Biological - Other

Question 1

Give some facts about neuroatypical development, including:
Prevalence, onset, why, what happens.

Answer 1

• Prevalence – 15-20%
• Onset during infancy or childhood.
• Impairment or delay of functions related to biological maturation of the central nervous system.
• Steady course that does not involve remissions and relapses.
• Common family history of similar or related disorders (genetic factors).
• Possible change in pattern with age.
• Heterogeneity

Question 2

What is dyslexia?

Answer 2

• The learning difficulties result in significant impairment in the individual’s academic, occupational or other important areas of
  functioning. If functioning is maintained, it is only through significant additional effort.
• The term “dyslexia” was originally used to describe the loss of the ability to read as a result of brain damage.
• Samuel Orton introduced “developmental dyslexia”.

Persons with dyslexia perceive illusory effects more strongly than non-dyslexics.
Mechanism:
-The lateral inhibition is stronger
Or
-They experience more global integration of the contrast response.

Question 3

What is the Single Cognitive Deficit Model of developmental
disorders? And evidence against it.

Answer 3

• The single cognitive deficit model – looks for a specific ‘cause’ of a syndrome and suggests a simple cause-effect relationship, e.g.:
• Dyslexia – phonological deficit
• ADHD – inhibition deficit
• Autism – theory of mind deficit
• Single cognitive deficit model guided, either explicitly or implicitly, much of the early work on developmental disorders.
• Theory of mind deficit provides a good explanation of the problems in social interaction and communication in autism, but
• does not explain the third autism core symptom: repetitive behaviours and restricted interests;
• does not explain some of the cognitive strengths found in autism (e.g. in visual perception).
• Single deficit theory of dyslexia may be restricted to the English
  language and thus lack generalizability.

Question 4

Give some examples of comorbidity of syndromes?

Answer 4

• 87% of persons with ADHD have one or two other
  neurodevelopmental conditions (Kadesjö and Gillberg, 2001).
• 21% of persons with ADHD have three or more other
  neurodevelopmental conditions (Andrews et al., 2002).
• 25-90% of children diagnosed with developmental language disorder
  exhibit symptoms of dyslexia (Tomblin et al., 2000).
• Each neurodevelopmental disorder has a narrow set of defining
  symptoms (e.g. dyslexia – writing and reading difficulties).
• And several co-occurring symptoms
• It is unclear whether these other symptoms
• are causally related to the core symptoms of the syndrome,
• are the result of a common cause,
• or are outcomes of the syndrome.

Question 5

What are some common additional symptoms in developmental disorders?

Answer 5

• Visual stress
  Visual stress in response to bright, contracting stimuli.
• Common in autism spectrum
• Co-occurring in dyslexia
  Coping strategies
• Avoiding strong light
• Reducing contrast

* Auditory Processing Disorder
- normal hearing pure tone sensitivity but experience auditory processing difficulties in everyday life that are indexed by reduced
performance in other more sophisticated audiometric tests such as speech audiometry in noise or complex non-speech sound
perception;
- difficulty processing brief, rapidly presented stimuli and/or making frequency discriminations.
*Difficulty following verbal instructions
*Need instructions to be repeated
*Slow to process verbal information
*Easily overloaded with auditory information -> daydreaming, distracted
*Difficulty sustaining attention on speech

* Atypical Executive Functions
* Planning
* Monitoring
* Correcting
* Executing
* Prefrontal cortex, slow maturation
* Time management problems
* Difficulties in visual/auditory processing of transient stimuli

Question 6

What is the Multiple Cognitive Deficit model of developmental disorders?

