90 Questions
We transfer ideas from one individual to another through electromagnetic waves in the air.
False
In lexical access, the access units are phonemes, syllables, stress patterns, and timing.
False
In a sentence, contextual words induce a P600 response.
False
Golden seabrights have different call signals for the same conditions.
False
The storage of spoken words is called the semantic lexicon.
False
Aphasia is a disorder of language due to brain damage on the right hemisphere.
False
The uniqueness point is reached when the evidence is consistent with two possible words.
False
Broca's area is located in the temporal lobe.
False
Linguistic factors that influence recognition include the frequency of a word and the abstractness of a word.
False
Wernicke's area is dedicated to speech production.
False
The Cohort Model explains how a sentence is recognized.
False
Broca's aphasia patients have trouble with sentence comprehension when the meaning of a sentence depends on semantics.
False
Kanzi used sign language to communicate.
False
The posterior division of Broca's area (BA44) is related to working memory and meaning.
False
Syntax and semantics are completely independent processes in language processing.
False
The N400 response is induced by grammatical errors in a sentence.
False
The lexicalization process involves selecting a word based on the speaker's hidden intentions.
False
Malapropisms are a type of speech error where the initial consonants are swapped between words.
False
Anomia refers to a constant state of tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon due to brain damage.
True
Proper name anomia is a type of speech error where a person has difficulty retrieving common nouns.
False
Damage to the basal ganglia can result in apraxia for speech.
False
The articulation stage of speech is associated with the lexicalization process.
False
Freudian slips are a type of speech error where a person knows the correct word but has difficulty retrieving it.
False
People with apraxia for speech have difficulty with the production of consonants and vowels due to impaired muscle tone.
False
Visual word recognition takes more time for longer words than shorter words.
False
The visual lexicon stores how words are pronounced.
False
The word superiority effect is observed when a letter is presented in isolation.
False
The visual word form area is located in the right mid fusiform gyrus.
False
Literacy is an innate ability that humans are born with.
False
Literacy only enables face-to-face communication.
False
Central dyslexia is characterized by difficulty in reading nonwords and regularly spelled words.
False
Phonological dyslexia is characterized by reading nonwords better than real words.
True
Pure alexia is characterized by reading words by whole-word recognition.
False
The inferior frontal lobe is involved in verbal working memory.
False
Deep dysgraphia is characterized by difficulties in spelling real words.
True
Numeracy is limited to mathematical abilities only.
False
Dysgraphia is typically unimodal, affecting only one aspect of writing.
False
FMRI studies have shown that reading uses different brain regions across different languages.
False
Unschooled individuals have a fundamental sense of numeracy equivalent to those with education.
True
Humans can subitize up to 7 items without counting them.
False
The distance effect refers to the phenomenon where it's easier to compare numbers when the distance between them is small.
False
The number system processes only countable quantities.
False
The SNARC effect is a cultural phenomenon specific to Western cultures.
False
Restle's theory is known as the Triple Code Model.
False
Walsh's theory is known as the Theory of Magnitude (ATOM).
True
The Triple Code Model consists of two codes: abstract and visual.
False
Executive functions are specific to one particular domain such as memory, language, or perception.
False
The prefrontal cortex is not related to executive functions.
False
Problem-solving is often tested by giving a starting point but not an end point.
False
Lesions in the prefrontal cortex do not affect problem-solving abilities.
False
Inhibition is related to the lateral PFC, specifically the anterior cingulate cortex and pre-SMA.
False
Task switching does not require PFC activation.
False
PFC damage does not lead to perseveration in task switching.
False
The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test does not involve switching rules.
False
The Somatic Marker Hypothesis states that somatic markers are stored in the amygdala and have a direct role in controlling ongoing behavior.
False
Lateral PFC is specialized in task monitoring in humans
False
Patients with lesions to the anterior prefrontal cortex may be particularly impaired at single-tasking, but not multi-tasking.
False
The dorsal ACC is involved in the affective division
False
The Iowa Gambling Test is a measure of delay discounting.
False
Task switching is related to the basal ganglia.
False
Error detection is primarily associated with the lateral prefrontal cortex
False
The lateral prefrontal cortex is involved in behavioral adjustment after an error
True
The lateral PFC is involved in current reward vs future reward decisions.
True
The Six Element Test is a measure of task switching.
