Chapter 15

Question 1

Psychological construct

Answer 1

idea that results from a set of impressions

not tangible

Question 2

Cognition

Answer 2

Act of knowing or coming to know

Thought processes

Question 3

3 reasons why language gives humans an edge in thinking

Answer 3

It provides a means of categorizing information
It provides a means of organizing time to plan behaviour
Human language has syntax for meaning

Question 4

Neural circuits- cell assemblies

Answer 4

Concept that cell assemblies represent objects or ideas, the interplay among the networks results in complex neural circuits
Cell assemblies provide the basis for cognition

Question 5

Experiment of monkeys identifying movement

Answer 5

If individual neurons failed to respond the monkeys behaved as if they did not perceive motion
Found the sensitivity of individual neurons is similar to the perceptual sensitivity of monkeys to apparent motion

Question 6

Association cortex

Answer 6

Neocortex outside the primary sensory and motor areas

Functions to produce cognition

Question 7

Inputs to the association area

Answer 7

Highly processed information

Comes from thalamic areas that receive inputs from other cortical regions

Question 8

Temporal association regions

Answer 8

Cognition related to visual and auditory processing

Question 9

Parietal association regions

Answer 9

Cognition about somatosensation and movement

Question 10

Frontal association regions

Answer 10

Coordinates information from parietal and temporal association regions with information from subcortical areas

Question 11

Knowledge about what an object is is represented in the_____

Answer 11

Temporal association cortex

Question 12

Knowledge of what to do with objects is represented in the_____-

Answer 12

Parietal association cortex

Question 13

Multisensory integration

Answer 13

Combining systems to create a unified conscious experience

Question 14

Binding problem

Answer 14

How the brain ties its single and varied sensory and motor events into a unified perception or behaviour

Question 15

Solution to the binding problem

Answer 15

Multimodal regions of the association cortex combine characteristics of stimuli across different senses
Neurons respond to information from more than one sensory modality

Question 16

Spatial cognition

Answer 16

Knowledge about the environment that allows us to determine where we are, how to go from one place to another, how to interpret our spatial world, and how to communicate about space
Dorsal stream in parietal lobes

Question 17

Evolution of skill in mental manipulation

Answer 17

Closely tied to the evolution of physical movements

Question 18

Topographic disorientation

Answer 18

Inability to find one’s way in relationship to salient environmental cues
Posterior parietal damage

Question 19

Egocentric disorientation

Answer 19

Difficulty perceiving relative locations of objects to the self

Question 19

Egocentric disorientation

Answer 19

Difficulty perceiving relative locations of objects to the selfA

Question 20

Attention

Answer 20

Selective narrowing or focusing of awareness to part of the sensory environment or to a class of stimuli

Question 21

Selective attention studies

Answer 21

Train animals to attend to stimuli presented in one particular area of the visual field and ignore other stimuli
Found that attending to specific parts of the sensory world is a property of single neurons

Question 22

Frontal lobe damage and attention

Answer 22

Overly focused on environmental stimuli

Suggests that the frontal association cortex controls the ability to shift attention

Question 23

Parietal lobe damage and attention

Answer 23

Leads to neglect: ignoring sensory information that should be important

Question 24

Contralateral neglect

Answer 24

Failing to pay attention to one side of the physical world and one side of the world represented in their mind Parietal lobe damage

Question 25

Amygdala's role in attention

Answer 25

Directing attention to the eyes to identify facial expressions

Question 26

3 parts of planning

Answer 26

Must select from many options Must ignore irrelevant stimuli Keep track of what you have done already

Question 27

Temporal planning

Answer 27

Planning what you need to do and when you need to do it

Question 28

Frontal lobes and planning

Answer 28

Planning to organize behaviour in space and time

Question 29

Occipital and temporal lobes and planning

Answer 29

Recognizing objects

Question 30

Parietal lobes and planning

Answer 30

Making the appropriate movements with respect to objects

Question 31

Perseveration

Answer 31

Tendency to emit repeatedly the same verbal or motor response to varied stimuli Frontal lobe damage

Question 32

Mirror neurons

Answer 32

Cells in the parietal cortex that fire when an individual observes an action Representation of one's own or others actions Basis of understanding actions