Answer 6

• In multifactorial causation, more than one causal factor is required to yield a given outcome.
• Can the single cognitive deficit model account for comorbidity?
• Example: A phonological deficit theory in dyslexia and an inhibition deficit theory in ADHD
• Dyslexia is defined by cognitive tests whereas ADHD is defined by behaviour ratings (usually from teachers and parents), the comorbidity is not due to
  definitional overlap.
• Traditional boundaries between typical and atypical are arbitrary
  (based on standard deviation)
• Neurodiversity paradigm and Multiple Cognitive Deficit Model
  suggests diffused boundaries between typical and atypical).
• the etiology of complex behavioural disorders is multifactorial and involves the
  interaction of multiple risk and protective factors;
• these risk and protective factors alter the development of cognitive functions
  necessary for typical development;
• no single etiological factor is sufficient for a disorder;
• comorbidity among complex behavioural disorders is to be expected because of
  shared etiologic and cognitive risk factors;
• vulnerability is often continuous and quantitative, rather than being discrete and
  categorical.

Question 7

What is the neurodiversity paradigm?

Answer 7

• The Neurodiversity paradigm rejects the assumption that typical
  brains function correctly while atypical brains function incorrectly.
  Since people with typical development are more numerous, the world is organised according to their needs.
• In education, typical individuals are privileged, while the needs of
  atypical individuals are misunderstood and unnoticed. That does not imply that the representation of the world created in atypical brains is inferior or incorrect. It is simply different.

Question 8

What is an emotion?

Answer 8

An internal process that modifies the way an organism responds to certain kinds of external stimuli.

Question 9

What type of nervous system do emotional situations arouse?

Answer 9

Autonomic nervous system

Question 10

What are the two branches of the autonomic nervous system?

Answer 10

1. The sympathetic nervous system
2. The parasympathetic nervous system

Sympathetic Nervous System
Prepares the body for brief, vigorous “fight-or-flight” responses.

Parasympathetic Nervous System
Increases digestion and other processes to save energy and prepare for later events. Often the systems operate together.

Question 11

James-Lang theory of emotion, with evidence for and against.

Answer 11

Emotional experience is the by-product of autonomic responses.
You experience fear because your heart is pounding and you are running away – bottom up theory.
Suggestion that emotions are EMBODIED. That is that they are linked to bodily responses. eg pen held in lips or teeth study.

Predicts that:
1. People with weak autonomic or musculo-skeletal responses will feel less emotion.
2. Causing or increasing someone’s action/response should enhance an emotion.

Pure Autonomic Failure: failure of output from autonomic nervous system to the body – ANS no longer regulates heart rate and other organs. Patients have little difficulty identifying emotions others might experience but FEEL their emotions less intensively than before.

BOTOX used to paralyze the whole face
and people reported reduced emotional
responses

People with paralysis through damage to the spinal cord are unable to instigate fight or flight behaviours.
However, most report experiencing emotion at the same level as before their injury

Question 12

Cannon-Bard theory of emotion, with evidence for and against.

Answer 12

Top down theory.
Emotional stimulus SIMULTANEOUSLY triggers autonomic response AND emotional experience in the brain.
Because:
1. Autonomic nervous system responds too slowly to account for rapid onset of emotional experience. For example, a blush is an autonomic response to embarrassment that takes 15-30 seconds to occur (long after the experience of feeling embarrassed)
2. People have problems detecting changes in autonomic activity (e.g., heart rate) so how can this lead to a change in the experience of emotion?
3. If non-emotional stimuli (temperature rise) causes the same pattern of autonomic activity that emotion does then why don’t we feel afraid when we have a fever?
4. Not enough unique patterns of autonomic activity to represent the array of unique emotional experience we have.

Removing the cortex in cats led to spontaneous fight or flight responses – SHAM RAGE
Sensory information is relayed to the thalamus where it bifurcates.
One route goes to the cortex
One route to the hypothalamus (controls bodily responses)
Sham rage suggests that the cortex has a role in inhibiting emotional responses.

Question 13

Schacter & Singer theory of emotion, with evidence for/against.

Answer 13

Emotion dependent on Physiological arousal (e.g., increased heart rate, sweating) and Cognitive interpretation (or labeling) of that arousal based on the context.

In experiment gave a situational context (angry/non-angry actor), and a physiological stimulus: saline (does nothing), adrenaline and informed, and adrenaline but not informed.
Participants given an adrenaline shot but not informed of this “interpreted” their change in physiological state differently.
This theory increased the importance of brain processes in experienced emotion.

