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SYLLABUS IS TESTABLE MATERIAL
what are cognitive processes?
mechanics of what goes on in our minds and brains that allows us to think, reason, plan, perceive, attend, remember, talk, and move
what do different sides of the brain uniquely do?
left brain
analytic thought
logic
science/math
language
right brain
holistic thought
intuition
art and music
creativity
what side of the brain do each of our hands control?
right side of brain controls left side
left side of brain controls right side
what happens in a split-brain procedure?
usually done on a person with severe epilepsy to stop seizures or involuntarily by a stroke (ex.) - corpus callosum is cut which stops communication between the hemispheres
doesn’t have any dire consequences, but when only allowed to use one side of body, some processes are inaccessible
if you are having difficulties with writing and naming (agraphia, tactile anomia) only on the left side of the body, what side is controlling those functions?
The right side is having difficulty because it is not getting the signals/communication for the controlling side, so the left brain controls writing and naming
what is affected by the split-brain procedure? (Joe - video)
left and right brain can’t communicate
is able to draw two different shapes at the same time - everything on his right side goes only to his left brain (vv with left side)
cannot see words flashed on the left side of the screen (communication from the left is not getting to the right - speaking operates in left hemisphere)
can draw the words he can’t see on the left side of the screen (drawing and part identification in the right hemisphere)
what happens with apraxia? (video)
right side of the brain is not sending the correct signals to generate accurate gestures for the present task
gestures are incorrect, aware they are wrong and not sure how to fix them
difficulty with motor planning
what happens with visual agnosia? (video)
can’t name an object until he touches it or smells it
the only thing not working properly is his visual perception
can identify the different parts of the object, but can’t put them together
not sure about the answer he lands on
his hands did the action of using the object (a lock) almost non-consciously, which led to him identifying what it was correctly
damage to ventral (what) pathway
what happens with optic ataxia? (video)
able to correctly name objects they are looking at, depth perception is still intact (can tell which object is closer)
has a problem with visually guided action in her left hand - can’t move her hand to grab the object in front of her, keeps missing it
problem with visual input
can people with apraxia imitate gestures? (Goldenberg, 1995)
participants were asked to perform 20 different gestures with one of their hands and then copy the gestures onto a mannequin
people with damage to left hemisphere that displayed apraxia when imitating gestures performed the worst when copying the gestures on a mannequin
but, people with right hemisphere damage had poorer motor dexterity than people with apraxia (not related to apraxia)
people with apraxia can’t evoke/represent conceptual knowledge about human body
does double dissociation of object knowledge and object use exist? (Valerio, 2021)
participant FP: difficulties pantomiming tool use (using a hammer), but was able to accurately judge an object’s manipulation (had lesions in left side of the brain)
participant LS: can pantomime tool use, but is impaired at performing manipulation judgements (lesions in frontal areas, motor areas, parietal lobe)
shows that tool-gesture production and tool-gesture knowledge can be behaviourally and neurally double-dissociated
what is callosal motor impersistance? (Kim, 2017)
when a person cannot continue a goal-oriented activity to completion
shown to be more frequent in patients with right hemisphere damage (right hemisphere may be more dominant)
BUT, it can also occur from split-brain damage - this specific patient could not his right arm and leg out for more than 5 seconds
What is agraphia?
loss of the ability to write
what is tactile anomia?
loss of the ability to name an object by touch
is there a neurological dissociation between perceiving objects and grasping them? (Goodale, 1991)
3 participants completed 3 tasks regarding the orientation of a card into a slot
task one: put the card in the slot, task two: rotate the card to match the slot, task three: turn the card based on verbal instruction with eyes closed
participant DF: has visual form agnosia and poor perception of shape and orientation - able to do first and third task
Her issue is with visual mapping and recognizing things, no issue with grasping them
participant C.G. and C.J. = controls
How do we visually process things?
two pathways that go from the primary visual cortex (occipital brain):
how pathway - to the motor cortex
what pathway - to the limbic system
what is the how pathway?
processes an object’s spatial location relative to the viewer, guidance of actions, speech repetition - dorsal pathway
ex. moving your arm to correctly position a card into the slot
what is the what pathway?
