Achromatopsia: A failure to perceive color (the world appears in

grayscale), not to be confused with color blindness (e.g. in which red

and green cannot be discriminated).

Action potential: A sudden change (depolarization and

repolarization) in the electrical properties of the neuron membrane in
an axon.

Activation: An increase in physiological processing in one condition

relative to some other condition(s).

Additive factors method: A general method for dividing reaction

times into different stages devised by Sternberg.

Afferent dysgraphia: Stroke omissions and additions in writing that

may be due to poor use of visual and kinesthetic feedback.

Affordances: Structural properties of objects imply certain usages.

Agrammatism: Halting, telegraphic speech production that is

devoid of function words (e.g. of, at, the, and), bound morphemes (e.g.
ing, s) and often verbs.

Akinetopsia: A failure to perceive visual motion.

Allele: Different versions of the same gene.

Allocentric space: A map of space coding the locations of objects and

places relative to each other.

Allograph: Letters that are specified for shape (e.g. case, print versus
script).

Allophones: Different spoken/acoustic renditions of the same

phoneme.

Amodal: Not tied to one or more perceptual systems.

Amusia: An auditory agnosia in which music perception is affected

more than the perception of other sounds.

Amygdala: Part of the limbic system; implicated in detecting fearful

stimuli.

Aneurysm: Over-elastic region of artery that is prone to rupture.

Anomia: Word-finding difficulties.

Anterior: Towards the front.

Anterograde memory: Memory for events that have occurred after

brain damage.

Apperceptive agnosia: A failure to understand the meaning of

objects due to a deficit at the level of object perception.

Apraxia for speech: Difficulties in shaping the vocal tract.

Articulatory loop: A short-term memory store for verbal material that

is refreshed by subvocal articulation.

Articulatory suppression: Silently mouthing words while performing

some other task (typically a memory task).

Asperger syndrome: Autism with no significant delay in early

language and cognitive development.

Associative agnosia: A failure to understand the meaning of objects

due to a deficit at the level of semantic memory.

Associative priming: Reaction times are faster to a stimulus if that

stimulus is preceded by a stimulus of similar meaning (this is also
known as semantic priming).

Attention: The process by which certain information is selected for

further processing and other information is discarded.

Attentional dyslexia: An inability to report the constituent letters of

words that can be read (together with intact reading of isolated
letters).

Auditory stream segregation: The division of a complex auditory

signal into different sources or auditory objects.

Autism: The presence of markedly abnormal or impaired development

in social interaction and communication and a markedly restricted
repertoire of activities and interests.

Autotopagnosia: An inability to localize body parts on oneself, on

pictures or on others.

Axon: A branching structure that carries information to other neurons

and transmits an action potential.

Balints syndrome: A severe difficulty in spatial processing normally

following bilateral lesions of parietal lobe; symptoms include
simultanagnosia, optic ataxia and optic apraxia.

Basal ganglia: Regions of subcortical gray matter involved in aspects

of motor control and skill learning; they consist of structures such as
the caudate nucleus, putamen and globus pallidus.

Basilar membrane: A membrane within the cochlea containing tiny

hair cells linked to neural receptors.

Behavioral genetics: A field concerned with studying the inheritance

of behavior and cognition.

Behavioral neuroscience: Cognitive neuroscience in non-human

animals.
Belt region: Part of secondary auditory cortex.

Biological motion: The ability to detect whether a stimulus is

animate or not from movement cues alone.

Blind spot: The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye. There
are no rods and cones present there.

Blindsight: A symptom in which the patient reports not being able to

consciously see stimuli in a particular region but can nevertheless
perform visual discriminations (e.g. long, short) accurately.

Block design: Stimuli from a given condition are presented

consecutively together.

BOLD: Blood oxygen-level-dependent contrast; the signal measured in

fMRI that relates to the concentration of deoxyhemoglobin in the blood.

Brocas aphasia: A type of aphasia traditionally associated with

damage to Brocas area and linked to symptoms such as agrammatism
and articulatory deficits.

Brodmanns areas: Regions of cortex defined by the relative

distribution of cell types across cortical layers (cytoarchitecture).

Cancellation task: A variant of the visual search paradigm in which

the patient must search for targets in an array, normally striking them
through as they are found.
Capgras syndrome: People report that their acquaintances (spouse,
family, friends and so on) have been replaced by body doubles.

Categorical perception: Continuous changes in input are mapped on

to discrete percepts.

Category specificity: The notion that the brain represents different

categories in different ways (and/or different regions).

Cell body: Part of the neuron containing the nucleus and other
organelles.

Central dyslexia: Disruption of reading arising after computation of a

visual word form (e.g. in accessing meaning, or translating to speech).

Cerebellum: Structure attached to the hindbrain; important for

dexterity and smooth execution of movement.

Change blindness: Participants fail to notice the

appearance/disappearance of objects between two alternating images.

Chromosome: An organized package of DNA bound up with proteins;

each chromosome contains many genes.

Co-articulation: The production of one phoneme is influenced by the

preceding and proceeding phonemes.

Cochlea: Part of the inner ear that converts liquid-borne sound into
neural impulses.