Question 14

Lazarus theory of emotion, with evidence for/against.

Answer 14

It is the cognitive interpretation which mediates emotional experience. Impact of memory in shaping emotional experience affects interpretation, which then leads to physiological state.
Importance of memory – unconscious or conscious

Question 15

Function of the amygdala, with evidence?

Answer 15

Amygdala receives input from pain, vision and hearing centres. Well suited for establishing conditioned responses. Some cells respond to
reward and others to punishment.
Projects to hypothalamus and to the
prefrontal cortex. Also projects to midbrain regions that link to Pons which generates the startle behaviour.

A light is then paired with a shock repeatedly. Finally light precedes the loud noise and increases the startle response. In rats with amygdala damage there is still a startle reflex but no increase from the light stimulus. Suggestion that these animals may have difficulty interpreting signals with emotional consequences.

Toxoplasma gondii parasite.
The host cat excretes the parasite’s eggs and these are released into the ground. These infect burrowing animals like rats. The parasite attacks and damages the amygdala such that the rat shows no fear when approaching cats (perhaps
because it fails to interpret the emotional significance of a cat). The cat eats the rat and so the
parasite completes the cycle back into the host.

Question 16

What is kluver-brucy syndrome?

Answer 16

In primates.
Psychic blindness- An inability to recognize “the emotional importance of events”.
Surgically removed the temporal lobes and some of the limbic system (including amygdala).
Monkeys with amygdala damage attempt to pick up lighted matches and other objects they would normally avoid. They are also less fearful of snakes and more dominant monkeys.

Question 17

What did Whalen argue about amygdala activation?

Answer 17

Comparing Fearful Faces with Neutral
Faces shows bi-lateral Amygdala activation.
B. Comparing Angry Faces with Neutral Faces also shows Amygdala activation.
Other studies found this happen with happy and neutral faces though.
Whalen et al. (2001) argue that the pattern of activation found
for the amygdala may not reflect the processing of negative
emotion/threat per se, but more about detecting ambiguity in the
face and how that relates to predictability of the other persons
actions.
If you see an angry person, you know what will happen, quick response. A fearful face is more ambiguous, you don’t know what she’s frightened of.

Question 18

What is Urbach-Wiethe Disease?

Answer 18

Individuals with this disease accumulate calcium in the amygdala and it atrophies.
One patient: Viewed 10 clips from scariest movies and only reports excitement. Stated she hates snakes but was happy to hold a snake.
In a Haunted House instead of screaming at monsters she laughed.
Her fearlessness became a danger to her. She was held at gun point, at knife point and was physically abused. When describing the events, she expresses anger but not fear.
She can draw most facial emotions with the exception of fear.
When pressed to do so, she draws someone crawling away with their hair standing on end like in cartoons.
SM fails to look at the eyes. For fearful emotions the eyes are very important signals.

Question 19

HM.

Answer 19

Henry Molaison (HM) –
removal of bilateral hippocampus and medial temporal lobe as a treatment for severe epilepsy.
Surgery was successful in reducing the seizure frequency, but at a cost. He could no longer form new memories.

Anterograde Amnesia: Unable to form memories of events following surgery.
Retrograde Amnesia: Unable to retrieve memories prior to the surgery.
Initially thought to be 1-3 years prior to surgery, but later shown to be more extensive.

His long-term memory deficit is limited to retrieval of life events (episodic memory) and factual information (semantic memory) – or DECLARATIVE
MEMORY.
Other NON-DECLARATIVE learning (or procedural memory) was still possible. Working memory in tact.

Question 20

What is the medial temporal lobe good for? (as shown by HM)

Answer 20

• important for long-term memory, but less so for working memory functions
• More important for remembering recent life events than remote life events.
• important for explicit memory regardless of the encoding or retrieval modality
• important for transferring events and facts into long-term memory
• NOT IMPORTANT for retaining information “online” (e.g., for Working Memory)
• NOT IMPORTANT for memories linked to “skills” - (Non-Declarative memory)

Question 21

KF and MH.

