exam 2

What is a double dissociation?  Be able to give examples from brain lesion patients and from brain imaging. 

• Double dissociation is when area A affects function X, but not function Y and when area B affects function Y, but not X. Double dissociation supports the idea of localization of functions where one area is important for a function, but the other area is not necessary for the function. It is better to show dissociation in both to prove that the areas are not needed for both functions.

Compare the effects of brain damage to Broca’s area with damage to Wernicke’s area.  What does this dissociation tell us about how speech processing is organized in the brain?

• Someone with a brain lesion who lost their ability to produce language but can still comprehend language would have brain activity in an fMRI for Wernicke’s area, but not in Broca’s area. 

• Dissociation shows that the loss of speech production is associated with a lesion in Broca’s area and the loss of speech comprehension is associated with a lesion in Wernicke’s area. 

Fusiform face area

 associated with facial recognition and damage is associated with face blindness (prosopagnosia)

 parahippocampal place area

processes scenes and places - helpful for navigating and recognizing environments. Damage is associated with topographia agnosia and makes people struggle with recognizing familiar places and navigating environments

Extrastriate body area

• processing human body parts and whole bodies - recognizing posture, body movement, and distinguishing body forms. Damage impairs ability to recognize bodies/body parts 

 What types of questions can be answered by the following cognitive neuroscience research techniques: neuropsychological (lesion) methods

• what function is lost when this area is impaired?

structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),

• which brain structures are associated with this function?

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),

• which part of the brain has activity while performing this function?

 transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

 what happens to the function when this area of the brain (only cranial regions) are stimulated/disrupted?

Which of these methods are correlational and which are causal? 

• sMRI and fMRI are always correlational. Lesion methods and TMS are causal.

How is the subtraction method used in brain imaging studies?  

• The subtraction method is used in fMRI to isolate brain activity with two tasks. The one in class was one where you are given a word and then a picture of the word, then the other one is where you have to generate the picture of the word yourself.

Which assumption of the subtraction method is particularly problematic for brain imaging? 

• Assumption of pure insertion - all steps before remain the same when a new step is added, but it is hard to compare whether you were paying more or less attention during each task.

 What is speech segmentation, and how does it provide evidence that top-down processing contributes to speech perception? 

• Using context and prior knowledge to tell when continuous speech stops and ends. You have to use your prior knowledge to decode when the person’s train of thought is stopping or ending. 

distal stimulus

• actual object that provides visual input (in class, the example is a tree)

proximal stimulus

•  pattern of physical light that reaches sensory organs (image on the back of the retina)

representation

• mental interpretation of object

response

• how we process and use the information

lack of correspondence

• representation doesn’t correspond to distal stimulus

  • Distal and proximal are different, distal and representation different

paradoxical correspondence

when distal and proximal stimulus don’t correspond, but distal stimulus and representation do - wrong equation, right answer basically (brain misinterprets proximal stimulus)

Inverse projection problem

• how does the mind decide what image to give to the retina? Caused by ambiguity of proximal stimulus

bottom up processing

use sensory input from environment to perceive things

Top-down

•  use prior knowledge and experiences to perceive things

What does it mean to say that our perceptual systems integrate bottom-up and top-down information? 

• Our brains use both bottom-up and top-down info

size constancy

• the size of an object is constant even if it appears to be smaller or larger depending on the distance

shape constancy

• shape of the object is constant even if different depths and forms are perceived

color constancy

• color of the shape is constant even if lighting is different 

Muller-lyer

lines appear to be different sizes even though they are the same length because of the distance they are from the observer.

Necker cube

• shows how ambiguous stimuli can show different representations of the same image

Oblique effect

• people are better at perceiving vertical/horizontal lines rather than oblique (angled) lines

Light from above

• lighting from above influences perceptions of shadows and shapes. Concave shapes appear convex and convex shapes appear concave.

Scene schema

•  knowledge of what a given scene usually contains

Blob personalities

a blob can be represented as different things based on the context of its environment

How does top-down processing (in the form of attentional biases, perceptual regularities in the environment, and/or semantic regularities in the environment) contribute to each of these phenomena? 

attentional biases

• you can see a different shape depending on which area you are more focused on (Necker box)

How does top-down processing (in the form of attentional biases, perceptual regularities in the environment, and/or semantic regularities in the environment) contribute to each of these phenomena? 

perceptual regularities

• based on what we are used to seeing

  • (light appears from sun above, so regularities in shadows)

  • Oblique (we’re used to seeing straight lines usually)

  • Perceptual constancies (shape, size, color)

How does top-down processing (in the form of attentional biases, perceptual regularities in the environment, and/or semantic regularities in the environment) contribute to each of these phenomena? 