Cognition: A variety of higher mental processes such as thinking,

perceiving, imagining, speaking, acting and planning.

Cognitive neuropsychology: The study of brain-damaged patients to

inform theories of normal cognition.

Cognitive neuroscience: Aims to explain cognitive processes in

terms of brain-based mechanisms.

Cognitive subtraction: A type of experimental design in functional

imaging in which activity in a control task is subtracted from activity in
an experimental task.

Cohort model: In lexical access, a large number of spoken words are

initially considered as candidates but words get eliminated as more
evidence accumulates.

Color constancy: The color of a surface is perceived as constant even

when illuminated in different lighting conditions.

Complex cells: In vision, cells that respond to light in a particular

orientation but do not respond to single points of light.

Conditioned taste aversion: A highly durable avoidance of food that

has previously been associated with sickness.

Cone cells: A type of photoreceptor specialized for high levels of light

intensity, such as those found during the day, and specialized for the
detection of different wavelengths.

Confabulation: A memory that is false and sometimes self-

contradictory without an intention to lie.

Consolidation: The process by which moment-to-moment changes in

brain activity are translated into permanent structural changes in the
brain.

Constructive memory: The act of remembering construed in terms of

making inferences about the past, based on what is currently known
and accessible.

Contention scheduling: The mechanism that selects one particular

schema to be enacted from a host of competing schemas.

Corpus callosum: A large white matter tract that connects the two
hemispheres.

Counting: The process of putting each item in a collection in one-to-

one correspondence with a number or some other internal/external
tally.

Critical period: A time window in which appropriate environmental

input is essential for learning to take place.

Cross-modal perception: Integrating information across sensory

modalities.

Deactivation: A decrease in physiological processing in one condition

relative to some other condition(s).

Deception: A situation in which outward behavior deliberately

contradicts inner knowledge and beliefs.

Declarative memory: Memories that can be consciously accessed.

Deep dyslexia: Real words are read better than non-words and
semantic errors are made in reading.

Deep dysphasia: An inability to repeat non-words and the producion

of semantic errors in word repetition.

Degrees of freedom problem: There are potentially an infinite

number of motor solutions for acting on an object.

Delusions: Fixed beliefs that are false or fanciful (e.g. of being

persecuted).

Dendrites: Branching structures that carry information from other

neurons.

Diaschisis: A discrete brain lesion can disrupt the functioning of

distant brain regions that are structurally intact.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI): Uses MRI to measure white matter

connectivity between brain regions.

Dipole modeling: An attempt to solve the inverse problem in ERP

research that involves assuming how many dipoles (regions of
electrical activity) contribute to the signal recorded at the scalp.

Directed forgetting: Forgetting arising because of a deliberate

intention to forget.

Distance effect: It is harder to decide which of two numbers is larger

when the distance between them is small (e.g. 89 relative to 29).

Domain-specificity: The idea that a cognitive process (or brain

region) is dedicated solely to one particular type of information (e.g.
colors, faces, words).

Dopamine: A neurotransmitter with important roles, including in

reward, motivation, attention and learning.

Dorsal: Towards the top.

Double dissociation: Two single dissociations that have a

complementary profile of abilities.
Dual-aspect theory: The belief that mind and brain are two levels of
description of the same thing.

Dualism: The belief that mind and brain are made up of different
kinds of substance.

Dual-task interference: If there is a decrement in performance

associated with doing two things at once, it suggests that these two
tasks share cognitive processes.

Duchenne lines: Wrinkles around the eyes associated with a sincere

smile.

Dysarthria: Impaired muscular contractions of the articulatory

apparatus.

Dyscalculia: Difficulties in understanding numbers; calculation

difficulties.

Dysgraphia: Difficulties in spelling and writing.

DZ twins (dizygotic): Twins who share half of their genes, caused

when two eggs are fertilized by two different sperm.

Early selection: A theory of attention in which information is selected

according to perceptual attributes.

Ecological validity: The extent to which a task relates to everyday

situations outside of the laboratory.

efMRI: Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Egocentric space: A map of space coded relative to the position of

the body.

Emotion: States/processes that prepare the organism for certain

behaviors, particularly those with survival value.

Empathy: The ability to appreciate others points of view and share

their experiences.

Empiricism: In philosophy, the view that the newborn mind is a blank

slate.

Encoding specificity hypothesis: Events are easier to remember

when the context at retrieval is similar to the context at encoding.

Endogenous: Related to properties of the task.

Endogenous orienting: Attention is guided by the goals of the

perceiver.

Episodic memory: Memory of specific events in ones own life.

Error-related negativity: An electrical potential (error potential)

that can be detected at the scalp when an error is made.

Event-related design: Stimuli from two or more conditions are

presented randomly or interleaved.

Excitation: An increase of the activity of a brain region (or a cognitive

process), triggered by activity in another region/process.

Executive functions: Control processes that enable an individual to

optimize performance in situations requiring the operation and
coordination of several more basic cognitive processes.

Exogenous: Related to properties of the stimulus.

Exogenous orienting: Attention that is externally guided by a

stimulus.

