Cognitive Psych exam 1

introspection (+ limitations)

looking within at your conscious mental events

never “why” since its easy to justify, always “what happened”

minimal interpretation

limited cuz they’re subconcious thoughts, not retestable/replicable

behaviorism

individuals behavior

can’t study something w/o observable action

limitations:

• we can have actions w/o thoughts and vice versa

transcendental method

observable facts → work backwards

• ex: addition; you just KNOW it

• we can see visual effects from an invisible cause

• can’t explain behavior unless you explain what’s going on in the mind

gestalt law (do not name them all)

we identify shape & fill in gaps

computers

good analogy of the human brain

WEIRD

western educated industrialized rich democratic

results of theories we discuss are from this

lesion studies on rats pros + cons

pros

• rat brains similar to us

• localized area

cons

• rats are nonverbal

• no matter how similar, NOT a human brain

clinical studies

studies on pre-exisitng damaged brains

pros

• actual human brain

• more ethical

cons

• no control, you get what you get

• other areas could also be damaged

CT scans

electrons pass thru the brain + bounce off/go thru (if theres a hole)

shows structure + damage

fMRI

magnets attracted to the metal (iron) in your blood

oxygen → hemoglobin → iron

PET scan

draw a bit of blood, insert radioactive isotope (short half life) + sugar, inject back into you; travels your body & goes to areas of brain being used

• Pro: good alt for MRI

• Con: injecting a radioactive isotope into someone.

EEG

measures neuron signals (electrical signals)

difficult to pinpoint exact locations

interneuron & glial cells

interneuron - connects neurons

glial cells - helper cell, creates neurons

(ignore C)

A. dendrites

B. soma

D. axon

E. node of ranvier

F. terminal button

explain from when a neuron receives a signal to when the next one does

1. dendrite receives it, passes it to the axons, jump node to node until it reaches terminal button

2. sac filled with neurotransmitter is pushed out of terminal button into the synpatic gap

3. they diffuse to other side looking for receptors they can fit into

4. if none found, they return to original neuron (reuptake)

somatic vs autonomic peripheral

somatic: voluntary control

• afferent - arive; efferent - exit

autonomic: involuntary

• sympathetic: entering panic

• parasympathetic: calming down

what consists of the hindbrain (3)

cerebellum: balance, fine motor movements

medulla: basic life

pons: consciousness

midbrain

tegmentum: front part

tectum: back part

thalamus

grand central station

all senses except smell go thru here first

longitudinal fissure

connects 2 hemispheres

central sulcus

straight across from ear to ear

precentral gyrus

involved with motor movement for entire body; last gyrus of frontal lobe

postcentral gyrus

first gyrus of parietal lobe

sensory information

cornea

outer protective layer

pupil

allows light in; dilates/constricts

lens

changes direction of light

retina

back wall of eye

contains photoreceptors (rods & cones)

contains fovea (highest concentration of cones)

rods & cones → bipolar → ganglion (forms optic nerve)

transduction

light → electrical signal

lateral inhibition

patch of cells that got the clearest light will respond, all surrounding cells turn off

The Visual Pathway.

• Right VF goes to left side of both eyes

• Left VF goes to right side of both eyes

• Outsides of the eyes go to the same hemispheres

• Insides of the eyes go to opposite hemispheres

• This way, vision from each field is seen by both eyes but is processed in opposite hemispheres

V1, V2, V4, MT, MST, IT

• V1: primary visual cortex

• V2 basic processing, a bit more advanced

• V4 - more advanced processing (Processes color)

• MT - motion

• MST - rotation + expansion motion

• IT - geometric shapes

bottom up

• sees the details, puts it together to determine what it is

  • Person at point A, they skip over to point B. you know they moved since you saw them move

top down

• uses higher cognition; uses memory, things that its experienced that make sense to it

  • Person at point A, you close your eyes, open them and now they're at point B. you can assume they moved even without actually seeing them move

