What I would like you to do is to find a topic from cognitive neuroscience that you are interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Next I would like you to read what your cognitive text says about the topic.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to (a) state what your topic is, (b) how exactly it fits into the chapter in your text, and (c) why you are interested in that particular topic. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it.
At the end, please include working URLs for the websites you used. And include a reference for your text book.
Let me know if you have any questions.
The topic I chose to research about is Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). I was interested in this topic because I had not learned of it before & it was only briefly mentioned in my text.
Within the text, TMS is described as a fairly newer technique that bypasses other problems found in older techniques used in brain procedures. TMS temporarily will disrupt the normal activity of the brain in a limited area. The procedure works by placing a coil on the patients head and then producing an electrical current that passes through it. The electrical current generates a magnetic feild that will disrupt only a small area of the brain that is beneath it. TMS then allows the researcher to look at the cognitive functions of the particular areas that are disrupted.
I am interested in this topic because in previous psychology classes I have learned of MRI,fMRI,PET, ect. TMS was a new procedure for me to read about. I was interested to learn more about what types of patients TMS serves and if there is any treatments that the procedure offers. Also, this topic seems like a good way to better understand and grasp what areas of the brain control which cognitive functions.
I was excited to find a clip of TMS on youtube. This allowed me to view TMS taking place and how it actually disrupts cognitive functions. The reporters on this clip undergo TMS while singing the Humpty-Dumpty nursery rhyme. Though these men didn't receive TMS as a treatment for any kind, it was visible that the TMS altered their cognitive function to say the rhyme without disruptions. During the clip I noticed that the men who under went the TMS procedure didn't seem to experience any pain during of which the electrical current was passing through. An article I used for my research also supports this by describing TMS as a painless & non-invasive method. This article also describes TMS as a method that explores the human brain's physiology, particularly language, vision, and motor functions. Not only is this method used to explore but within my research I learned that TMS is now being used as a therapy treatment. Depression is the leading disease that is being research using TMS as a treatment method. The treatment works by using the electrical currents to stimulate parts of the brain thought to be involved with mood regulation. Depression patients who chose to undergo TMS for treatment can expect this treatment to last 4-6 weeks using TMS 37 minutes daily while being an outpatient.
I really enjoyed doing further research of TMS. The youtube clip was my favorite part of the research because is allowed me to gain a visualization of how this procedure really works. Another part that I really enjoyed was learning how TMS can be used as a therapy for depression. In previous psychology courses I've learned about this disorder and the treatment methods however learning that TMS is being used in the mood regulation process was new to me. Both of the articles also helped me gain a better insight as to how TMS works & is used not only for research but for treatments of depression and possibly other diseases. After reading in the text about which areas of the brain control different functions, TMS was a good way for me to further understand how these functions would be disrupted by damage by showing so with induced electric current on small areas.
URLs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJtNPqCj-iA
http://www.bnl.gov/medical/RCIBI/Research/TMS.asp
http://www.neurostartms.com/TranscranialMagneticStimulation/WhatisTranscranialMagneticStimulation.aspx
Cognitive Psychology by Robert J. Sternberg (p49-50)
I chose to research further about damage to the prefrontal cortex. This topic fits into the chapter because it will elaborate on the damage that Greg received from his brain tumor. Some of the information is similar to Greg’s while some of it is pretty different - even though all concern damage to at least the frontal cortex. I am interested in this topic because of how different Greg was after his brain damaged. When talking about the 1960’s I got the impression that the ‘old’ Greg seemed to still be there, somewhere in the ‘new’ Greg’s body. I did further research on ‘brain damage to the frontal cortex’ and I looked into lobotomies. I wanted to see if damage to the frontal/prefrontal cortex took away the ‘personality’ or the essence of who someone was. Were they themselves after this area stopped functioning properly?
I found a few different bits of information about the ‘personality/self’ of someone being affected. Sometimes there are certain (very obvious) disinhibitions that one will start to express. Other than the socially unacceptable behaviors that person would seem to be their normal selves. In Greg’s case he seemed to lose all personality. His parents described it as if he was hollowed out or that he was a changeling. Greg would be emotionless or stoic unless he was interrupted by stimulus from his environment. Then Greg would react to what was going on around him. Examples would be that he would greet people and when he was told something he could comment back with a rhyme. There were many cases the share bits of the same behavior that Greg displayed.
When Greg would sit without any interaction from his environment he appeared to ‘meditating‘. However, when stimulated he could/would react to his environment. Other ways this behavior/ability may be displayed is when someone takes on the roles that are necessary or common in their environment. For example there was a man called Chameleon. When prompted to do so he would mold/camouflage into his environment. He acted as a bartender, and a cook at a hospital. However, he did not do laundry. Researchers thought this was because he had not had experience with this in the past. Otherwise he blended into his environmental roles and believed them himself.
