Review for Midterm II

Study tips and insights to help you understand the material

Exam scope: All of the readings and lectures for weeks 4, 5 and 6.

Except: Dr. Boyle’s Neural Network lecture

Topic 1: Social skills and development

Lecture: Dr. Deák (1/29) How do we become socially skilled?

Readings: How Babies Think

What is kin recognition?- An organism's ability to distinguish between

close genetic kin and non-kin.- Also called kin detection- Very important!- Different sensory modalities

- E.g. Mother Penguin and ewes use olfactory information to distinguish their kids from others; long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus) are capable of discriminating kin and non-kin based on contact calls.

How should we study infant minds?

- Verbal response? - Response time?

- Infants tend to pay more attention to something new, or more favorable.

- Indirect measure: the relative amounts of time they pay attention to different events,

Instead →

Can infants do face discrimination? (Layton & Rochat, 2007)

- 4 months: no clear evidence of differential response

- 8 months: distinguish mom’s face from stranger’s (still or moving)

- Even within a few months we improve at face processing

Canonical Scrambled

StimulusWhat about Biological Motion?(Bertenthal et al, 1987).

In both conditions, 3-month-olds look at the scrambled walker longer. It indicates they think it’s novel, which means that they CAN understand biological motion!

Why do we have longer childhoods? - Precocial species: Mature

early and show independent activities at birth.

- Altricial species: Mature late. Require help from parents. Rely on learning.

What can a baby do? Babies are scientists!

What can a baby do? Cont.

- They use statistics!- Babies and young children have an extraordinary ability to learn from

statistical patterns. - They use statistics to learn sound patterns of language (Saffran et.al 1966).- Babies can even understand the relation between a statistical sample and a

population (Xu, 2008).- They “understand” physics!

- Elizabeth Spelke (Harvard) found that infants understand fundamental physical phenomena such as movement trajectories, gravity and containment. Ex: They look longer at a toy car appearing to pass through a solid wall than at events that violate basic principles of everyday physics.

What can a baby do? Cont.

- They can be more creative than us!- They outperform us at tasks involving

unusual possibilities, because they are more open-minded than adults.

- e.g. Blicket detector task- Instructions make young children less

creative!- Young children who think they are being

instructed modify their statistical analysis and may become less creative as a result.

Topic 2: Social cognition and Mirror neuronsLectures:

- Dr. Boyle (1/31) Introduction to Social Cognition- Dr. Singh (2/9) Mirror Neurons and Schizophrenia

Readings:

- “First direct recording made of mirror neurons in human brain”

What is embodied cognition?● Classical View (or Cognitivism):

○ Treats the brain as an input-output device that uses the internal manipulation of symbols to perform cognitive processes.

○ Word meanings ultimately grounded on abstract symbols

● Embodied Cognition: ○ Cognition is influenced and

biased by states of the body, the environment, and the complex interaction between the two

○ Word meanings are grounded on states of the body■ Ex: action words

What is embodied cognition?● Embodied Cognition:

○ Cognition is influenced and biased by states of the body, the environment, and the complex interaction between the two

○ Word meanings are grounded on states of the body

○ Ex: action words

What are mirror neurons?Mirror neurons are activated during the...

● Execution of an action● Observation of an action

○ Mirror neurons are multimodal! They become active both when either seeing or hearing an action being performed

What are mirror neurons really?Mirror neurons code for an action with a certain intention:

● Active in both full and occluded conditions

● Respond to either robotic or human hands

● Differentiate between different intentions

How can we measure mirror neurons?Where?When?

MEG

EEG

TMSfMRI

How can we measure mirror neurons?Where?When?

MEG

EEG

TMSfMRI

What is the relationship between mu suppression and mirror neurons?

Mu = 8-12 Hz (Alpha-range) wave over M1 and S1

Changed by movement, attention, sleep, and visual tasks

In typically developing subjects ● Suppressed while performing motor actions, observing motor

actions, and imagining motor actions ● Suppression is increased for actions embedded in social context

What are mirror neurons for?

