Examtests with the 5th edition of Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind by Gazzaniga et al.

How have neurosciences evolved over the years? - ExamTests 1

Questions

Question 1

What does phrenology mean?

Question 2

Explain what rationalism and empiricism entails.

Question 3

What are the things cognitive neuroscience is a combination of?

Question 4

Why is there a major progress in cognitive neuroscience in the second half of the twentieth century?

Answers

Question 1

Phrenologists believed that specific brain areas were specialized for special functions. If a function were to be used more often, the related brain area would grow and cause a lump on the skull. By reading the lumps on the skull, phrenologists believed they could investigate someone's skills and personality traits.

Question 2

Rationalism states that knowledge comes from reasoning. From empirism came the idea of ​​associationism: the opinion that all knowledge comes from sensory experience.

Question 3

The term cognitive neuroscience was introduced in the 1970s when ideas of neurology and psychology were brought together. Cognition means the process of understanding and neuroscience studies the organization and function of the nervous system.

Question 4

Through the emergence of non-invasive methods to investigate brain structure, metabolism and brain function, such as ECG, CAT, PET, MRI and fMRI.

What is the structure and function of the nervous system? - ExamTests 2

Questions

Question 1

What is the difference between dendrites and axons?

Question 2

What is myelin and what does it take care of?

Question 3

What is the difference between depolarization and hyperpolarization?

Question 4

There are four criteria that a substance must meet to get the name neurotransmitter. Name these criteria.

Question 5

When neurotransmitters have done their job, they must be removed from the synaptic cleft. In what ways does this happen?

Question 6

What is the role of the glial cells?

Question 7

What does the central nervous system consist of? What does the peripheral nervous system consist of?

Question 8

What structures does the brainstem consist of?

Question 9

What does the gray matter consist of and what does the white matter consist of?

Question 10

What are the functions of the thalamus and the hypothalamus?

Question 11

What are the different lobes that make up the brain? What are the main functions of these brain lobes?

Question 12

What is synaptogenesis and what is neurogenesis?

Answers

Question 1

Dendrites and axons are both parts of a neuron and extend from the cell body. Dendrites receive input from the synapses of other neurons. Dendrites are therefore postsynaptic. This input is eventually produced via the dendrites along the axon, from where it is transferred to the synapse, where the input is again transferred to the dendrites of another neuron. Axons are therefore presynaptic.

Question 2

Myelin is a fatty substance that covers the axons of many neurons. It ensures that action potentials are passed on quickly and therefore has a sort of insulating effect.

Question 3

Depolarization ensures that the inside of the cell becomes more positive and is more likely to generate an action potential. Hyperpolarization ensures that the inside of a cell becomes less positive and therefore less likely to generate an action potential.

Question 4

The four criteria are:

1. A neurotransmitter must be synthesized and located in a presynaptic neuron and stored in the terminal.
2. A neurotransmitter must be released, with the help of Ca 2+, when an action potential arises and the cell is depolarized.
3. A postsynaptic cell must contain receptors that are specific to the substance.
4. When the neurotransmitter is artificially applied to the post-synaptic cell, the neurotransmitter must evoke the same response as when the presynaptic cell is stimulated.

Question 5

This can be done in the following three ways:

1. Active re-recording. Hereby the neurotransmitter is readmitted by the presynaptic cell.
2. Neurotransmitters can be broken down by enzymes in the synaptic cleft.
3. Neurotransmitters can spread to other areas.

Question 6

Glial cells help in the rapid transfer of information between cells by forming myelin around the axons of neurons. They also play a role in providing structural support for the nervous system and by forming the blood-brain barrier. They also modulate neural activity.

Question 7

The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system consists of all nerve cells outside the central nervous system.

Question 8

The middle brain (mesencefalon), the punch and the cerebellum (metencefalon) and the medulla (myelencefalon).

Question 9

The gray matter consists of cell bodies and the white matter is formed by axons.

Question 10

The thalamus receives all sensory signals, with the exception of smell, but also receives input from the basal ganglia, cerebellum, neocortex and medial temporal lobe and also directs projections to it. In addition, the thalamus receives motor information from the spinal cord. The pulvary nucleus of the thalamus is important in attention and integration of information from cortical areas. The hypothalamus plays an important role in the endocrine system, circadian rhythms, homeostasis and hormone production.