Greg and the Chameleon both believed that there was nothing wrong with them. The Chameleon made up stories that supported his role. When Greg was prompted to learn Braille he refused saying that he was not blind. Neither of these men knew what they were missing. The Chameleon had lost his sense of self - or the ability to keep a steady/real sense of self (he had been a politician). Greg was unaware of his blindness and had no ability to move forward in time.
When Greg said things that rhymed with what he heard he is interacting with his environment. I think he is also, to a small extent, showing an inability with language. Perhaps even difficulty with word association. Greg would also twist stories and could not repeat them back accurately. He would make up alternative story lines and put them in his ’context’.
Greg’s complete change in personality is something seen in people who have had lobotomies. There was a wide spectrum of the results. People were supposed to be more agreeable and less aggressive. There were major variations with actual outcomes for each individual. These variations were attributed to the ‘blindness’ of the surgery - the doctor was not looking where they were cutting. So, for each patient the cuts were different. Some people remained in a vegetative state. Some were not any less aggressive but maybe just aggressive in different ways. Some people were still fairly functional after their lobotomies. I read a note written by one boy who had received a lobotomy and he wondered why he had received one. He wondered what was wrong with him. He felt that he was different. This is also ties back to his awareness, something that Greg and the Chameleon both lacked. Yet they all received damage to the same area of the brain.
I still have many questions about the frontal cortex’s functions. I would like to look more into the sense of self and the ability to live in reality/the present. I would also like to know more about lobotomies. Is there any need for a similar technique today? Is there a way to isolate the area of a the brain that deals with aggression and sever that part only? Or can we do that with chemical/medicine today? Even if we could would that be humane - or is that what we are already doing? Maybe we use medicine too readily today....
http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/inventing_the_lobotomy.php
https://www.neuroskills.com/brain.shtml
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2007/03/brain-damage-turns-man-into-human.html
Quite some time ago, I was watching an episode of 60 minutes on CBS in which there was a report on new technology that can, in a sense, read into the human mind. This topic relates to the section in the textbook on neurophysiological sensing techniques, specifically fMRI. With the use of fMRIs, researchers can identify the area of the brain where increased amounts of blood flow to when people think specific thoughts. I found this segment to be particularly fascinating when talking about the uses this technology could have in the legal system.
In this segment of the show, an experiment was created in which individuals were given a list of ten objects to think about when they flashed onto the screen. Examples among these objects were a screwdriver, a hammer, a castle, and an igloo. When each individual image came onto the screen, participants were asked to think about the object for a couple of seconds. During this time, researchers recorded and analyzed the portions of the brain being used for each image. Upon studying this, researchers found they could identify which object the participant was thinking about solely based on the patterns of brain activity.
Similar to this, neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes did research on scanning the brain for specific intentions of future actions. In this study, participants were asked to decide whether or not they would add or subtract two numbers they would see later. Haynes found that the brain activity patterns for the two operations registered differently in the brain, thus, he could tell from the brain images which method the participants would chose. Even more fascinating was another study done by Haynes in which participants were asked to push a button with either their right of left hand. They were asked to remember at which exact moment they felt they had made up their mind. The point of this particular experiment was to gauge what was happening in the brain just before the decision was made. Haynes found that they could use the brain signals to predict what the participant was going to chose seven seconds before they even realized they had made their decision.
Being able to read into someone’s intentions can have a major impact on the legal system. One particular company is already starting to market their product of reading intentions. They call themselves No Lie MRI. They’re website lists the benefits this product can have, such as for the legal system or hiring employees for businesses. Similar to this, Haynes has been working on a program that can use brain images and patterns to read where exactly you have been. His simulated video walks a participant through various rooms of a house. The second portion of the video shows a sequence of rooms the participant has already seen or has never seen. Depending upon which is true, different portions of the brain are activated. Though these experiments and technologies would create huge breakthroughs in the legal system there is much ethical debate surrounding whether or not scanning one’s brain is considered a form of self-incrimination or if it is similar to obtaining DNA from an individual.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10131643-76.html
(or if you would like to see the clip from 60 minute-- start at about 5:47 and go to about ten minutes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jc8URRxPIg )
http://noliemri.com/products/Overview.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/m-udi041408.php
I am choosing to research on the topic of neuroimaging. I’m interested in this topic because I am not fully familiar with how neuroimaging works and what it is used for. In the cognitive psychology textbook I purchased, neuroimaging is said to provide a measure of the location of neural activity that is generated when completing a cognitive task. Today the two main neuroimaging resources that are used include positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both tests are able to measure brain activity, but the ways in which they perform are different. For example, a PET scan uses injections of radioactivity to map out activity and an fMRI uses blood oxygenation levels to measure activity.
