18 Flashcards
(14 cards)
What is biological motion perception and what parts of the temporal lobe seems to be involved in this? What is the role of biological motion perception in social cognition?
Motion of Biological entities
Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS) analyzes biological motion, it takes information from the ITG & STPS
The Inferior Temporal Gyrus (Vision)
The Superior Temporal Gyrus (Sound)
Basis of social perception and development of social cognition
STS neurons also respond to approach motions of bodies
Damage to STS results in impaired recognition
What parts of face processing are carried out in the Fusiform face area, the superior temporal sulcus and the striate cortex?
Fusiform face area: Invariant aspects of faces, perception of unique identity.
Superior temporal sulcus: Changeable aspects of faces; perception of eye gauze, expression, and lip movement.
Striate cortex: Face recognition.
What is prosopagnosia? Are there differences in degree? Is it congenital or acquired?
Inability to recognize faces:
Damage to the FFA
Different levels of impairment in different people.
Also, congenital forms in various degrees or from strokes
What is (usually) the result of bilateral lesion of primary auditory cortex? Why is this
strange?
Does NOT lead to cortical deafness. It is strange because it contrasts damage to the primary somatosensory or visual cortex which leads to blindness.
What are auditory hallucinations? What is a disorder where sufferers commonly
experience auditory hallucinations? What is thought to be the cause of auditory
hallucinations? What does the research of Dierks et. al. (1999) show?
Research suggests that spontaneous neural activity in the auditory cortex gives rise to such hallucinations, interacting with the language areas of temporal lobes.
People with schizophrenia are more prone to auditory hallucinations
Conducted fMRI on schizophrenic patients during auditory hallucinations.
Compared results to neural activity in response to acoustic stimuli.
Results: activation seen in Broca’s area, primary auditory cortex, and speech zone in posterior temporal cortex
Additional limbic areas also recruited (amygdala and hippocampus)
This probably was due to the engagement of memory as well as emotional responses to hallucinatory content.
What is the difference in duration, emotional valence and distress caused by auditory
hallucinations in those who have and don’t have schizophrenia?
Auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia are generally longer and more persistent than those experienced by individuals without the disorder.
While auditory hallucinations can occur in individuals without schizophrenia, they are more likely to be neutral or even positive in nature. In contrast, hallucinations in schizophrenia are often negative and controlling, causing significant distress and impacting emotional well-being.
In contrast, individuals without schizophrenia who experience hallucinations may find them less distressing.
What are two different kinds of auditory processing?
Rapidly presented stimuli
E.g., rapid presentation of language needs to be quickly analyzed
Complex patterns of stimuli:
E.g., music has slower changes in frequency
What are special characteristics of speech in comparison to other sounds?
Rapid (up to 50 phonemes/second)
Highly structured with linguistic rules
Redundant for comprehension
Complex in timing and frequency
Processed predominantly in the left hemisphere
What is achieved by the auditory system categorizing sounds?
● Categories are used to facilitate the recall of individual words (in memory tasks e.g. list learning)
● Categorization is a tool enabling better organization of memory, retrieval and use of language and things
What are the symptoms of left and right auditory cortex damage w.r.t. speech perception, i.e. what functions appear to be on those sides?
Patients with left temporal lobe damage have difficulty.
Discriminating Sounds:
Complain that people are talking too fast (it sounds like people are speaking too fast since the parts between words are perceptible)
E.g., like learning a new language
Judging the temporal sequence of heard sounds
Normally, 2 sounds resolved within 50-60 milliseconds (ms)
Damage results in a 10-fold increase in temporal requirement for discrimination (i.e., about 500 ms)
Patients with right temporal lobe damage have difficulty understanding the emotional intention of language.
What are the main characteristics of music that can be perceived?
Musical sounds
Loudness (Intensity)
Pitch
Timbre (Qualities of the sound box like the material and cavities of the instrument)
Timing in Music
Rhythm – Picked out by the left hemisphere & other
Meter (Steadiness) - Picked out by the right hemisphere
Melody
What problems in music perception L and R hemisphere (i.e. which hemisphere does what part of music). What is amusia?
Left hemisphere is concerned with speed & grouping (rhythm)
Right hemisphere is concerned with frequency differences
Difficulties with pitch discrimination
Amusia: deficit in pitch discrimination
What can be the result of temporal lobe damage on selection of auditory input?
Selectivity in auditory perception: the brain prioritizes certain sounds, even if there’s input coming into both auditory systems.
Temporal love damage impairs selection
Dichotic listening tasks: 2 words simultaneously presented in each ear.
Normal result: Right ear words are recalled more (left temporal lobe selectivity)
Patient if they damage to left side: Drop in correct recall of words, due to loss of selectivity (brain tries to process information delivered in both ears simultaneously)
Know examples of functioning selection of auditory input, and how it is tested.
Tested by the dichotic listening task where two words are simultaneously presented in each ear. In a normal person right ear words are recalled more because of left temporal lobe selectivity. Patient if they damage to left side: Drop in correct recall of words, due to loss of selectivity (brain tries to process information delivered in both ears simultaneously)
