PSYC 271 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Posterior Parietal Cortex, Wilder Penfield, Parietal Lobe
10 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Organized like a company: president is association cortex; issues general commands, lower levels (motor neurons and muscles) take care of details. Hierarchically organized so that higher levels can focus on complex functions. After much practice, lower levels perform well-learned task with little higher involvement. Evolved under pressure to survive in competitive environments. Learning can change the nature and locus of sensorimotor control; routines carried out: responses while learning are performed under conscious control, responses become organized into conscious integrated sequences of action when practiced. Neurons that fire when someone performs a particular goal-directed hand movement or they observe someone else doing it. Hold key to social cognition (knowledge of perceptions and ideas of others) Support fact that neurons respond to understanding the purpose of action; not the characteristic of the action. System must know body positions and objects in world before eliciting an effective behavioral response; posterior parietal cortex does this.