False
The posterior division of the lateral prefrontal cortex is related to cognitive control
True
OFC lesions lead to planning failure and impulsive behavior in delay discounting tasks.
True
Humans are not more lateralized than other primates in terms of cognitive functions
False
The Multiple Demand Network is involved in executive function, including decision making and task switching.
True
The amygdala is primarily involved in the recognition of facial expressions.
False
The insula is responsible for monitoring the internal state of the body and pain perception.
True
The orbitofrontal cortex computes the absolute value of a stimulus, regardless of context.
False
The anterior cingulate is primarily involved in empathy and social exclusion.
True
The ventral striatum is primarily involved in reward processing and dopamine release.
True
Kluver-Bucy syndrome is characterized by increased fear response.
False
Feldman-Barrett's theory claims that all emotions are constructed through a single dimension.
False
Rolls' theory is primarily concerned with the dimensions of reward and punishment.
True
Facial identification involves the superior temporal sulcus.
False
The simulation theory proposes that we understand others' emotions by consciously reasoning about their mental states.
False
Capgras syndrome is characterized by an inability to recognize the person, but a normal emotional response to them.
False
Emotions are not essential for guiding social behavior
False
The mirror system is responsible for empathy, but not theory of mind.
False
The James-Lange Theory states that emotions come before expression
False
Eye gaze information is only important for group communication.
False
The Papez Circuit is responsible for differentiating between different emotions
False
Social referencing involves the process of learning through reinforcement and punishment.
False
Paul Ekman's theory proposes that emotions are culturally determined
False
The Cannon-Bard Theory states that bodily responses occur before the emotion itself
False
Emotions are solely associated with stimuli that have inherent survival value
False
The limbic brain is responsible for language processing
False
Emotions are a state associated only with punishing stimuli
False
Study Notes
Speech and Language
- Speech is a means of transferring ideas from one individual to another through the vibration of molecules in the air.
- Language is a social engagement that involves deducting what others know or believe.
- Animals may have language, as demonstrated by Washoe, Kanzi, and Golden seabrights.
Speech Production vs Comprehension
- Speech production involves the production of spoken words, while comprehension involves perceiving and understanding spoken words.
Spoken Word Recognition
- We match the acoustic form of spoken words to a stored set of words in our vocabulary, known as the phonological lexicon.
- The process of matching is called lexical access, and it involves competition between similar sounding words.
- The access units are debated, but the consensus is that speech recognition involves a cohort of words that are initially considered as candidates, with words getting eliminated as more evidence accumulates.
Cohort Model
- In lexical access, many spoken words are initially considered as candidates, but words get eliminated as more evidence accumulates.
- The uniqueness point is reached when the acoustic input unambiguously corresponds to only one known word.
- The time taken to recognize a word depends on how early or late the uniqueness point occurs.
- Linguistic factors that influence recognition include frequency of a word, imageability of a word, and contextual information.
Words in Context
- The cohort model explains how a single word is recognized, but words are normally spoken in the context of a discourse.
- EEG studies show that out-of-context words induce a N400 response, while grammatical errors induce a P600 response.
Aphasia
- Aphasia is a disorder of language due to brain damage on the left hemisphere, causing problems in speech perception, speech production, and writing.
Language Specialization
- Broca's area is located in the frontal lobe and is responsible for speech production, with damage causing Broca's aphasia.
- Wernicke's area is located in the temporal lobe and is responsible for language comprehension, with damage causing Wernicke's aphasia.
- Broca's aphasia patients have trouble with fluent speech, while Wernicke's aphasia patients have trouble with comprehending language.
Sentence Comprehension
- Words have meaning (semantics) and syntactic roles (grammatical classes such as nouns and verbs).
- Syntax enables the listener to figure out who is doing what to whom.
- Broca's aphasia is related to agrammatism, or the loss of grammar.
Broca's Area
- Broca's area has two functional sub-divisions: the posterior division (BA44) related to syntactic complexity, and the anterior division (BA45) related to working memory and meaning.
- Syntax and semantics are separable but not completely independent, and Broca's area can be viewed as an integration site.
Retrieval of Spoken Words
- When producing speech, three types of information need to be retrieved: lexicalization (the selection of a word based on meaning), grammatical properties, and form of the word (syllables, phonemes).
Speech Errors
- Speech errors include Freudian slips, malapropisms, spoonerisms, and tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.