I visited the Psychiatric Neuroimaging at John’s Hopkins’ website and I found how they are specifically putting neuroimaging to good use. One of their goals is to use neuroimaging to compare the cognitions of normal healthy brains to the cognitions of those who are at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically doctors will compare how cognitive performance differs using learning and memory tests. Functional and structural MRI’s will also be used to look at brain activity in patients with Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Schizophrenia. After browsing through this site I found it compelling to see exactly how neuroimaging is being used today. Not only was I able to learn a lot from this site, but it also listed classes I could take that specifically focus on learning more about fMRI.
Next, I wanted an answer as to why PET scans are valuable. I came upon a website that was written by a staff member of Mayo Clinic. After reading I was able to compare and contrast PET scans to an fMRI scan. PET scans I learned are mainly used to detect types of cancer, heart disease, and brain disorders while fMRI scans are used mainly to identify language and movement controls specifically in the brain. Both may deal with detecting activity in the brain but their uses can differ greatly. Another difference between the two tests is the risks that are involved. There are little to no risks when a patient receives an fMRI, but for a pregnant or nursing female, a PET scan can have serious risks.
What I found even more helpful was to watch videos that were able to show me what a patient deals with when receiving a PET scan or fMRI. The PET scan video went into great detail and I enjoyed being able to understand what the doctor was talking about after researching neuroimaging on the previous sites. My textbook did not go into as much detail as the videos and so it was advantageous for me to watch them. On the video explaining PET scans the doctor supported the fact that PET scans can be helpful to detect cancers. I learned from this video exactly how tumors or cancers are able to soak up glucose in order to be visually detectable by a doctor.
After watching the video that explained fMRI a whole other factor to why an fMRI may be used was described. The question is raised on whether or not an fMRI can detect if a person is lying or telling the truth. Before watching this video I asked myself if this was plausible based on what I have learned and I would agree it could be a good possibility. I know that humans use a different area in the brain if they are lying compared to if they are speaking honestly. Compared to the previous sites I visited I found it refreshing to hear another way in which neuroimaging can be used. Companies are now constructing businesses that use fMRIs to prove if a person is lying or not. Possibly the criminology field could even benefit from this.
http://pni.med.jhu.edu/index.htm
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pet-scan/MY00238/DSECTION=why-its-done
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mri/MY00227/DSECTION=why-its-done
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZQq7chGoO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yonmCjuYiUQ
My textbook is:
Kellogg, T. R. (2003). Cognitive Psychology. California: Sage Publications.
So after reading the last book I thought I would deal with artistic ability and where that is located in the brain, but to be honest, I was lacking the interest necessary for this topic. I am now going be looking facial recognition and disorders caused by damages to the brain. . The connection between the book and this I think is rather obvious, brain damage and how it functions after the damage.
When doing my research I found a disorder that caught my interest and allowed me to narrow down on my topic. The disorder is prosopagnosia. It became interesting to me because symptoms of this disorder are an inability to recognize faces. What is interesting about this disorder is that people who suffer from it are still able to recognize objects. It is interesting because it creates a better sense of the brain. Scientist were capable of mapping out and coming up with reasons as to why this may occur. Studies have shown that prosopagnosia is paired with some form of defect in the template system. In issue I had with the research was figuring out what they meant by the template system. I can’t find on the web or in the books I am reading any explicit information on the template system. Most references say that prosopagnosia occurs because of damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. Some scientists have narrowed it down to the temporal lobe. However I cannot be totally clear on making that statement. What I do know is those scientists have come up with three general ideas in regards to the deficit of the brain. That the temporal lobe is intact but inaccessible to ongoing percepts (b) destroyed or (c) intact but prevented from activating multimodal memory stores (Alley.145). There are three subtypes of prosopagnosia are appreciative, associative, and developmental. When looking at appreciative prosopagnosia symptoms deal with an inability to differentiate faces, unable to tell gender or age; while associative symptoms deal with an inability to associate an identity to a face. Unlike appreciative they are able to tell gender and age more often than not. Developmental prosopagnosia occurs in childhood and often times are lifelong. Unlike the other two subtypes this cannot be paired with brain damage. And much state a genetic factor is reasoning behind this particular subtype. What I found interesting is that this occurs along the autism spectrum.
Overall I found prosopagnosia interesting because it varies greatly. If allowed more time to research I would look into prosopagnosia subtype developmental and look to see if there is any form of therapy to deal with it. I found prosopagnosia hard to study because it takes a fairly good understanding of the brain and its layout, and neurology in general.
