Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

Part 3

Final Exam

• 100 points possible

• 50 points from textbook and lecture material from now until the end of the semester (equivalent to Midterm #3)

• 50 points from the questions already asked on Midterm #1 and Midterm #2

Research on the Origins of Cognitive Research on the Origins of Cognitive Development Poses a Unique ChallengeDevelopment Poses a Unique Challenge

– Infants can’t talk and thus can’t tell us what they think, see, or feel (just like other animal infants)

– Since we can’t ask them direct questions like we can of older children, researchers have to devise creative ways of presenting questions and inferring meaningful answers from infants

Modern Methods in Cognitive Research

• Today we have a variety of different research methods at our disposal for assessing infant perception and cognition

• These advances fall into two major categories, psychophysiological methods and behavioral methods– The majority of infant research has been

conducted with behavioral methods– However, with the advance of technology,

there is an increasing focus on psychophysiological methods of inquiry

Psychophysiological Methods

• Heart-Rate– The rate at which the heart beats (beats/min.)

changes as a function of stimulation• increased HR to fearful stimuli (defensive

reaction)• decreased HR to interesting stimuli (orienting

reaction)

– HR is employed in studies of selective attention and information processing in infancy

• if an infant exhibits decreased HR to a stimulus (e.g., a face, a speech sound, a taste) this is interpreted as evidence that infant finds the stimulus interesting and is focusing on it

Psychophysiological Methods

ERP (event-related potentials)

Electrical potentials reflecting the activity of a population of neurons engaged in a specific task in a particular brain region.

This activity is the sum of millions of neurons. For example, the processing of a visual stimulus in the occipital cortex or the processing of a speech stimulus in the temporal cortex

Behavioral Methods

• looking time

• head turning

• non-nutritive sucking

Looking Measures

• Habituation paradigm (visual recovery)• Head turning paradigm

Infant Eye-Tracking

Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

Traditional Views of Cognition

• Have tended to use a computer metaphor of mind, focused on “information processing”

• Have tended to assume that cognition can be understood by focusing on the individual’s internal processes

• Have tended to emphasize computation, encoded representations, cognition as passive retrieval of rules, strategies, etc.

“non-cognitive” approaches to cognitive development

Contemporary research in neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and robotics suggests that knowledge is embedded in, distributed across, and thus inseparable from non-cognitive processes of perceiving and acting (embodied cognition)

The New Approach to Cognition: increasingly viewed as a complex system that includes traditionally “non-cognitive” processes

Nested Domains of Human DevelopmentNested Domains of Human Development

Embodied Cognition View

Emphasizes “relational analysis” :

focuses on the complex interplay among brain, body, and environment and how this rich dynamic both constrains and guides cognitive processes

Putting it all together

How does a learner who does not know what there is to learn manage to learn anyway?

The Challenge:

scaffolding

Do Other Animals Possess Language?

Speech perception and speech productionSpeech perception and speech production• Since full-blown language can be studied

only in humans, less is known about its anatomy and physiology that is known about most other behaviors.

• Several thousand years ago, the Roman physician Galen knew that language was usually represented in the left side of the brain, but little more was known about the neurology of language until the 19th century.

Broca’s AreaBroca’s Area• In 1861, Paul Broca described a patient that

had a great deal of difficulty in producing speech, but his understanding of speech was not affected.

• Broca’s area is now known to lie adjacent to the primary motor cortex that controls the lips, tongue, voice box, etc.

Wernicke’s areaWernicke’s area• In 1874, Carl Wernicke described patients who

uttered meaningless sentences (so-called “word salad”) and seemed to not understand what he or she was being told.

• This led to the discovery of Wernicke’s area, which for most people is located in the left hemisphere of the cortex (like Broca’s area).

