Biological and Cognitive Psychology College Notes (P_BBIOCOG)

Uitwerking hoorcollege BioCog 2022-2023 | Anouk Wiersma



Biologische en cognitieve
psychologie
Uitwerkingen hoorcolleges 2022-2023

Lecture 1: Introduction
- 19th century
o 1860: Weber / Fechner’s law
 Psychophysics: study of the mind without the modern techniques.
 Relation physical energy to sensation.
 Change a stimulus; focus on perception & sensation.
o 1867: Hermann von Helmholtz proposes perception as process of unconscious
inferences about the world.
o 1879: Wundt opened the first psychology lab.
o Physiological chronometry
 How long does it take to notice something?
 Johannes Müller (first half 1850): nerve conduction velocity is infinitely fast
 spiritual “Lebenskraft”  not true
 Von Helmholtz (1850): nerve conduction velocity = 30 m/s (frog) and 60 m/s
(human).
 Donder’s idea: nerve conduction velocity is not infinite
 Mental processes take time; we can measure time
 Donder’s subtraction method
o Goal: estimate duration of postulated mental process, X
o Method:
 Create two identical tasks, except for involvement of
X
 Measure RT in both tasks
 Subtract RTs
  Duration of X
o Choice reaction time task (go/ no-go task) vs. simple RT task
 RT (go/no-go) – RT (simple) = stimulus discrimination
time
o Problems:
 Depends on assumptions about stages
 Strong assumption about stages being independent.
o 1885: Ebbinghaus’ memory research
 Used himself as subject
 Learn a list of nonsense syllables to perfection. Register
the time this takes.
 Wait a certain time (minutes, day, several days)
 Test phase: register how long it takes to relearn the list
 Calculate percentage of savings
 Memory loss over time

Era of behaviorism
- John B. Watson (1913)
o Discard the mind; exclusive focus on behavior  forget about the mind; focus on
environment.

, Uitwerking hoorcollege BioCog 2022-2023 | Anouk Wiersma


o Stimulus – response psychology
o Focus on learning
o Dominant paradigms
 Classical conditioning (Pavlov)
 Operant conditioning (Skinner)
o Still alive in modern research; but interpretation has changed: S-O-R (O=organism;
towards a cognitive interpretation)
- Tolman: wat the rat learns is
o NOT a behavioral response
o But a “cognitive map”
- Core: human as information processor

The brain: from stimulus to response
- Visual perception task:
o Retina  thalamus  occipital lobe  two ways:
 Dorsal stream: where/how
 Ventral stream: what
o Reaction: premotor cortex  supplementary motor area  primary motor cortex 
spinal column  movement
- How do we know?
o Neuropsychological studies with patients
 Single vs. double dissociation
 Double dissociation: damage to one brain area affects function A but
not function B. Damage to another brain area affects function B not
function A
o  these findings combined constitute the double
dissociation  evidence for localization of function:
functions A and B are served by different brain areas.
o Brain imaging techniques
 Direct measurement of neural activity
 Electroencephalography: measuring electrical activity
 Magnetoencephalography
 Indirect measurement of neural activity
 Positron emission tomography
 Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): measuring brain
activity
o Brain part active?  more oxygen needed  more blood
flow  change in magnetic properties
 Temporal vs. spatial resolution
 Temporal: accurate in showing when something happens
 Spatial: accurate in showing where the activation is coming from
 EEG: high temporal; low spatial
 fMRI: low temporal; high spatial
o Single cell recordings: measures activation of a few neurons in behaving animals or
patients under surgery: highest spatial & temporal resolution

- Representation by neurons:
o Specificity coding: one neuron, one person
o Population coding: a large number of neurons code for each person. Each unique
person is represented by a pattern of activation
o Sparse coding: small group of neurons represent a person

, Uitwerking hoorcollege BioCog 2022-2023 | Anouk Wiersma


 Similar to population coding, more efficient.

, Uitwerking hoorcollege BioCog 2022-2023 | Anouk Wiersma



Lecture 2: Structure and function of nerve cells
From chemical elements to cell membrane
- Bonding between elements to make molecules:
o Ionic bond (electrostatic force)
 + attracts –
o Covalent bond (sharing of electrons to form molecules)
 Atomen bevatten ringen met elektronen. De binnenste ring bevat 2 atomen,
de daarop volgende ringen 8.
 Atomen willen hun buitenste ring maximaal gevuld hebben en dit
doen ze door elektronen te delen met andere atomen.
 Voorbeeld: een wateratoom heeft 1 elektron in de buitenste ring
(optimaal is 2), een zuurstofatoom heeft 6 elektronen in de
buitenste ring (optimaal is 8). Wanneer twee wateratomen hun
elektron delen met één zuurstofatoom, zijn alle ringen optimaal
gevuld en is er H2O gevormd.
o Carbon chains; ketens van meerdere C-atomen met zij-groepen
 Glucose: C6H12O6
 Aminozuur: C-atoom met variërende zij-groep R, met een nitrogen (-NH 2) en
een carboxylgroep (-COOH).
 Proteïne: keten van aminozuren  eiwit keten
 Peptide: korte eiwitketen
 Lipiden: vet; lange koolstofketen.
o Phospholipids
 Carbon chain connected by an extra phosphate (P) group.
 Phosphate has a static negative charge and is consequently
hydrophilic (loves water)
 Lipids (fats) are hydrophobic (fear water)
 When phospholipids are put in a watery environment the will form a
double layer; with the heads (phosphate) pointing towards the
water, and the tails (lipids) point towards each other  cell
membrane.

Nerve cells
- Global structure
o 1. Cell nucleus: contains the DNA / chromosomes, with pores in
it for the transport of mRNA
o 2. Endoplasmatic reticulum: production, storage, and transport
of proteins
o 3. Golgi apparatus: post office for packing (packing of
neurotransmitter in vesicles)
o 4: Mitochondria: power plant (providing ATP (energy))
o 5. Lysosomes: waste processing
o 6. Microtubuli: road system for transportation of neurotransmitter through the axon.
  axoplasmic transport; transport of neurotransmitter through the axon.
 With kinesin: anterograde transport from the cell body to the
terminal buttons.
 With dynein: retrograde transport from the terminal buttons to the
cell body.