Download Smith/Kosslyn Chapter 01

The Cognitive Brain
Neurons: The Building Blocks of the Brain
Structure of the Nervous System
The Peripheral Nervous System
The Cerebral Cortex
Subcortical Areas
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Neurons:
The Building Blocks of the
Brain
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Structure of the Nervous
System
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Structure of the Nervous System
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The Peripheral Nervous System
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is traditionally divided
into two major parts, the sympathetic and parasympathetic
nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system prepares an
animal to respond more vigorously and accurately during an
emergency.
– increases the heart rate (so more oxygen and nutrients are
delivered to organs).
– increases the breathing rate (thus providing more oxygen)
– dilates the pupils (resulting in greater sensitivity to light).
– causes the palms of the hands to become moist (thus providing
better grip).
– reduces digestive functions, including salivation (putting them
“on hold”).
– relaxes the bladder (suspending another function that isn’t
crucial in an emergency).
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The Cerebral Cortex
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Subcortical Areas
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Studying Cognition
Converging Evidence for Dissociations and Associations
Behavioral Methods
Correlational Neural Methods: The Importance of
Localization
Causal Neural Methods
Modeling
Neural-Network Models
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Converging Evidence for
Dissociations and Associations
Converging evidence: different types of results that imply the same
conclusion, lies at the heart of successful investigations in cognitive
psychology.
Many of the methods in cognitive psychology are used to accomplish
two general types of goals:
Dissociation: to establish that an activity or a variable affects the
performance of one task (or aspect of one task) but not of another.
Double dissociation: an activity or variable affects one process but
not another and a second activity or variable has the reverse properties.
Association: occurs when the effects of an activity or variable on one
task are accompanied by effects on another task.
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Behavioral Methods
A behavioral method measures directly observable
behavior such as the time to respond or the accuracy of a
response. Researchers attempt to draw inferences about
internal representation and processing from such directly
observable responses.
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Correlational Neural Methods: The
Importance of Localization
Cognitive psychology has become extraordinarily exciting during
the past decade because researchers have developed relatively
inexpensive, high-quality methods for assessing how the human
brain functions. These methods are correlational: although they
reveal the pattern of brain activity that accompanies information
processing, they do not show that activation in specific brain areas
actually results in the task’s being carried out.
Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
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Correlational Neural Methods: The
Importance of Localization
We can evaluate the various correlational neural methods on four
dimensions:
(1) Spatial resolution, how precisely they localize the brain area
that produces a signal.
(2) Temporal resolution, how precisely they track changes in brain
activity over time.
(3) Invasiveness, the degree to which they require introduction of
foreign substances into the brain.
(4) Cost, both for the equipment (and any special facilities) and for
its use in each participant test. The three most important
neuroimaging.
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Correlational Neural Methods: The
Importance of Localization
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A PET scan in progress.
An fMRI scan in progress.
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Causal Neural Methods
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