Measuring Mental Processes

• Mind refers to memory, problem-solving capabilities, decision-making processes, normal and abnormal functioning, and intelligence.

Evolution and Structuralism

• Structuralism believes experience is the combination of basic sensation elements
• An analogy would be that a water molecule is structurally a combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
• Analytic introspection involves training participants to describe experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli.
• Problems with this method include mental processes occurring outside conscious awareness.
• Difficulty in objective verification because there's no reliable way to check the accuracy of reports

Measuring Mental Processes

• Donders conducted reaction-time studies to understand how long it takes to make a decision
• Reaction time measures the interval between stimulus presentation and a person's response
• Choice RT minus Simple RT equals the amount of time to make a decision
• The time to make a decision takes >0.1 seconds
• Mental reprocesses cannot be directly measured, but they can be inferred from behavior

Ebbinghaus's Memory Experiment

• Ebbinghaus studied the time course of forgetting
• Savings equals the original time to learn a list minus the time to relearn the list after a delay
• Learning and relearning after 3 different delays showed that longer delays result in smaller savings
• The savings curve indicates that savings drops rapidly in 2 days and then levels off
• Math can be used to describe a property in the mind.

Behaviorism

• Watson believed that observable behavior is the only aspect worth studying
• The focus should be on behavior and not consciousness (thinking, emotions, reasoning)
• Behavior is what happens when a stimulus results in a response, without roomful cognition
• Introspection as a method is rejected, to eliminate the unobserved mental events
• The "little Albert" experiment demonstrated that behavior can be analyzed without any referent to the mind.

Pavlov

• Classical conditioning involves pairing one stimulus with another
• This pairing causes changes in response to the previously neutral stimulus
• Pavlov's pairing of food made the dog salivate

Skinner

• Operant conditioning shapes behavior through rewards and punishments
• Behaviors that are more likely to be repeated are shaped through rewards and punishments
• Punished behaviors are less likely to be repeated
• Skinner studied verbal behavior
• Children learn language through operant conditioning

Chomsky

• Children do not only learn language through imitation and reinforcement
• Example: "I hate you mom," "the boy hitted the ball"

Information Processing Approach

• The information processing approach studies the mind
• Cherry's attention experiment
• Input includes sounds of both the attended and unattended messages.
• Filter attends to the attended message while filtering out the unattended messgae
• Detector records the information that gets through the filter.

Memory Models

• Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed a model of memory in 1968 where sensory memory leads to short-term memory and eventually to long-term memory
• Endel Tulving divided long-term memory into three components in 1972

Endel Tulving's Long-Term Memory Components

• Declarative memory includes facts, data, and events.
• Episodic memory involves personal experiences
• Semantic memory is general factual info
• Procedural memory involves how to do things

Cognitive Neuroscience

• Cognitive neuroscience analyzes how the mind works, requiring behavioral experiments plus physiological experiments.
• Analysis happens at different levels
• "viewpoint"
• Whole brain vs specific structures - includes neurons and chemical processes

Neurons

• Neurons communication and process information
• Neurons receive and transmit information
• The Nerve net is an early concept of cognitive processing which describes how its like a highway network (they can go anywhere and and streets are connected without stop signs )
• Nonstop, continuous communication of signals throughout the network
• Ramon Cajal discovered individual nerve cells transmit signals and are not continuously linked with other cells

Cajal's Discovery (Summary)

• Golgi Stain Method
• Less than 1% of neurons are stained, making them visible
• Helps distinguish neurons from dense brain tissue
• Studied newborn brain tissue, which has lower cell density, giving a clearer view
• Discovered that the nervous system is not a continuous network
• The nervous system is composed of individual units called neurons

Neuron Doctrine

• Neurons are separate cells that transmit signals
• Neurons are not directly connected, but communicate through junctions called synapses
• Neurons create, receive, and transmit information in the nervous system
• The cell body contains mechanisms to keep the cell alive
• Dendrites (multiple branches) receive information from other neurons
• Axon transmits electrical signals to other neurons

Measuring Neuron Activity

• Microelectrodes are tiny tools that listen to neuron signals
• Recording electrode goes inside the neuron to check inside electricity
• Reference electrode stays outside the neuron to compare
• The electric difference between inside and outside is measured

Action Potential (Nerve Impulse)

• What is it? → A tiny electric signal that carries messages!
• How long? → Super fast! Only 1 millisecond (msec)
• Where does it go?
• Starts in the axon of a neuron
• Travels down the axon like a rollercoaster
• Reaches the next neuron's dendrites → "Hey buddy, here's the message!"

