Sensation And Perception Chapter 4 Flashcards
Cortical magnification
Occurs when a disproportionately large area on the cortex is activated by stimulation of a small area on the receptor surface.
fMRI
A brain imaging technique that indicates brain activity in awake, behaving organisms.
Hypercolumn
In the striate cortex, unit proposed by Hubel and Wiesel that combines location, orientation, and ocular dominance columns that serve a specific area on the retina.
Location columns
A column in the visual cortex that contains neurons with the same receptive field locations on the retina.
MRI
Brain scanning technique that makes it possible to create images of structures within the brain.
Orientation columns
A column in the visual cortex that contains neurons with the same orientation preference.
Retinotopic map
A map on a structure in the visual system, such as the lateral geniculate nucleus or the cortex, that indicates locations on the structure that correspond to locations on the retina.
Spatial organization
How different locations in the environmentand on the receptors are represented in the brain.
Tiling
The adjacent (and often overlapping) location columns working together to cover the entire visual field (similar to covering a floor with tiles).
Ablation
Removal of an area of the brain. This is usually done in experiments on animals to determine the function of a particular area. Also called lesioning.
distributed representation
Occurs when a stimulus causes neuralactivity in a number of different areas of the brain, so the activityis distributed across the brain.
dorsal pathway
Pathway that conducts signals from the striatecortex to the parietal lobe. Also known as where pathway
double dissociations
In brain damage, when function A is present and function B is absent in one person, and function A is absent and function B is present in another. Presence of a ______________________________ means that the two functions involve different mechanisms and operate independently of one another.
expertise hypothesis
The idea that human proficiency in perceiving certain things can be explained by changes in the brain caused by long exposure, practice, or training.
extrastriate body area
An area of the temporal lobe that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies.
Fusiform face area
An area in the human inferotemporal (IT) cortex that contains neurons that are specialized to respond to faces.
hippocampus
Subcortical structure in the brain that is associatedwith forming and storing memories.
landmark discrimination problem
The behavioral task used in Ungerleider and Mishkin's experiment in which they provided evidence for the dorsal, or where, visual processing stream. Monkeys were required to respond to a previously indicatedlocation.
mind body problem
One of the most famous problems in science: How do physical processes such as nerve impulses or sodium and potassium molecules flowing across membranes (the body part of the problem) become transformed into the richness of perceptual experience (the mind part of the problem)?
modularity
The idea that specific areas of the cortex are specialized to respond to specific types of stimuli.
Modules
A structure that processes information about a specific behavior or perceptual quality. Often identified as a structure that contains a large proportion of neurons that respond selectively to a particular quality, such as the fusiform face area, which contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces.
neuropsychology
The study of the behavioral effects of brain damage in humans.
object discrimination problem
The behavioral task used in Ungerleider and Mishkin's experiment in which they provided evidence for the ventral, or what, visual processing stream. Monkeys were required to respond to an object with a particular shape.
parahippocampal place area
An area in the temporal lobe that is activated by indoor and outdoor scenes.
prosopagnosia
A form of visual agnosia in which the person can'trecognize faces.
ventral pathway
Pathway that conducts signals from the striate cor-tex to the temporal lobe. Also called the what pathway because itis involved in recognizing objects.