• The existence of such specific deficits implies a specification of function within the language regions of the cortex. (remember the importance of “necessary but not sufficient” to prevent confusion about the concept of distributed control)

The motor production of speechThe motor production of speech• Speech involves manipulation and

control of the diaphragm, lungs, muscles of the thorax (which blow air up the windpipe), the vocal cords, the chest, throat, mouth, nose and head cavities (which serve as resonators), and the tongue, lips, palate, and teeth, which together produce and modify vowels and consonants

Language Emerges as a Complex System

• does not depend on any single ability (for example, requires both speech perception and speech production)

• emerges from skills and “developmental resources” that interact over long periods of time (beginning prenatally)

• language acquisition requires a social and language environment where adults scaffold and promote language development in infants and children

Prenatal Learning of Prosody

• mothers read a story aloud to their fetuses twice a day during the last 6 weeks of pregnancy

• after the infants were born, they heard a tape recording of the familiar story versus a novel story that differed in prosody

• the test stories were read by both the mother and by an unfamiliar woman

Newborns Prefer the Familiar Story

• results showed that regardless of who read the story, newborns preferred to listen to the familiar story

• infants showed their preference in a nonnutritive sucking procedure, by sucking more often in order to hear the familiar story

• even in utero, fetuses are able to learn about the prosody of language and the unique intonation patterns that characterize one story versus another

• these findings support the idea that during the last weeks of gestation, fetuses are hearing and learning about the sounds and prosody of their native language, primarily by regular exposure to their mother’s voice

Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

scaffolding

The Tragic Case of “Genie”

suggested to many that there must be a “critical period” for language acquisition

Consciousness

• How do brain processes result in conscious states?

• Is consciousness localized in certain regions of the brain or is it a global phenomenon?

• If it is confined to certain brain regions, which ones?

Some Big Questions

• What is the right level for explaining consciousness? Is it the level of neurons and synapses, or do we have to go to higher functional levels such as neuronal maps or networks of neurons?

• Might we even have to go beyond the boundaries of the brain?

Big Questions (Cont.)

• Can we explain consciousness with existing theories or do we need some revolutionary new theoretical concepts to explain it?

• What is “it”?

Big Questions (Cont.)

• Consciousness consists of inner, qualitative, subjective states and processes of awareness.

• In other words – being aware of being aware

A Working Definition of CONSCIOUSNESS:

• Consciousness, so defined, begins when we wake in the morning from sleep and continues until we fall asleep again, die, go into a coma, or otherwise become “unconscious”

• It includes all of the enormous variety of the awareness we think of as characteristic of our waking life

Consciousness…

• feeling a pain• perceiving objects

visually• states of anxiety

or depression• working out

crossword puzzles

• playing chess• trying to remember

your aunt’s phone number

• arguing about politics• or just wishing you

were somewhere else

It includes everything from:

• This “being consciousness” is at one level easy to observe by others

• When we are not conscious, our bodies collapse, our eyes roll up in their orbits, our brain waves become large, slow, and regular.

Being Consciousness

• While these outerphysical signs of consciousness are pretty clear for all to see, it is our inner (cognitive, emotional, perceptual; reflective) life that counts most for us and what we would like to better understand

• How does it happen?

Being Consciousness (Cont.)

• Even though we take it for granted, one thing we will need to understand is why and how we all experience ourselves as “being someone”

• For example, at this moment you all have the impression that it is you who is hearing this lecture. And it is you who is forming thoughts about it.

Being Someone

Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

Midterm # 3

• Friday, APRIL 5th

• 50 multiple choice questions

• Study guide and sample test questions by Wednesday, March 27th

• Our daily experience makes us think that we are “someone” who is experiencing the world

• We commonly refer to this phenomenon by speaking of the “self ”

The Self

• For humans, consciousness is always tied to an individual,

first-person perspective:

“I” “me”

“mine”

Consciousness

• how far does consciousness go? • which species have it and which don’t?

A big question:

Primary (Core) ConsciousnessPrimary (Core) Consciousness

• The ability to build a multimodal scene based on several different sources of concurrent information.