Answer 21

Patient KF – Damage to Left Temporo-parietal
area. Does not show a recency effect in memory.
Patient MH – Damage to bilateral temporal lobe.
KF: Impaired STM and preserved LTM
MH: Preserved STM and Impaired LTM
DOUBLE DISSOCIATION
Evidence that medial temporal lobes and temporo-parietal cortex support different types of memory.

Question 22

Morris water maze study and rat maze study.

Answer 22

Recordings from seven cells from a single electrode in the hippocampus of a rat as it moves several hundred times around a triangular maze.
Hippocampus of the rat builds up a spatial representation of the maze.

Rat is placed in the maze and swims until it finds the submerged platform. If the hippocampus is damaged in the rat that has learned the location of the platform it reverts to random patterns of searching – in fact it
forgets that there is a platform at all.

Question 23

Taxi driver study.

Answer 23

A study of London taxi drivers trained to memorize a spatial map of the city streets. There was
greater hippocampal activity when answering questions about routes through the city than when
answering non-spatial questions.
Taxi drivers also had a larger than average posterior portion of the hippocampus - the size of
which correlated with their experience as a driver.

Question 24

What is the cognitive map theory?

Answer 24

The hippocampus mediates memory for spatial relations among objects in the environment.

Question 25

What is the relational memory theory?

Answer 25

The hippocampus does not represent space as such, but more the relationships among overlapping cues in the environment. This can include spatial maps but may also include other overlapping associations that may not be primarily spatial in nature (reward cues, temporal cues etc). supports flexible associations (relations) between different elements of experience, not limited to space. The hippocampus encodes relationships between items, places, and contexts — including time, people, objects, etc. It supports the idea that we use relational memory to piece together experiences. Spatial memory is just one example of relational memory — the hippocampus generalises across domains.

Question 26

What are morals and ethics?

Answer 26

Pertaining to the consensus of manners and customs within a social group, or to an inclination to behave in some ways but not in others. These sets of customs and values therefore guide social conduct, but this is without the need for an absolute moral value. Morality is the product of evolutionary pressures that shape social behaviour. Precursors to Human morality can be observed in primates. Caring for peers Striving for dominance (provides structure to social relationships) gives stability to social groups. Derived perhaps from a sense of “justice”.

Question 27

Define deontology, consequentialism, utilitarianism.

Answer 27

Deontology: Moral rules pertain to absolute rights. Some actions are morally right or wrong in themselves, regardless of the outcome. You follow moral rules or duties—not just results. Consequentialism: The moral value of an action is in one way or another a function of its consequences alone.“The ends justify the means.” Utilitarianism: Endorsing harmful actions for the greater good. Deontology is the result of moral behaviour being driven by intuitive emotional responses to situations – the moral alarm bells. Since Humans have a tendency to explain unconscious influences on behaviour we do so in terms of concepts of RIGHTS – this is deontology. Thus deontology is the “cognitive” or rational expression of deep moral emotions. Consequentialism on the other hand is essentially “cognitive” in the way it uses cost-benefit analysis of the scenario to formulate a judgment. This can be seen in terms of lateral PFC (cognitive areas) activation to utilitarian moral judgments.

Question 28

What does Kohlberg state about morality?

Answer 28

Morality is a by product of reason (Kohlberg, 1969).

Question 29

What did Moll state about moral cognition, with his study.

