Cognitive Psychology,
Chapter 2
nd
2
Ed.
Mind and Brain
• Materialism regards the mind as the product
of the brain and its physiological processes,
perhaps as an emergent property of these
processes.
• Dualism holds that the mind is an
immaterial entity that exists independently
of the brain, perhaps with interactions
between the two.
Functional Neuroanatomy
• CNS includes 1 trillion neurons (1012) with
about 1,000 trillion synaptic connections
(1015).
• A single neuron in the brain may receive as
many as 10,000 synaptic connections with
other neurons.
• Massive parallel processing.
Brain Structures and Functions
• Frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes of
cerebral cortex—perception, behavior, and
cognition.
• Brainstem (hindbrain and midbrain) and forebrain
or diencephalon (thalamus and hypothalamus)—
homeostasis and basic life support mechanisms.
• Limbic system (cingulate gyrus, fornix,
hippocampus and related structures)—emotional
responses and cognitive functions of learning and
memory.
Brain Structures and Functions
• Frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes of
cerebral cortex—perception, behavior, and
cognition.
• Brainstem (hindbrain and midbrain) and forebrain
or diencephalon (thalamus and hypothalamus)—
homeostasis and basic life support mechanisms.
• Limbic system (cingulate gyrus, fornix,
hippocampus and related structures)—emotional
responses and cognitive functions of learning and
memory.
Brain Structures and Functions
• Frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes of
cerebral cortex—perception, behavior, and
cognition.
• Brainstem (hindbrain and midbrain) and forebrain
or diencephalon (thalamus and hypothalamus)—
homeostasis and basic life support mechanisms.
• Limbic system (cingulate gyrus, fornix,
hippocampus and related structures)—emotional
responses and cognitive functions of learning and
memory.
Visual Consciousness
• A critical periods for cortical development
in cats show that primary visual cortex is
necessary for visual consciousness.
• Blindsight in humans: Damage to primary
visual cortex eliminates visual
consciousness but a second pathway allows
accurate discrimination.
Methods of Cognitive
Neuroscience
•
•
•
•
Lesions and double dissociations
Electrophysiology—EEG and ERP
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI)
Connectionist Models
• Composed of input, output, and hidden
layers of simplistic neurons .
• Sigmoid activation function mimics all or
none response of real neurons for extreme
input values.
• Connection weights represent the
knowledge state of the network.
• Back-propagation of error adjusts weights.