Semantic regularities

• provides context of what you are looking at (blob and schema)

Explain the concept of experience-dependent plasticity in the brain. 

• Our brain is more likely to perceive stimuli that we have experienced in the past more strongly and can recognize specific features more clearly with experience

Describe experimental evidence that experience-dependent plasticity may contribute to: 1) the oblique effect

•  the Blakemore and Cooper cat study where cats were only raised in environments with vertical lines and could not process horizontal lines as well (no horizontal neurons). Human neurons prefer vertical and horizontal rather than oblique processing neurons.

Describe experimental evidence that experience-dependent plasticity may contribute to 2) the existence of the “fusiform face area”?   

• FFA developed as a result of needing to tell faces apart

sensory memory

memory obtained from senses (touch, smell, etc) - very high capacity and short duration

iconic memory

memories from visual stimuli (remembering a short sequence of letters by seeing it)

echoic memory

 memories from audial stimuli (remembering a short sequence of letters by hearing it)

whole report method

• participants were asked to recall numbers and letters from a 4x3 grid

partial report method

• participants were asked to recall numbers and letters from one row of a grid. A visual/audial cue was given to the participants after the letters showed up and they were asked to recall that row

delayed partial report method

•  same thing as partial but there was a short delay for the cue to appear

What is chunking?  What constitutes a “chunk” of information? 

What did he conclude from these experiments about the duration and capacity of iconic memory?

It has a high capacity but short duration

What is chunking?

• Grouping words/something to memorize into groups that are meaningful to one another to enhance the memory recalled

What constitutes a “chunk” of information? 

• Chunk of info: anything that can be categorized into a group but weakly associated with other groups

In what ways did change detection research challenge the idea of the “magical number 7 +/- 2”? 

•  participants were shown an image of shapes, followed by a delay, then the shapes. They were asked to tell if there was a change

• Instead of 7 ± 2 items, change detection researchers realized that it was more like 4 items and the digit span test may overestimate STM capacity by providing opportunities for rehearsal or chunking

 What is the maximum capacity of short-term/working memory as estimated by change detection studies?

4 ± 1

 What happens to the capacity as item complexity increases? 

Capacity decreases

Why have some researchers argued that short-term/working memory capacity should be measured in amount of information rather than in number of items? 

Because the complexity of the items influences the STM/WM capacity

Describe the Atkinson & Shiffrin’s Modal Memory Model. What types of memory does it include, and what are the ways in which information can travel from one memory store to another?

• Input -> Sensory memory-> STM -> <- LTM (STM/LTM interchangeable)

                Output

What roles do control processes play in the Modal Model?

You can use control processes (processes you can control)  that would help you remember things better (rehearsal, chunking, selective attention) to get things from STM to LTM. When you need to release output, you go from LTM to STM.

Why did Baddeley suggest that short-term memory be renamed to “working memory”?

• Baddeley suggests that STM is renamed because researchers saw STM as only storage, but STM is also used to give an output because it could be manipulated.

phonological loop

• stores processes audial language and non-audial language

visuospatial sketchpad

•  stores processes visual and spatial stimuli

central executive

 least understood, but coordinates processes of visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop

episodic buffer

•  back up storage that allows STM to communicate with LTM

role of phonological store

• entry point for auditory info

role of articulatory rehearsal

• responsible for rehearsal to maintain info in the loop

How does the phonological loop handle non-auditory inputs (such as written words)?

non-audial language has to be rehearsed and converted into phonological code before going into the loop

How does it handle auditory inputs (such as spoken words)? 

Audial speech enters through the phonological store and disappears unless rehearsed

Phonological similarity

•  People tend to remember stimuli that are more dissimilar than stimuli that are similar (letters like b, v, t vs letters like s, o, q); when people view the list with similar letters, they also remember less words, which shows that visual input is also in the phonological loop as a code; people also remember words that look similar but don’t sound similar better than words that sound similar

word length effect

• people remember shorter words than longer words bc it takes longer to rehearse them into the loop

Articulatory suppression

• repeating a word while trying to rehearse the list into the loop makes it more difficult for the list to stay in the loop; visual stimuli is blocked from entering the loop; removes phonological similarity and word length effect

Short-term/working memory has been linked to the _ cortex.

prefrontal

Serial position curve

•  people tend to remember the first and last things in a list

primacy effect

people remember the first things in a list 

recency effect

people remember the last things in a list

What variables (from our class demonstrations) can be manipulated to separately influence the primacy and recency effects?