Explicit memory: See declarative memory.

Extinction: When presented with two stimuli at the same time (one in
each hemispace), then the stimulus on the opposite side of the lesion
is not consciously perceived.

Facerecognitionunits(FRUs):Storedknowledgeofthethreedimensionalstructureoffamiliarfaces.

Falsebelief:Abeliefthatdiffersfromonesownbeliefandthatdiffersfromthetruestateoftheworld.

Falsememory:Amemorythatiseitherpartlyorwhollyinaccuratebutisacceptedasarealmemorybythe
persondoingtheremembering.

Familiarity:Contextfreememoryinwhichtherecognizeditemjustfeelsfamiliar.

Figuregroundsegregation:Theprocessofsegmentingavisualdisplayintoobjectsversusbackground
surfaces.

Filialimprinting:Theprocessbywhichayounganimalcomestorecognizetheparent.
Fingeragnosia:Aninabilitytoidentifyindividualfingersbytouch.

Fixation:Astationarypausebetweeneyemovements.

Formants:Horizontalstripesonthespectrogramproducedwitharelativefreeflowofair(e.g.byvowels).

Forwardmodel:Arepresentationofthemotorcommand(asocalledefferencecopy)isusedtopredict
thesensoryconsequencesofanaction.

Freudianslip:Thesubstitutionofonewordforanotherthatissometimesthoughttoreflectthehidden
intentionsofthespeaker.

Frontalapraxia:Failureintasksofroutineactivitythatinvolvesettingupandmaintainingdifferent
subgoals,butwithnobasicdeficitsinobjectrecognitionorgesturingtheuseofisolatedobjects(alsocalled
actiondisorganizationsyndrome).

Frontaleyefields:Responsibleforvoluntarymovementoftheeyes.

Functionalimaging:Measurestemporarychangesinbrainphysiologyassociatedwithcognitive
processing;themostcommonmethodsofPETandfMRIarebasedonahemodynamicmeasure.

Functionalintegration:Thewayinwhichdifferentregionscommunicatewitheachother.

Functionalspecialization:Differentregionsofthebrainarespecializedfordifferentfunctions.

Fundamentalfrequency:Thelowestfrequencycomponentofacomplexsoundthatdeterminesthe
perceivedpitch.

Gardenpathsentences:Asentenceinwhichtheearlypartbiasesasyntacticinterpretationthatturnsout
tobeincorrect.

GeneXenvironmentinteractions:Susceptibilitytoatraitdependsonaparticularcombinationofagene
andenvironment.

Geneenvironmentcorrelations:Geneticinfluencesinpeoplesexposuretodifferentenvironments.

Gerstmannssyndrome:Asetoffourdeficitsbelievedtobeassociatedwithdamagetotheleftparietal
lobe(acalculia,fingeragnosia,agraphiaandleftrightdisorientation).

Glia:Supportcellsofthenervoussysteminvolvedintissuerepairandintheformationofmyelin(amongst
otherfunctions).

Grandmothercell:Ahypotheticalneuronthatjustrespondstooneparticularstimulus(e.g.thesightof
onesgrandmother).

Graph:Lettersthatarespecifiedintermsofstrokeorder,sizeanddirection.

Grapheme:Anabstractdescriptionthatspecifiesletteridentity.

Graphemicbuffer:Ashorttermmemorycomponentthatmaintainsastringofabstractletteridentities
whileoutputprocesses(forwriting,typing,etc.)areengaged.
Graymatter:Matterconsistingprimarilyofneuronalcellbodies.

Groupstudies:Inneuropsychology,theperformanceofdifferentpatientsiscombinedtoyieldagroup
average.

Gyri(gyrus=singular):Theraisedfoldsofthecortex.

Habituation:Ininfantstudies,oldorfamiliarobjectsreceivelessattention.

Hallucinations:Illusoryperceptsnotsharedbyothers(e.g.hearingvoices).

Headrelatedtransferfunction(HRTF):Aninternalmodelofhowsoundsgetdistortedbytheunique
shapeofonesownearsandhead.

Hemianopia:Corticalblindnessrestrictedtoonehalfofthevisualfield(associatedwithdamagetothe
primaryvisualcortexinonehemisphere).

Hemiplegia:Damagetoonesideoftheprimarymotorcortexresultsinafailuretovoluntarilymovethe
othersideofthebody.

Hemodynamicresponsefunction(HRF):ChangesintheBOLDsignalovertime.

Heritability:Theproportionofvarianceinatrait,inagivenpopulation,thatcanbeaccountedforby
geneticdifferencesamongstindividuals.

Homophone:Wordsthatsoundthesamebuthavedifferentmeanings(andoftendifferentspellings);e.g.
ROWSandROSE.

Homunculusproblem:Theproblemofexplainingvolitionalactswithoutassumingacognitiveprocess
thatisitselfvolitional(amanwithinaman).

Huntingtonsdisease:Ageneticdisorderaffectingthebasalgangliaandassociatedwithexcessive
movement.

Hypercomplexcells:Invision,cellsthatrespondtoparticularorientationsandparticularlengths.

Hyperkinetic:Anincreaseinmovement.