How does mu suppression differ across populations?● Autism: Reduced mu suppression and social

abilities in high functioning autistic children compared to typical children.

● Schizophrenia: Reduced mu suppression and social abilities compared to neurotypical controls.

● Perhaps, there is a relationship between these two variables.

○ Mu suppression can be altered administration of oxytocin or by using neurofeedback

Theory of Mind (ToM)● Those with ToM are mindsighted● The ability to attribute others’ mental states ● Commonly assessed using false-belief or

“Sally-Anne” tasks

Mindblindness● The inability to attribute mental states to others● Describes many on the autism spectrum

What is social cognition?

Topic 3: Social Cognition and Interaction

Lecture: Dr. Rossano (2/14) Interacting like a human being.

Reading: The Ultra-Social Animal

What is diversity?Diversity is:

● An assumption● A tool

Occurs across time (evolutionary or developmental)

Occurs across individuals (individual differences are not noise!)

Who are the WEIRD?WEIRD people are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic

*96% of subjects in psychology experiments are WEIRD

- WEIRD people make up 12% of the world population, and 80% of subjects are undergraduates.

What does social cognition involve?

Intelligibility: how do we see what others see? (social attention)

Accountability: taking into consideration how others will perceive, understand, and judge our actions when we act/plan to act

Answerability/Responsibility: social norms, fairness and justice, social planning, trust, morality

Requesting food Stealing food

How do humans and other species differ with regards to social interaction and social cognition?

How do humans and other species differ with regards to social interaction and social cognition?

Voice Following Voice Following (Domestication vs. Socialization)

Eye Direction

Frontal eyes are good for depth perception and 3D vision, while lateral eyes are useful for

peripheral vision.

Eye Sclera

Humans are the only primate with a white sclera. Why?

How do humans and other species differ with regards to social interaction and social cognition?

Topic 4: Animal cognition

Lecture: Dr. Johnson (2/7) Animal Intelligence and Alien Minds.

Reading: Cetaceans Have Complex Brains

How can we know the minds of non-humans?1. We must appreciate each species’ sensorimotor constraints

a. What a animal can/cannot do

-- Where are they on this spectrum? Vision

?

What are some examples of sensorimotor constraints?

Vision

Ultraviolet Infrared

Human “Visible Lights”

-- Where are they on this spectrum?

No color perceptionBUT good sensitivity toMotion & Contrast!

What are some examples of sensorimotor constraints?

What are some examples of sensorimotor constraints?

-- What do these structures enable? Vision

Specialized body parts

Primates’ forward facing eyes:Depth perceptionFor hunting and arboreal activities

Opposable thumbs:Grasping and tool manipulation

-- Yet why don’t rodents use tools? Vision

Specialized body parts

Also have opposable thumbs

What are some examples of sensorimotor constraints?

-- Different animals have different coordinations Vision

Specialized body parts

Body - eye coordination

Primates:Hand-eye

coordination

Crows:Eye-beak-foot

coordination

Elephants:Trunk-eye

coordination

What are some examples of sensorimotor constraints?

What are some examples of “universal” principles?

Event Correlations

● Classical example: Pavlov’s dog● Temporal contiguity: Animals will use Event 1 to

predict Event 2 when the events overlap in time

● BUT EXCEPTION:

Taste Aversion Learning:

Only learns association between food and illness if the poisonous effect appears with >1 hour delay!

Because…?

Win stay/Lose shift

● If Win (get reward)then Stay (continue same response)

● If Lose (don’t get reward)then Shift (try another strategy)

● BUT EXCEPTION:

What if the animal gets reward from a non-reusable resource, in the natural habitat?

Win shift

What are some examples of “universal” principles?