Action Potentials

• All-or-None Rule
• Size never changes → Always the same strength!
• It either happens (100%) or doesn't (0%) → Like a light switch!
• What Changes? (Firing Rate)
• Weak stimulus → Slow firing (Few action potentials)
• Strong stimulus → Fast firing (Many action potentials)
• Why Is This Important?
• Helps distinguish between soft touch & hard hit!
• More action potentials = stronger sensation (louder, brighter, more pain!)

Synapse

• There is a small gap between neurons where signals are passed, which are not directly connected
• Occurs between neurons
• Release chemical neurotransmitters
• Neurotransmitters affect how the neurons respond
• Signal arrives
• Allow the neurons to communicate

Feature Detectors & Neuron Communication

• How Nerve Impulses Represent Qualities:
• Neurons represent different qualities like shape, color, or movement
• Neurons respond specifically to certain features of a stimulus, such as orientation, or movement

Hubel & Wiesel's Experiment (1960s)

• Presented visual stimuli to cats
• Neurons were recorded that fire in response.
• Findings:
• Neurons in the visual cortex responded to specific features like orientation, movement, length
• The neurons were called "feature detectors" because they detect specific features of a stimulus.

Feature Detectors and Perception

• Link to Perception:
• Perception is shaped by neurons firing to specific features
• Feature detectors are crucial for recognizing different visual qualities in the world.

Experience-Dependent Plasticity (Blakemore & Cooper, 1970)

• Method: Kittens were raised in an environment with only vertical stripes
• Results:
• Kittens only reacted to verticals while ignoring horizontals.
• Visual cortex adapted to respond mainly to vertical stimuli instead of horizontals
• Kittens raised with only horizontal stripes had neurons that responded mainly to horizontals.
• Conclusion: The brain's structure is shaped by experiences (or experience-dependent plasticity) to influencing what is perceived.
• Neurons in the visual system fire to specific features of a stimulus
• When looking at a tree, different neurons respond to the:
• vertical trunk Branches at various orientations
• complex combinations of features
• representation of the tree in the brain is created by a combined response of feature detectors.

Hierarchical Processing:

• Neurons in the visual cortex respond to simple stimuli, and their signals are passed to higher areas of the visual system
• Neurons at higher levels respond to more complex stimuli, like geometrical objects
• Neurons respond to more complex stimuli like faces which is where information moves from simpler to more complex representations, called hierarchical processing
• Hierarchical means "arranged in layers."
• processing moves like information through a series of layers in the brain.
• Layer 1: Basic features like lines and edges
• Layer 2: Combining those features into shapes
• Layer 3: Recognizing complex objects like faces or animals.

Sensory Coding

• Specificity Coding
• This theory suggests that a single neuron, or very small set of neurons, is responsible for detecting and representing a specific stimulus
• Exmaple being the "grandmother cell," which would fire only when you see your grandmother
• Problem as if that neuron dies, you would lose the ability to recognize that stimulus.
• Population Coding
• States that a large group of neurons work together to represent a single stimulus.
• Brain interprets information by analyzing the pattern of activity across many neurons
• Multiple neurons fire in a unique pattern to encode its identity
• More flexible and resistant to damage where loosing one neuron does not erase recognition
• Sparse Coding
• a middle ground between specificity and population coding suggests only a few neurons fire for a given stimulus, but each neuron can respond to multiple stimuli.
• Example, a particular neuron might respond to both your grandmother and your best friend, but in different patterns combined with other neurons.
• More efficient than population coding uses fewer neurons while still being robust to damage

Localized Representation

• Specific functions are served by specific brain areas
• Neuropsychology studies the behavior of people with brain damage

Double Dissociation

• when:
• Damage to Brain Area X results in Function A has impairment, but Function B remains intact
• Damage to Brain Area Y impairs Function B, but Function A is intact:
• Proves that Function A and Function B are controlled by separate, independent brain mechanisms.

Example: Face Recognition vs. Object Recognition

• Patient 1 (Prosopagnosia (where there is face Blindness))
• Cannot recognize faces Function A is damaged
• Can recognize objects Function B is intact
• Damage occurs in the Fusiform Face Area (FFA) located in the temporal lobe.
• Patient 2 (Visual Object Agnosia)
• Cannot recognize objects Function B is damaged
• Can recognize faces Function A is intact
• Damage is in Different area of the temporal lobe.