Hypokinetic:Areductioninmovement.

Hypothalamus:Consistsofavarietyofnucleithatarespecializedfordifferentfunctionsthatareprimarily
concernedwiththebodyanditsregulation.

Ideomotorapraxia:Aninabilitytoproduceappropriategesturesgivenanobject,wordorcommand.

Illusoryconjunctions:Asituationinwhichvisualfeaturesoftwodifferentobjectsareincorrectly
perceivedasbeingassociatedwithasingleobject.

Imitation:Theabilitytoreproducethebehaviorofanotherthroughobservation.

Implicitmemory:Seenondeclarativememory.
Inattentionalblindness:Afailuretoconsciouslyseesomethingbecauseattentionisdirectedawayfromit.

Inferior:Towardsthebottom.

Inferiorcolliculi:Amidbrainnucleusthatformspartofasubcorticalauditorypathway.

Informationprocessing:Anapproachinwhichbehaviorisdescribedintermsofasequenceofcognitive
stages.

Inhibition:Areduction/suppressionoftheactivityofabrainregion(oracognitiveprocess),triggeredby
activityinanotherregion/process.

Inhibitionofreturn:Aslowingofreactiontimeassociatedwithgoingbacktoapreviouslyattended
location.

Instinct:Abehaviorthatisaproductofnaturalselection.

Insula:Aregionofcortexburiedbeneaththetemporallobes;involvedinbodyperceptionandcontainsthe
primarygustatorycortex;respondstodisgust.

Integrativeagnosia:Afailuretointegratepartsintowholesinvisualperception.

Interactions:Theeffectofonevariableuponanother.

Interactivity:Laterstagesofprocessingcanbeginbeforeearlierstagesarecomplete.

Inverseproblem:Thedifficultyoflocatingthesourcesofelectricalactivityfrommeasurementstakenat
thescalp(inERPresearch).

JamesLangetheory:Theselfperceptionofbodilychangesproducesemotionalexperience(e.g.oneis
sadbecauseonecries).

Kana:AJapanesewritingsysteminwhicheachcharacterdenotesasyllable.

Kanji:AJapanesewritingsystembasedonthelogographicprinciple.

KluverBucysyndrome:Inmonkeysafterbilateralamygdalaandtemporallesions,anunusualtameness
andemotionalblunting;atendencytoexamineobjectswiththemouth;anddietarychanges.

Korsakoffssyndrome:Amnesiaarisingfromlongtermalcoholism.

Lateselection:Atheoryofattentioninwhichallincominginformationisprocesseduptothelevelof
meaning(semantics)beforebeingselectedforfurtherprocessing.

Lateral:Theouterpart(cf.medial).

Lemma:Amodalityindependentwordlevelentrythatspecifiesthesyntacticcomponentsoftheword.

Levelsofprocessingaccount:Informationthatisprocessedsemanticallyismorelikelytoberemembered
thaninformationthatisprocessedperceptually.
Lexeme:Thephonologicalcodethatdrivesarticulation.

Lexicalaccess:Theprocessofmatchingaperceptualdescriptionofawordontoastoredmemory
descriptionofthatword.

Lexicaldecision:Atwowayforcedchoicejudgmentaboutwhetheraletterstring(orphonemestring)isa
wordornot.

Lexicalization:Inspeechproduction,theselectionofawordbasedonthemeaningthatonewishesto
convey.

Limbicsystem:Aregionofsubcortexinvolvedinrelatingtheorganismtoitspresentandpast
environment;limbicstructuresincludetheamygdala,hippocampus,cingulatecortexandmamillarybodies.

Linebisection:Ataskinvolvingjudgingthecentralpointofaline.

Logographs:Writtenlanguagesbasedontheonewordonesymbolprinciple.

Longtermmemory:Memoryforinformationthatisstoredbutneednotbeconsciouslyaccessible;ithas
anessentiallyunlimitedcapacity.

Longtermpotentiation(LTP):Anincreaseinthelongtermresponsivenessofapostsynapticneuronin
responsetostimulationofapresynapticneuron.

Loudness:Theperceivedintensityofthesound.

Malapropisms:Aspeecherrorthatconsistsofawordwithasimilarphonologicalformtotheintended
word.

McGurkillusion:Anauditoryperceptderivedfromafusionofmismatchingheardspeechandseen
speech.

Medullaoblongata:Partofthehindbrain;itregulatesvitalfunctionssuchasbreathing,swallowing,heart
rateandthewakesleepcycle.

Melody:Patternsofpitchovertime.

Mentalchronometry:Thestudyofthetimecourseofinformationprocessinginthehumannervous
system.

Mindbodyproblem:Theproblemofhowaphysicalsubstance(thebrain)cangiverisetoourfeelings,
thoughtsandemotions(ourmind).

Mirrorneuron:Aneuronthatrespondstogoaldirectedactionsperformedbyoneselforbyothers.

Mirrorsystems:Neuralresourcesthatdisregardthedistinctionbetweenselfandother.

Mismatchnegativity(MMN):AnERPcomponentthatoccurswhenanauditorystimulusdeviatesfrom
previouslypresentedauditorystimuli.

