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Summary BioCog Psychology, Year 1 Psychology (VU)
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Summary incl. all lecture notes and examples, and large parts of the books Physiology of behavior by Carlson; Cognitive psychology by Goldstein.
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1SUMMARY B&C PSYCHOLOGY
FINAL EXAM – FEBRUARY 2ND 2018
INDEX
à Introduction 2
à Structure & Function of Cells in the Nervous System 5
à Neurotransmission 7
à Psychopharmacology 9
à Neuroanatomy: Development & CNS Anatomy 11
à Vision: Biological 15
à Perception: Cognitive 19
à Sensation 22
à Attention 27
à Movement 30
à Memory – Cognitive 34
à Learning and Memory 38
à Long term Memory 42
à Everyday Memory and Memory Errors 47
à Knowledge 49
à Emotions 51
à Sleep 55
à Human Communication (Cognitive) 60
à Human Communication (Biological) 63
à Reasoning and Decision Making 68
CLAIMER
This summary is made by a student!
Studying from it and relying on it for 100% is your own responsibility.
THANKS & GOOD LUCK!! J
Eva Bus – Student Psychology VU Amsterdam
, 2
Biological and Cognitive Psychology
Introduction (Carlson, ch.1; Goldstein, ch.1&2)
Ø Cognitive psychology – study of the mind
o Functional explanations; process models
Ø Biological psychology – study of the biological basis of the mind
o Focus on brain processes; structural models
Integration of those 2 à cognitive neuroscience
Only since 90’s: why?
- Long time dominance of dualism
- Technology
A little bit of history
Mid 19th century
- Weber/Fechner’s law
- Psychophysics
Ø Mental chronometry – drawing conclusions about the mind by measuring time
o Muller < 1850 spiritual force à nerve conduction velocity is infinitely fast
o Helmholtz 1850 nerve conduction is ~ 30m/s (frog experiment), this paved the
way for mental chronometry
o Donders 1868 Donders subtraction method
Donders subtraction method
• Goal – estimate duration of a postulated mental process X
• Method
o Create 2 identical tasks, expect for the factor of X
o Measure RT in both
o Subtract RT’s à duration of X
Ex: RT (go-nogo) – RT (simple) = duration of
stimulus identification
• Problems
o Dependent on correct ideas about relevant
mental processes
o You make certain strong assumptions: X is purely inserted
End 19th century
- 1879 – Wundt opened first psychology lab
o structuralism, main method is introspection
- Memory research: Ebbinghaus’ savings curves
o Procedure
§ Study phase – learn list of nonsense syllables to perfection, register the time it takes
§ Wait certain time
§ Test phase – register how long it takes to relearn
§ Calculate percentage of savings
He changed the interval time
- 1890 – William James, the Principles of Psychology
Eva Bus – Student Psychology VU Amsterdam
, 3
Behaviorism
- John B. Watson
o Exclusive focus on behavior
o S-R psychology (stimulus – response)
o Focus on learning
- Classical & operant conditioning (Pavlov & Skinner)
- Research tradition of is still alive & kicking
BUT different interpretation: S-O-R (stimulus – organism – response)
o Tolman – rat & food experiment
§ Rat does not learn behavioral response
§ BUT, learn a cognitive map: KNOWLEDGE
Cognitive Psychology
Human functions as information processor
Input Processing Output
Stimulus Response
hearing/seeing STM speech/motor action
LTM
Example – Sternberg
- Relate the number of letters in STM to reaction time:
H L H?
U W G E F?
A E L F C J L?
- Hypothesis:
encoding Short-term memory Decision
S R
search
40 ms/item
- Problem:
The Yes options should be more flat than the No option because if the answer is no you keep
looking. If you have found the letter, so if the answer is yes, optimally you stop looking
- “answer”: humans do exhaustive research, so still keep looking if they see it’s a yes
The brain: from S to R Parietal lobe
Stimulus LGN (thalamus) Occipital lobe
Temporal lobe
Spinal cord Motor cortex Fronto-parietal network (task-dependent)
Eva Bus – Student Psychology VU Amsterdam
, 4
How do we know what happens in the brain?
- Neuropsychological studies with patients
o Single/double dissociation
§ Paul Broca & Carl Wernicke
1. Double dissociation
§ Damage to one brain area affects function A but not B
§ Damage to another brain area affects function B but not A
§ Evidence for localization of function
2. Single dissociation
§ Only 1 patient with functionloss
- Brain Imaging
o Electroencephalography (EEG)
§ Registers electrical activity in the brain (does NOT send signals in)
o Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
§ Registers magnetic activity in the brain
• Both techniques are used to derive event related potentials (ERPs)
§ We “time-lock” the EEG or MEG signal to an event in the outside world
• Both techniques directly measure activation of the brain
o Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
o functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
§ the principle:
• Active brain areas attract blood, and so oxygen
• Oxygen reduction in hemoglobin à change in magnetic properties
• fMRI picks up the changing magnetic properties
• These techniques measure neural activity indirectly
How do we choose which one to pick
Temporal resolution Spatial resolution
EEG high low
MEG low high
§ Temporal resolution – when does something occur?
§ Spatial resolution – where does something occur?
- Single cell recordings
• Bring a micro-electrode into the brain to measure activity in just a few cells
Representation by neurons
- Do we have specific neurons that represent information/how specific are they?
- Uncertain, because:
• May be more neurons sensitive to *Jennifer Anniston*
• Neuron sensitive to *Jennifer Aniston* may also be sensitive to other pictures
- Different theories
Ø Specificity coding – one neuron for one person
o Vulnerable and inefficient (need many neurons)
Ø Population coding – large no. of neurons, each unique person represented by pattern of activation
o Less vulnerable, more efficient
Ø Sparse coding – small group of neurons represent each person
o Similar to population, possible more efficient
Representation by brain areas
- Shape/color/sound/dynamics etc. may qualify a single event, but activate different brain areas.
Eva Bus – Student Psychology VU Amsterdam
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