neur1020

• Cognitive paradigm 


  Placed mental events and representations at the centre of psychology- mental events could be studied as causal events of behaviour

  • Root metaphor of computer
• Biological paradigm


  Seeks to explain cognition and behaviour in terms of biological processes (e.g. patterns of neural activity)

  • Key concepts of evolution, genetics and physiological functions
• Psychology general definition 


  Commonly defined as the scientific study of mind, brain and behaviour
• Features of Science

  • Grounded in observation (Data are needed to confirm and disconfirm ideas)
  • Science is cumulative (Body of knowledge that grows and is refined over time)
  • Science is self-correcting (Errors or misconceptions are excised)
  • Science achieves explanation and understanding (A singular theory can account for a multitude of findings )
• The Scientific Method 


  CYCLE- Observation (Data)- Explanation (Theory)- Prediction (Hypothesis)
• Reliability definition

  • Refers to how 'repeatable' or consistent a measure is
• Validity

  • Refers to the degree to which a measure assesses the thing it is purported to assess
• Benefits of Research Methodologies

  • Impose control, or structure over the observations we make
  • More structure, more confident we can be about causal status
• Sampling bias 


  When the study sample is not representative of the population to which you wish to generalise the study conclusions to
• Confirmation bias 


  People often seek out information that confirms their beliefs and occurrence of expected or favoured events are highlighted and occurrence of unexpected or unfavourable events are minimised
• Receptive field 


  The region of the retina to which a visual cell is responsive

  • Retinal ganglion cells have circular receptive fields that can respond positively to input from a central region and negatively to input in a surrounding region (on centre/off surround)
• Response selectivity in the human retinae

  Receptive field sizes scale with distance from fixation

  • Visual activity is much higher for input that projects onto your fovea- in the centre of your retinae, because the same sized image will be encoded by many more ganglion cells
• Grid illusion - vision 


  The action of retinal ganglion cells and changes in receptive field size

  • Away from fixation if an on centre/off surround RF is centred in between an intersection, only a small proportion of its 'off' subregion would be stimulated
• How do visual signals get to your brain

  • Visual signals exit eye via optic nerve and propagate from retinae to the optic chiasma
  • Signals from the temporal sides of your retinae project to the left side of your brain and signals from the nasal side project to the right side of the brain
• Left and right side of visual space

  • Signals relating to the left side of visual space project to the right side of the brain and signals relating to the right side of visual space project to the left side.
• Research and confirmation bias

  • People often seek out information that confirms their beliefs, occurrence of expected or favoured events are highlighted
• Expectation effects 


  Bias from Participant Expectations:

  • Placebo, Hawthorne, Stereotype and demand

  Bias from Experimenter expectations:

  • Rosenthal effects
• Grey matter - Cortex

  • Surface of the brain 2 to 4 mm thick
  • Contains the cell bodies of the cell's neurone
  • Highly folded to maximise surface area
• Frontal Lobe


  Executive functions:

  • Reasoning, planning, problem-solving, inhibitory control, working memory

  Motor functions:

  • Premotor cortex - motor planning
  • Primary motor cortex- execution

  Speech production:

  • Broca's area
• Parietal Lobe

  Primary Somatosensory cortex:

  • Perception of touch

  Sense of space and locations:

  • Gives sense of stable world around us relative to our body position

  Spatial attention:

  • Directing attention and eye-movements to explore visual world

  Linking vision to action:

  • Representing spatial location of objects around us for guiding actions
• Occipital lobe 


  Posterior part of the brain, inferior to the parietal love
• Temporal lobe 


  Primary auditory cortex

  • Perception of sound

  Language comprehension

  • Wernicke's area

  Medial temporal lobe

  • Limbic system
• Phineas Gage case study

  • Railway worker
  • Iron rod about 1 m length went through his head
  • Remained conscious during and after accident
  • Gage's physician reported profound change in personality
• Autonomic nervous system 


  Sympathetic nervous system

  • Emotional arousal, stress, fear
  • Flight of fight response
  • Increases heart rate, respiration, perspiration, pupils dilate

  Parasympathetic Nervous system

  • Rest and digest
  • Lowers heart rate, respiration
  • Increases stomach, intestine activity
  • opposes the sympathetic nervous system (maintains homeostasis)
• Medulla (brainstem)

  • Autonomic nervous system
  • Controls heart-rate, respiration, regulation of blood pressure, body temp
  • Reflex centres for coughing, sneezing, swallowing and vomiting
• Persistent vegetative state

  • Severe damage to upper brain (hemispheres and cortex)