Answer 29

Previous research had implicated emotion areas in the processing of moral judgments. However, since moral judgments are inherently emotional we can’t tell if the activation is related to emotional content, moral judgment or both. Need therefore to control for emotion/moral confound. fMRI Experiment (Block Design). Task: Make a judgment on whether a statement is “right” or “wrong”. No response was made in the scanner, but subjects again viewed the statements outside of the scanner and asked what they thought AND the emotional impact of the statement. They were also asked to rate the degree of moral content in the statements. eg Moral:Criminals should go to jail.Non-moral: He licked the dirty toilet.Neutral: Judges use white uniforms. Moral statements rated as higher moral content that non-moral and neutral statements. Moral sentences were also rated as having higher emotional impact than non-moral sentences. But both were rated as more emotional than neutral sentences. Moral judgments associated with negative emotions activate a distinct region in medial OFC. Nonmoral (social) judgments associated with negative emotions activate lateral OFC. These networks (and other areas) probably work in tandem on social judgments that combine moral, social and emotional demands. Suggestion: That one can separate out cognitive and emotional factors in moral judgments. Also that there is a MORAL brain area.

Question 30

What is the dual-process theory of moral judgement?

Answer 30

GREENE Distinguishes between PERSONAL and IMPERSONAL moral dilemmas. Both will ultimately lead to harm to another, but that harm is inflicted in different ways. Evolutionarily, up close and personal harm looms large in our past. However, in order to survive it was necessary to restrain primitive urges to violence. Thus we develop a “negative emotional response” to interpersonal violence. On the other hand, impersonal harm will fail to trigger this alarm-like emotional response, allowing people to respond in more “cognitive” (utilitarian) way. “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Stalin. When harmful actions are sufficiently impersonal they fail to push our emotional buttons, and as a result, we think about them in a more detached way. This distinction makes a prediction regarding different neural activity for personal and impersonal moral dilemmas. Eg with trolley problem push vs pull lever. Greene et al. (2001) argue that the crucial difference in the tasks lies in the tendency for the footbridge task to engage people’s emotions. The thought of pushing a person to their death is more emotionally salient than the thought of pulling a lever that would lead to the same outcome. The strength of this emotional response leads to the differences in behaviour in the trolley and footbridge scenarios

Question 31

Greene's predictions on moral dilemmas, and what was found.

Answer 31

1. Personal moral dilemmas would lead to greater activity in brain regions associated with emotion processing. 2. Since these responses are AUTOMATIC, there would also be a DECREASE in brain areas associated with cognitive control (e.g. working memory areas). 3. Respone times for “Yes” responses in personal moral dilemmas will be slower than to “No” responses. 4. Impersonal scenarios (trolley) would show no response time effect as they do not elicit emotional conflict. Personal = Medial frontal gyrus (BA 9/10) Posterior cingulate (BA 31) STS inferior Parietal Lobe (BA 39) Emotional areas. Impersonal = DLPFC (BA46) Parietal Lobe (BA 7/40) Cognitive areas. Was slower for emotional responses.

Question 32

Define these brain areas: lateral, medial, dorsal, ventral.

Answer 32

Outside, inside, top, bottom.

Question 33

Utilitarian analysis of personal dilemmas, with examples.

Answer 33

Crying Baby (smothering baby to save all) Most people take a long time to provide an answer to the crying baby dilemma, and often give different answers. Infanticide (throwing baby in bin) Most people respond rapidly that this action is wrong. Greene and colleagues argue that in both cases there is a pre-potent (automatic) negative response to the dilemma. However, in the crying baby scenario a cost-benefit (utilitarian) analysis strongly favours smothering the baby (who would be killed by soldiers anyway). In this case the “cognitive” analysis wins – but this takes time – hence the longer response latency. So we should be able to see this cognitive-emotional conflict present in the brain in utilitarian personal moral judgments.

Question 34

Greene's predictions about utilitarian problems. And what was found.

