Deck 1: A Brief History of Cognitive Neuroscience

Question 1

Which nineteenth-century scientist suggested that the frontal lobe contributes to language and speech production?

A) Flourens
B) Wernicke
C) Broca
D) Brodmann

Answer 1

C

Question 2

was one of the first brain scientists to realize that specific cognitive functions can be localized to specific parts of the brain and that many different functional regions can take part in a given behavior.

A) Broca
B) Hughlings Jackson
C) Flourens
D) Brodmann

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Phrenologists believed that the contour of the skull could provide valuable information about an individual's cognitive capacities and personality traits. This approach was based on the assumption that

A) skull protrusions are caused by disproportionate development of the brain areas beneath them, which are responsible for different specific functions.
B) certain traits such as aggressiveness lead to life experiences and injuries that alter the shape of the skull in specific ways.
C) life experiences and injuries that alter the shape of the skull in specific ways lead to certain traits, such as aggressiveness.
D) the development of the skull bones directly influences the configuration of the soft brain areas beneath them, which are responsible for different specific functions.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The case of Anne Green was remarkable in that after being falsely convicted of murdering her newborn child,

A) she survived an attempted electrocution.
B) she escaped and later married Thomas Willis, a famous neurologist.
C) she survived an attempted hanging.
D) she escaped and later became a famous neurologist.

Question 5

Localizationist is to as holistic is to .

A) Wernicke ; Gall
B) Gall ; Flourens
C) Flourens ; Broca
D) Broca ; Wernicke

Question 6

In developing phrenology, Gall's main failure was that

A) he did not seek disconfirming evidence.
B) he was not a scientist.
C) his method was correlational.
D) all of the above.

Question 7

Willis is to as is to Broca.

A) Flourens ; Spurzheim.
B) Spurzheim ; Flourens.
C) Gall ; Dax.
D) Dax ; Gall.

Question 8

John Hughlings Jackson proposed a organization in the cerebral cortex, based on his work with people with .

A) holistic ; aphasia
B) topographic ; aphasia
C) topographic ; epilepsy
D) holistic ; epilepsy

Question 9

Giovanni visits his local phrenologist. What is this person likely to tell him?

A) You are a domineering person.
B) Your father was a very domineering person.
C) Your brother is a domineering person.
D) Your mother was a very domineering person.

Question 10

Aside from saving Anne Green's life, Thomas Willis and Christopher Wren also

A) created very accurate drawings of the brain.
B) came up with the names of a number of brain structures.
C) took the first steps that led to cognitive neuroscience.
D) all of the above.

Question 11

Which of the following things would have been the most difficult for the famous individual described by Carl Wernicke, compared to before his stroke?

A) understanding a speech
B) painting a picture
C) singing a song
D) riding a horse

Question 12

A central issue of modern cognitive neuroscience is whether specific human cognitive abilities

A) can be localized to particular parts of the brain.
B) are determined by the shape and size of the human skull.
C) are best studied using introspection or the scientific method.
D) can be identified using the Golgi silver method of staining.

Question 13

Wernicke was an early researcher who suggested that the contributes to language comprehension.

A) right frontotemporal area
B) left frontotemporal area
C) right temporoparietal area
D) left temporoparietal area

Question 14

Gall's method for investigating phrenology was flawed because

A) he used the wrong language to explain the characteristics he observed.
B) he did not tell Napoleon Bonaparte that he possessed noble characteristics.
C) he ought only to confirm, not disprove, the correlations he observed.
D) he used his own skull as the base model.

Question 15

Paul Broca's first patient Leborgne was able to produce which of the following words?

A) merci
B) tan
C) trois
D) Paris

Question 16

Which of the following things would have been the most difficult for the famous individual studied by Paul Broca, compared to before his stroke?

A) listening to a piano recital
B) appreciating a painting
C) reading a book aloud
D) playing a game of cards

Question 17

The view known as aggregate field theory, which stated that the whole brain participates in behavior, is most associated with

A) Broca.
B) Hughlings Jackson.
C) Brodmann.
D) Flourens.

Question 18

The view developed by Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens, based on the idea that processes like language and memory cannot be localized within circumscribed brain regions, was known as

A) the neuron doctrine.
B) aggregate field theory.
C) rationalism.
D) the law of effect.

Question 19

The discipline of phrenology was founded by

A) Broca and Wernicke.
B) Fritsch and Hitzig.
C) Ramón y Cajal and Sherrington.
D) Gall and Spurzheim.

Question 20

Which of the following is NOT one of the principal reasons that Willis is considered one of the early figures in cognitive neuroscience?

A) he named many brain parts.
B) he dissected the brains of criminals within 21 miles of Oxford.
C) he was among the first to link behavioral deficits to brain damage.
D) he created very accurate brain images.