Sources:
“Social and Applied Aspects of Perceiving Faces” Edited by Thomas R. alley.
“In the Eye of the Beholder” Vicki Bruce and Andy Young
4th Edition “Cognitive Psychology In and Out of the Laboratory” Kathleen M. Galotti
http://www.prosopagnosia.com/
http://www.faceblind.org/research/index.html
The topic I chose to research is synesthesia. Synesthesia is a condition in which the stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to an automatic, involuntary experience in another pathway. Synesthetes often report seeing or tasting colors and shapes when hearing specific sounds. Others experience a different form of synesthesia (color-synesthesia) in which they see letters and numbers in color. Research has found that over 60 different types of synesthesia exist, ranging from seeing numbers in relation to space to having tactile sensations while another sense is stimulated.
Synesthesia fits nicely into the chapter of the text about mental imagery and perception. The condition is a prime example of how closely related the sensory mechanisms of the brain are. Some researchers believe the brain pathways responsible for transferring high-level multisensory information to their respective single-sense areas doesn’t function properly, causing the sensory confusion found in those with synesthesia. Aspects of the condition are actually considered normal in a majority of the population, associations between high pitched sounds and bright colors are common. It’s an interesting topic to consider because of how the human senses depend on each other and work together in many instances. I’m interested in this topic because it’s still a relatively un-researched phenomenon and the brain concepts behind it are fascinating to think about.
Most researchers studying synesthesia have agreed that it has genetic roots. It typically runs in families and is more common in females, as seen in the YouTube clip below. The genetic basis behind the condition is said to be a mutation in a gene responsible for sensory perception in the brain. As mentioned before, synesthetes have disinhibited neural pathways between cortical areas of the brain. Instead of sensory information being returned to the appropriate single-sense area, it becomes disorganized and returns to another cortical area as well. Further research on synesthesia might help scientists understand a new way the brain interprets information, from high to lower order rather than the opposite accepted as the case for most brain functioning.
While some of those with synesthesia report being overwhelmed by the stimulation of their senses, most describe the condition as a blessing because they have an extra sense. Senses are described as flowing together, and, such things as music, for instance, become an entirely new experience with the stimulation. I found it interesting how easily the three sisters in the video could identify a pattern in a series of numbers in the test. I'm sure there could be many advantages to these kind of abilities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApieSGlyBk
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070924072449.htm
http://wiringthebrain.blogspot.com/2010/03/synesthesia-crossed-wires-or-free.html
http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia.aspx
Cognitive Psychology (6th Edition) by Robert L. Solso (pg 181-182, 313-316)
For my divergence task this week I have chosen the topic that interests me a lot. You can call it “Language development”, but the question that interests me most of all is the following: to what extend is language “human-specific”?
I have read a lot on this topic and would like to share with others tree interesting web-links that look on the problem from different perspective. One is YouTube video about a famous chimpanzee Kanzi, who learned special form of language, called Yerkes, in a research center in Iowa (Great Ape Trust). He demonstrates high level of comprehension of an oral speech. The reason I included this web link is that many people believe that apes are not capable to communicate in language on any possible level. Years of studies showed us that they can develop language skills up to the level of a 2 years old child. What happens later? Kids continue language development with a tremendous progress while apes “got stuck” on that level despite years of training. Can it be connected with the brain development?
We know that certain parts of brain, especially frontal lobes are still developing even after birth up to the aged of 7. This process influence language development and is probably even influenced by language at the same time. The mammal’s frontal lobe zones are not big in size and structure. Does it mean that frontal lobes are the most important in terms of language (do not forget about Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, of ‘course)?
I included the second link from the website of Harvard professor Steven Pinker. He works in different fields like psycholinguistics and cognition, first language acquisition and child development. The material is mostly focused on neuroimaging of language process. Not going deep into detail it is quite obvious from the pictures that language is not that much localized in a particular brain area, but rather several parts are involved in language processes. Moreover, they certainly cooperate with short-long-term memory, emotions, visual and hearing perception, decision-making domains, etc.
Than if language development is not one hundred percent restricted by frontal lobe or left hemisphere structures and even apes can acquire it to a particular extend, are there any other species, probably nort existing now that had used language-like communicational system?
In a third link you might find information about Neanderthals and the fact that its DNA includes human-specific FoxP2 gene. It is believed that it plays a big role in the development of certain cognitive language related mechanisms in brain. It is a fact that Neanderthal being a different species had its culture, certain superficial believes and evidently pretty complex communication system. Did it speak like Homo Sapience? - Apparently not.