Question 11

The four lobes and their most important function are:

• The frontal lobe is responsible for planning, executive functioning and the execution of movements.
• The parietal lobe receives sensory information about touch, pain, temperature and the position of limbs and integrates this information.
• The temporal lobe contains areas that process auditory information.
• The occipital lobe processes visual information.

Question 12

Synaptogenesis is the emergence of new synapses and neurogenesis is the emergence of new neurons.

What is the difference between dendrites and axons?

What is the role of methods in cognitive neuroscience? - ExamTests 3

Questions

Question 1

What are two important concepts in information processing?

Question 2

What can result in neurological disorders?

Question 3

What is the coup and countercoup side in a neurological trauma?

Question 4

What is deep brain stimulation?

Question 5

What happens when using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)?

Question 6

What is a disadvantage of computed tomography (CT) compared to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)?

Question 7

What is measured with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)?

Question 8

What is an event-related potential? And how is an ERP measured?

Question 9

How does positron emission tomography (PET) work?

Question 10

Explain the BOLD response in fMRI scanning.

Question 11

Why are there computer models made of the brain?

Answers

Question 1

The two important concepts are:

• Information processing depends on internal representations
• Mental representations are subjected to transformations

Question 2

Vascular problems - such as a cerebral vascular accident (CVA) - tumors, degeneration, infection disorders, trauma and epilepsy.

Question 3

The coup side is the side of the head that has been hit by a blow. The countercoup is the opposite side where damage can occur due to reactive forces.

Question 4

With deep brain stimulation, electrodes are implanted in the brain, which emit electrical signals. This stimulates certain cells, but also influences the interactions between cells.

Question 5

TMS uses magnetic pulses to briefly stimulate local brain areas. It can also temporarily interrupt the neural functions of the cortex. With tDCS, the brain is stimulated by a current that is emitted between two small electrodes, anode and cathode. The neurons under the anode are depolarized, while the neurons under the cathode are hyperpolarized.

Question 6

CT scans use X-ray to display the structure of the brain. MRI uses the magnetic properties of organic tissue in the brain to depict the structures. The spatial resolution of MRI is better than that of CT, so that brain structures can be better mapped and the distinction between gray and white matter is better.

Question 7

With DTI, for which MRI scanners are used, the white dust paths in the brain are depicted, or the anatomical connections between brain regions.

Question 8

An event-related potential is a change in electrical brain activity, measured by an EEG, that is specific at a certain time for a certain event, such as the presentation of a stimulus. When these events are often repeated, the ERP is measured by averaging the activity for all of these different events. The event-related signal has a high temporal accuracy.

Question 9

PET measures the metabolic activity in the brain by using a radioactive tracer. These elements lose positrons in the blood stream, which then collide with electrons. This creates gamma radiation. A PET scanner can determine the collision site of the particles.

Question 10

The BOLD response is the ratio of hemoglobin with and without oxygen. It is a way to link blood flow to neural activity.

Question 11

With computer models, cognitive processes are simulated, so that human behavior can be studied when a certain stimulation takes place. With the models we can form hypotheses, which are later tested on real brains.

What are two important concepts in information processing?

What is hemispheric specialization? - ExamTests 4

Questions

Question 1

What is the corpus callosum?

Question 2

Why do you need to distinguish between grammatical and lexical functions?

Question 3

What is the difference regarding visuospatial processing between the left and right hemisphere?

Question 4

How is the unique specialized ability of the left hemisphere called and where does it stand for?

Question 5

What are limitations of brain studies with healthy participants to test differential processing?

Answers

Question 1

The corpus callosum is a white matter structure in the brain that connects the left and right hemispheres. It is devided on a macroscopic level into the genu, the body and the splenium.

Question 2

When you want to understand the neural bases of language, it is useful to distinguish between grammatical and lexical functions. Grammar is the rule-based system that humands have for ordering words to facilitate communication. The lexicon is the dictionairy of the mind, where words are associated with specific meanings.

Question 3

The right hemisphere is specialized for efficiently detecting upright faces and discriminating among similar faces. The left hemisphere is not good at distinguishing among similar faces, but is able to distinguish among dissimilar ones when it can tag the feature differences with words.

Question 4

The left hemisphere appears to have a specialized ability to make causal inferences and form hypotheses. This unique specialization of the left hemisphere is also called the interpreter. An example: when a patient is asked (right-hemispheric) to stand up, and when the patient then was asked (left-hemispheric) why he stood up, he made a rational explanation 'I felt like getting a coke'.

