The cerebrum or cortex is the largest part of the human brain, associated with higher brain function such as thought and action. The cerebral cortex is divided into four sections, called lobes, the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. Here is a visual representation of the co rte.
Function of lobes
- Frontal Lobe:
- Parietal Lobe:
- Occipital Lobe:
- Temporal Lobe:
Note: that the cerebral cortex is highly wrinkled. Essentially this makes the brain more efficient, because it can increase the surface area of the brain and the amount of neurons within it.
A deep furrow divides the cerebrum into two halves, known as the left and right hemispheres. The two hemispheres look mostly symmetrical yet it has been shown that each side functions slightly different than the other. Sometimes the right hemisphere is associated with creativity and the left hemispheres is associated with logic abilities. The corpus callosum is a bundle of axons which connects these two hemispheres.
Cerebellum:
This structure is associated with regulation and coordination of movement, posture, and balance.
The cerebellum is assumed to be much older than the cerebrum, evolutionarily. What do I mean by this? In other words, animals which scientists assume to have evolved prior to humans, for example reptiles, do have developed cerebellums. However, reptiles do not have neocortex.
Limbic System:
The limbic system, often referred to as the "emotional brain", is found buried within the cerebrum. Like the cerebellum, evolutionarily the structure is rather old.
This system contains the thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus.
Brain Stem:
Underneath the limbic system is the brain stem. This structure is responsible for basic vital life functions such as breathing, heartbeat, and blood pressure. Scientists say that this is the "simplest" part of human brains because animals' entire brains, such as reptiles (who appear early on the evolutionary scale) resemble our brain stem.
Memory
What is memory? the capacity for storing and retrieving information.
Memory is extremely complicated. Researchers still don't know exactly how it works at the physiological level. We do know, however, that:The hippocampus is involved in long-term memory.Memories may be stored in different areas of the brai Psychologists also think that there are specific neural circuits for specific memories.
Distortions of Memory:
After events happen, memories can be reconstructed in different ways, making them prone to distortion. This is why people tend to have different accounts of something that has happened, or believing that something false is actually true. Memories can be distorted in the following ways: schema, source amnesia, the misinformation effect, the hindsight bias, the overconfidence effect, and confabulation.
- Schemas:
- Source Amnesia:
- error.
- Hindsight Bias:
- Overconfidence Effect:
Memory Processes
Three processes are involved in memory,encoding,storage, retrieval.These 3 processes help to determine whether you remember or forget something.
- Encoding:
Structural encoding focuses on what words look like. For instance, one can remember whether the words are long or short, uppercase or lowercase, or handwritten or typed.Phonemic encoding focuses on how words sound.
Semantic encoding focuses on the meaning of words. Semantic encoding requires a deeper level of processing than structural or phonemic encoding and usually results in better memory.
- Storage:
Sensory Memory:
Sensory memory stores incoming information but only for an instant. The capacity of sensory memory is very large, but the information is unprocessed. For example, if a flashlight moves quickly in a circle, people will see a circle of light rather than the individual points at which the flashlight is moved. This happens because sensory memory holds the successive images of the moving flashlight long enough for the brain to see a circle.
- Short-Term Memory:
Short-term memory cannot handle twelve pieces of individual information. BUT these letters can be easily remember if they're grouped into 6 familiar words: HOT BUTTERED POPCORN IN A BOWL.
Psychologists today consider short-term memory to be a working memory. Rather than being just a temporary information storage system, working memory is an active system. Information can be kept in working memory while people process or examine it. Working memory allows people to temporarily store and manipulate visual images, store information while trying to make decisions, and remember a phone number long enough to write it down.
- Long-Term Memory:
The Organization of Memories…
What would you do if you had a textbook that had no table of contents and wasn't organized in chapters? It would be very hard to find the information you're looking for. Long-term memory stores much more information than a textbook, and people would never be able to retrieve the information from it if it weren't organized in some way.
Psychologists believe one way the brain organizes information in long-term memory is by category. It can also organize it by the information's familiarity, relevance, or connection to other information.
- Flashbulb Memories:
- Retrieval:
- Associations:
- Context:
- Mood: