research?

When evidence from different methods contributes to a better understanding, even if they appear conflicting.

What was Tolman's significant contribution to cognitive psychology?

He demonstrated that rats could develop a mental map (cognitive map) of their environment, challenging strict behaviorist views.

What is Noam Chomsky's main contribution to linguistics and cognitive science?

He proposed that humans have an innate capacity for language, a 'universal grammar,' revolutionizing the study of language acquisition.

What did Mishkin and Ungerleider's ablation studies reveal about visual processing?

They identified two distinct visual pathways: the dorsal (where/how) pathway for spatial vision and the ventral (what) pathway for object recognition.

Who was Henry Molaison (H.M.), and what did his case demonstrate about memory?

H.M. was a patient who underwent bilateral removal of the medial temporal lobe to treat epilepsy. He could no longer form new long-term memories (anterograde amnesia) and lost some memories from the period prior to surgery (retrograde amnesia), demonstrating the crucial role of the medial temporal lobe in memory formation.

What did Penfield's electric stimulation studies reveal about the brain?

By electrically stimulating the brains of awake patients during surgery, he mapped the primary motor cortex (showing neurons project to the spinal cord to activate muscles) and the somatosensory cortex (showing neurons receive activation from sense receptors on skin, muscles, and joints).

What is the primary function of the motor cortex?

Neurons in the motor cortex project to the spinal cord to activate muscles, controlling voluntary movements.

What is the primary function of the somatosensory cortex?

Neurons in the somatosensory cortex receive activation from sense receptors on the skin, muscles, and joints, processing touch, temperature, pain, and body position.

What was Fransiscus Cornelis Donders' contribution to cognitive psychology?

He proposed that mental processes take time and that this time can be measured. His subtraction method involved comparing reaction times (RT) in different tasks to isolate the duration of specific mental processes (e.g., RTchoice - RTsimple = Stimulus discrimination time).

What is the 'Total Time Hypothesis' in learning?

The proposal that the amount learned is a simple function of the total amount of time spent on the learning task.

What did Hermann Ebbinghaus demonstrate about memory?

As a pioneer in memory research, he systematically demonstrated that his memory abilities depended directly on the number of repetitions or practice sessions, leading to concepts like the 'learning curve' and 'forgetting curve'.

What did Baddeley and Longman's study on typing performance investigate?

They tested the effect of different training schedules on typing performance, observing how massed versus distributed practice influenced skill acquisition and retention.

What did Slamecka and Graf discover about memory and generation?

Their research showed that memory is better when information is generated by the subject (e.g., answering a question or solving a problem) rather than passively presented.

Describe Karpicke and Roediger's study on foreign vocabulary learning.

They compared four conditions to optimize foreign vocabulary acquisition: 1. ST (Show & Test All): Continue to show and test all items. 2. SNT (Stop Showing Correct, Test All): Stop showing correct items, but continue to test them. 3. STN (Show All, Stop Testing Correct): Continue to show correct items, but do not test them. 4. SNTN (Stop Showing & Testing Correct): Stop showing correct items and do not test them. Their findings highlighted the power of retrieval practice.

What did Craik and Tulving's study on levels of processing reveal?

They demonstrated that the depth of processing affects memory. Participants performed better on words processed with deeper (semantic, e.g., sentence meaning) tasks compared to shallower (structural, e.g., case; or phonemic, e.g., rhyme) tasks.

What is the purpose of a Posner cueing task?

It is used to study spatial attention by measuring reaction times to targets preceded by valid or invalid cues, indicating how attention can be shifted and focused.

What is the purpose of a Visual Search Task?

It measures how efficiently individuals can locate a target item among distractors, often used to study attention, perception, and visual processing speed.

What are Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)?

ERPs are averaged electrical brain responses measured by EEG that are time-locked to a specific event or stimulus, providing high temporal resolution data on mental processes.

Distinguish between Syntax and Semantics in language.

Syntax refers to the set of rules governing sentence structure and grammar, determining how words are combined to form phrases and sentences. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.

What is Electroencephalography (EEG) and how does it compare to fMRI?

EEG measures the electrical activity of the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp, providing excellent temporal resolution (when brain activity occurs). fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) measures changes in blood flow, indirectly indicating brain activity, offering good spatial resolution (where activity occurs), but with lower temporal resolution than EEG.

How is 'imagery' studied in the brain?

Brain imagery, or mental imagery, is studied by examining brain activity (e.g., using fMRI or EEG) while individuals mentally simulate sensory experiences (e.g., visualizing an object or imagining a sound) without external stimuli, to understand the neural correlates of internal representations.