Question 5

The limitations are:

1. The effects are small and inconsistent, perhaps because healthy people have two functioning hemispheres connected by an intact corpus callosum that transfers information quite rapidly.
2. There is an bias in scientific review process towards publishing papers that find significant differences over papers that report no differences. It is much more exciting to report asymmertries in the way we remember lateralized pictures of faces than to report that effects are similar.
3. Interpretation is problematic. What can be inferred form an observed asymmetry in performance with lateralized stimuli?

What is the corpus callosum?

How do sensation and perception relate to each other? - ExamTests 5

Questions

Question 1

What holds perception and sensation?

Question 2

Briefly describe the path of sound waves that starts in the eardrum and ends in the primary auditory cortex.

Question 3

Which two senses are known as the chemical senses?

Question 4

Explain what the homunculus is in the primary somatosensory cortex.

Question 5

How does visual information reach the primary visual cortex?

Question 6

What is achromatopsia?

Question 7

What is akinetopsia?

Question 8

Which areas of the brain are involved in multi-sensory integration?

Answers

Question 1

Perception starts with a stimulus from the environment, such as a sound or light. This stimulates one of our sensory organs, such as the eye. The input is then converted to neural activity, processed by the brain. Sensatie refers to the early processing of this. A perception is the mental representation of an original stimulus.

Question 2

Auditory perception proceeds from the eardrum, via the cochlea to the cochlear nucleus in the medulla. Then to the olivary nuclei, the inferior colliculus and the nucleus of the lateral lemniscus to the medial geniculate nucleus in the thalamus. From here the information goes to the primary auditory cortex (A1).

Question 3

Taste and smell, because they both initially react to chemicals in the environment.

Question 4

In the primary somatosensory cortex there is a topographical representation of the body; called the homunculus. More sensitive areas of the body are represented by a relatively larger area in the cortex.

Question 5

The visual signals from the photoreceptors go through the bipolar cells to the ganglion cells. The axons of the ganglion cells form the optic nerve that transports the information to the central nervous system. The information goes to the primary visual cortex (V1) via the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus.

Question 6

Achromatopsia is the inability to perceive color due to damage in and around area V4.

Question 7

Akinetopsia is the inability to process movement due to damage in and around area V5.

Question 8

Superior colliculus and superior temporal sulcus.

What holds perception and sensation?

Which matters are important in object recognition? - ExamTests 6

Questions

Question 1

There are two different pathways in the brain that process different properties of a visual stimulus. Which paths are there and which brain structures are involved?

Question 2

How do neurons in the parietal lobe and temporal lobe differ in their receptive fields?

Question 3

What does the optical ataxia disorder entail?

Question 4

There are two theories of how we recognize objects. Describe these two theories.

Question 5

What are the problems related to the grandmother cell theory?

Question 6

What does the ensemble theory entail?

Question 7

Apperceptive agnosia and associative agnosia are both disorders in the recognition of objects. Describe both disorders.

Question 8

Describe what prosopagnosia means.

Question 9

What does holistic processing entail?

Answers

Question 1

The ventral path, which runs through the occipital lobe to the temporal lobe, specializes in the perception and recognition of objects and is also referred to as the "what" path. The 'what' path is essential for identifying an object. The dorsal path, which runs through the occipital lobe to the parietal lobe, specializes in the processing of spatial information and is also called the 'true' path. The 'true' path is essential for determining the location of an object and coordinating the use of these objects.

Question 2

Neurons in the parietal lobe have large, non-selective receptive fields with cells that represent both the fovea and the periphery. Neurons in the temporal lobe have large receptive fields that are much more selective and always represent information from the fovea.

Question 3

Patients with optical ataxia can recognize objects, but cannot use this visual information to use the object.

Question 4

The two theories about object recognition are:

• View-dependent frame or reference theory. Hereby the perception of objects depends on the recognition of an object from one point of view.
• View-invariant theory. This theory states that structural information is extracted from the components of an object, as well as the relationship between these components. Recognition takes place because the important characteristics remain the same regardless of their point of view.

Question 5

The grandmother cell theory encounters three problems: (1) when the cell dies, the object would no longer be recognized, (2) we can also recognize new objects, and (3) how can we adapt to a changing 'grandma? ' over the years?

