SoFW Midterm #2

Question 1

Main Idea: Churchland

Answer 1

evolution & development of human altruism and morality; vasopressin & oxytocin

Question 2

Function of the ventral pallidum

Answer 2

limbic-somatic motor interface; involved in planning & inhibiting movement

Question 3

Main Idea: Lashley

Answer 3

he’s an idiot; equipotentiality (any part of brain can do any action) and mass action (action of brain as a whole determines performance)

Question 4

Main Idea: Hebb

Answer 4

Hebbian synapses; cells that fire together, wire together (repeated stimulation of neurons strengthens connection)

Question 5

Main Idea: William James

Answer 5

Expansion of Hebb; synapses not yet discovered, but theory of learning related to repeated stimulation

Question 6

Differences between human & other animal brains (5)

Answer 6

1. altricial development (brain and skull grow after birth)
2. more neocortex space
3. fewer corpus callosum fibers
4. less lateralization of function
5. neuropil

Question 7

What is neuropil?

Answer 7

space between neurons that allows for more synapses & dendritic spines

Question 8

What’s the importance of von Economo neurons and pyramidal neurons?

Answer 8

Gazzaniga claims that they are unique to humans in function, but they’re not really

Question 9

What part of the brain is damaged in reduplicative paramnesia?

Answer 9

parietal lobe

Question 10

What is reduplicative paramnesia?

Answer 10

The woman who was convinced she was in her house

Question 11

What does a lesion in the lateral prefrontal lobe cause?

Answer 11

deficits in planning & multitasking

Question 12

What does an orbito-frontal lesion do?

Answer 12

damages emotional pathways, leading to decreased ability to inhibit impulsive behavior & emotional pathologies such as OCD

Question 13

What does a lesion in Wernicke’s area do?

Answer 13

Wernicke’s aphasia: loss of comprehension of spoken and written word; patient may speak with normal rhythm but is only saying gibberish

Question 14

What part(s) of the brain are severed in the split-brain procedure?

Answer 14

anterior commissures and corpus callosum

Question 15

Right hemisphere specializations (4)

Answer 15

1. visual/spatial skills
2. recognizing faces
3. focusing attention
4. perceiving causality

Question 16

Left hemisphere specializations (4)

Answer 16

1. intellect
2. language
3. speech
4. voluntary facial expressions

Question 17

What did Hakwan Lau do?

Answer 17

TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) and timing: wanted to show if the sense of conscious control of one’s actions is illusory

Question 18

What were the results of Hakwan Lau’s study?

Answer 18

If the movement area of people’s brains were stimulated with TMS and they spontaneously moved, and then the part of the brain responsible for intention to move is stimulated, people think the intention came first

Question 19

Main Idea: Poincare

Answer 19

3/n-body problem: sensitivity to initial conditions can drastically affect outcomes (chaos theory)

Question 20

Main Idea: Lorenz

Answer 20

weather is a complex system; butterfly effect

Question 21

Main Idea: Feynman

Answer 21

we can’t predict things

Question 22

Main Idea: Eve Marder

Answer 22

studied spiny lobsters; the same outcome can be reached with so many different causal chains

Question 23

What is complementarity?

Answer 23

when 2 contrasted theories explain a set of phenomena but each explains only some aspects

Question 24

What did Tomasello study?

Answer 24

altruistic/helping behavior in children

Question 25

What did Wynn, Bloom, and Hamlin study?

Answer 25

6-10 month old infants evaluate social behavior (nice circle vs. mean square)

Question 26

What is the Baldwin effect?

Answer 26

the effect of learned behavior on evolution; acquired traits are not inherited, but the predisposition for inheriting them is

Question 27

Main Idea: David Premack

Answer 27

theory of mind (TOM): people get that others have different mental states, intentions etc.

Question 28

Main Idea: Rizzolatti

Answer 28

mirror neurons

Question 29

Main Idea: Donald Brown

Answer 29

moral universality: there are cultural universals e.g. anti-incest

Question 30

Main Idea: Debra Lieberman

Answer 30

we generalize personal taboos e.g. incest and say others shouldn’t do them

Question 31

Main Idea: Hauser

Answer 31

trolley problem: people across cultures choose the utilitarian option first, but not in the fat man example (but he’s been accused of scientific misconduct)

Question 32

Main Idea: Antonio Damasio

Answer 32

patients with vmPFC lesions act ruthlessly utilitarian, killing the fat man and smothering babies

Question 33

Main Idea: Pinker

Answer 33

there are no universal moral judgments; there may be universal moral values, but they are applied and weighted differently

Question 34

Sam Harris’s 6 main arguments

Answer 34

1. we can’t know why we are the way we are
2. our brains already determine our behavior before we are aware of it
3. mental events are products of physical events
4. determinism is inarguably true
5. the illusion of free will is itself an illusion
6. eliminating the illusion of free will won’t necessarily be a bad thing

Question 35

Where in the brain is the interpreter?

Answer 35

the left temporal lobe, possibly around the language center

Question 36

Where is Wernicke’s area?

Answer 36

cortex of the left (dominant) temporal lobe

Question 37

Two main assumptions of free will?

Answer 37

1. you’re the author of your own thoughts

2. you could have done differently than you did

Question 38

What part of the brain is responsible for planning & inhibiting movement?

Answer 38

ventral pallidum

Question 39

What can damage to the parietal lobe cause?

Answer 39

reduplicative paramnesia

Question 40

What part of the brain, if damaged, can cause deficits in planning & multitasking?

Answer 40

lateral prefrontal lobe