Answer 34

That in personal moral dilemmas where subjects take a long time to respond (e.g., crying baby) a strong pre-potent emotional response associated with the thought of killing one’s own child competes with a more abstract, “cognitive” utilitarian response (the baby will die anyway and killing it will save lives). This conflict will be reflected in brain areas associated with cognitive conflict such as the anterior cingulate cortex (e.g., Stroop test). It was also predicted that brain regions associated with abstract reasoning and cognitive control would also exhibit increased activation on high-RT compared to low-RT trials. High-RT trials in which actions were deemed “appropriate” would be characterized by judgments based upon utilitarian “cognitive” processes and thus should show higher activity in cognitive brain areas (e.g. DLPFC) than high-RT trials in which actions were deemed inappropriate. That is that DLPFC activity would track with utilitarian decisions. They found: Anterior cingulate (BA 32) and DLPFC (BA 10/46) more active for high-RT personal moral dilemmas than low-RT personal moral dilemmas. Also activation in Parietal cortex (BA7) related to working memory. Evidence for conflict monitoring and cognitive control processes. DLPFC activation greater for UTILITARIAN responses. These results show that emotion may be a significant driving force in moral judgments – based perhaps on an automatic sense of what is right. However, cognition also plays an important role in impersonal moral judgments, and in personal moral judgments where reason and emotion are in conflict (crying baby). There is no specifically moral part of the brain (opposite to Moll et al earlier). Morality refers to a variety of more fine-grained and disparate processes, both “cognitive” and “affective”.

Question 35

What is the somatic marker hypothesis?

Answer 35

(Reflecting the importance of emotional information to social (moral) judgments) in experience-based choice, people develop physiological reactions that mark options as either positive or negative. These somatic markers aid decision making because they differentiate between “good” and “bad” options during pre-choice deliberation. Patients with damage to ventromedial PFC can detect the implications of a social situation but are unable to make appropriate decisions in real life situations. Patients are unable to mark such implications with advantageous or pernicious actions (Damasio, Tranel & Damasio, 1990). The model explains why lesion patients can still reason about (verbally presented) social problems, but still fail in naturalistic settings.

Question 36

Iowa gambling task and what it shows. And another version.

Answer 36

Four decks of cards. Each card has either a win value for financial gain, or a loss value. The losses are unevenly distributed across the decks so that some decks would lead to a net gain and others to a net loss. Normal individuals show anticipatory autonomic responses (GSR) when making risky choices. They also choose advantageously before before being consciously aware of the best strategy. vMPFC Patients show no anticipatory response. They behave as if unaware of future consequences. Guided by immediate prospects (potential gain), take risky choices and thus end up making a loss. Koenigs et al. (2007) Patients responded to 50 scenarios previously used by Greene et al. (2004) Scenarios divided into three categories: Non-moral Impersonal Moral Personal Moral: Subdivided into High and Low conflict. VMPFC patients more likely to endorse personal moral dilemmas than normal and brain damaged controls. Patients respond in the same way as controls for low-conflict judgments. VMPFC patients are significantly more likely to endorse high-conflict dilemmas. Knowledge of explicit moral social norms is intact in VMPFC patients. What they lack is emotional input to decisions where others are to be harmed. Therefore they rely on a strategy of maximizing the aggregate welfare.

Question 37

What do the VMPFC studies show?

Answer 37

In the low-conflict personal moral dilemma there is no aggregate welfare outcome so they make a similar “no” response to normal participants. In the high-conflict personal moral dilemmas, VMPFC patients are more likely to endorse the action. This is argued to be because they lack the negative emotional input to the decision and rely solely on a sense of aggregate outcome (utilitarian response). VMPFC data illustrate the dual roles that intuitive affective processing mechanisms (lacking in these patients) and evaluative (utilitarian) cognitive mechanisms play in making moral decisions.

Question 38

What did Haidt suggest we do with moral dilemmas?

Answer 38

Haidt talks about the relative importance of unconscious emotional processes in making moral judgments. He argues that for the most part moral reasoning is a post-hoc affair. That we decide what is right and wrong based upon emotionally driven intuitions, and then make up reasons for these responses.

Question 39

What is the episodic memory theory (Tulving)? With evidence.