Missingfundamentalphenomenon:Ifthefundamentalfrequencyofacomplexsoundisremoved,then
thepitchisnotperceivedtochange(thebrainreinstatesit).

Modularity:Thenotionthatcertaincognitiveprocesses(orregionsofthebrain)arerestrictedinthetype
ofinformationtheyprocess.

Monitoring:Theprocessofrelatinginformationcurrentlyheldinmindbacktothetaskrequirements.

Mood:Situationsinwhichaparticularemotionoccursfrequentlyorcontinuously.

Motorprograms:Storedroutinesthatspecifycertainmotorparametersofanaction(e.g.therelative
timingofstrokes).

Multicellrecordings(ormultiunitrecordings):Theelectricalactivity(intermsofactionpotentialsper
second)ofmanyindividuallyrecordedneurons.

Multitasking:Carryingoutseveraltasksinsuccession;requiresbothtaskswitchingandmaintaining
futuregoalswhilecurrentgoalsarebeingdealtwith.

Myelin:Afattysubstancethatisdepositedaroundtheaxonofsomeneuronsthatspeedsconduction.

Myelination:Anincreaseinthefattysheaththatsurroundsaxonsandincreasesthespeedofinformation
transmission.

MZtwins(monozygotic):Geneticallyidenticaltwinscausedwhenafertilizedeggsplitsintwo.

Nativism:Inphilosophy,theviewthatatleastsomeformsofknowledgeareinnate.

Naturenurturedebate:Theextenttowhichcognitionandbehaviorcanbeattributedtogenesor
environment.

Nbacktask:Aworkingmemorytask;theparticipantmustdecidewhetherthecurrentlypresented
stimulusisthesameastheonepresentedimmediatelybefore(1back)ortwoitemsbefore(2back)orthree
itemsbefore(3back),etc.

Negativepriming:Ifanignoredobjectsuddenlybecomestheattendedobject,thenparticipantsareslower
atprocessingit.

Neglectdyslexia:Readingerrorsthataffectonesideofaword.

Neglect:Afailuretoattendtostimuliontheoppositesideofspacetothelesion.

Neuralnetworkmodels:Computationalmodelsinwhichinformationprocessingoccursusingmany
interconnectednodes.

Neuraltube:Theembryosprecursortothecentralnervoussystem,consistingofasetofcellsarrangedin
ahollowcylinder.

Neuroblasts:Stemcellsforneurons.

Neuroconstructivism:Aprocessofinteractionbetweenenvironmentandmultiplebrainbasedconstraints
thatleadstothematurecognitivesystememergingoutoftransformationsofearlierones.
Neuroeconomics:Theuseofbrainbasedmethods/theoriesinordertoaccountforeconomicdecision
making.

Neuron:Atypeofcellthatmakesupthenervoussystemandsupports,amongstotherthings,cognitive
function.

Neurotransmitters:Chemicalsignalsthatarereleasedbyoneneuronandaffectthepropertiesofother
neurons.

Nodes:Thebasicunitsofneuralnetworkmodelsthatareactivatedinresponsetoactivityinotherpartsof
thenetwork.

Nondeclarativememory:Memoriesthatcannotbeconsciouslyaccessed(e.g.proceduralmemory).

Objectconstancy:Anunderstandingthatobjectsremainthesame,irrespectiveofdifferencesinviewing
condition.

Objectorientationagnosia:Aninabilitytoextracttheorientationofanobjectdespiteadequateobject
recognition.

Obsessivecompulsivedisorder:Ananxietydisordercharacterizedbyrepetitivethoughtsand/oracts(e.g.
counting,cleaning).

Odema:Aswellingofthebrainfollowinginjury.

Opaqueorthography:Asystemofwrittenlanguagewithanirregular(orsemiregular)correspondence
betweenphonemesandgraphemes.

Opticataxia:Asymptomarisingfromdamagetotheoccipitoparietaljunction.

Orofacialdyspraxia:Animpairedabilitytoperformthecoordinatedmovementsthatarerequiredfor
speech.

Papezcircuit:Alimbicbasedcircuitthatwasoncethoughttoconstitutealargelyundifferentiated
emotionalbrain.

Parabeltregion:Partofsecondaryauditorycortex.

Parallelprocessing:Differentinformationisprocessedatthesametime(i.e.inparallel).

Parkinsonsdisease:Adiseaseassociatedwiththebasalgangliaandcharacterizedbyalackofself
initiatedmovement.

Parsing:Theprocessofassigningasyntacticstructuretowords.

Perception:theelaborationandinterpretationofasensorystimulusbasedon,forexample,knowledgeof
howobjectsarestructured.

Peripheraldyslexia:Disruptionofreadingarisinguptothelevelofcomputationofavisualwordform.
Perseveration:Repeatinganactionthathasalreadybeenperformedandisnolongerrelevant.

Personidentitynodes(PINs):Anabstractdescriptionofpeoplethatlinkstogetherperceptualknowledge
(e.g.faces)withsemanticknowledge.

Phantomlimb:Thefeelingthatanamputatedlimbisstillpresent.

