Neuroscience and Perception Quiz

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Questions and Answers

Which neurotransmitter is primarily involved in muscle movement and is affected in convulsions?

GABA

Serotonin

Dopamine

Acetylcholine (correct)

What is the main function of GABA in the nervous system?

Enhancing mood regulation

Stimulating memory formation

Facilitating voluntary movement

Inhibition of neuronal activity (correct)

Which pathway is affected in Parkinson's disease and involves the Substantia nigra?

Nigrostriatal pathway (correct)

Mesocortical pathway

Corticostriatal pathway

Mesolimbic pathway

What impact do depressant drugs primarily have on the body?

Suppress bodily processes Signup and view all the answers

What is the consequence of physical dependence on a drug in terms of tolerance?

Diminished effects with repeated use Signup and view all the answers

Which neurotransmitter is linked to mood regulation and is often associated with depression?

Serotonin Signup and view all the answers

What kind of drug is methamphetamine classified as?

Stimulant Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following best describes the process of sensation?

Reception of physical energy in sense organs Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary function of cones in the retina?

To process color under bright light conditions Signup and view all the answers

Which process involves the comparison of activity among the cone types?

Colour perception Signup and view all the answers

What does size constancy refer to in perception?

Understanding that objects do not change in physical size despite distance Signup and view all the answers

Which statement best describes depth perception?

It necessitates cognitive processing to interpret 2D images into 3D perception Signup and view all the answers

What role does the fovea play in vision?

It provides the highest acuity in vision Signup and view all the answers

Which term refers to the perception of consistent color despite changing illumination?

Color constancy Signup and view all the answers

What process is described by the term Gestalt in psychology?

The integration of sensory information into meaningful wholes Signup and view all the answers

What is primarily necessary to recover perception from a 2D retinal image?

Internal cognitive processing and assumptions Signup and view all the answers

What is the process by which memory is influenced by prior experiences and knowledge?

Memory Reconstruction Signup and view all the answers

What phenomenon describes the failure to notice visible stimuli when focused on a specific task?

Inattentional Blindness Signup and view all the answers

How do schemas influence memory recall?

They can enhance or distort memory. Signup and view all the answers

Which type of memory is associated with recalling specific events and experiences in context?

Episodic Memory Signup and view all the answers

What effect does the 'Weapon Focus' phenomenon have on eyewitness memory?

Prioritizes central details over peripheral information Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary focus of the DRM paradigm in memory research?

To induce false memories through suggestive content Signup and view all the answers

What was the main aim of the Milgram study?

To investigate obedience to authority without any perceived threat Signup and view all the answers

According to research, what impact does providing context have on understanding abstract passages?

It can improve clarity and understanding. Signup and view all the answers

According to Reicher et al., what factors influence the willingness to perform unpleasant tasks?

The authority's portrayal of tasks as virtuous Signup and view all the answers

What does 'engaged followership' imply about participants in an experiment?

They feel a sense of contribution to a greater cause Signup and view all the answers

Which aspect is NOT a factor affecting reconstructive memory?

Genetic predisposition Signup and view all the answers

Sherif's study on conformity demonstrated that judgments can be influenced by what process?

Exposure to others' judgments through interaction Signup and view all the answers

In the context of Sherif's conclusions, what is meant by 'internalized' norms?

Norms that continue to be used even in the absence of the group Signup and view all the answers

What triggers informational influence according to the study?

Subjective uncertainty and lack of confidence Signup and view all the answers

Normative influence is primarily driven by what need?

The need for social approval and acceptance Signup and view all the answers

In Asch's study, what role does punishment play in normative influence?

It motivates individuals to conform Signup and view all the answers

What did the bank robbery study by Tuckey & Brewer (2003) reveal about memory recall?

Schema-driven recall and assumptions in ambiguous situations. Signup and view all the answers

According to Loftus & Palmer (1974), which of the following phrases influenced participants' memory of a car accident?

Smashed vs. hit Signup and view all the answers

How does stress generally affect memory according to the findings in real-life studies?

Stress inhibits specific aspects of memory. Signup and view all the answers

Which concept refers to memory being reconstructed rather than an exact replica of events?