Question 33

Cognition and the Cerebellum

Answer 33

Cerebellum critical in fine movements and perception May be associated with working memory, attention, language, music, decision making Extensive connections with the neocortex

Question 34

Social Neuroscience

Answer 34

Understanding how the brain mediates social interaction

Question 35

Theory of mind

Answer 35

Attributing mental states to others | Understanding others may have different feeling or beliefs

Question 36

Brain area associated with theory of mind

Answer 36

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Question 37

Brain activity when we recognize our face

Answer 37

Activity increases in the right lateral prefrontal cortex and the lateral parietal cortex (what the body feels like)

Question 38

Brain area associated with beliefs about personal traits

Answer 38

medial prefrontal cortex

Question 39

Self-regulation

Answer 39

Ability to control emotions and impulses to achieve long-term goals

Question 40

Brain area of self-regulation

Answer 40

Prefrontal regions are critical

Question 41

Why are children poor self-regulators?

Answer 41

Because the prefrontal cortex develops slow

Question 42

Brain activity when we express attitudes toward ideas or people

Answer 42

Activation in the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, lateral parietal regions

Question 43

Neuroeconomics

Answer 43

Combines economics, psychology, and neuroscience to understand how the brain makes decisions

Question 44

Reflective system for decisions making

Answer 44

Deliberate, slow, rule-drive, emotionally neutral decisions

Question 45

Brain activity of the reflective decision making system

Answer 45

Activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, medial temporal cortex, posterior parietal cortex

Question 46

Reflexive system for decision making

Answer 46

Fast, automatic, emotionally biased

Question 47

Brain activity of the reflexive decision making system

Answer 47

Activity in the dopaminergic reward system- mesolimbic system

Question 47

Brain activity of th

Question 48

Right Parietal Damage (Patient G.H)

Answer 48

Damage in copying drawings, assembling puzzles, finding his way around familiar places Right parietal thus involved in spatial skills

Question 49

Left parietal damage (patient M.M.)

Answer 49

Problems with solving arithmetic, reading, calling objects by name Difficulty coping a series of movements:apraxia Left parietal thus involved in language, cognitive tasks related to school work, different role in controlling voluntary movement than the right

Question 50

Dichotic listening findings

Answer 50

Presenting different auditory input to each ear simultaneously More digits presented to the right ear were received- right ear has preferential access to the left hemisphere More likely to recall music played to the left ear- left ear has preferential access to the right hemisphere

Question 51

Visual asymmetries

Answer 51

Words presented briefly to the right visual field (left hemisphere) are more easily reported than the left visual field Complex geometric patters like faces presented briefly tp the left visual field (right hemisphere) are more easily reported

Question 52

Left hemisphere is biased toward processing______

Answer 52

Language-related information

Question 53

Right hemisphere is biased toward processing_______

Answer 53

Non-verbal and spatial information

Question 54

Functional asymmetry in the split brain when object is shown in the left visual hemisphere

Answer 54

Right hemisphere cannot talk so cannot respond verbally when it sees something in the left verbal hemisphere Left hemisphere can talk but does not see the left visual field so reports seeing nothing

Question 55

What happens when a split brain patient is shown a different object in each visual field?

Answer 55

When asked to used both hands to pick up "the object" the hands do not agree

Question 56

Explanation that the left hemisphere is important for controlling fine movement

Answer 56

Role in language- fine motor movements of the mouth and tongue Verbs are processed only in the left hemisphere- mental representations of actions Speculative

Question 57

Explanation that the right hemisphere is specialized for controlling movements in space

Answer 57

Functions of the dorsal visual stream Producing movements in space and mental images of the movements Speculative

Question 58

Left hemisphere as the interpreter

Answer 58

Left hemisphere has the capability for interpretation, the right does not Left-hemisphere language abilities allows humans to make inferences and have beliefs about sensory events

Question 59

Sex differences in cognitive tasks

Answer 59

Females have better verbal fluency | Males have better spatial reasoning

Question 60

Sex differences in patterns of intrahemsipheric connections

Answer 60

Women have more dispersed connections within white matter

Question 61

Sex differences in grey matter concentration

Answer 61

Women have increased grey matter concentration in many cortical regions Men are more uniform across the cortex

Question 62

Sex differences in neuronal structure

Answer 62

Influenced by gonadal hormones Cells in prefrontal regions have larger dendritic fields in males Cells in the oribitofrontal regions have larger dendritic fields in females

