Theoretical principles of cognitive neuroscience Flashcards
What kind of analysis are integrated between Cognitive science and Neuroscience?
Cognitive science: Functional analysis of the Mind
Neuroscience:Anatomical/Physical analysis of the Brain.
Describe the face recognition processing and how it can be used in other areas as a functional decomposition?
First you see a face -> leads to a structural encoding, -> face recognition units -> person identity nodes -> Name generation.
This can be used in other areas to evaluate if a function is missing or not working in the right way.
What is a flowchart?
It’s like a mindmap with arrows in different direction, deviding different functions/boxes into different levels -> so you can se if how a “system” works and integrate.
Name the difference in “functional decomposition” between “cognitive psychology” and “cognitive Neuropsychology” - what differs in the search-patterns between this 2?
Cognitive Psychology
-Search in pattern of normal preformance.
Cognitive Neuropsychology
- Search in patterns of preformance in brain-damaged patients.
What is measured in the pattern of “preformance” in Cognitive Psychology?
Error rates - number and type of errors
RT:Response time - Mental chronometry.
E.g Stroop test
Describe the stroop-task?
The stroop-task expose you to 2 different type of information. -> Naming the color of the letter and reading the words. -> The word and color can be in harmony or in conflict with each other
Explanation: (The Stroop effect is a phenomenon that occurs when you must say the color of a word but not the name of the word. For example, blue might be printed in red and you must say the color rather than the word.)
Name and describe the 3 stroop effects:
- Facilitation effect
(How much congruous were faster than neutral): Facilitation occurs when the word is the same as the print color
-Interference effect
(how much incongruous were slower than neutral): There is “interference” between the color of the ink and the word meaning.
-Total Stroop effect
(how much incongruous were slower than congruous): Comparing the easiest stimulus, to the interfering stimulus to get a bigger difference.
When a neuropsychologist are interested in “the pattern of preformance” what do thay refer to?
The combination of preserved and damaged cognitive functions.
A variety of neuropsychological tests and experiments on a patient must be administrated to figure out what?
What the patient still can do without difficulty and what kind of tasks have become difficult or perhaps altogether impossible.
Name the 3 type of patterns of preformance? (deficits)
- Association of deficits
- Dissociation of deficits
- Double dissociation of deficits
Describe “association of deficits”?
If a patient have damage to areas in the brain related to example damage to object recognition and face recognition.
Describe single dissociation?
A single dissociation is the presence of an acquired disability that affects only one area of functioning without impairing any other area of functioning.
For example, a person receives a head injury in a car accident. After recovery, their only area of impairment is with memory, with no other known impairments such as perceptual, visual spatial, or speech deficiencies. This is referred to as a single dissociation.
Describe double dissociation?
Double Dissociation is when two related mental processes are shown to function independently of each other.
A classical example: of Double Dissociation is speech and language comprehension. Although both processes pertain to use of language, the brain structures that control them work independently. When a part of the brain called the Broca’s area is damaged, patients may still understand language but be unable to speak fluently. They know what they want to say, but are unable to express themselves. On the other hand, when a part of the brain called Wernicke’s area is damaged, patients may still speak fluently, but be unable to comprehend language. This results in properly constructed but nonsensical sentences
By establishing Double Dissociation, scientists are able to determine which mental processes are specialized to certain areas of the brain.
What are the 6 steps included in the “experimental design” in cognitive neuroscience?
- Take an accurate Cognitive model, describing the type of information processing of what you want to study. (visual object recognition)
- Designe a task in which the cognitive component you are intrested in can be selectively manipulated (turned on/off)
- Measure brain activity when the subject is carrying out the critical task (experimental condition) and compare it to an otherwise similar situation when he is not (control condition)
- Look at the difference between these two situation in the patterns of the brain activity.
- Interpret the results with the help of the cognitive model, and try to find a correspondence between the “cognitive map of the mind” and the “brain activation map”.
6 To confirm the interpetatio, try to find converging evidence from several other (independent) sources such as: lesion studies, neuropsychological dissociations, computer models and stimulations, different brain imaging methods…etc.
What is meant by “converging evidence”?
Evidence from multiple different sources that points in the same direction.
“Anatomical area A processes information of
type B”