What is obvious from my reading of the textbook and other sources is that language truly is a human-specific feature. It developed during evolution process and played a certain role in natural selection of our species. Series of micro mutations (rather than Chomsky’s idea about single micro mutation) lead to the fully developed communicational system.
Till resent time we tended to think that that all levels of language are unique, but it appeared to be not quite true. Some language specific constructs interact with non-verbal cognitive domains. Although (we know it mostly from aphasic patients and new brain imaging methods) speech is preferentially processed in the left hemisphere, other cortical areas (including frontal lobes to big extend) are involved in language related information processing and continue to specialize over the period of language acquisition.
Thus not a thorough brain-mapping, nor genetic studies can answer the question where is the exact border between human and non-human language on both psychological and physiological levels.
Web links:
Kanzi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dhc2zePJFE
Neanderthal
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/neandertals/neandertal_dna/foxp2_krause_el_sidron_2007.html
Neuroimaging of processes – Steven Pinker
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/research/2004_HBM_poster.pdf
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/research/index.html
Textbook:
Michael S. Gazzaniga “The Cognitive Neurosciences” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995
I honestly did not know what I wanted to do as a topic and was flipping through my cognitive psychology textbook when I found a little article about dyslexia. My roommate actually has dyslexia and so I was curious to read the article about it.
What I decided to do was to look up the study that Eraldo Paulseu did, that the book talked about, to further understand and gain more knowledge about the topic. From the article I learned that dyslexia starting to be considered more and more of a genetic disorder in the brain (stated in the textbook as well). People tend to mutually agree that there is a connection between reading difficulties and brain abnormalities. This often involved the pronunciation of words in the language and the fact that many of them have the same sounds or silent letters (example 'f' and 'ph').
It is speculated that it is either an auditory or visual deficit along with dysfunction of the either auditory or visual along with a dysfunction of the magnocellular system of the brain. Dyslexics do have neurological abnormalities that may reduce corticocortical connectivity (can be shown in a PET scan and MRI). There are differences in severity of dyslexia among languages. For a dyslexic person it is a lot harder to adapt in English or French languages than in other languages, like Italian. Again this is due to the spelling of language and having different spellings having the same sound. This is also why dyslexia is more common in the United States.
The article actually showed pictures of the activation of the brain while a normal person was doing a language assessment and then one where dyslexic people (from different countries) had activation in their brain. There is a main area in the brain that you can clearly see the difference between the two. The areas where the controls had more activation than dyslexics where in the following: middle temporal
gyrus, inferior and superior temporal gyri, and middle occipital gyrus.
Although I really liked learning more about this topic a lot of the vocabulary completely lost me and I had to reread the article several times to fully grasp what it was trying to state. I found it very interesting that different languages are easier for dyslexics and that across different languages dyslexics show the same deficit of brain activity. This relates to the chapter in the textbook because reading involves people to detect symbols and is associated with memory as well (these processes are seen in cognition). Really language and reading itself involves many different areas of the brain and that is why it really relates to cognitive psychology.
There was not a lot of research or videos I could find on this topic, so it is something I would like to learn more about because I find it very interesting that people can have the same learning disability, but it affects others in the United States more because of our language.
http://brl.psy.univie.ac.at/uploads/silani/BiologischePsychologie2010/CH16_add%20reading4.pdf
Cognitive Psychology by Robert Solso, K. MacLin, & O. MacLin (2005)
I chose to do further investigating about memory. While reading about Greg I found myself growing more and more curious about memory and intriguing the idea of memory can be. There really is no saying what events, places, people, conversations and etc. someone will remember after they have long-term memory loss. It's so interesting that there is basically a 'cut-off' point where people no longer remember things that had happened before a certain date. I find it to be such a complicated yet fascinating issue. It's difficult for me to grasp the concept that a 'memory' is just erased completely and permanently from a person's mind forever! Perhaps the 'memory' is just lost somewhere, floating around and after a time it will wonder back into the persons 'memory tank' and there it will be, until maybe it wonders off again. I know that's not very scientific or realistic but that's why the issue of memory is interesting to me.
The information I retrieved about memory was also very interesting. There is a vast amount of information encompassing such a seemingly simple concept; there is much more to it than I previously thought. I watched clips from an extremely fascinating series about a man named Clive Wearing who suffers from the worst case of Amnesia ever known. Clive’s memory lasts 30 seconds, if that. Clive’s wife is the only person he now recognizes. For example, his memory is so short that while he may be giving an answer to a question asked, he doesn’t remember the question in the first place. He also doesn’t remember what tastes should go with which foods. Similar to Greg, he still retains his musical interest, which have been virtually unaffected. Clive explains he feels as though he’s been unconscious entirely. “Everything is blank, or inactive. Day and night are the same. No thoughts at all.”