Answer 39

Postulates that the **Hippocampus** is critical for Episodic but not Semantic Memory. Evidence from Retrograde Amnesia Patient KC damaged a number of brain structures, including the hippocampus in a motorcycle accident. Lifelong Retrograde Amnesia in Episodic Memory. Preserved intellectual abilities. Could still play chess at the same level as before the accident. In contrast, he was able to retrieve semantic memories acquired before the accident. For example, he could retrieve the meaning of technical terms from his work as a machinist but could not recall any events that happened in the factory. His factual knowledge and vocabulary are also equivalent to others with similar educational background. Evidence from Anterograde Amnesia There is evidence that patients can learn a few new semantic facts (weak though). HM was able to learn a few new names, some of whom became famous after 1953 (in his dense anterograde amnesic period). When given first names of people who became famous after his injury he was able to provide the correct surname on some occasions. Evidence from Developmental Amnesia Due to anoxic lesions in the hippocampal region following birth complications. Individuals perform poorly on tests of episodic but not working memory and learn normally in school (semantic).

Question 40

How can theories of hippocampal memory function be integrated?

Answer 40

Cognitive Map and Relational Memory could be linked to different Hippocampal regions. Spatial memory appears to be linked to right hippocampal processing whereas relational functions are associated with left hippocampal processes. Spatial memory appears to be linked to posterior hippocampal processing (taxi drivers) whereas Relational functions are associated with anterior hippocampal processes. Relational Memory and Episodic Memory Suggestion that these are fairly closely related through episodic recollection. Lesions in rat hippocampus have a significant effect on recollection Spatial memory appears to be linked to (episodic memory) but not familiarity.

Question 41

Define non-declarative memory.

Answer 41

A collection of various forms of memory that operate automatically and accumulate information that is not accessible to conscious recollection.

Question 42

How do people learn skills?

Answer 42

Depends on extensive training (e.g., playing a musical instrument) that takes place over a long period of time.

Question 43

Describe the basal ganglia and it's location.

Answer 43

Situated at the **base of the forebrain**. Basal ganglia are strongly interconnected with the **cerebral cortex, thalamus, and brainstem**, as well as several other brain areas. Parkinson’s Disease has significant impact on this region. Some situations require the use of knowledge built up over many prior experiences – defending against England strikers for example. Here episodic memory of a past move may not be sufficient as it takes many, many episodes to generate a reliable predictive model.

Question 44

Describe the weather task study and it's implications.

Answer 44

Participants given pieces of information (symbols) and are required to predict the weather (sun/rain). None of the images alone allows total accuracy. Participants must build up a probabilistic model of different combinations of information that best predict the weather. Did with control, amnesiacs, and parkinsons'. After 30 trials both patient groups are impaired, but after 40 trials the amnesic group show normal performance. Normal participants tend to initially focus on one image and they are correct much of the time – use declarative, episodic (hippocampal) memory for this. After many repetitions people approach 100% accuracy but appear unable to declare their strategy. The basal ganglia learn these probabilistic relations implicitly. Parkinsons disease patients (damage to basal ganglia) continue to adopt the declarative memory strategy (intact hippocampus) even after many trials so do not really learn effectively. Conversely, amnesics with hippocampal damage are unable to use the declarative memory strategy initially. But if they continue for long enough they do show gradual improvements through use of intact basal ganglia.

Question 45

Different areas of brain for implicit and explicit memory.

Answer 45

**Hippocampus** more important for explicit/declarative memory **Basal Ganglia** more important for implicit/procedural memory – skill learning Most learning will require BOTH types of memory and therefore hippocampal AND basal ganglia function.

Question 46

Patient JK.

Answer 46

Patient JK was a petroleum engineer who started to show signs of Parkinson’s disease aged 78 affecting the basal ganglia. He began to show signs of memory disturbance, but for highly practiced procedural tasks. On one occasion he stood at his bedroom door frustrated by his inability to turn on the lights. “I must be crazy” he remarked, “I’ve done this all my life and now I can’t remember how to do it!”

Question 47

What is priming?

Answer 47

A change in the efficacy of stimulus processing arising from a previous encounter with the same or a related stimulus, in the absence of conscious awareness of the first encounter.

Question 48

Different types of priming.

Answer 48

Indirect - semantic priming. Direct - perceptual and conceptual priming.

Question 49

Perceptual priming.