• Does not necessarily contain any self-referential aspect - it lives in the present (“here” and “now”), tied to the succession of events in real time.

Biological functions of brain structures which

support core consciousness appear to

overlap… (even though they are

widely distributed in the brain):

1) regulating homeostasis and signaling body structure and state

2) participating in processes of attention3) participating in the processes of

wakefulness and sleep4) participating in the processes of emotion

and feeling5) participating in the learning process

• The function or usefulness of core consciousness seems related to the maintenance and regulation of the biological self (yes, homeostasis)

Primary or Core Consciousness

• is the process of achieving a neural pattern which brings together, in about the same instant, the pattern for the object, the pattern for the organism, and the pattern for the relationship between the two (integrating internal and external).

PRIMARY OR CORE CONSCIOUSNESS…

Higher-Order (Human) ConsciousnessHigher-Order (Human) Consciousness

• Emerges when reference to the past, future, and self become available.

• Appears to be tied to the ability for autobiographical memory, the ability for language, and being situated in a social/cultural network (to provide scaffolding)

Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

Midterm # 3

• Friday, APRIL 5th

• 50 multiple choice questions

• Study guide and sample test questions by Wednesday, March 27th

• With the emergence of higher-order consciousness through autobiographical memory and language, there is an explicit coupling of feelings and values, yielding a subjectivity with narrative powers, creating a fabric of “identity”, “beliefs” and a “point of view”

• These beliefs and your point of view powers our need for “explanation” to maintain them.

Explanation

• Why this “higher-order” type of consciousness?

• Why do we appear to have something beyond “primary” consciousness?

• Most often the least “predictable” or most difficult to explain aspect of our environment is the social one – making sense of the behavior,

intentions, and beliefs of others

Predictable

• Some have argued that higher-order consciousness initially emerged as a cognitive “trick” to allow an individual to better predict the social behavior of other members of his or her group.

Cognitive Tricks

• If you are awareof your own intentions, beliefs, thoughts, etc. then you can extend this knowledge of the “self” to help make sense of the thoughts and behaviors of others –This idea is usually termed the

“theory of mind”

Theory of Mind

• Conscious experience is rather slow and “behind the curve” of much of our actions and decisions (driving a car, returning a tennis serve, finding the next words to make a sentence), despite our impression that “I” am “making it happen”

Paradox?

Free Will?

Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

Midterm # 3

• Friday, APRIL 5th

• 50 multiple choice questions

• Study guide and sample test questions by Wednesday, March 27th

Human Consciousness

• To be aware of oneself as well as to be aware of others

• To be able to feel and express emotions• To be able to engage in complex cognition,

including symbolic representations and in particular, language

• To be able to think about things not present in the immediate environment (imagination)

• To be able to predict the consequences of events never before experienced by simulating those events (including future events)

Retrospection and Prospection

• This remarkable set of abilities requires both “retrospection” - the ability to re-experience the past AND “prospection” - the ability to pre-experience the future by simulating it in our conscious awareness

• This allows us to be able to go beyond “the information given”

• Most of the time our judgments and decisions in any situation are arrived at as a consequence of the evaluation of a set of internally generated “alternatives”. These alternatives are typically based on the seamless integration of the past, the present, and possible futures.

• These counterfactuals are constructed to compare what happened or is happening with what could have happened. Without such alternatives or simulations, it would be very difficult to fine tune our behavior and to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again, as well as anticipate and plan for needs not currently experienced.

Acting NOW in Anticipation of LATER

Examples:

Making your lunchFlossing your teethApplying to graduate schoolInvesting in a savings accountAddress threats of global warming??

• These remarkable abilities to “mental time travel” were not always available to us – coming to terms with the flow of time and becoming skilled at using the past and possible futures to inform and direct our actions, choices, and goals emerged over a long period of time during early childhood

• Of course, now we take such abilities for granted and can’t imagine operating any other way

Comprehension of yesterday and tomorrow emerges gradually over the preschool years.

