PSYC340 Exam 1 ALL

All flashcards for Exam 1 PSYC340

The Scope of Cognitive Psychology

Perception, Attention, Object recognition, Memory, Knowledge, Language, Judgment and reasoning, Problem-solving, intelligence

Rationalism (Rene Descartes 1596-1650)

Opinions and actions should be based on reason rather than emotions, faith or sensation.

Cartesian Dualism (Rene Descartes 1596-1650)

The belief that the mind and brain are separate

British Empiricism (mid 1600s-mid 1700s)

Knowledge is gained through experimentation and revision

Structuralism

Wilhelm Wundt & Edward Titchener’s (1800s- early 1900s)

Overall experience is defined by combining sensations

Introspection

Wundt and Titchener (1800s to early 1900s)

Textbook: A method in which people observe and record the content of their own mental lives and the sequence of their own observed experiences.

Slides: Research technique in which trained participants describe their experiences and thoughts in response to stimuli.

What are some advantages with Introspection?

Controlled conditions (done within a lab)

Attempt at rigor (training the participants)

What are some problems with introspection?

Interpersonal variation between responses (variability between participants)

Intrapersonal variation of responses (variability in the same participants)

Results could not be verified (there is no way to test what these people are claiming)

Can’t tell us anything about unconscious events

What is the first known cognitive psychology experiment that is similar to cognitive psychology as it is today?

Mental Chronometry: How long does the mental process take?

Explored reaction time (RT) experiments: Measure interval between a stimulus and a persons response to that stimulus.

We can infer mental processes from someone’s behavior

Franciscus Donders (1868)

Who are some notable behaviorist?

John B. Watson and BF Skinner

Behaviorism (Early to Mid 1900s)

Mental processes are not directly observable, but behaviors are → Psychologist should only study directly observable behaviors

Limitations of Behaviorism

People act based on internal processes, not just based on stimuli

Different stimuli elicit the same behavior (Behaviorist say that different stimuli should always have different behavior)

Breland and Breland’s “The Misbehavior of Organisms”

Positive reinforcement in animal behavior

Trained them to do behaviors they did naturally (ex. chicken jumping on platforms)

Also trained them to do non-natural behaviors (raccoon putting a basketball in a hoop) Even though they trained it with rewards, the raccoons still could not overcome its natural instincts to try and wash the ball

Found that they could teach the animals to do many things, but they could still misbehave.

Disproves Behaviorism and shows that stimuli is not the only thing that drives behavior.

Kant’s transcendental method

Begin with observable fact and then work backwards to infer causes (what are the invisible effects of a visible cause)

Tolman’s cognitive maps

Rats exploring maze - 3 groups

No reward group - Received no reward for finding the end of the maze

Reward - Received food reward for finding the end of the maze

No Reward → reward - Received no reward for the 1st 10 days, then were rewarded

No reward → reward rats developed a cognitive map through latent learning

Latent Learning

A type of learning that occurs subconsciously and is not immediately obvious.

To understand cognitive behavior, we must:

Measure observable behavior

Make inferences about underlying cognitive abilities

Consider what this says about how the mind works

(This is how most cog psych studies go)

Operant conditioning

A learning process that uses rewards and punishments to modify behavior (Positive punishment, negative punishment, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement)

Classical conditioning

A learning process that involves associating a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that produces a natural response

Complexity

The brain and nervous system are very complex

Integration

The brain integrates information from all senses. Nerves connect with at least 10,000 other nerve cells

Adaptability

The brain has to adapt to changing environment (ex. the brain uses different parts when walking to class vs being in class)

Neuroplasticity

Brain’s capacity for physical changes in response to experience

The brain’s ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience

Developing new connections with new experience

Who first demonstrated Neuroplasticity, and what did she use to do so?

Dr. Mariam Diamond and colleagues at UC Berkeley

Caged rats in a stimulating (fun) vs unstimulating (nothing to do) environments

Brain matter of the rats in the stimulating environments was thicker (it developed more)

What are the two types of brain cells?

Glial Cells

Neurons

Glial cells

Cells that support, nourish and protect neurons

Physically and chemical buffering neurons

Removes dead neurons

Gives oxygen to neurons

Neurons

Cells specialized to receive and transmit information in the nervous system (Nerve cells)

What are the basic parts of a neuron?

Dendrites

Cell body (soma)

Axon

Myelin Sheath

Node of ranvier

Axon terminals

Dendrites (parts of a neuron)

Branch like protrusions at the top of the neuron which detect incoming signals.

