PSY 413 Chpt 14 – Flashcards
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Both hemispheres of the brain control...
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the trunk and facial muscles
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the _____, a set of axons, is the cite where the right and left hemispheres of the cerebral cortex exchange information
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corpus callosum
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the left hemisphere specializes in....
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language
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lateralization
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the division labor between the two hemispheres
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your visual field is anything...
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that is visible at any moment
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at what cite does information from each eye cross to the opposite side of the brain?
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at the optic chiasm
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what do Antiepileptic drugs do?
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block the sodium flow across the membrane; enhance the effects of GABA
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If someone has too many foci (point at which the seizures begin), what do they do?
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They cut the corpus callosum
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What is the term used for people who have had their corpus callosum severed?
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split-brain people
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Can a split-brain person name an object after feeling it with the right hand? With the left hand? Explain.
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A split-brain person can describe something after feeling it with the right hand but not with the left. The right hand sends its information to the left hemisphere, which is dominant for language in most people. The left hand sends its information to the right hemisphere, which cannot speak.
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After a split-brain person sees something in the left visual field, how can he or she identify the object?
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After seeing something in the left visual field, a split-brain person could point to the correct answer with the left hand.
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The right hemisphere is dominant for recognizing what kind of emotions?
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negative and positive
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people with damage to their right hemisphere have problems finding their way around because the right is more adept at comprehending...
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spatial relationships
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The ____ hemisphere is for details and the _____ hemisphere is for overall patterns
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left ; right
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Which hemisphere is dominant for the following in most people: speech, emotional inflection of speech, interpreting other people's emotional expressions, spatial relationships, perceiving overall patterns?.
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The left hemisphere is dominant for speech. The right hemisphere is dominant for all the other items listed.
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Planum Temporale
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area of the temporal cortex that for most people is larger in the left hemisphere
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The corpus callosum grows and thickens as...
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myelin increases around certain axons during childhood and adolescents
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because the corpus callosum doesn't fully mature until adults, what do children resemble?
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split-brained adults
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people who are born without a corpus callosum can do tasks split-brained people can't (verbally describe things, distinguish what is in their hands) because why...
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Their brains developed pathways connecting it to both sides of the body, enabling the left (speaking) hemisphere
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anterior commissure
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connects the cerebral cortex and the hippocampal commissure (connects the left and right hippocampi) - this compensates for the lack of a corpus callosum
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A child born without a corpus callosum can name something felt with the left hand, but an adult who suffered damage to the corpus callosum cannot. What are two likely explanations?
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In children born without a corpus callosum, the left hemisphere develops more than the usual connections with the left hand, and the anterior commissure and other commissures grow larger than usual.
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Human language is essential for _______ the ability to improvise new combinations of signal to represent new ideas
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Productivity
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What kind of primate resembles humans the most?
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Bonobo Chimp
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What are the two theories for how we evolved language?
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(a) we evolved it as a byproduct of overall brain development (b) we evolved it as a specialization
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Despite mental retardation, people with ______ _______ speak grammatically and fluenty
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Williams Syndrome
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What is the cause of Williams Syndrome?
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deletion of several genes from chromosome 7, leading to decreased gray matter, especially in visual processing areas
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People with Williams Syndrome are poor at... but do well with .....
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tasks related to numbers, visuospatial skills, and spatial perception ; language
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what part of the brain is 2x as large in people with Williams syndrome that makes them sensitive to faces?
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Fusiform Cortex
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Language Acquisition Device
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built-in mechanism for acquiring language
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if someone has a mutated FOXP2 gene, what do they have trouble doing?
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pronunciation and basic grammar
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What evidence argues against the hypothesis that language evolution depended simply on the overall evolution of brain and intelligence?
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Some people have normal brain size but very poor language. Also, some people are mentally retarded but nevertheless develop nearly normal language.
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When it comes to learning a second language, children are better at ___, and adults are better at___.
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vocabulary ; grammar and pronunciation
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If you reach the age of ___ you won't reach the level of a native speaker
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12
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What is the strongest evidence in favor of a sensitive period for language learning?
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Deaf children who are not exposed to sign language until later in life (and who did not learn spoken language either while they were young) do not become proficient at it.
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aphasia; and the usual cause
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language impairment ; stroke
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Broca's area
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Controls language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.
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What is it called when people have brain damage, causing them to have impaired language production? (2)
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Broca's aphasia, nonfluent aphasia
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What do people with Broca's aphasia have trouble with that has to do with language? (4)
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prepositions, word endings, unusual word order, complicated sentence structure
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closed class grammatical forms refers to (3)
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Prepositions, conjunctions, helping verbs
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open class refers to (2)
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new nouns, verbs
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What kind of words are Broca's patients least likely to use?
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They have the greatest trouble with "closed-class" words that are meaningful only in the context of a sentence, such as prepositions, conjunctions, and helping verbs.
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What kind of words do Broca's patients have the most trouble understanding?
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They have the most trouble understanding the same kind of words they have trouble producing the closed-class words.
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Wernicke's Area
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A brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe
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Wenicke's aphasia / fluent aphasia
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poor language comprehension and impaired ability to remember the names of objects; they can still speak smoothly, speak random words
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Anomia
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difficulty recalling the names of objects
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Describe the speech production of people with Wernicke's aphasia.