Recent evidence suggests that imagining the future depends on the same neural circuits and mechanisms that are needed for remembering the past.

Simulation of future events seems to require a system that can flexibly re-combine details from past events.

According to this idea, thoughts of past and future events draw on similar information stored in episodic memory.

This notion has been termed the:

constructive episodic simulation hypothesis

and is generally presumed to be unique to humans

For example, if young children have limited skills at reconstructing the events of the past, they will likely also have limited ability to anticipate or predict the future

Oh boy, chocolate pudding!

Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

Midterm # 3

• Friday, APRIL 5th

• 50 multiple choice questions

• Study guide and sample test questions by Wednesday, March 27th

Modulation of internal and external events through the construct of ‘self’ allows us to remove ourself from the present and construct “alternative” interpretations of past, present, and future events. In normal individuals, this “off-line” ability to consciously evaluate and adjust behavior relies in large part on the activity of the prefrontal cortex.

plans, goals, strategies, decisions

The prefrontal cortex is thought to be crucial for integrating and discriminating internally and externally derived models of the world. These functions occupy a major portion of our conscious awareness, including rumination on the past, speculation about the future, and real-time daydreams about a different present and possible futures.

The “flashlight” vs. the “floodlight” experience of time

Wow, remember that great bone I had last Thanksgiving?

Paradox:

even though we can retrospect and prospect, thereby making our “temporal window” very large compared to other animals, this particular moment (now) is all we have to work with consciously (in other words, all consciousness occurs in “real-time”)

Introduction to Biopsychology[PSB 4002]

Professor Josh HerringtonDM 249 305-348-1230Jherr033@fiu.eduwebsite: dpblab.fiu.edu

William James (1842-1910) – Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Moral and

Religious Philosopher

Published the hugely influential

two volume book“The Principles of

Psychology” in 1890.

William JamesWilliam James• In that important book James described

consciousness as:

– individual (private) –continuous and continually changing– intentional (about something) and

selective–a process, not a thing

• Building on these basic insights provided by

James, we now also recognize that

consciousness has at least three features or

aspects that make it different from most

other biological phenomena (and make it

more difficult to study scientifically)

Building on James

• qualitativeness: every conscious state has a certain qualitative feel to it, what it feels like to have that conscious experience.

• For example, the experience of tasting beer is very different from hearing Beethoven’s 9th symphony, and both of these have a different qualitative character from seeing a sunset.

Qualitativeness

• subjectivity: conscious states exist only when they are experienced by some human or animal.

• In other words, in order for there to be a qualitative feel to some event, there must be some subject that experiences the event.

• Thus, all conscious states are essentially subjective.

Subjectivity

• unity: all conscious experience comes as part of one unified conscious field.

• If I am sitting at my desk looking out the window, I do not just see the sky and the trees, at the same time I feel the pressure of my body against the chair, the shirt against my back, the aftertaste of coffee.

• In other words, I experience all of these as part of a single unified conscious field or experience.

Unity

• Consciousness (OUR AWARENESS) seems to be constantly on the move

• A moment ago you were asking yourself whether what I said made sense, now you are listening to this sentence, in a moment you will let your mind wonder elsewhere….

Consciousness

• WILLIAM JAMES referred to this FLOWING QUALITY (constantly changing) as

THE “STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS”

Consciousness

MIDTERM # 3Friday, April 5th

• 50 possible points

• Questions drawn from textbook (Chapters 20, 21, 22) and lecture material

Mind & BehaviorMind & Behavior• Human mind and behavior need to be

understood by situating them properly within a brain in a body that lives in an eventful world abounding with objects and people.

• The brain offers the necessary biophysical basis for individual cognition and consciousness; it alone, however, is not sufficient to engender the mind, behavior, or consciousness.