Phobia:Apathologicalfearofcertainstimulithatisoutofproportiontotheactualthreatposed.

Phonologicaldyslexia:Abilitytoreadrealwordsbetterthannonwords.

Phonologicallexicon:Astoreoftheabstractspeechsoundsthatmakeupknownwords.

Phonologicalmediation:Theclaimthataccessingthespokenformsofwordsisanobligatorycomponent
ofunderstandingvisuallypresentedwords.

Phrenology:Thefailedideathatindividualdifferencesincognitioncanbemappedontodifferencesin
skullshape.

Pitch:Theperceivedpropertyofsoundsthatenablesthemtobeorderedfromlowtohigh.

Placecells:Neuronsthatrespondwhenananimalisinaparticularlocationinallocentricspace(normally
foundinthehippocampus).

Placevaluesystem:Asystemofwritingnumbersinwhichthequantityisdeterminedbyitsplaceinthe
writtenstring.

Planumtemporale:Apartofauditorycortex(posteriortoprimaryauditorycortex)thatintegratesauditory
informationwithnonauditoryinformation,forexampletoenablesoundstobeseparatedinspace.

Plasticity:Thebrainsabilitytochangeasaresultofexperience.

Pons:Partofthehindbrain;akeylinkbetweenthecerebellumandthecerebrum.

Popout:Theabilitytodetectanobjectamongstdistractorobjectsinsituationsinwhichthenumberof
distractorspresentedisunimportant.

Posterior:Towardstheback.

Premotorcortex:Thelateralareaisimportantforlinkingactionwithobjectsintheenvironment;the
medialareaisknownasthesupplementarymotorareaanddealswithwelllearnedactionsandaction
sequences.

Preparedlearning:Thetheorythatcommonphobiasarebiologicallydeterminedfromevolutionary
pressures.

Primaryauditorycortex:Themaincorticalareatoreceiveauditorybasedthalamicinput.

Primarymotorcortex:Responsibleforexecutionofvoluntarymovementsofthebody.

Primaryvisualcortex(orV1):Thefirststageofvisualprocessinginthecortex;theregionretainsthe
spatialrelationshipsfoundontheretinaandcombinessimplevisualfeaturesintomorecomplexones.
Proceduralmemory:Memoryforskillssuchasridingabike.

Propernameanomia:Severedifficultiesinretrievingpropernames.

Proprioception:Knowledgeofthepositionofthelimbsinspace.

Prosopagnosia:Impairmentsoffaceprocessingthatdonotreflectdifficultiesinearlyvisualanalysis(also
usedtorefertoaninabilitytorecognizepreviouslyfamiliarfaces).

Prospectivememory:Rememberingtodothingsinthefuture(e.g.todeliversomethingortake
medication).

Pseudoneglect:Inanonlesionedbrainthereisoverattentiontotheleftsideofspace.

Psychosis:Lossofcontactwithreality.

Purealexia:Adifficultyinreadingwordsinwhichreadingtimeincreasesproportionatelytothelengthof
theword.

Pureinsertion(alsopuredeletion):Theassumptionthataddingadifferentcomponenttoataskdoesnot
changetheoperationofothercomponents.

Puretones:Soundswithasinusoidwaveform(whenpressurechangeisplottedagainsttime).

Pureworddeafness:Typeofauditoryagnosiainwhichpatientsareabletoidentifyenvironmentalsounds
andmusicbutnotspeech.

Quadrantanopia:Corticalblindnessrestrictedtoaquarterofthevisualfield.

Radialglialcells:Supportcellsthatguideneuronsfromtheneuraltubetofinaldestination.

Ratecoding:Theinformationalcontentofaneuronmayberelatedtothenumberofactionpotentialsper
second.

Reactiontime:Thetimetakenbetweentheonsetofastimulus/eventandtheproductionofabehavioral
response(e.g.abuttonpress).

Recall:Participantsmustproducepreviouslyseenstimuliwithoutafullpromptbeinggiven(compare
recognitionmemory).

Receptivefield:Theregionofspacethatelicitsaresponsefromagivenneuron.

Recognitionmemory:Amemorytestinwhichparticipantsmustdecidewhetherastimuluswasshownon
aparticularoccasion.

Recollection:Contextdependentmemorythatinvolvesrememberingspecificinformationfromthestudy
episode.

Reductionism:Thebeliefthatmindbasedconceptswilleventuallybereplacedbyneuroscientific
concepts.
Referenceframes:Arepresentationalsystemforcodingspace(e.g.nearversusfarspace;imaginalversus
externalspace).

Reinforcer:Astimulusthatincreasesordecreasesaparticularpatternofbehavior.

Repetitionpriming:Astimulusseenpreviouslywillbeidentifiedfasteronasubsequentoccasion.

Representations:Propertiesoftheworldthataremanifestedincognitivesystems(mentalrepresentation)
andneuralsystems(neuralrepresentation).

Responseconflict:Asituationinwhichaprepotentincorrectresponseneedstobeovercometoperforma
tasksuccessfully(asinStroopcolornaming).

Retina:Theinternalsurfaceoftheeyescontainingphotoreceptorsthatconvertlighttoneuralsignals.