Question 6

Different cells work together for the recognition of different characteristics of the object. So when a number of these higher-order neurons are activated, one recognizes 'grandma'. This explains why we see similarities between objects and we can be mistaken in recognition and, for example, can regard a strange person as someone familiar. This is because they both activate many of the same neurons. The loss of some units reduces our ability to recognize objects, but the remaining units may be enough for recognition. It also explains the recognition of new objects, because they have similarities with known objects.

Question 7

Apperceptive agnosia is a disorder in the 'what' path where problems in the recognition of objects are linked to problems in perceptual processing. A patient with apperceptive agnosia can usually recognize an object from one point of view, but as soon as the object rotates, the person looks at the object from a different angle or the salient characteristics are no longer visible, the recognition deteriorates. In associative agnosia, patients have normal visual representations of objects, but they cannot use this information to recognize things. A person with associative agnosia can recognize two images of the same object as the same, but cannot describe what the object is used for. There is a lack of access to knowledge of the visual system.

Question 8

Prosopagnosis is the inability to recognize faces. This condition usually results from chade on the superior temporal sulcus, inferior temporal gyrus and fusiform face area.

Question 9

Holistic processing is a kind of perceptual analysis in which the entire form of an object is used. It is associated with the right hemisphere.

There are two different pathways in the brain that process different properties of a visual stimulus. Which paths are there and which brain structures are involved?

What is the function of attention and how does it work? - ExamTests 7

Questions

Question 1

What is attention?

Question 2

Helmholtz described cover attention. What does this mean?

Question 3

Describe the cocktail party effect.

Question 4

What is the difference between early selection models of attention and late selection models of attention?

Question 5

Describe the 'inhibition of return' phenomenon.

Question 6

Attention can influence a response very early. How early can the influence of attention be seen in an ERP?

Question 7

Spatial attention influences the processing of visual input. Explain this.

Question 8

What is Balint's syndrome?

Question 9

What is neglect?

Question 10

A characteristic of neglect is extinction. What does this mean?

Answers

Question 1

Attention is the ability to consciously focus on a stimulus, thought or action while ignoring other irrelevant stimuli, thoughts or actions.

Question 2

Covered attention is the ability to focus on something without having to look at it.

Question 3

The cocktail party effect is the ability to focus on one conversation, even when you are in the midst of many other conversations.

Question 4

According to the early selection models of attention, a stimulus does not have to be analyzed completely perceptually before it is rejected or can be selected for further processing. Late selection models, on the other hand, postulate that all stimuli are processed equally, so that a stimulus first acquires semantic significance before it can be rejected or selected for further processing.

Question 5

Inhibition of return is a phenomenon that occurs with reflexive attention. If reflexive attention has recently been paid to a location, this location will be inhibited after 300 ms or longer, which will delay responses to stimuli presented at this location.

Question 6

Attention modulation starts about 60 to 70 ms after the presentation of a stimulus. This is seen in the contralateral occipital cortex as P1.

Question 7

Stimuli at locations that are given attention produce a greater neural response than stimuli at locations that are ignored.

Question 8

Balint's syndrome is a disorder in spatial orientation, attention and awareness that shows itself in reducing visual attention to a point through which only one object can be consciously perceived. There is simultaneous diagnosis, - difficulty in perceiving the visual field as an entire scene - ocular apraxia, - disruption in making eye movements to scan the visual field - and optical ataxia - difficulty in making visually controlled hand movements. It is caused by bilateral damage to the posterior parietal and occipital cortex.

Question 9

Neglect usually results from damage to the right parietal, posterior temporal or frontal cortex and causes the left side of objects and the spatial world to be ignored.

Question 10

Extinction is not being able to perceive or respond to stimuli that are presented contralaterally to brain damage if a stimulus is also presented ipsilaterally at the same time.

What is attention?

What is the importance of action and the motor system? - ExamTests 8

Questions

Question 1

Which neurons provide primary communication between muscles and the nervous system?

Question 2

Where do alpha motor neurons originate and which neurotransmitter is involved?

Question 3

The motor areas are structured hierarchically. Explain this.

Question 4

What are the functions of the cerebellum and basal ganglia?

Question 5

What do lesions in the primary and secondary motor cortex lead to?

Question 6

What is a population vector?

Question 7

What can population vectors be used for?