It’s truly an amazing case, I can’t imagine how he must feel.
Overall, the sources I browsed agreed upon the basic concepts surrounding memory. For instance, Retrograde amnesia is the loss of memory from a point behind in time and Anterograde is the opposite or the loss of memory from time ahead. Although short-term memory and long-term memory have different characteristics, they are not seen as two separate ideas but rather they are interrelated.
http://neuro.psyc.memphis.edu/neuropsyc/np-ugp-memory.htm#types
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNDRDJy-vo
http://www.memorydr.com/physical.htm
http://faculty.mercer.edu/spears_a/studentpages/anterograde/amnesia.html
I appologize for the tardy post. I only just got to it.
I picked language acquisition as my neuroscience topic. I realize this is actually marginally related with cognitive neuroscience but the damage is done.
I found very basic commonalities in all the sources I looked at. All of them mentioned Noam Chomsky and his work and this is also mentioned in the book in the much later chapter that talks about language. Every source also talks about the lateralization in the brain where the left hemisphere generally is where language is localized. This lateralization is also in the chapter that talks about neuroscience. Broca's and Wernicke's areas are always mentioned.
I took an interest in this because I am bilingual and I saw it on a list in Wikipedia when I typed in "topics in Neuroscience" and I thought it would be fascinating.
I had never really understood how motor development and language development are correlated. I knew they occur together, but I had not realized that they might be related. All in all it makes sense. The Cortex needs to complete its development after birth and as it develops so does the functions associated with the cortex. The periatal lobe is mainly focused on motor functioning and the Temporal lobe, in addition to having to do with hearing and memory(as I've appreciated fully in the AM reading), also does language. So it makes sense that as the cortex in general develops that the specific functions of particular areas should also develop. But, of course, language is part motor, part occular and part temporal. You have to manually produce the sounds through motor activity, you have to see what other people are saying, how they're saying what they're saying and you have to hear them in order to participate in language. So it would have to develop as the brain learns how to communicate with itself.
There appears to be some debate about whether language is innate or learned. I do not see why there is such a big debate on this. This is like almost all other processes in which a person is born with dispositions determined by genes (e.g. to acquire language) and the environment interacts with the genes to produce the end product (e.g. do I learn Chinese or Russian?).
I ran into a fascinating documentary on you tube. The link to the first part is located below and is the second to the last link. I found it interesting and hope that anyone who wants to look at it does to (though no one probably would care to look at it quite yet).
The last link is totally unrelated. It is a guy who is arguing that we're using too much jargon to describe things that are perfectly natural. I laughed as I watched it; if anyone cares, it is very funny.
http://www.matsuishi-lab.org/languagebrainJ-E%28final%29.htm
http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CIRCLE/Presentations/Spotlight%20on%20Neurolinguistics.pdf
http://www.duke.edu/~pk10/language/neuro.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZatrvNDOiE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzqYyHwm82A
Cognitive Psychology by Maclin, Maclin, Solso 7th edition.
During my readings I became intrigued by Anterograde Amnesia. So I choose to do this week’s topic on that. This ties into The Last Hippie chapter clearly because Greg was suffering from Anterograde Amnesia.
Anterograde Amnesia happens by damage occurring to certain parts of the brain. This damage can occur to such areas of the brain as the hippocampus, fornix, or mammillary bodies. The results can be devastating for both victim and their families. The victim is no longer able to form any new memories. Their past memories usually remain intact but anything new doesn’t stick. They don’t know the date or current events. They lose track of time (did this happen a year ago or ten?). They can have difficulties moving on with the times (such as Greg)/ They have difficulties functioning in life because they can’t remember appointments and they have a hard time working because they forget what they were supposed to be doing. They might not be able to retain important information like a loved one dying or moving. Some can confabulate memories. Some can use tricks such as routine/schedules like checking the calendar each morning or using a diary, or a palm pilot.
For others, it’s 100% devastating. Such is the case with Clive Wearing. Wearing lost his memory to the herpes virus in the 1980’s. The only thing he could remember is his wife and music. He can’t form new memories or remember the old. He tries to keep a diary that often seems to frustrate him. His explains his condition as “death.” Every morning is new, and he, for the first time, is awake. He’s never seen another human before; he’s never seen himself before. He couldn’t tell you how to get to the kitchen but he could get up and make you some tea. Every time his wife walks in it’s like they are reunited for the first time in a very long time. He can remember a tidbit of information for more than a few minutes at most. Yet, he plays his piano fluently.
