exam 1 psyc 120a su23 ch.1-4

for exam1 ch.1-4, summer session A 2023. psyc120A with professor a. frane

action pathway

Sequence of events that occur in response to a stimulus, leading to a specific action or outcome.

agnosia

Impaired ability to recognize or perceive sensory information despite intact sensory organs and abilities.

apperceptive agnosia

These people are unable to recognize objects, draw, or copy a figure. They cannot perceive correct forms of the object, although knowledge of the object is intact.

binocular depth cues

Visual cues that help us perceive depth using both eyes. -

Examples include retinal disparity (slight differences in images seen by each eye) and convergence (the inward movement of the eyes when focusing on nearby objects).

binocular disparity

the slight difference between the right and left retinal images.

* When both eyes focus on an object, the different position of the eyes produces a disparity of visual angle, and a slightly different image is received by each retina.

blind spot

obstruction in the visual field

bottom-up info

 sensory analysis that begins at the entry level—with what our senses can detect.

* This form of processing begins with sensory data and goes up to the brain's integration of this sensory information

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boundary extension

a remarkably consistent visual memory error in which participants remember seeing a more wide-angle image of a scene than was actually viewed

cognitively impenetrable

the condition of certain processes (e.g., visual processes, reflexes) that are characterized as free of influence from prior conceptual or intellectual knowledge and are thought to proceed with a minimum of conscious control.

color constancy

 our ability to perceive colors as relatively constant over varying illuminations

cones

a type of photoreceptor cell in the retina. They give us our color vision. more fovea

deep learning

a subset of machine learning, which is essentially a neural network with three or more layers. 

depictive

 mental images are not merely internal representations that describe visuospatial information (as would be the case with words or with logical propositions), but instead depict this information because the format of an image is quasi-pictorial.

epiphenomenon

 the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events.

feedforward

information or control signals sent to a part of the body or other system in order to prepare it for future motor activity or expected sensory input.

Figure-ground organization

the process of segmenting an image into regions corresponding to objects and background.

fovea

a small depression in the retina of the eye where visual acuity is highest. The center of the field of vision is focused in this region, where retinal cones are particularly concentrated.

geons

a simple three-dimensional element (e.g., sphere, cube) regarded as a fundamental component in the perception of a more complex object.

holistic perception

, meaning that we process a whole object at once, including the relations of the individual parts to each other.

* Do we recognize a motorcycle after recognizing its individual parts: two wheels, handlebar, and a seat?
* Or is there a template in the mind that is holistically activated by an entire motorcycle or its image?

inverse projection

This refers to the fact that we live in a three-dimensional (3-D) world, but the input to our eyes is two-dimensional (2-D)

lightness constancy

 the observation that we continue to see an object in terms of the proportion of light it reflects rather than the total amount of light it reflects. That is, a gray object will be seen as gray across wide changes in illumination

linear perspective

a type of perspective used by artists in which the relative size, shape, and position of objects are determined by drawn or imagined lines converging at a point on the horizon.

mental imagery

 the representation that results from perceptual processing that is not triggered directly by sensory input. So we get mental imagery when the first stop of perceptual processing happens without direct sensory input

mental rotation

the ability to imagine how an object that has been seen from one perspective would look if it were rotated in space into a new orientation and viewed from the new perspective

mental scanning

 subjects are asked to scan across a mental image and the latency of the scan is measured.

modal completion

 perceptual “filling-in” of object borders that are accompanied by concurrent brightness enhancement,

monocular depth cues

the information in the retinal image that gives us information about depth and distance but can be inferred from just a single retina (or eye). In everyday life, of course, we perceive these cues with both eyes, but they are just as usable with only one functioning eye.

multiple-trace memory model

a memory consolidation model advanced as an alternative model to strength theory. It posits that each time some information is presented to a person, it is neurally encoded in a unique memory trace composed of a combination of its attributes.

neural nets

brainlike algorithms that analyze images in multiple steps— to process, categorize, and label natural images

object constancy

the ability to retain a bond with another person

object segmentation

categorizing each pixel value of an image to a particular class.

occlusion

which refers to the fact that our views of objects are often partially blocked by other objects. The brain needs to “fill in,” or infer, the missing information, a process known as amodal completion

perception

the ability to recognize and interpret information from the senses.

perception pathway

allows us to determine what is located where

photoreceptors

specialized neurons found in the retina that convert light into electrical signals that stimulate physiological processes.

predictive coding

the brain continually generates models of the world based on context and information from memory to predict sensory input. 

primary visual cortex

region of the brain that receives, integrates, and processes visual information relayed from the retinas. 

propositional

mental images are held in a post-perceptual, abstract way, more like a linguistic description than a picture.

* verbal directions to a destination are propositional.

recognition by components

Biederman proposed that there is an alphabet of about 36 or fewer basic shapes,

retina

a layer at the back of the eyeball containing cells that are sensitive to light and that trigger nerve impulses that pass via the optic nerve to the brain, where a visual image is formed.

rods

a type of photoreceptor cell in the retina. They are sensitive to light levels and help give us good vision in low light.