Cell body/soma (parts of a neuron)

Contains the nucleus and cellular machinery

Axon (parts of a neuron)

Transmits signals to other neurons

Myelin Sheath (parts of a neuron)

Covers the axons, insulates them and facilitates neural communication

Nodes of ranvier (parts of a neuron)

Refer to the gaps in the myelin sheath

Axon terminals (parts of a neuron)

Connect to other neurons

What are the three types of neurons?

Sensory (afferent) neurons

Motor (efferent) Neurons

Interneurons

Sensory (afferent) Neurons (types of neurons)

Transmit information from environment to central nervous system (CNS)

Any physical sensation

Takes information from the environment and body and sends it to our brain

Motor (efferent) Neurons (types of neurons)

Transmits information from the central nervous system (CNS) to muscles/organs/glands

Interneurons (types of neurons)

Connect the brain regions

ex. can enable connection between afferent and efferent neurons

Enables us to do higher order cognitive functions

Action potential (communication within neurons)

Electrical signals that enable communications within neurons

If the stimulus reaches threshold, an action potential is fired and propagates (moves) down the axon

The process of action potential

In response to a signal, the soma end of the axon becomes depolarized

The depolarization spreads down the axon. Meanwhile, the first part of the membrane repolarizes. Because the Na channels are inactivated and additional K channels have opened, the membrane cannot depolarize again.

The action potential continues to travel down the axon.

Depolarizing (Process of action potential)

Small gates in the cell wall open, allows fluid containing positive charged ions flows in and stops change differential.

Repolarizing (process of action potential)

Changing back from positive ions to negative ions.

All-or-none law

The strength in which a neurons fires is independent to the strength of the stimulus. If the stimulus exceeds the threshold level, then the neuron fires (all). If it doesn’t reach the threshold, it doesn’t (none).

Either the stimulus fires or it doesn’t

If the signal is sent, it is always the same magnitude (neurons only have one strength they can send)

How to measure action potential

The size is not measured; size remains consistent

The rate of firing is what’s measured (how intense the stimulus is)

Low intensities: slow firing

High intensities: fast firing

Neurotransmitters (communication between neurons)

Chemical released by one neuron to communicate with another neuron

Synapse (communication between neurons)

The region where axons of one neuron and dendrites of another come together.

Presynaptic neurons (communication between neurons)

Neuron that releases the neurotransmitters

Postsynaptic neuron (communication between neurons)

Neuron that receives the neurotransmitters

Reuptake (communication between neurons)

Reabsorption of a neurotransmitter by the presynaptic neuron

Excitatory effects (neurotransmitters)

Encourages the next neuron to fire (ex. serotonin)

Inhibitory effects (neurotransmitters)

Keeps the next neuron from firing (ex. GABA)

GABA (Inhibitory effects)

The brains break petal

Keeps neurons from firing to neurons we don’t want it to go to

Neural representations

How our brain represents different objects, experiences, memories, cognitive functions

Feature detectors (Neural representations)

Neurons that fire only to specific qualities of stimuli

Orientation, movement, length

Found in early stages of visual processing

Sensitive to lines and combinations of lines

Sensory coding (Neural representations)

How neurons represent characteristics of the environment

Specificity coding (sensory coding)

Representation via single dedicated neurons

ex. a neuron for your pet, neuron for your mom

Sparse coding (sensory coding)

Representation via a pattern of firing across a small number of neurons

ex. the area around you when walking to class

Distributed coding (sensory coding)

Many neurons working together to encode information

Brainstem

Central core of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord swells as it enters the skull; responsible for the automatic survival functions

Medulla (brainstem)

Hindbrain structure that is the brainstem’s base; controls heartbeat and breathing

Pons (brainstem)

Helps coordinate movement and control sleep/awakeness

Cerebellum

Enables non-verbal learning and memory, helps us judge time, modulate emotions, discriminate sounds and textures, coordinates voluntary movements

Exist on both sides of the brain

Allows the brain to ignore normal sensations and focus on abnormal ones (ex. pain is abnormal)

Cerebellum tickling experiment

Participants in and MRI machine either tickled themselves or were tickled by researchers

When participants tickled themselves, the cerebellum communicated with the sensory cortex (told the sensory cortex that it was just yourself and cancelled out sensory experiences)

Part of the cerebellums function is to tell us what to expect from our own body movements

Implicit memories

Information that we do not store on purpose and is unintentionally memorized (ex: passwords)

Stereotyped behavior

A repetitive behavior that has no purpose (ex. typing)

Thalamus (brainstem)

The brain’s sensory control center

Located at the top of the brainstem

Reticular formation (brainstem)