Anterograde Amnesia does not allow short-term memories to be implanted into long-term memories. There is no cure, or really any treatment. The victims and their families, at this point, can only learn to cope. Using such techniques as mentioned before (diaries, palm pilots) can help. But brain stimulation should not be thrown to the wayside. If their brains are not stimulated anymore, this can lead to decay and therefore further deterioration of the brain/memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNDRDJy-vo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ObnErfTblY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbHwQ7Ygk0Q&NR=1
http://neurology.health-cares.net/anterograde-amnesia.php
http://health.howstuffworks.com/mentalhealth/neurologicalconditions/amnesia4.htm
Solso, R.L., MacLin, O.H., & MacLin, M.K. (2008). Cogniive psycology. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Personally, I have always been interested in emotion when it came to dealing with topics in psychology. The fundamental understanding that I've come to develop about emotions, someone brighter than me may tell me otherwise, is that emotions are a response to a behavior. Though emotions tend to have very noticeable and understood physical manifestations, the way people react to various behaviors can differ greatly from person to person. Emotions fit into cognitive psychology because they the result of information processing. A person has to experience SOMETHING, no matter what that something may be, and they can then take in information about what they experienced and then process it to develop ideas about how that experience made them react. There's only a brief section in the text about emotion's role in cognitive psychology, but it does point out a few things that I feel are important to touch base on. One being the fact that emotions being accepted as a part of cognitive psychology is a rather recent development. Though it is written that cognition and emotions should be looked at collectively, there are still scientists that believe that emotions and cognition have at least partial separation. Affective Neuroscience is a study that was discovered by Jaak Panksepp in the 1990s. The distinction he made between cognition and emotions boils down to reason. A cognitive choice would be choosing to find food because you're hungry, finding water when you're thirsty, or finding shelter for protection. An emotional decision would come down to finding a partner for companionship. Some of the evidence that supports at least partial separation include, but not limited to: processes that occur that are independent of cognition (actions that don't seem to make any rational sense), the fact that children seem to base decisions on emotion/impulse more than logic, and emotions tend to share similarities across cultures.
The second being that there is apparently "a tradition" as the text puts it to psychologists studying emotions linked to universal facial expressions. That is to say, that these reactions are a part of our core as human beings and they remain the same across cultures. When scientists say facial expressions; tone, gestures, and posture tend to be lumped into this category as well. Another important concept to examine when studying emotion and cognition are genetics and upbringing when. People react to different settings in different ways, part of that has to do with the heredity of the receiver and the person sending the information. However, I personally feel that a larger amount of emotional response comes from learned experiences. While this is not a nature v. nurture debate, it's nice to at least see where a person's standpoint is on the matter. The more important part of emotion and reaction is the question "Are facial expressions universal?" Data shows that the answer is "Sort of." There are certain facial that can be recognized accurately across cultures, others can not. This is an important part of emotion and cognition because there can exist a communication gap between people because there's a misunderstanding from the receiver about a message that was sent.
The third thing to make note of is that emotions can either be quick reflexive responses, or slow and deliberate evaluations of a situation. A lot of decisions we make are made without our knowledge of them having occurred. People have the ability to process information within a very small fraction of a second. The ability to make decisions in an instant is a survival tool that human beings have. We can use it to determine whether or not something is dangers, if it is how dangerous it is, and we can weigh all of the possible consequences in a short period of time. While it may not seem entirely apparent what exactly processing time has to do with emotions, I feel like there is a strong link somewhere. I spent the summer working with high school students on academic studies and social skills on a large scale and on one-on-one formats. Each and every student had a different speed at which they processed information, if they were not given the adequate time to process the information; it definitely played a role in their emotional response to the situation. If I expected a response before they had processed the information fully, or too late after they had finished the students would likely become frustrated for various reasons. Information processing and the speed at which the information can be processed has a HUGE role in human emotion.
http://bestsum.com/simulation/html/Blink.htm
http://www.spring.org.uk/2006/11/separating-emotion-from-cognition.php
http://www.radford.edu/~jaspelme/_private/gradsoc_articles/facial%20expressions/Ekman%201993%20Am%20psych.pdf
Textbook:
Kellogg, R. T. (2007). Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.
I was interested in memory still, even though memory was something that we sort of talked about in class as well as in the reader. In my textbook it gives a little explanation about the different types of memory (sensory, short-term, and long-term) along with a flow diagram on how memories transfer to each type. I really want to learn more about memory, because it is so complex. It is hard to explain memory with just a snap of ones fingers... it is something that has been constantly researched and will constantly be questioned in future research.
The things I found based mostly on the Atkinson and Shiffrin model of memory. The first model only stated the idea of long-term memory and short-term memory. Sensory memory was added later, but is an important part in the memory process.
Sensory memory temporarily registers incoming info, and basically relies on your senses. These only last for a short amount of time (a half-second or so). This brief storage has two sections... echoic memory for sounds and iconic memory for sight. This type of memory in un-interpreted and fades quickly into oblivion.