- Anomia is a word-finding difficulty due to brain damage, resulting in a constant state of tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.
- Proper name anomia is a severe difficulty in retrieving proper names.
Articulation
- Articulation is the final stage of speech, associated with the basal ganglia and insula.
- Damage to the insula results in apraxia for speech, or difficulties in shaping the vocal tract.
- Damage to the basal ganglia results in dysarthria, or impaired muscular contractions.
Literacy
- Literacy is the ability to read and write, enabling communication without face-to-face contact.
- It is an expert system derived from a core set of other skills such as visual recognition, manipulation of sounds, learning, and memory.
- Visual word recognition involves processing letter strings as a whole, rather than one by one.
- The visual lexicon is a storage for how words are written.
- The word superiority effect states that it is easier to detect a letter in the context of a word or nonsense letter string than in a random letter string or in isolation.
- The visual word form area is a dedicated cognitive mechanism for visual lexicon, located in the left mid-fusiform gyrus, and also responds to visual objects and Braille reading.
Acquired Reading Deficiencies
- Central dyslexia: disruption of reading arising after computation of a visual word form.
- Surface dyslexia: reading nonwords and regularly spelled words better than irregularly spelled words.
- Phonological dyslexia: reading real words better than nonwords.
- Deep dyslexia: real word reading prone to semantic errors.
- Peripheral dyslexia: disruption of reading arising up to the level of computation of a visual word form.
- Pure alexia: an acquired difficulty in reading words that leads to letter-by-letter reading.
fMRI Studies
- Multiple areas involved in literacy, predominantly left-lateralized.
- Inferior frontal lobe (Broca's area).
- Inferior parietal lobe (Wernicke's and angular gyrus – verbal working memory).
- Anterior and mid-temporal lobes (semantic memory).
- Reading uses similar brain regions across different languages, albeit to varying degrees.
Spelling and Writing
- Dysgraphia: difficulties in spelling, with similar deficiencies as central dyslexia.
- Deep dysgraphia: real word spelling prone to semantic errors.
- Dysgraphia is generally multimodal, with patients producing similar errors in writing, typing, or oral spelling.
- Evidence suggests separate written versus oral letter name output codes in spelling, indicating involvement of motor codes in writing.
Numeracy
Universal Numeracy
- Numeracy is not limited to math; humans and other species have numerical abilities that enable estimation of quantity and basic calculations.
- Infants, unschooled, cavemen, and non-human animals all possess numerical abilities.
- Fundamental sense of numeracy is universal, except for dyscalculia.
Numbers
- Non-symbolic number processing is universal.
- Ability to perform tasks becomes harder with increasing sets, even if the ratio remains the same.
- We can subitize (enumerate an exact quantity of objects without counting them) up to 4 items.
- Numbers above 4 can only be processed approximately rather than exactly in the absence of language.
Processing Symbolic Numbers
- Distance effect: faster decision-making when the distance between two numbers is large.
- Size effect: easier judgment of larger numbers when they are small.
Neural Subtrates
- Number meaning: not only countable quantities but also continuous and uncountable quantities are processed by the number system.
Numbers and Space
- SNARC effect (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes): cultural variations and other SNARC-like effects.
Triple Code Model
-
- Abstract (semantic) magnitude.
-
- Verbal store of numbers and operations.
-
- Visual representation for numerals (digits) and workbench for certain calculations.