Question 63

Sex differences in effects of cortical injury

Answer 63

Equally likely to be aphasic after left-hemisphere lesions Men are more likely to be aphasic and apraxic after damage to left posterior cortex Women are more likely to be aphasic and apraxic after damage to left frontal cortex

Question 64

Sex differences in interhemispheric connectivity

Answer 64

Females have greater inter hemispheric connectivity | Males have greater intrahemispheric connectivity

Question 65

Evolution of sex related cognitive differences

Answer 65

When the sexes differ In the adaptive problems they faced Eg men tended to range over larger territories- spatial abilities favoured Females tended to form social groups which favoured language development

Question 66

Speech representation in left-handers

Answer 66

75% have speech in the left hemisphere like right handers 15% have speech in the right hemisphere 15% have speech in both hemispheres

Question 67

Anomalous speech representation

Answer 67

Speech zones are located in the right hemisphere or both hemispheres Possibility that the connectivity of cerebral hemispheres may differ- greater colossal connections

Question 68

Synesthesia

Answer 68

Ability to perceive a stimulus of one sense as the sensation of a different sense Hearing colours is the most common One directional pairing

Question 69

Hypothesis about the neural basis of synesthesia

Answer 69

Extraordinary neural connections between the sensory regions Increased activity in the multimodal cortex of the frontal lobe Particular sensory inputs that elicit unusual patterns of activation

Question 70

General Intelligence

Answer 70

Spearman g factor Cerebral connectivity and neuron:glia ratio seem to be important

Question 71

Convergent thinking

Answer 71

Applying knowledge and reasoning skills to narrow the range of possible solutions to a problem and finding one correct answer Measured by traditional intelligence test Associated with temporal and parietal lobes

Question 72

Divergent thinking

Answer 72

Searching for multiple unconventional solutions | Associated with frontal lobe

Question 73

Intelligence A

Answer 73

Innate intellectual potential | Highly heritable

Question 74

Intelligence B

Answer 74

Observed intelligence that is influenced by experience and other factors Experiences alter observed intelligence because they alter synaptic organization

Question 75

P-FIT model of intelligence

Answer 75

General consensus that a parieto-frontal network forms the basis of intelligence Also includes the insular cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, subcortical structures

Question 76

Neurite density and intelligence

Answer 76

Neurite density is negatively correlated with intelligence | Less pruning means less efficient processing

Question 77

Consciousness

Answer 77

The mind's level of responsiveness to impressions made by the senses A process- emerges as information is sorted

Question 78

Adaptive advantage of consciousness

Answer 78

Allows us to construct our sensory world and enhance selection of behaviour Advantageous to produce a single complex representation as it is more efficient

Question 79

Conscious behaviour vs unconscious behaviour

Answer 79

Unconscious behaviour to act quickly- dorsal visual stream is unconscious Conscious Behaviour to correspond to the nuances of sensory input

Question 80

Conditions when a person lacks conscious awareness of information even though it is processed unconsciously

Answer 80

Blindsight, visual form agnosia, implicit learning in amnesia Shows that stimuli can be processed In the brain without entering consciousness

Question 81

Conditions where people are consciously aware of stimuli that are not actually there

Answer 81

Phantom libs, hallucinations of schizophrenia

Question 82

Evolutionary theory of consciousness

Answer 82

As organisms became more complex the nervous system developed to coordinate activities Introception (sense of internal state) and exteroception (sense of external state) then developed Then development of incentives and an alerting system This led to the development of emotions to maximize survival Number of cerebral maps of the external word expanded to maximize incentives which developed the mind Mind leads to a sense of self- consciousness

Question 83

Information integration theory of consciousness

Answer 83

Consciousness is the ability to integrate information | Information generated by the system as a whole is greater than the information generated by its independent parts

Question 84

Semantic pointer competition theory of consciousness (3 mechanisms)

Answer 84

1) representation of the world by firing patterns in neural population 2) binding of representations into more complex representations called semantic pointers 3) competition among semantic pointers to capture the most salient aspects of an organism's current state- consciousness

Question 85

Semantic pointers

Answer 85

Neural representation that can operate as an integrator of sensory, motor, emotional, or verbal representations