  • See the function of object and assume what it is (ie see someone drink from something, you understand it must be a water bottle)

dorsal vs ventral stream

• Dorsal stream: occipital lobe → upward to parietal lobe – WHERE

• Ventral stream: occipital lobe → around the side to temporal lobe – WHAT

the binding problem

brain trying to put it all together, sometimes makes mistakes

its trying to interpret the stimuli around it (features)

gestalt rule of simplicity

brain wants simplest pattern

2 squares overlapping vs weird shapes

gestalt proximity

objects closer together more likely to be related + grouped

gestalt similarity

objects that are similar to each other are more likely to be grouped together

gestalt law of common fate

objects moving in the same direction appear to be grouped together (ie flock of birds)

gestalt law of good continuation

brain prefers things that move in the same direction (ex: an X - wouldn’t want to see two V’s)

gestalt law of familiarity

our brain likes meaningful & familiarity

• ex: painting with 10 faces hidden; our brain recognizes the giant man's head first, then with continued exposure notices more faces

features

building blocks

tons of variations you put together to understand something (feature detection)

every object we look at is composed of features

priming

brain has readiness to recognize something when its been seen before

word superiority effect

we recognize words faster than individual letters

well formedness

words are formed as if they would be part of the english language - we can recognize letters easier

determines how closely it resembles actual words

“DREK”

feature net

breaking letters down into features

bigram detectors

brain prefers viewing letters in pairs (more efficient)

McClellend & Rumelhart model

• As the brain recognizes a letter, it will excite possible next letters

  • Ex: T…

    • Valid letters to follow: H, E, A, O

    • Invalid letters: C, K, D, X

which visual area processes faces?

IT since it processes shapes

must be processed in correct orientation otherwise difficulty recognizing

dichotic listening

each ear hears different info at the same time

focus on one, ignore other

technique to study selective attention

shadowing

as an audio track plays, you repeat back what you’re hearing

ignore sound from other ear

• when asked about other ear audio, ppl don’t have anything to reflect on

Cocktail party effect proves we’re still doing some sort of processing of conversations around us

inattentional blindness (+ its study)

inability to process something you weren’t paying attention to

shown plus sign, some trials had longer horizontal line, others longer vertical line - asked which was longer

• Shapes would be around the plus sign but participants wouldn’t process it

• Our attention is steered by our perception – if you didn’t perceive it, you’re not going to pay attention to it

change blindness (+ its experiment)

inability to detect difference

breaks in visual scene make it harder to react to change

experiment: shown 2 images, detect any changes

• when the images were different + had no mask (grey static in between to clear rods+cones), FASTEST reaction time

• 2nd fastest was no mask in between 2 same pictures

early selection theory

attended info is privileged (processed right away), unattended receives little to no analysis

as info enters, we decide what to pay attention to + what to ignore

experiment where a colored image then a shape image was shown, V4 activated but not IT since they only paid attention to the colored image

late selection theory

everything gets analyzed but only the attended info reaches our consciousness

cocktail party effect

posner & snyder

warning stimulus shown, followed by 2 letters that may differ

low validity condition (warning stimulus only matched 20% of time) had little priming cuz they couldn’t trust the warning

• instead, had stimulus-based priming cuz they would expect a letter

high validity (80% match) higher priming cuz they relied on it

• expectation-based priming

• When letter matched, rt fast

• When misled, big hindrance to response levels

which part of the eye is vision clearest?

fovea (highest concentration of cones)

hemispatial neglect

brain ignores half the visual + auditory space

position vs object based attention

position based - lock eyes on position, when someone leaves position you don’t see it

Object-based attention: Once their attention locks onto something, even when moved to the neglected side, their attention is still on that object

what are the 2 resources attention requires?

general & specific

things more specialized require more resources

ex: as you get used to driving: less general, more specific

central executive

decides what to focus on

works to keep desired goals in mind

inhibited automatic responses

when overwhelmed, you lose attention

shadowing task

• Group 1: hear / hear

  • remembers least words

  • Uses same resources, has most interference

• Group 2: hear / see word

  • Some crossover of resources

• Group 3: hear / see pic

  • remembers most words

  • Totally different resources