• Speed of presentation, delay and interference (counting backwards from 100 after being presented the list)

Based on these results, which part of the serial position curve depends on short-term memory and which on long-term memory? 

• Primacy effect is dependent on LTM, recency effect is STM

Describe evidence from patients with brain lesions that short-term memory and long-term memory can be doubly dissociated. 

• Patient HM and EP: their LTM was impaired, but their STM was unimpaired (their hippocampus was impaired)

• Patient KF: LTM wasn’t impaired, but STM was impaired (frontal cortex was impaired)

What does it mean to say that semantic coding is important for long-term memory? 

• We store and retrieve info in terms of meaning instead of exact wording/sensory features. For example, when you read a book, you don’t remember the exact words of it, but you remember the main idea

Define and be able to give examples of the following types of long-term memory: episodic memory

• memories of personal experiences

I remember my cruise trip from 2018

 semantic memory

• memories of facts and unbiased knowledge

I remember that Christopher Columbus sailed the blue in 1492

Procedural memory

•  memories of how to do tasks

• I learned how to ride a bike

Repetition priming

increased fluency of processing because you were exposed to the stimulus beforehand

I learned how to juggle with practice

Which of these are considered to be declarative/explicit and which are considered to be non-declarative/implicit, and why? 

• Episodic and semantic memory are explicit because you have to actively think about them to recall the memories. Procedural memory and repetition priming are implicit because you can do them unconsciously.

Be able to explain how damage to the hippocampus affects each of the aforementioned types of memory, distinguishing (when relevant) between effects on the ability to form new memories and the ability to retrieve memories that were already in place prior to the damage. 

• Hippocampus only affects semantic and episodic memory, but not procedural and repetition priming (only affects explicit processes). Hippocampal damage affects LTM explicit memories, but not STM memory or implicit memories

What insight did the study of mirror tracing in Patient H.M. provide to our understanding of longterm memory systems?   

• He was able to do it as well as healthy patients because of procedural memory even though he didn’t recall doing the experiment before. This proves that procedural memory is not affected by hippocampal damage.

What insight did the study of repetition priming Patient E.P. provide to our understanding of longterm memory systems?   

Priming is also unaffected by hippocampal damage because he was able to do the priming test as well as other participants, but he did poorly compared to the rest of the participants in an explicit memory test.

How does the subjective experience of an episodic memory differ from that of a semantic memory?

• The way that episodic memories and semantic memories are experiences are different.  There’s also different brain networks involved for accessing semantic and episodic memories. Episodic memories are more personal, so it feels like you relive it.

How do schemas influence the way new information is remembered?  

• A schema is a script/what you expect something to be like, so it can provide context for the information and bias it to fit the script. It could also help people remember things better because knowing the context of something can help the idea be encoded more naturally.

Describe Brooks’ 1968 study about visuospatial and verbal interference effects.

Study to demonstrate whether phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad operate independently and can be simultaneously used/interfered with

What does it mean to say that episodic memories become semanticized over time? 

• The context of the event eventually disappears and just becomes facts.

• Example: you remember your high school graduation and all the emotions you felt, but eventually you just remember it as the day you graduated.

propaganda effect

people remember something and accept it as fact just because they heard it before

mere exposure effect

people like something more because they are exposed to it multiple times.

deep processing

•  based on meaning - asking questions about semantics of word

shallow processing

•  based on physical features - asking about rhyme or orthographics of word

self-reference effect

•  relating information to you to remember it better

generation effect

• generating an answer yourself helps you remember the information better

testing effect

•  being tested on something at least once helps you remember information better - retrieving information can help you recall the information

How can organizational trees help to facilitate memory encoding? 

• It organizes information in a more meaningful way to help you remember it

What is a retrieval cue?   

• A stimulus that can help us remember information stored in the memory

• Encoding specificity:

• contextual info provides cues for accessing info in memories; context is encoded alongside the information (external context)

• State dependent learning:

• people remember things better when they are in a similar inner state of mind before they complete a task as when they complete the task (internal context)

Transfer appropriate processing

retrieval is easier when the same cognitive processes are engaged before and during the task

How does the principle of transfer-appropriate processing challenge the levels of processing theory of memory formation? 

• Deeper processing does not always lead to better memory

What is temporally graded retrograde amnesia?

when you can’t remember things that occurred before the neurological event

Anterograde amnesia

• when you can’t remember things that occurred after the event