Define object recognition
it is the process of identifying objects by providing labels or names based off of visual information.
What are three reasons why faces might be a special class of visual stimulus?
1. They elect dedicated brain regions for processing
2. Critical for social interactions
3. Expert face recognization
In a short-term or working memory task,
what is the retention interval?
The duration where participants are expected to maintain information in their memory before being asked to recall or recognize it.
Which brain regions are important for episodic memory encoding, and episodic memory retrieval?
The hippocampus and the medial temporal lobe
Define retrograde amnesia, anterograde amnesia, synaptic plasticity
Retrograde Amnesia: is the inability to recall memories from before a specific event or injury
Anterograde Amnesia: is the inability to form new memories after that event
Synaptic Plasticity: is the brain's capacity to modify, strengthen, or weaken its synaptic connections
Which visual pathway (ventral or dorsal) and brain regions are important for object recognition?
The Ventral Visual Pathway
What is the Thatcher effect?
It is a visual phenomenon that helps our brain process faces, and detect local feature changes in an upside/downside face despite identical changes being obvious in in an upright face
What are 3 challenges of studying the cognitive neuroscience of semantic memory?
1. Complexity of Semantic Memory
2. Difficulty in Isolating Semantic Processing from other cognitive processes
3. Limitations of current neuroimaging techniques like fmri in accurately identifying the distributed neural network involved in semantic memory
What the subsequent memory design trying to determine? Which two types of stimuli are
compared in this design, and is brain activity of the stimuli compared from encoding or retrieval?
Subsequent memory aims to identify brain activity during encoding that correlates with successful subsequent retrieval by comparing brain activity for stimuli later remembered versus those later forgotten
In which type of memories did patient H.M. exhibit deficits, and which types of memories were
spared? Lesion of which brain region is assumed to cause these deficits?
Patient H.M. (Henry Molaison) exhibited profound deficits in forming new declarative memories (anterograde amnesia) and some retrograde amnesia
These deficits are attributed to the bilateral removal of the hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal lobe structures
What are the definitions and symptoms of associative agnosia?
The inability to recognize objects despite intact perception and the ability to copy or draw them due to a disconnect between the visual perception and the semantic knowledge
Symptoms are: inability to recognize objects, difficulty with object use, difficulty with naming, difficulty categorizing objects, etc
What is the composite face effect?
It's a perceptual phenomenon when two face halves are presented as a whole, the ability to recognize individual features or the identity of the original faces is impaired, particularly when the halves are aligned.
Which brain regions are important for semantic memory retrieval?
1. The left inferior temporal gyrus
2. The left inferior parietal lobe
3. The left prefrontal cortex
4. The hippocampal
Define autonoetic and noetic retrieval
Autonoetic retrieval refers to the conscious awareness of a past event as personally experienced
Noetic retrieval involves the awareness of past events as general knowledge, without a sense of personal experience.
Define consolidation
The process by which short-term memories become stable, long-term memories, often involving changes in neural connections and brain activity
what are the definitions and symptoms of apperceptive agnosia?
Apperceptive agnosia is the inability to recognizes objects, shapes or drawings, despite having normal visioning intact visual perception.
Symptoms are: Inability to recognize shapes, difficulty with shape perception, inability to copy or draw objects, etc
Define episodic memory, semantic memory, short-term memory (STM), working memory.
Episodic Memory: recalls personal experiences "events or episodes"
Semantic Memory: stores general knowledge and facts
Short Term Memory (STM): A temporary storage system for information that is actively being used
Working Memory (WM): actively manipulates and processes information held in short term memory
Define repetition suppression, dementia, semantic variant primary progressive aphasia
Repetition suppression: the decrease in neural activity observed when a stimuli is presented repeatedly compared to when a different stimuli is presented
Dementia: a progressive decline in cognitive function such as thinking, and reasoning that interferes with a persons daily life
Semantic Varient Primary Aphasia: a condition where language functions are progressively impaired due to brain damage, specifically affecting the temporal lobes
What is the difference between autonoetic retrieval and
noetic retrieval?
Autonoetic retrieval involves remembering past events with a sense of personal experience and re-experiencing the event, while noetic retrieval involves recalling general knowledge or facts without a sense of personal experience or re-experiencing
What are 3 ways consolidation might occur?
1. Synaptic Consolidation (short-term)
2. Systems Consolidation (long-term)
3. Reconsolidation (reactivated memories)
What are the definitions and symptoms of prosopagnosia?
Prosopagnosia is a neurological disorder that causes ones inability to recognize faces or interpret facial expressions and cues
Symptoms are: difficulty recognizing familiar faces, inability to distinguish unknown faces, can't recognize its own face, has to rely on things like ones voice or clothing to identify people, etc
What is the difference between encoding and retrieval?
Encoding is receiving and interpretation of information
Retrieval is the process used to recall stored information
Describe the following episodic memory designs: one’s own autobiographical memories, free recall,
item recognition. This description should include, what is the difference between a recognition task
and a recall task.
Autobiographical Memories: refer to personal experiences (encoding & retrieval)
Free recall: involves remembering items without cues (retrieval)
Item recognition: tests if a presented item was previously seen (retrieval)
How can autonoetic/recollection vs. noetic/familiarity be distinguished in an item
recognition test?
Recollection designates the recall of the specific details from the initial experience of the events
Familiarity refers to knowing that one has experienced something
H.M. was assumed to have a
deficit in consolidation due to which type of amnesia?
Retrogade Amnesia