1a. intro to cog neuroscience

explain dualism/dual aspect theory

philosophical understanding that the mind and the body/physical brain are two different entities experiencing the same reality

which greek philosopher thought sensation and experiences came from the brain

hippocrates

which greek philosopher thought sensation and experiences came from the heart

aristotle

explain localised vs distributed function

localised = function comes from specialised regions

distributed = function comes from complex large-scale networks

what is phrenology and who founded it

Gall

states that the contours of our skull can give us information about the cognitive capacities of the individual i.e. their personality

certain bumps correlate to specific traits like morality or intellect

define functional specialisation

mental operations are specialised to specific regions / different regions of the brain serve different functions

give one benefit to phrenology

it allowed us to start describing the brain in terms of cortical areas and functional specialisation

founded the idea that different cortexes cover different functions

give one difference between functional specialisation and phrenology

phrenology thinks each area of the brain has one function, but functional specialisation says an area can be responsible for many functions

explain aggregate field theory

came about as a response to the localisation of function theory becoming popular

says there is not one single area responsible for a function

• evidence from testing on animals found that removing parts of the brain didn’t stop levels of functioning - showing how there must be multiple areas involved

what is ablation

a research method where parts of an animal’s brain is removed to see how it impacts their function

what made the theory of localisation come back into circulation

work done on Broca and Wernicke’s areas (only in left hemisphere)

broca = speech production

wernicke = language comprehension

how did cognitive psychology emerge

behaviour was treated as a measurable output of internal processing, which allowed us to connect cognitive constructs to neural measurements

explain Ebbinghaus’ work on measuring memory:

argued internal processes can be quantified. his work gave proof that cognition can be quantified if we are systematic enough

explain behaviourism and what they think of cognitive psychology

focussed on what our behaviour tells us about humans, so thinks cognitive psychology is pointless because they are looking at complex unobservable phenomena

explain how single cell recording works

uses a microelectrode to measure the activity of singular neurons

supports the idea that we have specialised neurons for specialised tasks i.e. vision

state the temporal, spatial resolutions and causal relationsips of EEG, fMRI, TMS, single-cell, and lesions:

explain power analysis

a calculation used to work out how many participants you will need for a study to detect a meaningful effect