PSYC 309: Midterm 1

SYLLABUS IS TESTABLE MATERIAL

what are cognitive processes?

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

what happens with tactile 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

what happens with optic ataxia? (video)

• able to correctly name objects they are looking at, depth perception is till 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

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):

1. how pathway - to the motor cortex

2. 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

• ex. moving your arm to correctly position a card into the slot

what is the what pathway?

object and visual identification and recognition

• 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

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

• 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

Ellis et al. (1997)

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 not 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

you can choose between the bad decks (big wins, big losses) or good decks (small wins, small losses), do you care more about rewards or safety? (van Honk, 2002)

2 groups - high psychopathy (low emotional response) and low psychopathy (high emotional response)

communicative effectiveness of pantomime gesture in people with aphasia (Rose, 2017)

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

how does a problem naming an object differ from the object-naming problem shown by the individual in the video with associative agnosia?

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)

why do we gesture during speech? (Holler, 2013)

1. Aids communication during speech

2. 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?

1. visual cortex: sees the object

2. what pathway to limbic system (temporal cortex): recognizes shape and features of object

3. hippocampus: retrieves stored knowledge of object

4. temporal lobe: connects knowledge with object

5. 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 listen 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