* more peripheral

sensation

the stimulation of the sensory receptors

size constancy

refers to the fact that the perceived sizes of objects are remarkably stable despite radical differences in their image size on the retina.

spatial neglect

those who cannot visually attend to objects on one side of their visual fields

structural description

which are models that represent objects as sets of three-dimensional parts standing in spatial relationships to each other

template

a representation that fully describes the shape of an object; imagine, for example, a toy with differently shaped holes that allow only blocks of that shape to drop through.

texture gradient

refers to the way textural elements that are presumably of similar size appear to get smaller and more densely packed together as they recede into the distance; this can be seen in the street’s cobblestones.

top-down information

the knowledge and expectations that influence and enhance our interpretation of sensory input

topographic

items adjacent in visual space are represented by neurons that are close to each other in the cortex

transduction

These physical signals from the environment are translated into neural signals that the brain can use in a process

unconscious inference

in which the mind makes “best guesses” in order to turn sensory impulses into percepts of the external world.

view-based approach

claims that we match images to representations that are like two-dimensional pictures or “templates”

visual cognition

the branch of psychology that is concerned with combining visual data with prior knowledge to construct high-level representations and make unconscious decisions about scene content

action potential

a rapid sequence of changes in the voltage across a membrane.

all or nothing

axon

the long threadlike part of a nerve cell along which impulses are conducted from the cell body to other cells.

behavioral genetics

the study of genetic and environmental influences on behaviors

blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD)

commonly used for measuring brain activity in humans using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Blood supplies oxygen to brain cells. When these cells are active, there is an increase in blood flow and blood oxygen in the surrounding area.

brain stimulation

 an elective surgical procedure in which electrodes are implanted into certain brain areas. These electrodes, or leads, generate electrical impulses that control abnormal brain activity.

broca’s area

a brain center associated with the motor control of speech and usually located in the left side of the frontal lobe.

cerebral cortex

the outermost layer of your brain. Its surface has many folds, giving it a wrinkled appearance. The folds consist of many deep grooves called sulci and raised areas called gyri

chromosomes

a threadlike structure of nucleic acids and protein found in the __nucleus__ of most living cells, carrying genetic information in the form of genes.

 

cognitive neuroscience

 combines measurement of brain activity (mostly by means of neuroimaging) with a simultaneous performance of cognitive tasks by human subjects.

corpus callosum

 the primary commissural region of the brain consisting of white matter tracts that connect the left and right cerebral hemispheres.

has white matter bc it is a lot of fat

fat from myelin sheath for lots of axon talking between the two hemispheres

correlation and causation problem

Causation means one thing causes another—in other words, action A causes outcome B. On the other hand, correlation is simply a relationship where action A relates to action B—but one event doesn't necessarily cause the other event to happen.

dendrites

Dendrites receive input from many other neurons and carry those signals to the cell body

dna

The molecule inside cells that contains the genetic information responsible for the development and function of an organism.

dualism

the view that the mind and body both exist as separate entities. 

electroencephalography (EEG)

a test that detects abnormalities in your brain waves, or in the electrical activity of your brain

electrophysiology

the study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electrical current flow on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole tissues like the heart.

epigenetics

the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. 

event-related potential (ERP)

The EEG pattern in response to a stimulus or task is called this

fMRI subtraction method

averaging together all the images acquired during the 'on' phase of the task, and subtracting the average of all the 'off' images.

frontal lobe

 The frontal lobes are important for voluntary movement, expressive language and for managing higher level executive functions

functional brain imaging

uses medical technologies to noninvasively study brain activity.

* Originally developed for clinical purposes, medical imaging provides detailed views of internal body structures and abnormalities ranging from fractures to tumors.

functional brain mapping

the task of localizing cognitive and perceptual functions to specific brain regions.

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

shows how different parts of your brain are working. 

use BOLD signals for this

functional specialization

principle that different brain areas serve different perceptual and cognitive skills.

genes

a unit of heredity which is transferred from a parent to offspring and is held to determine some characteristic of the offspring

genotype

the gene part

glial cells

cell that provides physical and chemical support to neurons and maintain their environment.

hemispheres

One half of the cerebrum, the part of the brain that controls muscle functions and also controls speech, thought, emotions, reading, writing, and learning. The right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of the body.

intracranial recordings

invasiveness

their impact on the individual whose brain is being studied—which determines how practically and broadly scientists can use them.

Invasive methods include implanting electrodes (sensors), which requires opening the skull with surgery.

knock-out

involves rendering a gene absent or unexpressed

lobes

Each hemisphere can be further divided into four zones or this

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

different brain structures and tissues have different magnetic properties.

The scanner is able to detect these differences in any three-dimensional volume, and by assigning different shades of gray, it can transform numerical values into two-dimensional images, taken as layered slices through the brain volume.

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Physicians then use the exquisite structural pictures from MRI technology to help identify abnormalities in patients.

materialism

which treats the mind as entirely a product of the brain.

* In other words, all cognition has a neural basis; there is no mind without the brain.

module

a specialized mechanism in the brain that performs a specific function.

neurons

* are cells in the nervous system.
* Each one is a little computer (or employee) that receives input, and then makes a decision about whether to pass on a signal to other neurons in a network.
* It is like a member in a game of telephone.

neuropsychology

studies the behavioral consequences of brain damage. Often this damage is from natural causes such as stroke or illness, but it can also be from unnatural causes such as surgery or trauma.

neurotransmitters

The electrical signal triggers the release of chemicals called this at the end of the axon, which is how neurons communicate with other networked neurons

occipital lobe

lobe for sight

parietal lobe

processes your sense of touch and assembles input from your other senses into a form you can use.

phenotype

what you use from the genes

plastic

the brains ability to change

postsynaptic

one that recieves message

presynaptic

one that sends the message

primary visual cortex

an area in the occipital lobe that receives visual information from the eyes, changed their firing rate in response to visual stimuli with spotlike or edgelike features

prosopagnosia

face blindness

regions of interests (ROIs)

a brain area designated by an investigator to be the focus of study