Interoception

• As humans, we perceive feelings from our bodies that relate our state of well-being, our energy and stress levels, our mood and disposition. How do we have these subjective feelings?

“The Material Me”

The Anterior Insular Cortex

• Recent findings from neuro-imaging studies suggest a fundamental role for the AIC in awareness, from bowel distention to cigarette craving, from decision making to sudden insight.

An increasing number of studies address the functional role of the insular cortex. A number of reports have connected the insular cortex to important higher-level cognitive functions, including social norm violation, general task monitoring, self-awareness, and even consciousness. Furthermore, the insular cortex might play a crucial role in some neuropsychiatric disorders, such as drug addiction.

Mind & BehaviorMind & Behavior• The brain is embodied and the body is

embedded in its environment – you can’t separate the activity of the brain from the body or the environment

• Further, in humans, society and its culture distributes cognitive activity across many brains. We do not have an “isolated” mind. In contrast, non-human animals do. What they know is what they have experienced directly.

Starting from scratch, guided by only the preceding generation

Because of our use of language, because of our extended period of development (and the scaffolding its requires), because of our societies and cultures and their artifacts, we don’t have to “start over” each generation.

Just by being born human, we each “inherit” an enormous potential store of knowledge and information. We can stand on (and benefit from) the shoulders of the many generations of people who came before us, and who left us their insights, experiences, failures and successes.

Extelligence

In humans, society and its culture distributes cognitive activity across many brains. We do not have an “isolated” mind. In contrast, non-human animals do. What they know is limited to what they have experienced or observed directly.

When children are educated, ideas and technologies are maintained across generations, spanning the gaps left by the passing of individual brains. When reading and writing are mastered, ideas and technologies can be maintained by anyone with access to a teacher, books, and more recently a computer (including the ideas and histories of a different culture, different country, different era). 

The combination of prospective thinking and extelligence extends the mind’s reach, allowing for long-term planning, formulation of possible scenarios, “virtual” experiences to guide, constrain and add meaning to our “real” or direct experiences.

This allows a wide range of human activities not seen in other animals, including art, music, literature, film, as well as multiple forms of “entertainment”, such as sports, gambling, video games, shopping, amusement parks, etc.

The external environment, actively structured by us, becomes a source of cognitively enhancing “wideware” - external items, artifacts, tools, etc. that scaffold our cognitive skills and abilities.

Examples: smart phones, calculators, calendars, audio and video recordings, etc.

“externalizing the nervous system”

Our trans-generational advantage

Psychiatric DiseasePsychiatric Disease• The general characteristics of psychiatric

(mental) disease:

–perceptual awareness and orientation–symbolic conceptual functioning–emotional responses–executive control

Psychiatric DiseasePsychiatric Disease• A given syndrome or disorder is not:

– “just a matter of biochemistry” or– “just a matter of neuroanatomy”, or – “just a matter of genetics”, or– “just a matter of individual history”• It is always some combination of these

varied factors. Thus, no two patients will be alike and no two successful treatments will be alike.

Psychiatric DiseasePsychiatric Disease

• The example of schizophrenia: –Type I. psychotic episodes, delusions,

hallucinations, disordered and paranoid thoughts

–Type II. Loss of emotional response (flat affect), abnormal postures, lack of spontaneous speech

broken brains

Psychiatric DiseasePsychiatric Disease• The general characteristics of psychiatric

(mental) disease:

–perceptual awareness and orientation–symbolic conceptual functioning–emotional responses–executive control

Psychiatric DiseasePsychiatric Disease• A given syndrome or disorder is not:

– “just a matter of biochemistry” or– “just a matter of neuroanatomy”, or – “just a matter of genetics”, or– “just a matter of individual history”• It is always some combination of these

varied factors. Thus, no two patients will be alike and no two successful treatments will be alike.

Risk and Protective Factors

• Individuals vary in their exposure to certain environments and the biological systems they inherit.

• Mediators and moderators: influence the onset and maintenance of psychiatric and developmental disorders.