Reconstructive memory Signup and view all the answers

What is a common characteristic of children's memory compared to adults in eyewitness situations?

They exhibit social compliance. Signup and view all the answers

What effect do retention intervals have on recall accuracy?

They can increase false memories through misinformation. Signup and view all the answers

Which technique is recommended to help children improve their recall accuracy during interviews?

Context reinstatement Signup and view all the answers

What distinguishes familiarity from recollection in the context of memory?

Familiarity is fast and automatic without details. Signup and view all the answers

What is a primary factor that can improve the accuracy of eyewitness testimony?

Warnings about potential absence of the culprit Signup and view all the answers

Which mechanism is NOT a part of the processes driving evolutionary change?

Cognitive selection Signup and view all the answers

What is an example of unconscious transference in eyewitness testimony?

Attributing a familiar face to an unrelated context Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following statements about genetic variation is true?

It arises from sexual reproduction, mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow Signup and view all the answers

What does NOT correlate with accuracy in eyewitness identification?

The level of confidence expressed by the witness Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is NOT one of the pillars of natural selection?

Adaptability Signup and view all the answers

What role do proteins play in the body?

They provide structure and facilitate bodily processes Signup and view all the answers

What major revolution occurred approximately 12,000 years ago?

Agricultural revolution Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Influence: Obedience to authority, influence from peers
Milgram study: Aims to explore obedience willingly given in the absence of threat, maintained through repetition from authority.
Experimental procedure: Advertised learning/memory experiments, allocated roles of teacher or learner (learner=stooge), teacher administered electric shocks to learner for errors.
Reicher et al. "Engaged followership": Behavior dependent on experimenter's ability to convince participants of a progressive goal. Willingness to perform unpleasant tasks depends on how the authority presents them.

Socially shared viewpoints not reducible to individuals in groups.
Prescriptive: Group processes involve conformity to social norms.
Social influence refers to the processes that create, maintain, and change norms.

Sherif (1935)

Looked at conformity through interaction
Group norms emerge through group interaction
Shared ways of ordering the world
Individuals' judgements change based on exposure to others' judgements.
Sherif's conclusions: Judgments reflect conformity to group norms; product of information sharing; framework for interpreting reality; unawareness of influence; internalised.
Associated with group as a whole, even when alone.

Normative Influence (Assumed to occur in Asch study)

Mediated by desire to be liked/accepted, avoiding punishment/rejection.
Occurs when groups have the power to reward or punish; creates the need for approval and fear of difference; one will comply.
Public compliance, not necessarily private acceptance.

Developmental Psychology

Study of biological, physical, cognitive, emotional, and social developments throughout childhood.
Infant development: Before/after birth. Gestation period is roughly 38-40 weeks (9 months).
At birth, infant brains are similar to adult brains in structure, but are only about a quarter the size. Neurons at birth are not fully myelinated or connected.

Teratogens & FASD

Teratogen: Substance causing atypical development when exposed.
Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD): Exposure to alcohol in utero can cause physical, mental, and behavioral impairments.
Impairments include: Longer reaction time, decreased attention, hyperactivity, learning problems, memory deficits, and impaired problem-solving, higher rates of substance dependence.

Cognitive Development Stages

Sensorimotor (0–2): Infants experience the world through senses and actions. Key cognitive ability emerging is object permanence.
Preoperational (2–7): Lack of logical reasoning; egocentrism (inability to see from others' perspectives).
Concrete operational (7–12): Children can solve problems but only those that are tangible.
Formal operational (12+): Children can think hypothetically and reason scientifically.

Biopsychology: Biological psychology

Psychology is the state of mind.
Neuroscience: Scientific study of the nervous system.
Biological psychology explores how biological fundamentals produce psychological phenomena like learning, memory, emotion, and perception.
Phrenology: Idea that personality and abilities are revealed by bumps on the skull. (Gall 1758–1828).

Neurological Conditions

Coma: No signs of wakefulness, awareness, or environmental response.
Vegetative state: Awake but unaware of self or environment; response to commands is absent.
Locked-in syndrome: Awake and aware but unable to respond physically due to paralysis. Can only communicate via eye movements. Brain regions identified are shown.