Question 8

When do these mirror neurons become active in the premotor cortex?

Question 9

What is the difference between ideomotor apraxia and ideational apraxia?

Question 10

What causes Parkinson's disease?

Question 11

What are forward models?

Answers

Question 1

Alpha motor neurons provide primary communication between muscles and the nervous system.

Question 2

Alpha motor neurons originate in the spinal cord and excrete the neurotransmitter acetylcholine towards muscles, causing them to contract.

Question 3

The lowest level is the spinal cord, from which motor neurons go to the muscles and they can activate. Subcortical and cortical areas, including the motor cortex, are responsible for a more abstract level of movements and these correspond to movement goals. Higher levels are therefore needed to modulate movements, but lower levels are sufficient to produce movement patterns. The lowest level are the motor and interneurons in the spinal cord, important for reflexes, and the highest level the premotor and association areas of the cortex, important for planning actions. In between lie the primary motor cortex and the brainstem. The cerebellum and basal ganglia are also at the center of the hierarchy and are involved in translating an action into a movement.

Question 4

The cerebellum is important for balance and coordination of movements. The basal ganglia are important for motor control, especially selection and initiation of actions.

Question 5

Lesions in the primary motor cortex lead to hemiplegia, the loss of voluntary movements on the contralateral side of the body. Lesions in the secondary motor cortex lead to apraxia, a disruption of motion planning.

Question 6

A population vector is the representation of a movement that is formed by listing the activity of many neurons in the motor cortex.

Question 7

Population vectors can be used to predict motion. When connected to a computer, a population vector can be used to move a prosthetic arm.

Question 8

Mirror neurons become active both when a movement is performed and when someone sees a similar movement that is performed by someone else.

Question 9

With ideomotor apraxia, a patient knows what kind of exercise he should perform, but he cannot perform this action. With ideational apraxia someone can perform a certain movement, but he does not know why he performs a movement.

Question 10

Parkinson's disease is caused by atrophy of the substantia nigra, part of the basal ganglia. This causes a shortage of dopamine.

Question 11

Forward models generate sensory expectations of a certain movement, so that the cerebellum can adjust our movements.

Which neurons provide primary communication between muscles and the nervous system?

How does memory work? - ExamTests 9

Questions

Question 1

What are the three phases of memory processing?

Question 2

Describe the different parts of the main memory.

Question 3

The long-term memory consists of the declarative and the non-declarative memory. Explain what information is stored in these two memories.

Question 4

Declarative memory can be further subdivided into episodic and semantic memory. Explain what information is stored in these memories.

Question 5

What is the difference between retrograde and anterograde amnesia?

Question 6

What is the function of the hippocampus in memory?

Question 7

What does 'Hebbian learning' mean?

Question 8

What is the long-term potential?

Answers

Question 1

The three stages of processing are:

1. Encoding: the processing of new information for storage, consisting of acquisition and consolidation.
2. Save: the retention of information as a result of acquisition and consolidation
3. Retrieval: the use of stored information for the purpose of conscious representation or execution of acquired behavior.

Question 2

The main memory consists of the central executive who controls the interactions between the phonological loop and the visuo spatial notepad. The phonological loop would hold acoustic information in the main memory and the visual spatial notepad makes it possible to hold and edit visual information.

Question 3

The declarative memory consists of knowledge to which we have conscious access (explicit memory), including personal knowledge and knowledge about the world. The non-declarative memory consists of knowledge to which we have no conscious access (implicit memory). It consists of procedural memory, priming, conditioning, habituation and sensitization.

Question 4

The episodic memory contains conscious knowledge of past events. It is our personal autobiographical memory. The semantic memory consists of knowledge about the world, of which we do not know when or where we acquired this knowledge.

Question 5

With retrograde amnesia, patients can no longer remember anything that happened in the past. With anterograde amnesia, patients can no longer save new memories.

Question 6

The hippocampus is important for forming new memories in the long-term memory, for merging contextual information into a complex contextual memory and for retrieving episodic long-term memories.

Question 7

Hebbian learning indicates that if a synapse is active when a post-synaptic cell is also active, this synapse will also be strengthened.

Question 8

The synaptic response to a stimulus becomes greater when the path has already been stimulated.

What are the three phases of memory processing?

How does emotion work? - ExamTests 10

Questions

Question 1

What are the three components of an emotion?