Broca's Area

• language production
• damage frontal lobe
• broca has aphasia -Speech is slow, labored, and grammatically incorrect. -Understanding of intact yet speaking with difficulty. -Speech is fragmented, hesitant, and unstructured

Wernicke's Area

• language comprehension
• damage to temporal lobe
• wernicke has aphasia -fluent and grammatically correct yet incoherent - Patient speaks fluently but produces meaningless sentences: -Speech sounds normal in rhythm and structure but lacks meaning, -Fluent speech but lacks meaning ("word salad") -Difficulty understanding spoken and written language. -Inability to match words with meanings. -Structure of the Brain -Speech Comprehension -Speech Comprehension intact but Severely impaired with frontal damage

Localization Demonstrated by Brain Imaging (fMRI)

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) -Measures brain activity by detecting oxygenated hemoglobin, increasing it's magnetic properties responding to activity
• Experiment Setup: Person's head is placed in an fMRI scanner while they perform cognitive tasks.
• Voxel Analysis: Brain activity is recorded in small cube-shaped units (voxels), similar to pixels but in 3D.
• Color Representation: Activation patterns show colors indicating increases or decreases in activity
• Statistical Processing: Colored areas appear instantly calculated by comparing brain activity during rest and performance
• Fusiform Face Area (FFA): Located in the fusiform gyrus (temporal lobe), responsible for face perception Damage there causes prosopagnosia
• Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA): Activated when viewing indoor and outdoor seeing, spatial layout information processed
• Extrastriate Body Area (EBA): Responds to images of bodies and body parts, but not faces
• Movie Scenes and Category Labeling
• Participants watched movie clips Inside an fMRI scanner.
• Researchers categorized objects and actions in each scene into 1,705 categories.
• Examples: -A desert scene then labeled with butte, desert, sky, etc. -A conversation scene then labeled with woman, talk, gesticulate, etc. -These labels were used to analyze which areas of the brain responded to specific categories -Figure 2.20 (Brain Activation for Specific Stimuli)

Specific Stimili

• Brain regions respond to different types of stimuli faces, buildings, animals.
• "Humans" region responds to the Fusiform Face Area (FFA), which processes faces
• "Talking" region corresponds to Broca's and Wernicke's area involved with speech
• "Buildings" region then activated by when viewing structures or indoor scenes athletes, talking, animals, landscape Buildings Indoor scenes talking humans
• Findings of the Study -Specific brain areas are responsible for processing different stimuli

The Functional Findings

• The FFA processes faces, Broca's and Wernicke's areas process speech the EBA processes bodies and body parts.

Brain Activity

• It isn't isolated to single regions it is generally, it's distributed. -When looking at a face, several brain areas work together cognition -This is supported by both localized functions and distributed processing, is the name for distribution

Distributed Representation

Looking at a face triggers responses to different aspects of the face, and also an object as a face, we also respond to other facts

Emotional Facts

• She is smiling, probably happy, looking is pleasant
• direction which the eyes point the the individual looks
• Facial movements that allow lips to move (visual cues) -Attractiveness of an attractive face -Familiarity from somewhere distant in time
• This multidimensional response to face is represented in distributed neural through the cortex

How Memory Is Processed

• Activate many areas processing different neural information activate numerous many sections related across language and what people are
• The memory is often complex and will activate different partioning locations of the various information -Short-term memory lasts 10-15 second of unless activity will be stored within -(Long-term memory is stored indefinitely will be kept for many years

Levels and Regions in Long-Term Memory

• Episode memory is very personalized to your information such as what did you do or when
• Semantic memory are parts of knowledge and the collection of facts across the whole of locations -Then will often vary activating different data or the location

Processes for Brain Activity

• memory has multiple regions that has cues Visual elements in where to show them -Auditory memory such as auditory sound -Olfactory triggering through past memory recall as a smell in order -Emotional thinking as memory created

What are Neural Networks

The pathways with communicate with road

1. Structural pathways think of highways where information travels
2. Function where pathways serve certain functions

Process with

3. The change the dynamics
4. With no traffic, resting where area still active that there activity.
5. The study with the mind Ramon and his abandoned

The Principles of Neuron Communication

• Neurons transmit signals in a nerve They can record them, using Microelectroads. Which allow from the electric signals with the correct the direction
• Everything requires human contract the world

Representation in neurons can be explained by:

• Feature detectors, Specific coded

The process will often -Localized with damage will the brain's function is damaged -For each scene one's response can vary

• Brains can indicate the kind stimulate of them

The Study With Senses

• The experience which occur in stimuli
• Environment as energy
• From receptors converted into electrical

Stimuli

• Allows with other abilities of the brain
• Is it hard to design a certain perceiving the machine

-That would not give a good signal

Ambiguity stimulus

1. the certain retina different with light as the mind, then you learn and then you think as the past which as why the mind functions.

Light

• Where is what you learn into the brain that helps and know what you are looking

• How brain uses information 1.you something light hitting to the retina

2. Brain where processing There then 2 types in formation

• Bottom upwards then brain
• With new information of the surrounding as the mind -The scene where to look or if there is an issue -How to see the correct thing

What grans from the correct the way with a stimulus. Is from where is there light, more colors -That is all with the world of how much in order

That with comes in

• The schema on mind
• Is where much activity to find objects
• For how and object there.
• The mind sees the object is how it will then carry tasks.