Cerebral Cortex & Lateralization

Frontal lobe: Motor activity, speech, planning, impulse control.
Parietal lobe: Integrating sensory information and spatial tasks.
Temporal lobe: Auditory perception, memory, emotion.
Occipital lobe: Visual perception.
Lateralization: Right hemisphere specialized in spatial reasoning, face recognition and music; and left hemisphere focused on language, computation, and logical reasoning.
Corpus callosum: Connects hemispheres.
Basal ganglia: Involved in movement control.

Biological Psychology of Emotion

Emotional responses: Polygraph measures changes (supposedly reflecting lies vs. truth). Physiological indicators, includes galvanic skin responses, heart rate, blood pressure.
Case of Phineas Gage: Accident resulting in frontal lobe damage; changes in personality and behavior.
Biological Psychology: Cortex: inhibition of inappropriate emotions; Sub-cortical structures produce emotional responses. (limbic system). Amygdala is crucial in fear conditioning. Amygdala damage affects emotional recognition.

Neuroscience: Basic Neuron Structure and Function

Neuron: Nerve cell in the brain
Cell body: Contains cell nucleus.
Dendrites: Tree-like structures that receive info from other neurons.
Axon: Long fibre that sends signals to other neurons.
Axon terminals: Synaptic sites; end points close to other neurons.
Myelination: Speeds up the transmission of neural signals; develops in adolescence.
Neural communication: Signal transfer.
Chemical Transmission: Across the synaptic cleft between pre- and post-synaptic neurons.
Neurotransmitters: Chemical messengers impacting neural signalling, examples include GABA, and Acetylcholine (ACh)

Psychoactive Drugs

Depressants: Suppress bodily processes (Alcohol, Valium).
Opiates: Analgesics or pain relievers (Morphine, Heroin).
Stimulants: Increase bodily processes (Methamphetamine, Cocaine).
Hallucinogens: Produce sensory or perceptual distortions(LSD, Cannabis).
Physical Dependence/Tolerance: Decreased responsiveness at the site of action leads to needing higher dosages of drug for the same effect.

Perception & Cognition; Sensation, Perception, & Cognition

Stimulus: Passing physical energy.
Sensation: Reception of physical energy in sense organs (eyes, ears, nose).
Perception: Processing received sensory information. Integration and analysis by the sense organs and brain. Processes sensory information, creating perception.
Information from sense organs and brain, combined and interpreted to produce perception.
Brain & Perception: Different areas of the brain process different senses. Different areas within an area (e.g., visual cortex) process information for different purposes.

Visual Perception

Human visual system: Processes a limited range of wavelengths.
Retina: Layer of photoreceptor cells (Cones/rods): Cones respond to color under light conditions, Rods respond to black and white under low-light conditions.
Colour Perception: Comparing activity between three cone types is crucial.
Fovea centralis: Small pit in retina, sharpest vision.
Colour Constancy: Perception of stable color of objects despite changing illumination.
Gestalt: Organized whole. Integrating pieces of information into meaningful wholes based on knowledge.
Perception: Processing information from senses through bottom-up and top-down processes (knowledge driven).

Perceiving Depth, Size Constancy, and Visual Illusions

Depth perception: Perceiving 3D world from 2D images.
Size constancy: Understanding that object sizes do not change in physical size. Key for understanding depth.
Visual illusions: Depth cues influence size perceptions, such as the Ponzo illusion.

Cultural Effects on Perception

Different cultures have different perception strategies
Perception of objects is influenced by cultural backgrounds, and experiences. Illustrative studies are presented as examples from the cultures or situations studied.

Perception & Cognition: Face Perception & Recognition

Human focus is face-based, including human or animal faces or representations of faces.
Face recognition process (Inversion Effect): Difficult to recognize inverted faces.
Face Recognition Processes (Thatcher Effect): Difficulty in spotting small details when faces are inverted.
Bruce & Young (1986): Model of face recognition stages.
Prosopagnosia: Severe face recognition impairment.