Retinocentricspace:Amapofspacecodedrelativetothepositionofeyegaze.

Retrievalinducedforgetting:Retrievalofamemorycausesactiveinhibitionofsimilarcompeting
memories.

Retrogradememory:Memoryforeventsthatoccurredbeforebraindamage.

Reversallearning:Theabilitytostoprespondingtoapreviouslyrewardedstimulusthatisnolonger
rewarded.

Ribotslaw:Theobservationthatmemoriesfromearlyinlifetendtobepreservedinamnesia.

Rodcells:Atypeofphotoreceptorspecializedforlowlevelsoflightintensity,suchasthosefoundat
night.

Saccade:Amovementoftheeyes.

Schema:Anorganizedsetofstoredinformation(e.g.offamiliaractionroutines).

Schizophrenia:Aseveredisturbanceofthoughtandaffectcharacterizedbyalossofcontactwithreality.

Scotoma:Asmallregionofcorticalblindness.

Selforderedpointingtask:Ataskinwhichparticipantsmustpointtoanewobjectoneachtrialandthus
maintainaworkingmemoryforpreviouslyselecteditems.

Semanticdementia:Aprogressivelossofinformationfromsemanticmemory.

Semanticmemory:Conceptuallybasedknowledgeabouttheworld,includingknowledgeofpeople,
places,themeaningofobjectsandwords.

Sensation:theeffectsofastimulusonthesensoryorgans.

Sensitiveperiod:Atimewindowinwhichappropriateenvironmentalinputisparticularlyimportant(but
notnecessarilyessential)forlearningtotakeplace.

Sensoryfunctionaldistinction:Semanticcategoriesdifferintheextenttowhichfunctionalversus
sensoryinformationisrepresented.

Sensorymotortransformation:Linkingtogetherofperceptualknowledgeofobjectsinspaceand
knowledgeofthepositionofonesbodytoenableobjectstobeactedon.

Shorttermmemory:Memoryforinformationcurrentlyheldinmind;ithaslimitedcapacity.

Simplecells:Invision,cellsthatrespondtolightinaparticularorientation.

Simulationtheory:Thetheorythatperceivingtheactionsandemotionalexpressionsofothersusesthe
sameneuralandcognitiveresourcesthatareusedforproducingactionsandemotionalexpressionsin
oneself.

Simultanagnosia:Inabilitytoperceivemorethanoneobjectatatime.

Singlecasestudies:Incognitiveneuropsychology,thedatafromdifferentpatientsarenotcombined.

Singlecellrecordings(orsingleunitrecordings):Measuretheresponsivenessofaneurontoagiven
stimulus(intermsofactionpotentialspersecond).

Singledissociation:Asituationinwhichapatientisimpairedonaparticulartask(taskA)butrelatively
sparedonanothertask(taskB).

Sizeeffect:Itiseasiertostatewhichnumberislargerwhenthenumbersaresmall(e.g.2and4)relativeto
large(e.g.7and9)evenwhenthedistancebetweenthemisthesame.

Skinconductanceresponse(SCR):Changesinelectricalconductivityonapersonsskin,triggeredby
certainstimuli(e.g.emotionalorfamiliarstimuli).

Smoothing:Redistributingbrainactivityfromneighboringvoxelstoenhancethesignaltonoiseratio.

SNARCeffect:Ifpeopleareaskedtomakejudgmentsaboutnumbers(e.g.odd/evenjudgments),theyare
fasterwiththeirlefthandforsmallnumbersbutfasterwiththeirrighthandforlargenumbers.

Socialreferencing:Theemotionalresponseofanotherpersonmayleadtoavoidanceorinteractionwitha
previouslyneutralstimulus.

Sociopathy:Irresponsibleandunreliablebehaviorthatisnotpersonallyadvantageous;aninabilitytoform
lastingcommitmentsorrelationships;egocentricthinking;andamarkeddegreeofimpulsivity.

Somaticmarkers:Linksbetweenprevioussituationsstoredthroughoutthecortexandthefeelingof
thosesituationsstoredinregionsofthebraindedicatedtoemotionandtherepresentationofthebody.

Somatosensation:Aclusterofperceptualprocessesthatrelatetotheskinandbody,andincludetouch,
pain,thermalsensationandlimbposition.

Sourcemonitoring:Theprocessbywhichretrievedmemoriesareattributedtotheiroriginalcontext.

Sparsescanning:InfMRI,ashortbreakinscanningtoenablesoundstobepresentedinrelativesilence.

Spatialresolution:Theaccuracywithwhichonecanmeasurewhereanevent(e.g.aphysiologicalchange)
isoccurring.
Spectrogram:Plotsthefrequencyofsound(ontheyaxis)overtime(onthexaxis)withtheintensityof
thesoundrepresentedbyhowdarkitis.

Splitbrain:Asurgicalprocedureinwhichfibersofthecorpuscallosumaresevered.

Spoonerisms:Aspeecherrorinwhichinitialconsonantsareswappedbetweenwords.

Stereotacticnormalization:Themappingofindividualdifferencesinbrainanatomyontoastandard
template.