Question 21

As a first approximation, individuals with damage to the left inferior frontal lobe tend to have more difficulty with , whereas individuals with damage to the left posterior temporal lobe tend to have more difficulty with .

A) fine motor control ; the sense of touch
B) the sense of touch ; fine motor control
C) the production of language ; the perception of language
D) the perception of language ; the production of language

Question 22

Cytoarchitectonic maps distinguish different cortical regions by

A) the structure of their surface convolutions.
B) their structure at the cellular level.
C) the complex functions they perform.
D) the basic functions they perform.

Question 23

Researchers Fritsch and Hitzig found support for the idea that specific functions are localized to discrete parts of the cortex in an experiment using electrical stimulation of a dog's brain. More specifically, they found

A) a systematic relationship between the portion of cortex stimulated and specific movements.
B) a systematic relationship between the portion of cortex stimulated and specific vocalizations.
C) no systematic relationship between the portion of cortex stimulated and specific movements.
D) no systematic relationship between the portion of cortex stimulated and specific vocalizations.

Question 24

Wernicke is to as Broca is to .

A) understanding speech ; speaking
B) speaking ; understanding speech
C) aggregate field theory ; topographic organization
D) aggregate field theory ; aggregate field theory

Question 25

Which of the following statements best describes the "neuron doctrine"?

A) The nervous system consists of a fused network of interconnected fibers.
B) The brain can be subdivided into regions that are distinct in cytoarchitectonics yet functionally interactive.
C) The nervous system consists of physically distinct cells that are functionally interactive.
D) The brain can be subdivided into functionally autonomous modules.

Question 26

Ebbinghaus, who is considered the father of modern memory research, was among the first to demonstrate that

A) different types of brain lesions can produce different types of memory deficits.
B) in terms of cognition, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
C) behavior is best understood in terms of stimulus-response relationships.
D) internal mental processes can be measured in rigorous and reproducible ways.

Question 27

Which of the following terms refers to the idea of a continuous mass of tissue that shares a common cytoplasm?

A) synapse
B) syncytium
C) striatum
D) claustrum

Question 28

La reazione nera, or "the black reaction," refers to

A) a cell stain developed by Golgi.
B) a perceptual phenomenon described by the Gestalt psychologists.
C) a ganglion preparation developed by Arvanitaki.
D) a type of reinforcement-based learning described by the behaviorists.

Question 29

Which of the following individuals was NOT associated with a major histological discovery in neuroscience?

A) Edward L. Thorndike
B) Korbinian Brodmann
C) Camillo Golgi
D) Jan Evangelista Purkinje

Question 30

Which of the following is NOT true of empiricism?

A) It is primarily associated with the British philosophers Hobbes, Hume, and Mill.
B) It was a foundation for the associationist-behaviorist school of psychology.
C) It postulates a special role for reason and induction in human thought.
D) It emphasizes sensory experience in the development of knowledge.

Question 31

Korbinian Brodmann used techniques to document fifty-two regions of the brain that differed in .

A) phrenological ; cytoarchitectonics
B) phrenological ; chronometrics
C) tissue staining ; cytoarchitectonics
D) tissue staining ; chronometrics

Question 32

Yvette wants to figure out whether cells in two different layers of the occipital lobe have different functions. What would she have done if she had been a scientist in the early twentieth century?

A) look at a CAT scan
B) observe the tracts that connect each layer
C) look at patients with damage to those cells
D) look at the layers under a microscope

Question 33

The neuron doctrine is usually credited to , who used a staining technique pioneered by .

A) Purkinje ; Brodmann
B) Brodmann ; Purkinje
C) Golgi ; Ramón y Cajal
D) Ramón y Cajal ; Golgi

Question 34

Rationalism is the philosophical position that knowledge

A) originates from sensory experience.
B) must be experimentally tested.
C) must be deduced and justified through reason.
D) is globally distributed in the cortex.

Question 35

The term synapse, coined by Sherrington, refers to the junction between

A) a blood vessel and surrounding neurons.
B) two different cytoarchitectonic regions in the brain.
C) two adjacent neurons.
D) an axon and the cell body of a neuron.

Question 36

Empiricism is the philosophical position that all knowledge

A) must be deduced and justified through reason.
B) originates from sensory experience.
C) must be experimentally tested.
D) is globally distributed in the cortex.

Question 37

The primary contribution of Golgi to the field of cognitive neuroscience was that he

A) developed a staining technique that permitted full visualization of individual neurons.
B) showed experimentally that the nervous system is composed of a net of physically interconnected neuronal units.
C) discovered that cells in different regions of the cortex also differ in shape and size.
D) demonstrated that nerves can release chemicals that have an activating effect on nearby muscle cells.

Question 38

Which of the following scientists contributed to modern neuroscience in the nineteenth century?

