Study Guide for the Final (second half of the semester)
Behavioral or physiological (ERP, fMRI, NIRS, DTI, TMS; single-unit recording)
Exp. design: indep and dep. variables, avoiding confounds (control exp.Õs)
The issue of temporal and spatial resolution
History: Ramon y Cahal, Gall (phrenology), localization vs. mass action, Penfield (direct stimulation)
Brain areas are identified anatomically and functionally
Diff. types of connections
Plasticity: the slow death of a dogma (no new neurons after birth)
New neurons are functional and there are lots of them (number doubles by 6 years)
The three-eyed-frog, stem-cell therapies
Most common causes (stroke, tumor, accidents)
Types: agnosia (form agnosia, prosopagnosia), neglect, amnesias, aphasias (Broca and Wernicke), agraphia, acalculia, alexia
Eye (cornea, lens, retina, fovea), optic nerve, thalamus, visual cortex (many (>30 diff. visual areas)
Retinotopic maps, cortical magnification, tuning curve, complex sensitivities in higher level areas, face-selective area
Attention: cocktail party effect
Extinction in unilateral neglect
Gaze control: saccades, smooth pursuit and vergence (6 muscles/eye, 3 nerves)
Sensory memory (iconic and echoic), partial report paradigm
Working memory (limited capacity and duration)
Memory capacity training: S used ÔchunkingÕ
Long-term memory: procedural vs. declarative (semantic vs. episodic)
á HM: anterograde amnesia with procedural learning intact
Main memory network: hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, cingulate cortex
Tasks: Delayed Matching to Sample, forced choice task
Neural mechanism: stimulus-dependent sustained activity in cells in frontal and temporal cortex
Flashbulb memories
Analogies, computer modeling
Functional fixedness
Frontal cortex: controls goal-oriented behavior
Test: e.g. Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
Problem of categorization and qualia
Emotions in decision-making: the somatic marker hypothesis, results of orbitofrontal damage (Iowa Gambling Task, Skin Conductance Response)
Fear recognition (and other related processing): amygdala
Frontal lobotomy and its effects
The problem of knowledge acquisition: nativism (Descartes) vs. empiricism (Locke)
Example: the cause of autism
New development in genetics: way to study interactions (example: antisocial behavior)
1. Infant cognitive development
Piaget: Ôout of sight, out of mindÕ, no stable concept until 2 years of age
New approach (Baillargeon, Spelke, Carey): test looking instead of reaching
Task: Violation-of-expectation
Infants have a lot of implicit knowledge about the physical properties of objects: Spelke-principles (continuity, cohesion, contact)
2. Theory of Mind
á definition, false belief task, turning point between 3 and 4
á impaired in autism
á specific area of the brain has been identified
Origins: Darwin, ethology, primate behavior
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation
Evolved psychological mechanisms: modules (ÔSwiss army knifeÕ model):
á cheater-detection
á sexual differences in cognitive skills: spatial relations vs. language
á aggression in the family, mate attraction, jealousy
Criticisms (exaptation, post-hoc modeling, anti-modularism)