1. Flashcards
History of neuropsychology. When and where was the word ‘brain’ first used?
The word ‘brain’ was used for the 1st time around 3000 years ago in Ancient Egypt.
1800s. What did Broca find about one of his patients?
Patient Tan had visual and mathematical ability, memory and understanding.
BUT he could not produce words - only tan
1800s. What did Broca develop as a result of patient Tan?
Broca developed Broca’s area of the brain where speech production is affected.
1800s. What is Wernicke’s area?
For language comprehension
Patients could produce fumbled sentences, but unable to understand and process what others were saying.
Pre- 1960s. What did behaviourists claim?
-Skinner was a behaviourist
-If you can’t see how something is working, you cannot study it.
-We must only study what we can see.
What did Noam Chomsky do in 1959?
Criticised behaviourism
What did advent of computers lead to?
Information processing revolution championed by Donald Broadbent
The birth of cognitive psychology
What happened during 1980s / 1990s / 2000s
We can now see what is happening in the brain with neuroimaging techniques
Birth of cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience
What is cognitive psychology?
The study of mental processes needed for every day life
What is neuropsychology?
The study of how brain structures and processes mediate behaviour
- What is lesion localisation?
Test patients with tests known to require specific brain areas
Can build a picture of brain damage.
What is MRI used for?
Assessing physical damage to the brain
What is fMRI used for?
Looks for phyisiological abnormalities
Why is brain scanning not reliable?
Dead salmon
Put dead salmon in MRI and brain lit up.
- What are assessments of deficits?
Important for accurately understanding a patient’s problem
Main job of clinical neuropsychologists
- What is model building?
Using data from patients to infer the workings of normal psychological processes
Job of experimental cognitive neuropsychologists
What is an example of model building?
Bruce and Young’s 1986 model of facial recognition.
- What is localisation of function?
Attempt to identify specific areas of the brain that are involved in specific processes
Cognitive neuroscientists are concerned with this and use data from patients, animal studies, molecular studies.
What is the recreation of the cognitive jigsaw?
Subtractivity
Associations
Dissociation and double dissociations
- What is substractivity?
- What are associations?
Neuropsychologists look to see which cognitive problems tend to occur together.
What is a syndrom?
When a number of problems co-occur consistently.
E.g. Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome
Why does association of symptoms need to be interpreted with care?
McCarthy and Warrington 1990 state that some syndromes could occur simply due to the fact that separate functions may be controlled by brain areas that are very close together.
What are dissociations?
One symptom in the absence of other symptoms.