Executive Functions
- Executive functions: complex processes that optimize performance in situations requiring multiple cognitive processes
- Not tied to a specific domain (e.g., memory, language, perception) but have a meta-cognitive, supervisory, or controlling role
- Related to prefrontal cortex (PFC)
Problem-Solving
- Problem-solving involves generating a solution with a given endpoint (goal) and optional starting point (objects)
- Tests: Tower of London, FAS test, Cognitive Estimates Test
- PFC lesions often lead to poor problem-solving
Overcoming Habitual Responses
- Inhibition: reducing the likelihood of a particular thought/action
- Related to medial PFC, specifically anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and pre-SMA
- Example: Stroop task (name the color of the ink and ignore reading the color name)
Overcoming Potent Responses
- Inhibition: reducing the likelihood of a particular thought/action
- Related to medial PFC, specifically ACC and pre-SMA
- Example: Go/No-Go task (respond to frequent stimulus, but withhold response to another stimulus)
Task Switching
- Requires PFC activation and discarding a previous schema and establishing a new one
- PFC damage leads to perseveration (failure to shift)
- Example: Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (adjust responses to new rule)
- Switch cost: slowing of response time due to discarding a previous schema and setting up a new one
Multi-Tasking
- Carrying out several tasks in succession, requiring task switching and maintaining future goals
- Patients with anterior prefrontal cortex lesions may be impaired at multi-tasking
- Example: Six Element Test (patients with prefrontal lesions may fail to switch tasks)
Decision Making
- Decisions are not solely based on rationality, even without brain damage
- Framing or social justice perception can affect decisions
- Involves ACC and OFC
Somatic Marker Hypothesis
- Somatic markers link previous situations stored in the cortex and the "feeling" of those situations stored in emotional and bodily response regions
- Located in vmPFC, influencing ongoing behavior in situations where feelings are critical
Iowa Gambling Test and Delay Discounting
- Iowa Gambling Test: a decision-making task involving risks and rewards
- Delay discounting: choosing between current and future rewards
- OFC lesions lead to planning failure and impulsive behavior
Multiple Demand Network
- Lateral PFC, ACC, and intraparietal sulcus are involved in cognitive control
- Not separate subdivisions, but a single network
- Fluid vs crystallized intelligence
Hemispheric Differences
- Not found in other primates; humans have more lateralized brain function
- Left lateral PFC: specialized in problem-solving, right lateral PFC: task monitoring
Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)
- Considered part of limbic system
- Functionally two different regions: dorsal ACC (cognitive division) and rostral ACC (affective division)
- Involved in error detection and recalibration of task performance
Emotions
- Emotions are states associated with stimuli that are rewarding or punishing, guiding behavior and social interactions.
- Emotions tag stimuli with emotional states, even if they are not naturally affective.
- Emotions are critical for guiding social behavior, including mentalizing and mirroring others' emotions and mental states.
Theories of Emotion
- Darwin's theory: human emotions possess continuity with their animal counterparts, with conserved expressions across species.
- James-Lange Theory: self-perception of bodily changes produces emotional experience, but contemporary views suggest bodily experiences modify emotional experiences.
- Cannon-Bard Theory: bodily responses occur after the emotion itself, with emotions coming before expression.
Papez Circuit and Limbic Brain
- Papez circuit: cingulate cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and anterior nucleus of the thalamus.
- Limbic brain: Papez circuit + amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex.
- Key regions are secondary to emotions, such as hippocampus and hypothalamus.
Paul Ekman's Basic Emotions
- Dr. Paul Ekman's work on expression and gesture and their role in emotion and deception.
Other Contemporary Approaches
- Feldman-Barrett theory: all emotions tap into a core affect system organized along two dimensions: pleasant-unpleasant and activation-deactivation.
- Rolls theory: constructionist approach, concerned with dimensions of reward and punishment, their presence/absence, and intensity.
Neural Substrates
- Amygdala: involved in memory, especially emotional content, fear learning, and recognizing fear.
- Insula: involved in bodily perception, pain and taste perception, disgust, and interoception.
- OFC (Orbitofrontal Cortex): computes current value of a stimulus, linked to subjective reports of pleasantness.
- Anterior Cingulate: involved in error monitoring, bodily responses to emotions, and social aspect, empathy, and exclusion.
- Ventral Striatum: reward-related, calculates difference between predicted and actual reward.
Reading Faces
- Facial Identity: fusiform face area.
- Expression Recognition & Gaze Processing: superior temporal sulcus.
- Expressions: involve the extended system, including amygdala and insula.
- Simulation Theory: we understand others by vicariously producing their current state in ourselves.
Reading Faces (continued)
- Social Referencing: emotional response of another person may lead to avoidance or interaction with a previously neutral stimulus.
- Capgras Syndrome: patients can consciously recognize the person but lack an emotional response to them, believing they were replaced with body doubles.
Eye Gaze Information
- Eyes Inform About Emotions: important for one-to-one communication.
- Eye Gaze: one can infer desire (next move) from eye gaze.
Reading Minds
- Theory-of-Mind: the ability to represent the mental states of others (e.g., their beliefs, desires, intentions).
- Empathy: the ability to appreciate others' points of view and share their experiences.
- Mirror System: neural circuits or regions that disregard the distinction between self and other.
Learn about the basics of speech and language, including the differences between speech production and comprehension, and explore the concept of language in animals.
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