PSYC1020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: John Bowlby, Teletubbies, Trichromacy
Lecture 4 - Development, Sensation and Perception, and Attention
Overview
● Review
● Development and Erikson
● Development and Bowlby and Ainsworth
● Sensation and perception – sight
● Attention and beginning consciousness
Review
● neuroplasticity and synaptogenesis and neurogenesis
● Epigenetics- structural genes and regulatory genes
● Diffusion, semi-permeable membrane and osmosis
● Active transport
● Resting potential
● Voltage gated channels, action potential and propagation
● Release of neurotransmitters
● Repolarization and the refractory period
● Neurotransmitters, inhibitory and excitatory
● Specific receptors – lock and key model
● Central and peripheral nervous systems
● Peripheral – somatic and autonomic – opponent processing
● Medulla oblongata controls heartbeat, breathing and swallowing
● Pons also helps to control arousal and works with the cerebellum to coordinate the
senses
● cerebellum controls rhythm, timing, and balance but also recently we discovered quite a
bit more
○ cerebellum is not only being used for physical rhythm, timing, and balance, but
also for the mental rhythm, timing, and balance we use in thinking, problem
solving and emotional balance
● Phineas Gage and the frontal lobe especially the pre-frontal cortex
● prefrontal cortex
○ centre of the higher cognitive, reflective, and rational processes that make us
human, i.e. capable of rationality, morality, long term goals, behavioral flexibility,
and perhaps even consciousness
● So an important question we asked was the following one: where are you in all of this?
● temporal lobe has to do with memory, but also with hearing and with important aspects
of understanding language
● The occipital is primarily involved in processing vision
● The parietal lobe has to do with processing space especially in navigation, numbers and
calculation, time, and your own location in time and space –orientation association
area’s activity reduced during meditation
● Lateralization - left hemisphere for familiar well-defined problems, and right
hemisphere for unfamiliar ill-defined problems
● The brain and nervous system is a very complex system of a lot of different processors
that operate in very complex, often autonomous, and highly self-organizing fashion
○ The brain is a machine of machines that can make itself into a new kind of
machine
■ That means development, how the brain changes and increases its
powers, is central to understanding the brain
● Piaget’s theory of development
● Systematic errors in intelligence test -> deficit in competence
● Schema – example is centration in conservation error, works in the context of a small
child’s life
● Assimilation ← -> Accommodation -> equilibration, opponent processing again -> stages
Source: Prof. Vervaeke’s Lecture 4 slideshow slide 10
● There are some major assumptions in Piaget’s theory that have been challenged:
○ The whole of the mind moves from one stage to the next
○ The timing of stages is invariant
○ The direction of development is one way, i.e., from sensory motor behaviour to
cognitive behaviour
● Chimp imitating adult human vs. four year old imitating adult human being
● Vygotsky’s theory is very powerful and has some empirical evidence backing it
○ However, it does not present as unified an account of development as Piaget’s
○ It specifies some important mechanisms of development, but it does not present
a very complete account of the story of development.
○ Just as Piaget’s theory over-emphasizes the individual Vygotsky’s theory over-
emphasize culture
Development and Erikson
● Erikson’s central concept is that development is driven by the resolution of a central
crisis that defines each stage of development
○ Concentrating on development of the whole person
Document Summary
Lecture 4 - development, sensation and perception, and attention. Voltage gated channels, action potential and propagation. Specific receptors lock and key model. Peripheral somatic and autonomic opponent processing. Medulla oblongata controls heartbeat, breathing and swallowing. Pons also helps to control arousal and works with the cerebellum to coordinate the senses. Cerebellum controls rhythm, timing, and balance but also recently we discovered quite a bit more. Cerebellum is not only being used for physical rhythm, timing, and balance, but also for the mental rhythm, timing, and balance we use in thinking, problem solving and emotional balance. Phineas gage and the frontal lobe especially the pre-frontal cortex. Centre of the higher cognitive, reflective, and rational processes that make us human, i. e. capable of rationality, morality, long term goals, behavioral flexibility, and perhaps even consciousness. Temporal lobe has to do with memory, but also with hearing and with important aspects of understanding language. The occipital is primarily involved in processing vision.