object and visual identification and recognition - ventral pathway
ex. being able to name the card you are holding
what is prosopagnosia? (Ku, 2022)
type of visual agnosia - difficulty visually identifying familiar faces
can be observed in patients with semantic dementia or bilateral posterior cerebral artery territorial - damage to bilateral occipitotemporal areas (gyri) is necessary
this patient had unilateral damage while exhibiting these symptoms, so damage criteria has expanded
can still occur with no abnormality in visual perception
patient could not identify photos of celebrities/well known people
shows lesions in fusiform gyrus from occipital to temporal pole
what is apperceptive agnosia?
failures in recognition due to failures in perception - able to locate the stimulus and recognize its parts, but unable to group them together and identify what it is
can describe objects
can write, but don’t understand what they are being told to write
can recognize objects when touching them or using other modalities that are not visual
damage to occipital lobe and occipitotemporal pathway
more severe than associative agnosia
affects ventral pathway
what is associative agnosia?
failures in recognition or assigning meaning to a stimulus that is accurately perceived
able to draw the object and categorize it, but can’t name the thing they are drawing or what it does - can’t accurately visualize the object in their mind
attributed to anterior left temporal lobe lesion from stroke, head injury, brain tumour, etc.
affects ventral pathway
what does associative agnosia tell us about how we recognize objects?
actually naming an object is a different skill than drawing and categorizing an object - processing visual aspects of an object vs. linking meanings
what is Proust phenomenon? (De Beukelaer, 2023)
when smells evoke vivid and intense autobiographical memories
caused by damage to the amygdala - part of limbic system and generates emotional responses
amygdala is critical to how we respond to events in world around us
damage caused a disconnect between amygdala and hippocampus, but connection between olfactory bulb was unaffected
What is the significance of the amygdala to cognitive processes?
part of the limbic system, generates emotional responses
how we respond to world around us, triggers memories
what is capgras delusion? (video)
brain injury/stroke causing damage to the amygdala, which then causes an absence of emotional reactions to things (disconnect between amygdala and what pathway)
since a person with this previously had emotional reactions to things, those things will now feel unfamiliar and weird
David (video) thought his parents were imposters because he no longer felt emotional attachment to them
He also thought his house was not his
David was able to recognize and feel emotionally attached to his parents’ voices
do people with capgras delusion find familiar people unfamiliar within the other senses? (Ellis et al., 1997)
3 groups: normal controls, psychiatric controls, capgras delusion
had to identify whether a face was famous or unfamiliar while skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded - indirect measure of emotion and attention response (higher = higher arousal)
found people with capgras delusion had almost the same SCR amplitude for familiar and unfamiliar faces
conducted a control study: participants head a repeated loud tone - controls and capgras had the same familiarization progression
the data from Ellis et al. (1997) suggests that Capgras delusion is associated with reduced emotional responses to familiar faces. given the use of SCRs as the dependent measure, what is an alternative explanation for the findings?
Capgras delusion is visually specific
why can David (video) recognize his parent’s voices?
the connection between his auditory cortex and his amygdala works fine - can recognize voices
the connection between his amygdala and his “what” pathway is damaged
can emotion bias our decision-making without us being aware of it? (van Honk, 2002)
can choose between the bad decks (big wins, big losses) or good decks (small wins, small losses) - prioritize safety or gains
2 groups - high psychopathy (low emotional response) and low psychopathy (high emotional response)
high psychopathy were more likely to continually pick from the bad deck
communicative effectiveness of pantomime gesture in people with aphasia (Rose, 2017)
undergraduate students interpret messages conveyed by 11 people with aphasia producing pantomime while talking (speech-only, gesture-only, combined conditions)
free-association component (participants given no prompts on meaning) and multiple-choice answer component
performed better in multiple-choice component
performed best in combined condition
what is anomia? (video)
difficulty with naming things, but able to describe what objects do
can even get really close to the right name, but believes they are incorrect
researcher can give hints that still do not trigger memory (video)
can do the action associated with the object and can identify its category
people with associative agnosia and people with anomia both can’t name an object, but for different reasons. what are they?
associative agnosia: can’t accurately visualize the object
anomia: can’t associate the object with it’s proper name
what do the anomia and associative agnosia videos help to reveal about how we organized object knowledge in our brains?
we have a bank of knowledge that holds the names and definitions/knowledge of words (mental lexicon)
what disorder result in issues with mental lexicon?
anomia: can categorize appropriately, but unable to retrieve the word (in severe cases, can’t even access categorization [video])
associative agnosia doesn’t (it is a visual thing)
what does severe anomia look like? what have they lost and what can they still do? (video)
lost not only object names, but other conversational words like conjunctions, adjectives, verbs - sentences can sound like gibberish, lots of pauses/stutters while trying to find the correct words
why do we gesture during speech? (Holler, 2013)
Aids communication during speech
Aids lexical access during speech (use mental lexicon)
how did Holler, 2013 test importance of gesturing during speech and what were the results?
