Cognitive Neuropsychology

Question 1

Types of deficits

Answer 1

acquired: result of brain injury later in life
developmental: failed to develop typically
- failures to acquire a particular cognitive ability normally
- how are cognitive abilities normally learned?

Question 2

reasons to study cognitive deficits

Answer 2

• understand normal cognition
• understand the deficit
• develop evidence-based, targeted and effective cognitive treatments
• understand where cognitive functions are localised in the brain

Question 3

key assumption: modularity

Answer 3

cognitive functioning involves the orchestrated activity of multiple cognitive processors or modules

key properties of modules:
- informationally encapsulated: does its work in ignorance or, and isolated from other things going on in the mind
- domain specific: can only accept one type of input
- mandatory: can’t be turned on or off

Question 4

Aims of models:

Answer 4

use data from studies of people with cognitive impairments after brain damage to test, extend or develop theories about normal cognitive processing

use models of normal cognitive functioning to better understand and explain the patterns of cognitive impairment

use detailed theories and models to guide assessment and diagnosis, and the development of treatment

Question 5

Assessment and rehabilitation

Answer 5

assessment: what is the deficit
rehabilitation: what can be done to ameliorate the deficit

Question 6

case series:

Answer 6

multiple case studies, presented and discussed together in one paper

Question 7

single dissociation:

Answer 7

pattern of results in which one cognitive ability shows impairment, while another ability is intact or much less impaired

Question 8

how are the methods differing from cognitive psych

Answer 8

• focus on single case studies or small groups
• do not combine data across participants
• tend to use accuracy measures more than reaction time/speed

Question 9

Case LM: akinetopsia

Answer 9

• could see and identify stationary objects but unable to perceive movement
• i.e. visual perception would need to be split into form perception and movement perception in order to explain this phenomenon

Question 10

prosopagnosia _ object agnosia

Answer 10

Prosopagnosia: unable to identify once familiar faces, faces all looked the same, perception of non-face objects was normal

Object: misnamed pictures of common objects, intact face recognition

i.e. double dissociation

Tells us that this is the model now:

Visual perception
Movement perception + Form perception (faces + objects)

Question 11

Category specific agnosias

Answer 11

difficulty naming pictures of only some types of objects
i.e. objects (within form perception) is split into inanimate objects and living things

Question 12

verbal semantic disorder

Answer 12

cogntive and linguistic deficits
- reading almost completely abolished
- poor at copying pictures
- anomic

Conclusion:
-separate memory stores of conceptual and perceptual information

Question 13

dysgraphia

Answer 13

• pretty –> preety
  letter representations used in spelling do not represent two separate letters when a letter is doubled, but rather a single letter with an added feature to indicate to produce two

Question 14

dyslexia

Answer 14

the position of letters in reading is not represented according to slot-coding