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People with Wernicke's aphasia speak fluently and grammatically but omit most nouns and verbs and therefore make little sense.
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Describe the speech comprehension of people with Wernicke's aphasia.
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they understand little speech
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What part of the brain is activated when musicians sight-read music, and perform difficult visuospatial tasks?
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Broca's area
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we prefer music that resembles...
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our language in rhythms and tones
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Normally, people have areas in the brain that are larger in the left hemisphere, however, people with dyslexia show to have a ....
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bilaterally symmetrical cerebral cortex
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people with Dysphonetic Dyslexia...
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have trouble sounding out words. So they try to memorize the word as a whole. Ex. they will read the word "laugh" as "funny"
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Dyseidetic dyslexia
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can sound out words, but don't recognize them as a whole. They read slowly and have trouble with irregularly spelled words.
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Do all people have auditory problems that are dyslexic?
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No. Some do, but not all.
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A spoonerism is..
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trading out the first consonants of two words "dear old queen" to "queer old dean" or, "way of life" to "lay of wife"
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What usually gives the most problems to a person with dyslexia?
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Connecting visual stimuli to sounds
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Mind-body/mind-brain problem:
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what is the relationship between the mind and the brain
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Dualism
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the mind and the body are different kinds of substances that exist independently
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What part of the brain did Descartes say was the single point that the mind and brain interacted?
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Pineal Gland "spirit animals"
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Monism
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belief that the universe consists of only one kind of substance
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Materialism
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everything that exists is material, or physical
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Mentalism
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only the mind really exists and the physical world could not exist unless our mind was aware of it
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Identity Position
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The mind is the brains activity
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Why do nearly all scientists and philosophers reject the idea of dualism?
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Dualism contradicts the law of the conservation of matter and energy. According to that law, the only way to influence matter and energy, including that of your body, is to act on it with other matter and energy.
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Hard Problem
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asks why consciousness exists at all, why does it exist in a physical world
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If a brief visual stimulus is preceded and followed by longer interfering stimuli, this is referred to..
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masking
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If someone has damage to the prefrontal cortex, a visual stimuli has to last longer before it can become .....
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conscious
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Gamma Waves are evoked when...
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there is a conscious stimulus
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In the experiment by Dehaene et al., how were the conscious and unconscious stimuli similar? How were they different?
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The conscious and unconscious stimuli were physically the same (a word flashed on the screen for 29 ms). The difference was that a stimulus did not become conscious if it was preceded and followed by an interfering pattern.
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In this experiment, how did the brain's responses different between the conscious and unconscious stimuli?
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If a stimulus became conscious, it activated the same brain areas as an unconscious stimulus but more strongly, and then the activity spread to additional areas. Also, brain responses become synchronized when a pattern is conscious.
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Binocular Rivalry
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each perception last about 2 seconds before shifting to the other, but some people switch faster or slower than other
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How could someone use fMRI to determine which of two patterns in binocular rivalry is conscious at a given moment?
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Make one stimulus pulsate at a given rhythm and look for brain areas showing that rhythm of activity. The rhythm takes over widespread areas of the brain when that pattern is conscious.
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If someone is aware of the stimulus on the right in a case of binocular rivalry, what evidence indicates that the brain is also processing the stimulus on the left?
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gradually appears on the left side, attention shifts to the left faster if that stimulus is a meaningful word than if it is a word from an unfamiliar language.
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Phi Phenomenon
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An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession
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In what way does the phi phenomenon imply that a new stimulus sometimes changes consciousness of what went before it?
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Someone who sees a dot on the left and then a dot on the right perceives the dot as moving from left to right. The perceived movement would have occurred before the dot on the right, but the person had no reason to infer that movement until after the dot appeared on the right.
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inattentional blindness / change blindness
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Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere
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You are sitting in a park on a bench and a deer runs past you, grabbing your attention. This type of attention is called...
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bottom-up attention. A reaction to a stimulus
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Trying to look for someone in a crowd. What type of attention is this?
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top-down attention. You control your attention, it is intentional
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Ignoring words and saying the color of the ink [BLUE RED GREEN]
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Stroop effect
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Spectacular failure of attention often occurs in people with damage to the ____ hemisphere.
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Right
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the tendency to ignore the left side of the body/objects is called...
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spatial neglect
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People with damage to the right ________ neglect the left side of objects, even if they were on the right side of the body
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superior temporal cortex
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people almost always neglect the left side if they damaged an axon pathway called...
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right superior longitudinal fascicles
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The superior longitudinal fasciculus connects..
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the right posterior parietal cortex to the prefrontal cortex
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Neglect is not due to a loss of sensation but a...
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difficulty in directing attention to the left side
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What is the evidence that spatial neglect is a problem in attention, not just sensation?
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When a patient with neglect sees a large letter composed of small letters, he or she can identify the large letter but then neglects part of it when asked to cross off all the small letters. Also, someone who neglects the left hand pays attention to it when it is crossed over the right hand.
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What are several procedures that increase attention to the left side in a person with spatial neglect?
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Simply telling the person to attend to something on the left helps temporarily. Having the person look to the left while feeling something on the left side increases attention to the felt object. Crossing the left hand over the right increases attention to the left hand. Moving a hand far to the left makes it easier for the person to point to something in the left visual field because the hand will move toward the right to point at the object.