Question 2

There are six basic facial expressions. What emotions do these facial expressions express?

Question 3

Which brain structure is important for anxiety conditioning?

Question 4

When identifying a facial expression, the amygdala is especially active when looking at the eyes of other people. Why is this?

Question 5

What are the two routes on which information can reach the amygdala?

Question 6

Which brain structures are involved in the processing of angry faces and in disgusted facial expressions?

Answers

Question 1

A physiological response to a stimulus, a behavioral response and a feeling.

Question 2

Fear, disgust, anger, happiness, sadness and surprise.

Question 3

The amygdala.

Question 4

The amygdala appears to be important for automatically extracting information from other people's eyes when emotional facial expressions are identified. This ability is especially crucial in correctly identifying expressions of fear.

Question 5

LeDoux proposes two different routes on which information can reach the amygdala. In the fast, inaccurate route, sensory information runs directly through the thalamus to the amygdala, without filtering the conscious check. It is also called the low road . In the slow, accurate route, the sensory information runs through the thalamus to the sensory cortex for further analysis and then on to the amygdala. It is also called the high road . The low road allows us to prepare for a rapid response, which takes place when the high road indicates that it is indeed the conditioned stimulus.

Question 6

The orbitofrontal cortex is activated to identify angry faces and the anterior insula is involved in the identification of disgusted faces.

What are the three components of an emotion?

What is language? - ExamTests 11

Questions

Question 1

What are two main known language areas, and where in the brain can we find them?

Question 2

What holds Broca's aphasia?

Question 3

What holds Wernicke's aphasia?

Question 4

What is the mental lexicon and which three general functions are included in the mental lexicon?

Question 5

What perceptual ability do infants have (regarding phonemes) that adults don't have anymore?

Question 6

What are the three classes of models that attempt to explain word comprehension?

Answers

Question 1

The language areas on the left hemisphere include Broca's and Wernicke's area.

Question 2

Broca's aphasia is the oldest aphaisa. It was first observed in Leborgne (patient) who had a brain lesion in the posterior portion of the left inferior frontal gyrus. There are single utterance patterns of speech, it is often telegraphic, only content words and leaving out the function words that have only grammatical significance.

Question 3

Wernicke's aphasia is a disorder primarily dealing with language comprehension problems. Patients have a difficulty understanding spoken or written language and can sometimes not understand language at all. There speech is fluently with normal grammar, but what they say is often nonsensical.

Question 4

The mental lexicon is a mental storage of information about words that include semantic information, syntactic word forms and details of word forms. The three general functions are:

1. Lexical access: the stage of processing in which the output of perceptual analysis activates wordform representation in the mental lexicon.
2. Lexical selection: the stage in which the representation that best matches the input is identified.
3. Lexical integration: the final stage, in which words are integrated into the full sentence.

Question 5

Infants have the perceptual ability to distinguish all possible phonemes during their first year, but during the second year of life, the perceptual sensitivities become tuned to the phonemes of the language of the parents. They, therefor loose the ability to distinguish phonemes that are not a part of their mother language.

Question 6

The three classes of models that attempt to explain word comprehension are:

1. modular models: claim that normal language comprehension is executed within seperate and independent modules.
2. Interactive models: maintain that all types of information can participate in word recognition, context can have its influence even before the sensory information is available.
3. Hybrid models: which fall between the modular and interactive extremes, are based on the notion that lexical access is autonomous and not influenced by higher-level information.

What are two main known language areas, and where in the brain can we find them?

How do we achieve goals and meet needs? - ExamTests 12

Questions

Question 1

What is cognitive control?

Question 2

What are the two types of promotion?

Question 3

Why is working memory crucial for targeted behavior?

Question 4

Physiological studies in monkeys have shown that cells in the prefrontal cortex remain active during the delay in a delayed response task. What does this mean?

Question 5

Processing in the prefrontal cortex is done hierarchically. Explain this.

Question 6

Explain what normative and descriptive decision-making processes are.

Question 7

There are three components to successfully implement an action plan. What are these three components?

Question 8

Describe the functioning of the supervisory attentional system (SAS).

Answers

Question 1

Cognitive control, also called executive function, allows us to use our perceptions, knowledge and goals to make a certain selection of actions and thoughts.