The nerve network running through the brainstem and thalamus

Acts as a filter that relays important information to other brain areas

Plays an important role in controlling arousal

Superior colliculus (Midbrain)

Receives projections from retina (sight)

Inferior colliculus (Midbrain)

Receives projections from ear (hearing)

Substantia Nigra (midbrain)

Connection to forebrain for reward and initiating movement

Basal Ganglia (Forebrain)

Movement and S-R learning

Damage can result in uncontrolled movement (parkisons)

Limbic system (Forebrain)

Neural system (many different structures) that lies between the oldest and newest brain areas

Associated with emotions and drives (memory and emotions)

Includes the amygdala, hypothalamus and the hippocampus

Amygdala (limbic system)

Two almond shaped neural clusters that enable aggression and fear; linked to emotion

Hypothalamus (limbic system)

Linked to emotion and reward

Positioned below the thalamus

Directs several maintenance activities

Helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland

Hippocampus

Helps process conscious, explicit memories of facts and events

ex. what you ate for breakfast

Helps determine what information should be stored but does not actually store it

Cerebral cortex (forebrain)

Neocortex: Outermost layer (neo - most recent, cortex - bark) Wrinkles in “bark” allow us to fit more neurons

4 lobes: Occipital, Temporal, Frontal, Parietal

Occipital lobe (cerebral cortex) (Cortical structures)

Interpret and combine visual information (color, shape, size)

Temporal lobe (cerebral cortex) (cortical structures)

Hearing, language, auditory and perceptual processing, memory

Frontal lobe (cerebral cortex) (Cortical structures)

Intelligence, personality, voluntary muscles, memory, thought, reasoning and planning

Parietal (cerebral cortex) (Cortical structures)

Spatial location, attention, motor control, temperature, pain and pressure

Cortical structures (Cerebral cortex)

3 divisions

Primary motor projection areas

Primary sensory projection areas

Association areas

Somatosensory cortex (primary sensory projection areas)

Cerebral cortex area at the front of the parietal lobes

Registers and processes body touch and movement sensations

Motor cortex (primary motor projection areas)

Cerebral cortex area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movement.

3 common features of sensory and motor projection areas

“Map” of environment

Function matters more than size

Contralateral control

Contralateral control (primary motor/sensory projection areas)

Processing is crossed between sides of the brain (Right hemisphere controls left side of body, left hemisphere controls right side of body)

Association areas (Cortical structures)

Areas of cerebral cortex not part of motor or sensory cortex

Involved in higher mental functions

Found in all 4 lobes

Prefrontal cortex in frontal lobe (Association areas)

Enables forward-thinking and judgment, planning and processing of new memories and personality.

Damage in this area could result in the inability to plan ahead, damage to personality, impaired intelligence test scores and other losses

Depends on which lobe the damage occurs

Bumps and fissures that cover cortex (Cortical structures)

Gyri (bumps) sulci (fissures)

Longitudinal fissure

Central fissure

Sylvian fissure

The bumps and folds allow more neurons in the brain

Longitudinal fissure (bumps and fissures)

Separates hemispheres

Central fissure (bumps and fissures)

Divides frontal and parietal lobes

Sylvian fissure (bumps and fissures)

Divides frontal and temporal lobes

Hemispheric lateralization

Our brain is divided into two hemispheres

These two hemispheres specialize in different areas, this specialization is known as lateralization

Right hemisphere (lateralization)

Spatial perception, visual recognition, emotion, humor

Left hemisphere (lateralization)

Verbal processing, speech, grammar

Language is a left hemisphere concept, but we still need the right hemisphere to interpret the message

Corpus Callosum (Lateralization)

Large band of neural fibers connecting both brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them

Prosopagnosia (functional localization)

Inability to recognize faces, damage in fusiform face area

The perceptual recognition system is disrupted

The emotional system that underlies the feeling of familiarity is intact

(by looking at responses on the skin, we can measure the physiological arousal to know that some unconscious part of the patient’s brain knows the person unconsciously)

Neural networks

Cognition is the result of many different areas of the brain communicating with each other

Structural connectivity (Neural networks)

The axon pathways that connect different parts of the brain; like wiring of the brain

Literally physically connected together

Functional connectivity (Neural Networks)

The different parts of the brain that tend to be active during the same task; brain areas with correlated neural activity

Active at the same time when doing a task

Functional Magnetic Resonance (fMRI) (Studying the Brain) and its advantages and disadvantages

Reveals functions of brain regions by showing oxygenated blood flow to different areas of the brain during a task

Correlational NOT causational

Advantage: Can see exactly where the brain responds to a stimulus

Disadvantage: It’s hard to measure when the response occurs