Chapter 2
a specific person's face is represented in the nervous system by the firing of
a group of neurons each responding to a number of different faces
which if the following statements best describes how neurons communicate?
action potentials travel across the synapse
which of the following is consistent with the idea of localization of function?
all of the above
carl wernicke
an area of the brain (in the left temporal lobe) involved in language comprehension and expression was named for him because he discovered it - language meaning
action potentials occur in the
axon
Josiah is trying to speak to his wife, but his speech is very slow and labored, often with jumbled sentence structure. Josiah may have damage to his
broca's area
The key structural components of neurons are
cell body, dendrites, axon
Gazzaniga Study
chicken/snowy scene: point and describe why
thesis
common sense, distributed evidence: organ activities
brain imaging is made possible to
determine which areas of the brain are involved in different cognitive processes
The idea that specific functions are processed in many parts of the brain is known as
distributed processing
Ramon is looking at pictures of scantily clad women in a 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)
face recognition
fMRI: response of oxygenated blood to magnetic field cognitive neuroscience: brain scanning - bold signal: blood oxygen-level dependent for most people: is face recognition - innate/learned - dedicated/generalized - evidence from: newborn babies, faces in inanimate objects
neurons that respond to specific qualities (orientation, movement, length) that make up objects are call
feature detectors
the ____________ lobe of the cortex receives info from all the sense and is responsible for coordination of the senses, as well as higher cognitive functions such as thinking, and problem solving
frontal
common sense (face recognition)
innate, dedicated
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
synthesis
language: world order, word meaning, modular evidence: broca's aphasia, wernicke's aphasia
gauthier's greebles
learned, generalized
Callosotomy (split brain)
prevents the hemispheres from communicating. corpus collosom cut
The fusiform face area (FFA) in the brain is often damaged in patients with
prosopagnosia
what would someone mean by calling kanwisher's work the 'new phrenology'?
- fusiform face area - parahippocampal place area - localization of face recognition
Nancy Kanwisher
- fusiform face area: dedicated and innate
Isabel Gauthier
- greebles - FFA activation (in fMRI)
when split brains view an arcimboldo, which hemisphere sees a vegetable/face?
- left veggies - right face
lashley and maze-learning (watson's student)
- search for engram - memory is like a hologram - learning maze -> brain injury remove pieces of cortex doesn't effect memory, but size of injury does
modular vs distributed
- specific activity is located in one area of the brain - specific activity has various locations around the brain
what is laterality? how are vision/motor control/language lateralized?
- there are certain mental processes that are mainly specialized to one side or the other - vision is both sides - motor control is both - language is left hemisphere
catastrophic vs graceful
- total loss, modular - gradual loss, distributed
cognitive neuroscience
A field that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity.
the occipital lobe is
A region of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information (visual cortex)
which of the following procedures can be used to help determine the exact way in which nerve fibers communicate with each other?
DTI
which part of the brain is important for touch, pressure, and pain?
parietal lobe
antithesis
phrenology, modular evidence: muscle building, skull bumps
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
how did split brains respond when asked to point to the picture they'd seen? ....to describe the picture?
- both hemispheres could point - only the left hemisphere could describe
which of the following brain imaging techniques, discovered in the 80's, is now a standard technique for detecting tumors and other brain abnormalities?
Computed tomography (CT)
corpus collosum function
Connect right and left hemispheres to allow communication
Recording from single neurons in the brain has shown that neurons responding to specific types of stimuli are often clustered in specific areas. These results support the idea of
localization of function
broca's and wernicke's research provided early evidence for
localization of function
hemoglobin molecules in areas of high brain activity
lose some of the oxygen they are transporting
lashley (synthesis 2)
memory for maps, distributed evidence: location of injury doesn't effect memory, size does - rats and brain injury
laterality of visual perception
motor control: both language: left
quackery
muscle building, skull bumps, phrenology
Groups of neurons or structures that are connected within the nervous system are called ________.
neural networks
the concept of distributed neural coding proposes that a specific object, like a face, is represented across a number of
neurons
a grandmother cell responds
only to a specific stimulus
Sarah has experienced brain damage making it difficult for her to understand spatial layout. Which area of her brain has most likely sustained damage?
parahippocampal place area (PPA)
a 10 month old baby is interested in discovering different textures, comparing the touch sensations between a soft blanket and a hard wooden block. tactile signals such as these are received by the ________ lobe
parietal
when conducting an experiment on how stimuli are represented by the firing of neurons, you notice that neurons respond differently to different faces. for instance, arthur's face causes three neurons to fire, with neuron 1 responding most and neuron 3 responding least. roger's face causes three different neurons to fire, with neuron 7 responding least and neuron 9 responding most. your results support _______________.
specificity
damage to wernicke's area is in which lobe of the brain?
temporal
paul broca
the part of the brain responsible for coordinating muscles involved in speech was named for him, because he first identified it - tan - language structure (man bites dog)
brain imaging techniques can determine all of the following except
the structure of individual neurons
in a procedure called diffusor tensor imaging (DTI), the way in which _____________ diffuses along the length of a nerve fiber is measured to determine how different nerves communicate with each other
water