Perception & Cognition: Embodied Cognition

Traditional cognition: Separate mental representations based on prior sensory experiences.
Embodied cognition: Cognition integrates sensory and motor systems, simulating perception and actions. Includes body-mind effect. Mind-body effects mean that actions and sensory inputs influence cognitive processing.

Mind-Body Effects (Tucker & Ellis, 2004)

Actions can prime object recognition.
Observing actions can enhance the recognition of associated objects.
Experiment used in the text shows how the interaction between stimuli (object size, e.g.) and the specific nature of motor response (power, precision of grip) can influence cognition/perception.

Action Observation

Congruent condition: Faster and easier processing when stimulus and task align based on expectations. Less cognitive interference.
Incongruent condition: Extra cognitive effort required to resolve mismatch between expected and presented information.

Memory & Cognition: Reconstructive Memory

Memory is reconstructive not just a retrieval of events, influenced by encoding, inferences during encoding, post-event information, perspective during retrieval. General knowledge, expectations, and assumptions influence memory.
Schema effect: Distorted recall based on pre-conceived ideas & expectations as a mental framework.
Research examples: Studies highlight how memory is influenced by context (Bransford and Johnson, 1972), schema consistent versus inconsistent memory (Brewer & Treyens, 1981).

Memory & Cognition: Issues with reconstructive memory

Inattentional Blindness: Failure to notice visible stimuli due to focus on a task.
Weapon Focus: Central details are prioritized, whilst details in the peripheral environment may be missed in memory retrieval.
Post-event Information: Misinformation and Suggestibility from post-event details affect recall.
Children as Eyewitnesses: Children are highly suggestible due to social compliance and limited cognitive ability.
Mitigating Errors: Neutral questioning and context reinstatement help improve recall , repeat testing has pros and cons.

Memory and Cognition: Lecture 3 - Other Issues

Reconstructive Memory: Memory is not a perfect replica of events, constructed upon prior knowledge and expectations
Familiarity vs. Recollection: Recognition of information without details. Slower, effortful recall with specific details (Recollection).
Misattribution & Transference: Confusing the origin of a memory (real vs. imagined). Misidentification of events frequently occurs in eyewitness testimony.
Eyewitness Testimony: Accuracy of identification prone to error; warnings to witness regarding suspect absence. Sequential lineups (one at a time lineup) reduce errors. Confidence does not always relate to accuracy.
Cognitive Interview Techniques: Improves accuracy of memory recall, especially in eyewitness situations. Stimuli and task alignment and context, plus questions.

Schemas

A schema is a chunk of organised knowledge about the world.
Organized knowledge influencing encoding and retrieval of memories, and influencing recall.

Evolution & Human Behaviour

Natural Selection: Survival of the fittest, based on advantages, and evolution. Competition, variation, heritability are key aspects to consider.
Sexual selection: Traits that enhance mating success
Genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow: Drivers of evolutionary change.
Evolutionary psychology: Approaches to understanding human mind design by applying evolutionary principles to any psychological domain.
Principles of Evolutionary Psychology: Brain is structured by natural selection, evolved for specific adaptive problems faced by humans in ancient environments. This approach can result in potential disconnects with current environments.
Mismatch between the past and present: Modern environment has disconnections that cause mismatches between past and present environments, e.g. Fear response to snakes vs guns.
Diet: Cravings for sugar and fat developed in environments where such resources are scarce.

Comparative Evolutionary Psychology

Examines human traits comparing them with traits of other species.
Studies developmental stages to distinguish between innate and learned behaviours across different cultures to analyze behaviours.
Developmental, phylogenetic (Do similar traits exist in other species?), cross-cultural approaches to study the trait's development with emphasis on learning.

Criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology

Difficulty in empirically testing backward inferences; Justification of traits by historical needs.
Concerns about deterministic explanations; Potential misuse (e.g., eugenics)

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Description

Test your knowledge of neurotransmitters, their functions, and how they relate to movement and perception. This quiz also covers key concepts in psychology, including depth perception and sensory processing. Challenge yourself with questions about drug classifications and their effects on the nervous system.