Midterm

Question 1

What is the science of Cognition?

Answer 1

The science of how the mind is organized to produce intelligent thought and how it is realized in the brain.

Question 2

When was the theory of Behaviourism binned?

Answer 2

1950-1970 by Chomsky

Question 3

What happened in 1990?

Answer 3

Brain imaging! Changed from the “computer” to the “brain” model of mind

Question 4

What do Glial cells do?

Answer 4

May facilitate permanent synaptic changes that underly learning

Question 5

How many neurons are in the brain?

Answer 5

100 billion, each connecting to 1000 others

Question 6

How fast do spikes travel down axons?

Answer 6

From 0.5m/s (non-myelinated) to 130m/s (myelinated)

Question 7

What is the space between the terminal boutons and dendrites called?

Answer 7

A synapse (Synaptic gap)

Question 8

How do neurons communicate?

Answer 8

Using chemicals called neurotransmitters.

Question 9

How is information represented in the brain?

Answer 9

Dont know, possibly just patterns of activation to represent objects and faces.

Question 10

How would you describe the direction of inside to outside in the brain?

Answer 10

Lateral

Question 11

How would you describe the direction of the outside to the inside in the brain?

Answer 11

Medial

Question 12

How would you describe the direction towards the front of the brain?

Answer 12

Anterior

Question 13

How would you describe the direction towards the back of the brain?

Answer 13

Posterior

Question 14

How would you describe the direction towards the top of the brain?

Answer 14

Dorsal

Question 15

How would you describe the direction towards the bottom of the brain?

Answer 15

Ventral

Question 16

What are the main planes from which the brain is viewed?

Answer 16

Sagittal, Coronal, and Horizontal sections

Question 17

What is the name for the groves and valleys over the surface of the brain?

Answer 17

Sulci (Sulcus)

Question 18

What is the name for the ridges and bumps over the surface of the brain?

Answer 18

Gyri (Gyrus)

Question 19

What separates the frontal and temporal lobes?

Answer 19

Sylvian or lateral fissure.

Question 20

What is DTI?

Answer 20

Diffusion tensor imaging - Tracks movement of molecules revealing brain pathways

Question 21

What did the Auditory Shadowing theory find?

Answer 21

Cherry (1953) found subjects noticed changes of voice to tone, volume and gender changes. But not much else.

Question 22

What is Filter Theory?

Answer 22

Broadbent found sensory information is processed until a bottleneck is reached (early selection theory).

Question 23

Whos theory states “Messages are attenuated but not filtered on basis of physical characteristics”?

Answer 23

Treisman’s Attenuated theory.

Question 24

What is late selection theory?

Answer 24

Deutsch and Deutsch (1963) moves the bottleneck to the response system, so all info is processed, even if unconsciously.

Question 25

Who did the unconscious word priming experiment?

Answer 25

Marcel

Question 26

Who did the unconscious numerical priming experiment?

Answer 26

Dehaene (found perception without awareness)

Question 27

Whos is the most prominent visual search theory?

Answer 27

Treisman's (Feature Integration theory).

Question 28

What are the features of Treisman's Feature Integration theory?

Answer 28

Colour, Orientation, Motion, Curvature, Depth -> Spotlight of attention.

Question 29

What does the Stroop effect demonstrate?

Answer 29

Word reading is an automatic process that is hard to inhibit. It interferes with processing other information about the word.

Question 30

What did Mandler and Ritchey find?

Answer 30

(1977) Memory for visual information. People are sensitive to meaning significant changes in a picture.

Question 31

What did Gernsbacher find?

Answer 31

(1985) Meaning was retained, but perceptual detail (e.g. orientation) declines rapidly.

Question 32

Pros and Cons of fMRI?

Answer 32

Very precise location-wise, not time accurate.

Question 33

What is dual coding theory?

Answer 33

William Kelley et al. proposed that pictures are associated with two codes (word and visual), which leads to better recognition accuracy.

Question 34

What did Paivio (1971) find?

Answer 34

Support for dual coding.

Question 35

What did Wada testing reveal?

Answer 35

Different hemispheres for different things (Left=words, Right=faces (right and left for familiar faces) and Both=objects.

Question 36

Why is combining fMRI and Wada techniques helpful?

Answer 36

Gain a richer understanding of the neural architecture of memory formation (location and time accurate).

Question 37

What is Hierarchical Network theory?

Answer 37

Collins and Quillian (1969) How memory is structured and accessed. Properties are stored only at the highest level they are true.

Question 38

What are some problems with the Hierarchical network theory?

Answer 38

Not all links are created equal

Question 39

Describe spreading activation theory.

Answer 39

Collins and Loftus (1975) response to HNM. Links vary in length depending on strength of connection, and activation spreads down those links.

Question 40

What is a schema?

Answer 40

General knowledge structure to aid comprehension.

Question 41

In an experiment, when do error rates in RT have an effect on results?

Answer 41

When the highest error rates are in the faster condition. (Speed accuracy trade-off). Or there are no errors

Question 42

In the experiment by Dehaene et al. (1998) what result would indicate participants picked up information on the prime?

Answer 42

If RTs were faster in the same number condition, or congruent condition, priming has occurred.

Question 43

In the Arabic experiment, how do we know semantic priming has occurred?

Answer 43

Because the meaning has been extracted from the prime, whether it was a number or a word, priming still occurred.

Question 44

Why is a catch trial necessary?

Answer 44

To catch participants who can read the prime, which means they aren't being unconsciously primed.