Question 2

There are two types of actions: targeted actions, based on the assessment of an expected reward and the knowledge that there is a causal relationship between the action and the reward, and habits, where the action is not under the control of a reward, but stimulus- driven.

Question 3

Working memory holds temporary representations of task-related information.

Question 4

This means that these cells can hold the representation of a stimulus even if a stimulus is no longer present.

Question 5

The anterior you go, the more complex the information that is processed.

Question 6

Normative decision-making theories define how people should make decisions. Descriptive decision-making theories describe how people actually make decisions.

Question 7

The three components for the successful implementation of an action plan are:

1. Identifying the goal and sub goals.
2. Anticipating the consequences of goals.
3. Determining what is needed to achieve a goal.

Question 8

The SAS describes the cognitive control that is needed to plan an action, when these are carried out in new situations where you cannot apply well-learned responses and when errors will often occur.

What is cognitive control?

What does social cognitive neuroscience study? - ExamTests 13

Questions

Question 1

Name a characteristic of autism.

Question 2

Which area of ​​the brain is involved in knowledge about yourself?

Question 3

What is the default network of the brain and what areas does it consist of?

Question 4

What is the theory of mind?

Question 5

What does simulation theory say?

Question 6

What kind of problems in social interactions can arise from damage to the orbitophronal cortex?

Answers

Question 1

People with autism are not good at having social interactions. They often focus their attention on themselves and have little interest in the actions of others. In addition, they have certain routines and they get upset if they are broken. They often show repetitive behavior and can be hypersensitive to sensory problems. They are unable to understand the mental state of other people.

Question 2

The medial prefrontal cortex is involved in knowledge about yourself. This area is also involved in the perception of others, by using self-knowledge to understand others.

Question 3

The default network of the brain is active at rest, because a few psychological processes are still active. It is related to self-referential processing. The areas involved are the MPFC, precuneus, TPJ, medial temporal lobe, lateral parietal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex.

Question 4

The theory of mind is the ability to understand and determine the mental state of another person from verbal and non-verbal cues. It is essential for social development and social interactions.

Question 5

The simulation theory states that we observe behavior, imitate it, feel a physiological response and expect the other to feel the same response. It suggests the existence of an intrinsic relationship between the perception of the self and the perception of else.

Question 6

Due to damage to the orbitophronal cortex (OFC), it is no longer possible to use social knowledge in social interactions. Because no social emotions are generated, social mistakes will be made again in the future. New social knowledge is not being learned.

Which area of ​​the brain is involved in knowledge about yourself?

What is the anatomy of consciousness? - ExamTests 14

Questions

Question 1

Which three brain structures are involved in the conscious mind?

Question 2

What is "Blindsight"?

Question 3

What does the 'backward referral hypothesis' of Libet and colleagues mean?

Question 4

Which views have determinism and chaos theory on free will respectively?

Question 5

What is the difference between weak and strong emergence?

Question 6

What three types of justice are there and what do they mean?

Answers

Question 1

The brainstem, the thalamus and the cerebral cortex.

Question 2

'Blindsight' refers to the phenomenon when patients have a lesion in the visual cortex, but can nevertheless respond to visual stimuli presented in their blind area. These activities happen outside of consciousness. Such patients therefore have access to certain information, but do not experience it that way.

Question 3

This means that the awareness of a neural event is delayed by approximately 500 ms after the start of the stimulating event and that this awareness is referred back in time to the start of the stimulating event. In other words, you think you have been aware of the stimulus from the start, and you do not notice the time difference.

Question 4

Determinism states that every event and action can in principle be predicted in advance when all parameters are known and that in principle there is therefore no question of free will. According to chaos theory, future behavior can be determined by initial conditions, but decisions these initial conditions cannot be used to predict a future condition.

Question 5

With 'weak emergence' new parts arise as a result of the interactions on an elementary level. An emergent property can be reduced to individual parts. So you can predict the next level from one level. 'Strong emergence', on the other hand, states that new properties cannot be reduced. A new property is more than the sum of the parts and the laws of one level cannot be predicted by an underlying fundamental theory or an understanding of the laws of another organizational level.

Question 6

The three types of justice are:

1. Retributive justice (retributive justice), aimed at punishing the individual criminal in relation to the crime committed.
2. Utilitarian justice, which deals with the greater future for society that is the result of punishing the individual offender.
3. Restorative justice, which sees crimes as having committed a crime against a person rather than a crime against a state.