Strokes:Disruptioninthebloodsupplytothebrain;alsocalledcerebrovascularaccidents(CVA).

StroopTest:Responseinterferencefromnamingtheinkcolorofawrittencolorname(e.g.theword
BLUEisprintedinredinkandparticipantsareaskedtosaytheinkcolor,i.e.red).

Structuraldescriptions:Amemoryrepresentationofthethreedimensionalstructureofobjects.

Structuralimaging:Measuresofthespatialconfigurationofdifferenttypesoftissueinthebrain
(principallyCTandMRI).

Subitizing:Theprocessofenumeratingasmallnumberofobjectsataglance.
Sulci(sulcus=singular):Theburiedgroovesofthecortex.

Superiorcolliculi:Amidbrainnucleusthatformspartofasubcorticalsensorypathwayinvolvedin
programmingfasteyemovements.
Superior:Towardsthetop.

Supplementarymotorarea(SMA):Dealswithwelllearnedactions,particularlyactionsequencesthatdo
notplacestrongdemandsonmonitoringtheenvironment.

Surfacedyslexia:Abilitytoreadnonwordsandregularlyspelledwordsbetterthanirregularlyspelled
words.

Sustainedattention:Retainingfocusonthetaskrequirementsoveraperiodoftime.

Synapse:Thesmallgapbetweenneuronsinwhichneurotransmittersarereleased,permittingsignalling
betweenneurons.

Syndrome:Aclusterofdifferentsymptomsthatarebelievedtoberelatedinsomemeaningfulway.

Syntax:Theorderandstructureofthewordswithinasentence.

Talairach coordinates: Locations in the brain defined relative to the

atlas of Talairach and Tournoux.

Task switching: Discarding a previous schema and establishing a new

one.

Task-demand artefact: One task is performed worse than another

because the task is performed sub-optimally (but not because some
aspect of the task is compromised).

Task-resource artefact: If two tasks share the same neural/cognitive

resource but one task uses it more, then damage to this resource will
affect one task more than the other.

Temporal coding: The synchrony of firing may be used by a

population of neurons to code the same stimulus or event.

Temporal resolution: The accuracy with which one can measure

when an event (e.g. a physiological change) occurs.

Thalamus: A major subcortical relay center; for instance, it is a

processing station between all sensory organs (except smell) and the
cortex.

Theory of mind: The ability to represent the mental states of others

(e.g. their beliefs, desires, intentions).

Timbre: The perceptual quality of a sound enables us to distinguish

between different musical instruments.

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: A state in which a person knows,

conceptually, the word that he or she wishes to say but is unable to
retrieve the corresponding spoken form.

Tone-deafness (or congenital amusia): A developmental difficulty

in perceiving pitch relationships.

Tonotopic organization: Orderly mapping between sound frequency

and position on cortex.

Tool: An object that affords certain actions for specific goals.

Top-down processing: The influence of later stages on the

processing of earlier ones (e.g. memory influences on perception).

Tourettes syndrome: A neuropsychiatric disorder with an onset in

childhood characterized by the presence of motor and/or vocal tics.

Transcoding: The means by which one symbol is translated into

another of a different type.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation: Non-invasive stimulation of the

brain caused by a rapidly changing electrical current in a coil held over
the scalp.

Transparency assumption: Lesions affect one or more components

within the pre-existing cognitive system but do not result in a
completely new cognitive system being created.

Transparent orthography: A system of written language with a

regular correspondence between phonemes and graphemes.

Turners syndrome: A genetic disorder in which there is whole or

partial deletion of one X chromosome.

Uniqueness point: The point at which the acoustic input

unambiguously corresponds to only one known word.

Utilization behavior: Impulsively acting on irrelevant objects in the

environment.

V4: A region of extrastriate cortex associated with color perception.

V5 (or MT): A region of extrastriate cortex associated with motion

perception.

Ventral: Towards the bottom.

Ventricles: The hollow chambers of the brain that contain

cerebrospinal fluid.

Ventriloquist effect: A tendency to mis-localize heard sounds onto a

seen source of potential sounds.

Visual lexicon: A store of the structure of known written words.

Visual search: A task of detecting the presence or absence of a

specified target object in an array of other distracting objects.

Voicing: Vibration of the vocal cords that characterizes the production

of some consonants.

Voxel: A volume-based unit (cf. pixels, which are 2D); in imaging

research the brain is divided into many thousands of these.

Voxel-based morphometry (VBM): A technique for segregating and

measuring differences in white matter and gray matter concentration.

Water maze: A test of spatial memory developed for rodents that

requires learning and retaining the location of a hidden platform
submerged in opaque water.

Wernickes aphasia: A type of aphasia traditionally associated with

damage to Wernickes area and associated with fluent but nonsensical
speech, and poor comprehension.

White matter: Tissue of the nervous system consisting primarily of

axons and support cells.

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: A test of executive functions involving

rule induction and rule use.

Word superiority effect: It is easier to detect the presence of a

single letter presented briefly if the letter is presented in the context of
a word.

Working memory: A system for the temporary storage and

manipulation of information.