Risk Factors

• Examples of Risk Factors are:– Chronic sexual/physical abuse– Lack of family structure– Low SES – Biological risk factors (e.g. genetic, neurological,

hormonal)

Protective Factors

• In addition to risk factors, protective factors help to explain differential onsets outcomes in psychopathology.

• Examples are:– High intelligence – Adaptability– Maintenance of physical health – Diet

Multifinality

Shared Experience or Trait

Equifinality

Shared Outcome

Psychiatric DiseasePsychiatric Disease

• The example of schizophrenia: –Type I. psychotic episodes, delusions,

hallucinations, disordered and paranoid thoughts

–Type II. Loss of emotional response (flat affect), abnormal postures, lack of spontaneous speech

Schizophrenia

• Characterized by core symptoms:– Hallucinations (physical manifestations and/or

“hearing voices”). Can be pleasant or unpleasant. – Delusions – Actions that are controlled by outside influence– “Je suis Napoleon!”

Epidemiology of Schizophrenia

• Onset is variable, but most common onset is in the 20’s and 30’s.

• Some evidence for early life development risk factors.

• A “spectrum” disorder• Thought to involve abnormalities in:

– Hippocampus– Cortex (loss of grey matter)– Dopamine imbalance

“Paris Syndrome”

Treatment

• Some success with antidopaminergic medications, but not without consequence.

• As of now, there is no “cure” for chronic schizophrenia, however episodic manifestations may come and go based on environmental context.

• Animal models of the disorder have proven elusive.

Developmental Disorders• Atypical development of brain/body systems

leads to developmental disorders such as:– Fetal alcohol syndrome

• Physical and cognitive impairments (a spectrum disorder). – Down Syndrome

• Low IQ (around 50), high susceptibility to heart disease, thyroid disorders, and some forms of cancer.

– Autism• Inability to recognize other’s emotions and intentions, low

language production, high degree of emotional reactivity, self-stimulation, and repetitive behaviors (a spectrum disorder).

The Use of Robotics to Discover the Dynamics of Embodiment

Embodied or Epigenetic Robotics

• Makes the assumption that behavior is result of the complex interaction between the system and its circumstances, and not directly specified by or predicted from a description of its initial state

• Rodney Brooks, a pioneering roboticist, has termed this “intelligence without representation”

Assumptions• The key idea is that an intelligent system will be emerge

from initially limited perception-action couplings. • Such a system is defined not by its”programmed”

function (knowledge representation) but by its activity.• The range and possibilities for actions are context

dependent, that is depend on the situation the system finds itself in.

• This embeds development in a physical, biological, and social world

The Challenges of Epigenetic Robotics

• Learning about objects and events• Learning about people• Learning about the self

(sound familiar?)

Lessons from Human Development

how does a learner who does not know what there is to learn manage to learn anyway?

(remember, you don’t know what you don’t know)

be multi-modal

be incremental

be physical (explore)

be social

learn a language

• knowing danger, fear, pain, loss, and death

The costs of extended consciousness

• Our extended knowledge is obtained in a bargain we did not choose-the cost of a deeper and wider existence is

the loss of innocence about that existence

• As humans, we are aware from a young age that we and those we love will certainly die

Free Will• Do we control our own minds?

– Most people assume they have conscious access to their intentions and motives and assume they consciously guide their choices and actions

– Evidence from psychology and neuroscience suggests these assumptions are optimistic at best. Indeed, many of our actions and ideas spring to life in a way that can only admire – or at times regret.

SENSORY STIMULATION

GENETIC ACTIVITY

Cell membrane

Intracellular biochemistry

Protein synthesis

PHYSICAL INFLUENCES

Individual nerve cell

activity

Patterned neural activity

Neural connectivity

Neural growth

Non-neural activity

Non-neural growth

Extracellular biochemistry

Johnston & Edwards (2002)

BEHAVIOUR