A) Paul Broca
B) Sir Charles Sherrington
C) Gustav Theodor Fritsch
D) Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Question 39

The neuroanatomist who described fifty-two distinct cortical areas based on cell structure and arrangement, and whose classification scheme is often used today, was

A) Purkinje.
B) Helmholtz.
C) Brodmann.
D) Hyde.

Question 40

One reason that early research on specific human cognitive capacities and the brain areas that are responsible for them developed rather slowly before the twentieth century is that

A) most early investigators were limited to postmortem studies to localize lesions.
B) investigators did not know the brain was separated into two hemispheres until the twentieth century.
C) most early investigators focused on studying the brain-behavior relationship in animals rather than in humans.
D) there was little interest in this field until the twentieth century.

Question 41

Describe the transition from behaviorist to cognitive approaches in psychology.

Question 42

Which of the following people played the LEAST direct role in the development of the electroencephalogram?

A) Hans Berger
B) Willem Einthoven
C) Richard Canton
D) Hermann von Helmholtz

Question 43

All of the following are representative of the emergence of the field of cognitive science in the second half of the 20th century EXCEPT

A) new developments in computer technology and artificial intelligence.
B) a philosophical shift in the field toward empiricism and associationism.
C) Chomsky's work arguing that behaviorist theories cannot explain language acquisition.
D) Miller's work showing that internal processes like short-term memory can be quantified.

Question 44

Noam Chomsky argued that the structure of human languages is , in contrast to B. F. Skinner's assertion that languages are .

A) innate ; learned
B) learned ; universal
C) universal ; rational
D) rational ; innate

Question 45

According to Edward Thorndike, which of the following is NOT true about rewards?

A) They indicate which creatures have malleable structures in the brain.
B) They help to stamp things into the mind.
C) They lead to adaptive learning.
D) They are part of the law of effect.

Question 46

A major question in cognitive neuroscience is the extent to which regions of the brain are independent or integrated. Which of these two viewpoints is most valid? Present evidence to support your view.

Question 47

Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke discovered two different forms of aphasia. Compare and contrast them.

Question 48

Computer axial tomography is to MRI as is to .

A) x-ray ; radio frequencies
B) structure ; function
C) blood oxygenation ; x-ray
D) radiation ; dipoles

Question 49

According to associationist Herman Ebbinghaus, complex processes such as memory

A) can be understood by combining different pieces of information.
B) are best understood in terms of a stimulus's emergent properties.
C) cannot be measured because they are not behaviors.
D) can be measured in an analytic fashion.

Question 50

Describe the main tenets of the Neuron Doctrine.

Question 51

Which of the following methods measures the BOLD signal?

A) magnetic resonance imaging
B) functional Magnetic resonance imaging
C) computerized axial tomography
D) electroencephalogram

Question 52

"Cells that fire together, wire together" was first proposed by Donald Hebb as an explanation for

A) epileptic seizures and their effects.
B) associations made by the law of effect.
C) the way in which the brain codes new learning.
D) amnesia caused by brain damage.

Question 53

John Watson famously argued that newborn babies

A) are incapable of forming memories.
B) have an intelligence comparable to our nearest primate cousins.
C) can be raised to become anything.
D) will develop different intellectual abilities according to innate differences.

Question 54

Which of the following people did NOT play a strong role in the theoretical shift in psychology in the latter part of the twentieth century?

A) Noam Chomsky
B) Sir Charles Sherrington
C) George A. Miller
D) Claude Shannon

Question 55

Localizationists argued that higher cognitive functions were the product of brain activity in specific areas. Give evidence that they used to support their claims.

Question 56

Thorndike's law of effect

A) stated that much knowledge is innately specified due to natural selection.
B) was written to oppose Darwin's theory of natural selection.
C) stated that a behavior that is followed by a reward is likely to occur again.
D) was written to oppose the behaviorists.

Question 57

You decide that you want to measure blood flow of the brain. Which of the following methods could you use?

A) listen to the blood flow across veins
B) look at red blood cells under a microscope
C) measure the amount of iron in the blood
D) none of the above

Question 58

Associationism and empiricism are two main philosophical positions. Pick the one you think best describes how humans come to know things and explain why you think this.

Question 59

Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens, an early neuroscientist, is believed to have been the first to make what claims about the brain?

Question 60

Empiricism is to as rationalism is to .

A) Locke and Hume ; Descartes and Kant
B) Locke and Descartes ; Hume and Kant
C) Descartes and Kant ; Locke and Hume
D) Hume and Kant ; Locke and Descartes

Question 61

Describe two principal methods used to measure brain structure.

Question 62

Describe how and why the term cognitive neuroscience was chosen for this field. Be sure to mention the two fields that combined to create this new field of study.

Question 63

Why is Noam Chomsky seen as having a major influence on cognitive psychology?

Question 64

You would like to understand at what point in time an event took place in the brain. What neuroimaging method would you choose? Explain why you would choose this method and what information you would be missing.