The second type is short-term memory and lasts for about 15-20 seconds (compared to the half-second for sensory). This type of memory is a short-term storehouse or workbench for active files, or info that is ready for further processing. You can usually hold about five to nine separate chunks of information in this mode at a time (things like letters, numbers, or words). This idea comes from George Miller's the magical number seven plus or minus two. These types of items are usually rehearsed in some way to be remembered in a articulatory of phonological loop. You can also use something visual, like writing something down, to remember something.
The last system is long-term memory. Long-term memory is basically a storehouse for memories. Long-term memory has no real capacity and can hold information for a vast amount of time. When a memory is being processed into long-term memory is goes through a few steps to get there. The first is organization, where the info is cateorized and arranged into some coherent pattern...then is goes into an elaboration process where certain items get grouped together or form a "relationship" where they can be remembered, these associations can also be made with something already known. It is beleived that is area of memory shrinks with age, but further research needs to be done in this area. Like I said before.. this area is endless. This can be said because a person does not stop learning after a certain age, nor do they erase something in their memory just to store something else in its place. Info in long-term memory is also harder to get rid of than in the other two stages, but this isn't saying that you will remember every little detail. Certain things in long-term memory will also be more accessible, and be sorted into either a delcarative memory space or nondeclarative area.
I could go on an on about memory because it is so complex, but this gives a nice little abstract to the idea that is memory...
(sorry the post was late, I didn't get the book until now)
URL's/Book Sources:
http://users.ipfw.edu/abbott/120/AtkinsonShifrin.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/26618/en-5.2.2=sensory%20memory.htm
I also used a book... (not the textbook) Adult Development and Aging by Diane Papalia, Harvey Sterns, Ruth Feldman, and Cameron Camp. (2007)
(Textbook) Cognitive Psychology by E. Bruce Goldstein. (2008).
The topic I decided to explore is language comprehension. While this is a process that we do on a regular basis, we may not fully understand how it all works. Comprehension and cognitive psychology cross paths in many ways, and I'll try to focus on these aspects. My text (Cognitive Psychology, Second ed, Kellogg) gives an example of how different ways we present information through language may influence how what is said is interpreted. The example in the text shows how in a court room setting lawyers may frame questions and statements to persuade the jury to share their views. Phrasing a statement to imply guilt, as in "So how long have you been beating your wife?" primes the jury to see guilt in a response, therefore possibly altering their interpretation of any answer the defendant may give. Have you ever, did you ever, would you ever...?" would have changed the question entirely and changed the way the jury thought about the person being asked. The text describes a type of comprehension called supposition where when we hear a negative sentence we first see it as a positive, we "presuppose" that it is a positive, and then we process back through it and see it as a negative. Research shows that negative sentences require more processing and "a greater volume of neural tissue". While searching on the web I found other sites explaining the same sort of process and referred to this as the "context effect". This goes farther than just sentence word placement and refers to the ways in which memory also contributes to comprehension. Reserch was done to find what made those people who seem to have very good comprehension so good at it. What was found was that those who also had good memory recall and good imagery were the ones who scored highest on tests of comprehension. The researcher who designed the study claims that he got the idea for testing imagery and comprehension after a students remark about reading and making a mental movie to help him understand it all. The study finds that imagery is critical factor in language comprehension. This seemed so obvious to me once I realized that this seems to be the way children learn. Every picture book that has one word/ one picture per page reinforces the tie between the word and the image. This is a rough, simplified interpretation of the concept, but I think it works.
I find the topic interesting for a few reasons. My son is turning two in October and is lagging behind in his language development. Comprehension is only part of language development, and he seems to understand what I say just fine, so I was curious to see if the input of language was processed in the same areas as the output of language. It is, and in other areas also. When mapping the areas that we use during language comprehension we see the Brocas and Weirnekies areas light up. As we may all know these too are active during speech. along with these areas we also see memory activated, which ties in with the amount of imagery and recall that goes into language comprehension. Another reason to poke around deals with the fun stuff I found in my text. My husband is self employed and has to deal with his customers on a regular basis. Frankly, five years ago when he started out on his own he really sucked at talking to people. After a few years of coaching and classes on the subject, he is amazing. He needed to learn what to say so others would hear what he wanted them too. It's a handy skill to have if you ever get married too! We all have our own way of understanding the things we read and hear. If you really want to get your point across you have to speak the listeners language, not your own.
www.lindamoodbell.com/downloads/pdf/research/gestalt.pdf
http://mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/36/7/1306.refs
www.scribd.com/doc/9587/how-to-talk-so-people-will-listen