Answer 49

Easier recognition of a stimulus’s form/appearance. Reduction in Left lateral prefrontal cortex and Left occipito-temporal lobe. Neural responses diminish to subsequent presentation of the same items. Neural sharpening, when stimulus is repeated, neurons which are not needed respond less and less. If presented with a slightly different object/word, left fusiform gyrus still shows repetition suppression, but right fusiform gyrus does not. As left does language and right does perceptual/visual aspects.

Question 50

Conceptual priming.

Answer 50

Reflects prior processing of conceptual aspects. Sensitive to conceptual manipulation Does not depend on conscious awareness. Conceptual processing is preserved in medial temporal lobe amnesia under implicit/unconscious testing. Given task to determine if word is concrete or abstract, or whether its upper or lower case. Cat presented for same task (within) and joy presented for both tasks (across). Left anterior IPFC – suppression within-task only – conceptual processing. Left posterior IPFC – suppression within- and across task – non-semantic. Dissociation between these elements and brain processing can be seen in Alzheimer’s disease. AD characterized by deterioration in MTL but also in lateral temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex. AD impaired in declarative memory (like amnesics due to MTL damage) AD spared in perceptual priming (like amnesics due to intact visual cortex) AD impaired at conceptual priming due to lateral temporal and PFC damage.

Question 51

Semantic priming.

Answer 51

Pairs of words that were semantically related, unrelated or pseudo words. Indirect priming. Asked to report if word 2 is a real or pseudo word. Reduction in activity in anterior temporal lobe only for semantic repetition. This repetition suppression means that this region is normally engaged in semantic processing.

Question 52

Define intensity, loudness, frequency, pitch.

Answer 52

Intensity: how much air fluctuation (compression/rarefaction) the sound creates, i.e., the energy in the sound. (amplitude). The higher the amplitude, the more frequently neurons fire. Sound intensity is measured in decibels. Logarithmic scale. Loudness is a subjective value which correlates with the objective intensity. Frequency: number of air compression/rarefaction cycles per second that the object creates. A perceptual correlate of frequency (no one-to one correspondence): pitch The Place code (discovered by Georg von Békésy) – Different places along the cochlea respond to different sound frequencies because of differences in stiffness/elasticity of the cochlear membrane (the outside edge is 100 stiffer then the central end) – ‘tonotopic organisation’ – Each frequency has its designated path from the cochlea to the brain. Tonotopic organisation in the primary auditory cortex.

Question 53

Describe the dichotic listening task.

Answer 53

Dichotic listening - a behavioural method to evaluate ear/hemisphere dominance for speech. Different syllables presented simultaneously, each to a different ear. The ear contralateral to brain hemisphere dominant for speech gives more responses.

Question 54

Brain lateralisation for auditory processing.

Answer 54

Right ear dominance for speech recognition – more connections to the left brain hemisphere. Speech - left hemisphere music - right hemisphere Both the sex and the handedness of the listener is related to laterality. Male participants show more asymmetry in performance of tasks related to language and speech processing than their female counterparts. Right handedness – 95% language – Left hemisphere Left handedness – 70 % language – Left hemisphere prosodic aspects of speech (production and understanding) right hemisphere

Question 55

What is conductive hearing loss? How do bone conductivity hearing aids work?

Answer 55

▪ Results from damage to the eardrum or ossicles in the middle ear → failure to transmit sound waves to the (intact) cochlea. ▪ Corrected by medication, surgery or by sound amplification from hearing aids, or by using bone conduction. ▪ The sound is used to vibrate the mastoid bone → the cochlea receives the vibrations, turns them into the electric signals & passes to the auditory nerve.

Question 56

What is sensorineural hearing loss?

Answer 56

▪ Damage to (part of) the cochlea/hair cells in the inner ear. ▪ Congenital, result of a disease or repeated exposure to loud noises. ▪ Corrected by cochlear implants, a surgically implanted electronic device which receives a sound signal via a microphone and conducts is via thin wires to directly stimulate the auditory nerve.