3 conditions: talking to someone face to face (gesture for communication and lexical access), talking to someone hidden behind a screen (gesture for lexical access, and maybe communication since they are still in the room), talking to a voice recorder (gesture for lexical)
want people to experience tip of the tongue phenomenon through naming words by their definition (numchuks, escargot, platypus
results show we do use gestures for lexical access
what if the number of gestures during speaking was the same for face-to-face, separated by a screen, and voice recording?
gestures are important for lexical access, not communication
what is Broca’s aphasia? (video)
partial loss of the ability to produce language (spoken, written), but comprehension remains intact
will try to speak, but sentences usually make little sense or are grammatically incorrect
due to damage in Broca’s area
do speech and gesturing during speech rely on different underlying cognitive processes? (Hogrefe, 2016)
tested on people with no brain damage, people with left brain damage (aphasia), and right brain damage (no aphasia)
first watched a short story over video, then had to retell the story in a vivid way so the story would be understood
people with aphasia gestured more on their “damaged side” hand (left) than the control and the right brain damage
what needs to happen to name an object from a picture?
visual cortex: sees the object
what pathway to limbic system (temporal cortex): recognizes shape and features of object
hippocampus: retrieves stored knowledge of object
temporal lobe: connects knowledge with object
Broca’s/Wernicke’s areas: allow verbalization of name of object
how can you explain semantic dementia and anomia via the mental lexicon?
Semantic dementia: neural networks that store knowledge about word meaning become damaged, so person cannot access meanings stored in mental lexicon and produce speech that lacks content and is not accurate (gradually deteriorates
Anomia: knowledge of concepts is intact, but ability to access/express word is impaired - also still maintain fluency, grammar, intact sentence structure (they just have word finding difficulties)
does the feel of a pretzel stick affect the taste experience?
people rated the freshness and crispiness of a pretzel stick
2 ends of each stick were manipulated - either got the fresh/crisp end or the stale/soggy end
why do people still experience pain in phantom limbs?
motor strip in brain (homunculus) still represents feeling in the limb, despite it being missing (can result in cramp like feelings) - both with people born without the limb or amputees
vision is a big part of habituating movement
Reduce pain by tricking brain into thinking limb is still there (with a mirror box) - brain gets stuck in a positive feedback loop since signals don’t have anywhere to go
what does the rubber hand illusion cause?
able to see one of your own hands and then a fake hand that looks like your hand - your other hand is placed behind a wall
someone strokes your hidden real hand and your rubber hand with a paintbrush at the same time, which causes you to feel ownership over your fake rubber hand
does the rubber hand illusion get stronger if you include sound? (Radziun, 2018)
2 conditions: (1) hand brushing with no sound of brushing, (2) hand brushing with sound of brushing
found that illusion strengthened with sound of paintbrush
does swearing help reduce pain when you get hurt? (Stephens, 2009)
participants submerge hand in a cold-pressor latency and either repeat a swear word or control word (they list 5 swear words and 5 controls - first swear word or first control was used) the whole time. they then rate their pain and their heart rate is measured
swearing = higher pain tolerance
swearing = lower sense of pain
swearing = higher change in heart rate
does Stephens’ (2009) findings hold up through a cross-cultural lens? (Robertson, 2017)
2 groups: Japanese (doesn’t typically swear when in pain), British (does typically swear when in pain)
methods: cold-pressor latency, pain scale
cold-press latency: main effect of swearing that did not interact with group (both groups showed higher pain tolerance when swearing)
pain score: no main effect of swearing, or a group interaction
what is it called when you are able to perceive visual objects correctly, but not operate them?
Optic ataxia
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