How can we know the minds of non-humans?- Ecological Validity: The degree to which a research setup resembles an animal’s

real experience.- Is this research taking place in something that approximates an animal’s natural environment?

What does ecological validity look like?

Keep these principles in mind:

-- sensorimotor constraints

-- learning principles

-- environmental validity

How can we know the minds of non-humans?

Making dolphins do “Match to Sample” using Color or Contrast as cues

Training Pigeons or Hummingbirds using “Win stay / lose shift” strategy

Running rats in mazes?

Considering:

sensorimotor constraints

learning principles

environmental validity

bad

bad

good

good

really good

More experiments… Know the results!

What about a dolphin’s brain allows it to be so smart? Large mass

Large relative mass with respect to body

Regional parcellation with expanded insula and cingulate cortices

Large number of layer V spindle neurons

High ratio of white matter to gray matter

High ratio of glial cells to neurons

What are glial cells?

● Oligodendrocytes: ○ provide myelination in the Central

Nervous System○ Reason of “white matter”

● Astrocytes: ○ Predominate in the gray matter○ Maintain extracellular ion (electrical)

balance○ Nurture nervous tissues and repair

traumatic injuries● Microglia:

○ Immune cells in the Central Nervous System

Dolphins have smart brains, but are they smart? (from Cetacean reading)Declarative knowledge: understand symbolic representations and events

Procedural knowledge: understand how things work or how to manipulate them

Social knowledge: understand activities, identities, behaviors of others

Self knowledge: understand own image, behavior, and body parts

Can learn imposed language, including the languages semantics and syntax

Can use simple tools and otherwise interact with the world

Understand and provide attention guidance via pointing and head gaze

Recognize themselves in the mirror

… So Many of these, Go to your reading!

Why are dolphins and humans cognitively similar? (from Cetacean reading)

Convergent Evolution!

Topic 5: Distributed cognition

Lecture: Dr. Scott (2/12) Introduction to Distributed Cognition

Reading: Cognition, Distributed

1. Behaviorism: Concerned with observable behaviors rather than internal mental processes.a. e.g. Pavlov’s

classical conditioning

How have researchers thought about cognition before?

2. Cognitivism: Concerned less with visible behavior and more with the internal processes of the mind.

Treats the brain as an input-output device that uses the internal manipulation of symbols to perform cognitive processes. e.g. The Information Processing Theory is a metaphor that equates the work of the human brain to that of the computer.

3. Post-cognitivism! (Combination of embodied, distributed, and other approaches to cognition)

What insights about cognition come from the distributed cognition approach?

- Brain is important but not enough!- Brain should be seen as the controller for

body-world interaction.- Action can reveal underlying cognitive

processes- Bidirectional interactions of the brain

& body with the material and social world is a form of cognition too.

- Entails a broader unit of analysis.

Social requirements/Information bottlenecks result in information transfer systems

“Information needs to transfer across “low-traffic” boundaries, and symbol systems

arise to deal with transferring information across these bottlenecks”

What insights about cognition come from the distributed cognition approach?

Where did d-cog come from and how do we apply it?- “Cognition in the Wild” describes observing human

cognition in its natural habitat. - The book describes Cognitive Ethnography which

entails:- The scientific description of the customs of individual

peoples and cultures.- Accurate records of specific instances of real world

human behavior.- Analyze of the cognitive aspects of those instances.

Edwin Hutchins

What is the BIG problem with cognitive ethnography? ● Seeing but not seeing problem:

○ Neglecting details but remembering the gist ○ Filling the gaps in visual scenes○ Neglecting background info e.g. Invisible gorilla○ Not hearing disfluencies and unimportant words○ Shared cultural models

● We need guidelines:○ Cognito-scope: Slow down and be honest, pay attention to how

representations are transformed across time, people, and the environment.○ Look at the process of the manipulation of cognitive representations with a

martian perspective.

That’s it!Thank you to the other TA/IA’s for helping with the slides!

Happy to answer your questions!