Chapter 2

Question 1

What are the 3 Gall and Spurzheim Principles?

Answer 1

1) The brain is the sole organ of the mind
2) Basic character and intellectual traits are innately determined
3) Since there are differences in character and intellectual traits among individuals, as well as differences in intellectual capacities within a single individual, there must exist differentially developed brain areas responsible for this

Question 2

According to phrenology, the larger a structure is…

Answer 2

the more highly developed the function

Question 3

Localization of Function

Answer 3

the idea that there is a direct correspondence between specific cognitive functions and specific parts of the brain

Question 4

Ablasion

Answer 4

destroy cortex and observe behavioural consequences in animals - proved that mental processes were from the whole brain, not just parts

Question 5

Law of mass action

Answer 5

learning and memory depend on the total mass of brain tissue remaining rather than the properties of individual cells

Question 6

Law of equipotentiality

Answer 6

although some areas of the cortex may become specialized for certain tasks, any part of an area can (within limits) do the job of any other part of that area

Question 7

Interactionism

Answer 7

mind and brain are separate substances that interact with and influence each other

Question 8

Epiphenomenalism

Answer 8

the mind is simply a byproduct of brain processes and has no causal role in determining behaviour

Question 9

Parallelism

Answer 9

mind and brain are two aspects of the same reality and operate in parallel

Question 10

Isomorphism

Answer 10

Mental events and neural events share the same structure

Question 11

Sensory system

Answer 11

A system that links the physical and perceptual worlds via the nervous systems; composed of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and distinct regions of the brain preferentially dedicated to the perception of information

Question 12

Broca’s aphasia

Answer 12

a deficit in the ability to product speech due to damage of broca’s area

Question 13

Wernicke’s aphasia

Answer 13

A deficit in the ability to comprehend speech as a result of damage to Wernicke’s area

Question 14

Broca’s area

Answer 14

(part of the left hemisphere responsible for how words are spoken)

Question 15

Wernicke’s area

Answer 15

Area of the brains left hemisphere that is responsible for processing the meaning of words

Question 16

Interhemispheric transfer & who did a study on it and with what?

Answer 16

Communication between the Brain’s hemispheres, enabled in large by the corpus callosum
Think of Roger Sperry and his cat experiment

Question 17

Split brain

Answer 17

a condition where each hemisphere acted as a separate mental domain with no regard for the other hemisphere

Question 18

What did Roger Sperry say about consciousness

Answer 18

consciousness is an emergent property of the brain – a property that emerges as a result of brain processes, but not a component itself. Means that consciousness is neither reducible to, nor a property of, a particular brain structure or region

Question 19

Supervenient

Answer 19

describes mental states that may simultaneously influence neuronal events and be influenced by them

Question 20

Emergent causation

Answer 20

In Sperry’s sense, causation brought about by an emergent property, once the “mind” emerges from the brain, it has the power to influence lower-level processes

Question 21

Event related potential (ERP)

Answer 21

An electrical signal emitted by the brain after the onset of a stimulus

Question 22

Positron emission tomography (PET)

Answer 22

An imaging technique in which a participant is injected with radioactive substances that mingles with the blood and circulates to the brian. A scanner is then used to detect the flow of blood to particular areas of the brain

Question 23

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Answer 23

A non- radioactive magnetic procedure for detecting the flow of oxygenated blood to various parts of the brain

Question 24

Magnetoencephalopathy (MEG)

Answer 24

A non-invasive brain imaging technique they directly measures neural activity

Question 25

Connectionism

Answer 25

A theory that focuses on the way cognitive processes work at the physiological/ neurological (as opposed to information- processing) level. It holds that the brain consists of an enormous number of interconnected neurons and attempts to model cognition as an emergent process of networks of simple units (e.g. Neurons) communicating with one another

Question 26

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)

Answer 26

An MRI- based neuroimaging technique that makes it possible to visualize the white- matter tracts within the brain

Question 27

Neural network

Answer 27

Neurons that are functionally related or connected

Question 28

Hebb rule

Answer 28

A connection between two neurons takes place only if both neurons are firing at approximately the same time