Cog. Ch 2
Edgar Adrian studied the relationship between nerve firing and sensory experience by measuring how the firing of a neuron from a receptor in the skin changed as he applied more pressure to the skin. He found that
the rate of nerve firing increased as he increased the pressure.
Which part of the nervous system picks up information from the outside environment?
Receptors
Which of the following statements best describes how neurons communicate with one another?
A chemical process takes place in the synapse.
What does the principal of neural representation state?
Everything a person experiences is based on representations in the person's nervous system.
Ramon is looking at photos of athletes in a sports magazine. He is focusing on their body parts, particularly their chest and legs. Which part of Ramon's brain is activated by this viewing?
Extrastriate body area (EBA)
Which of the following statements is the most accurate with regard to specificity coding?
It is unlikely to be correct because there are too many stimuli in the world to have a separate neuron for each.
Which of the following is consistent with the idea of localization of function?
Neurons in different areas of the brain respond best to different stimuli. Specific areas of the brain serve different functions. All of these are correct. Brain areas are specialized for specific functions.
What is a key difference between dendrites and axons?
One sends information and the other receives information.
Why is it easier to study brain tissue from newborn animals than brain tissue from adults?
The density of cells in a newborn brain is small compared with the density in an adult brain.
Which of the following is similar to early ideas scientists had about the brain's physical properties?
a web
Action potentials occur in the
axon
Which organ is unique in that it appears to be static tissue?
brain
The key structural components of neurons are the
cell body, dendrites, and axons.
neuron
cell that is specialized to receive and transmit information in the nervous system
experience-dependent plasticity
characteristic of the brain in which its structure is changed by experience
distributed representation
characteristic of the brain in which looking at a face activates many areas
neurotransmitter
chemical that is released at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials
Broca's aphasia
condition caused by frontal lobe damage that is characterized by slow, labored, ungrammatical speech
prosopagnosia
condition caused by temporal lobe damage that is characterized by an inability to recognize faces
Brain imaging has made it possible to
determine which areas of the brain are involved in different cognitive processes.
The idea that specific cognitive functions activate many areas of the brain is known as
distributed representation.
When recording from a single neuron, stimulus intensity is represented by the
firing rate of the action potentials.
neural circuit
group of interconnected neurons that are responsible for processing
neural network
group of structures that are connected together
localization of function
idea that specific areas of the brain are responsible for specific operations
cortical equipotentiality
idea that the brain operates as an indivisible whole
action potential
impulse responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons
nerve net
network of continuously interconnected neuron fibers
default mode network (DMN)
network of structures that respond when a person is not involved in specific tasks
hierarchical processing
neural movement that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain
population coding
neural representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing of many neurons
feature detectors
neurons that respond to specific stimuli such as orientation, movement, and length
Which substance is released when signals reach the synapse at the end of the axon?
neurotransmitters
cerebral cortex
outer layer of the brain that contains the mechanisms responsible for higher mental functions
If kittens are raised in an environment that contains only verticals, you would predict that most of the neurons in their visual cortex would respond best to the visual presentation of a
picket fence.
double dissociation
process by which it is determined that different functions are served by different mechanisms
If the intensity of a stimulus that is presented to a touch receptor is increased, this tends to increase the __________ in the receptor's axon.
rate of nerve firing
parahippocampal place area (PPA)
region in the brain containing neurons selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes
fusiform face area (FFA)
region in the brain responsible for recognizing human features
Broca's area
region in the frontal lobe associated with the production of language
extrastriate body area (EBA)
region in the temporal cortex activated by pictures of the human form, not by faces
Wernicke's area
region in the temporal lobe associated with understanding language
voxel
small cube-shaped area in the brain used in analyzing data from brain scanning experiments
When conducting an experiment on how stimuli are represented by the firing of neurons, you notice that neurons respond differently to different faces. For example, Arthur's face causes three neurons to fire, with neuron 1 responding the most and neuron 3 responding the least. Roger's face causes three different neurons to fire, with neuron 7 responding the least and neuron 9 responding the most. Your results support __________ coding.
sparse
receptor
specialized neural structure that responds to environmental stimuli, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli
connectome
structural description of the network of elements and connections forming the human brain
dendrite
structure that branches out from the cell body to receive electrical signals from other neurons
brain imaging
technique that creates pictures of neural structures
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
technique that measures how blood flow changes in response to cognitive activity