PSYCH 207 All Modules

Empiricism

• Knowledge comes from individual’s OWN experience

  • Thru observing and analyzing

Nativism

• Native to biological factors

• Hard-wired into brain at birth

Wilhelm Wundt

• Used lab-setting for research

• Wanted to discover building blocks of mind and combine them to discover complex mental concepts

Structuralism

The study of how our minds make meaning through small step-by-step cognitive processes.

Wilhelm Wundt & James Baldwin’s Technique of Investigation

Introspection

• Give observers stimuli and have them describe their conscious experiences

Limitation: Many cognition abilities happen without conscious awareness

William James

• Interested in conscious experiences like Wundt

• Not interested in elementary units of consciousness though

• Functionalism

Functionalism

• Explains the functions of mind

• Outside of lab, observing in natural habitat

Behaviourism

• OBSERVABLE behaviour

• Says that psychology’s goal is to predict and control behavior

• Skinner objected mental representations as scientific

• Developed rigorous experimental methods

Gestalt Psychology

• Holistic Approach

• Psychology must be studied in entirety and not reduced to elements

Sir Francis Galton

• Individual Differences, Natural Selection (Darwin)

• Looked at family trees to see cognitive ability

• Found that individuals differed in ability to make mental images

Cognitive Revolution

• Rejected that mental events were BEYOND science and that mental representations didn’t exist

Human Factors Engineering

• Person-Machine System

  • Should be designed to interact within physical, cognitive limitations

• Framed humans as limited capacity processors of information

Noam Chomsky’s Factors Contributing to Psychology Revolution

Linguistics

• Showed behaviorism doesn’t explain language

Localization of Function

Naturalistic Observation

• Observer watching people in everyday contexts

• Ecological Validity

• Lack experimental control

Introspection

• Person thinks about their experience while performing a task

Between Subjects Design vs Within Subjects Design

• Differences in performances between two groups

• Compares different conditions of same group of participants

Quasi Experiments

• Characteristics already assigned (gender, race)

Information Processing Approach

• Info is processed from our senses

• Stored in stages (long, short term)

Connectionism

• Cognition is made of interacting network of connections

• Not sequentially, occurs simultaneously

• Not localized but distributed among neurons

• (+) Connection = Activation

• (-) Connection = Inhibition

Evolutionary Approach

• Understanding ancestor pressures

• Human mind changed in response to evolutionary pressures

Cosmides and Tooby believed…

• Most significant issue our ancestors faced involved social issues

Ecological Approach

• Context of cognition shapes processes

• Must examine in natural environment

Paradigm

An intellectual framework used to guide research and to identify what is and is not important in a field of research.

Ecological Validity Experiment Example

• Smilek and Kingston focused on how attention operated

• Eyes were focused on eyes and faces of people rather than objects interacting with

Module 2 Begins

Congratulations! Keep going :)

Phylogenetic Division

• Divides brain structures in terms of evolution order

• Forebrain (cerebral cortex, main cognitive functions)

• Hindbrain, midbrain (lower level functions like relay info)

Hindbrain

• Medulla oblongata transmits info from spinal cord to brain

• Pons (bridge) for information from left to right

• Cerebellum has neurons that manage muscles

Midbrain

• Relays info to other parts of brain

• Low level, non-cognitive function

Forebrain

• Cortical (Cerebral Cortex)

• Sub-Cortical (Under the cerebral cortex)

4 Sub Cortical Regions

Thalamus

Hypothalamus

Hippocampus

Amygdala

Medulla

Spinal Cord

Cerebellum

Thalamus

• Relay station sending info to cerebral cortex

Hypothalamus

• Controls pituitary gland by releasing hormones

• Controls eating, drinking, temperature, sleeping

Hippocampus

• Formation of long-term memories

Amygdala

• Emotional memories

Cerebral Cortex Four Lobes

Frontal (under forehead)

Parietal (under top rear, spatial processing and attention)

Occipital (back, visual)

Temporal (side, auditory)

Three Parts of Frontal Lobes

• Motor Cortex (fine motor movement)

• Premotor Cortex (planning movements)

• Prefrontal Cortex (executive functioning, decision making)

Cerebral Cortex

Densely packed neurons with white matter

Localization

• Franz Gall

• Believed faculty psych (mental abilities are independent)

• Phrenology was found

  • Discredited because SIZE does not correlate to POWER

  • Not INDEPENDENT, but interact

Aphasia

• Language disorder that affects how you communicate

Wernicke’s Area

• Temporal Lobe, Left Hemisphere, Auditory

• Involved in comprehension

Broca’s Area

• Left Hemisphere

• Involved in language production

How Did Wilder Penfield Help With Localization

• Localized source of seizures

• Searched for scar tissue causing epilepsy

• Helped map specific functions of regions

Brain Imaging Techniques

Structural/Static (CAT, MRI)

Functional (fMRI, ERP, PET)

CAT (computerized axial tomography)

• Focused beams of X RAYS are passed thru head from diff angles

• Tissue has different density so deflect rays differently

MRI

• Uses magnetic properties of tissues to produce signal

• No radiation, preferred over CAT, more detailed

Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and EEG

• Measures electrical activity in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

• Measures metabolism and blood flow in the brain using radioactive tracers.

fMRI

• Measures blood oxygenation levels (BOLD function) to infer neural activity

BOLD Function (Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent)

• Measures the inflow and outflow of oxygenated blood in the brain as a response to neural activity.

• BOLD signal peaks around 10–15 seconds after a cognitive task begins due to the slow nature of blood flow changes

Subtractive Logic

• A method to isolate specific cognitive processes by subtracting a simpler task from a more complex one to measure the difference.

• Idea originated with studies of reaction time differences

Describe example of subtractive method

• Activity is generated when participant is in a control state (pressing a button when seeing a color)

• Control state subtracted from task state (deciding about two colors)

• Can subtract BACKGROUND brain activity unrelated to task

Module 3

33% Done :O

Lateralization of Function

• Individuals show specialization for language in left due to larger in size

• Two hemispheres play different roles in different functions like language

Perception

• Interpret sensory input meaningfully

Percept

• Recognition of proximal stimulus (retinal image)

Bottom Up Processing

• Small amounts of information combined to form a percept

• Three classes:

  • Template matching, feature analysis, prototype matching

Template Matching

• Object registered as stimulus on eye

• Compared to templates in memory until match is made

• Doesn’t capture flexibility in human perception (exact match isn’t always found)

• Doesn’t explain how to recognize NEW objects right

Feature Analysis

• Objects are recognized by components/features

• To recognize grey O, must recognize circular shape then color

• More flexible from template matching

Prototype Matching

• Best fit template instead of EXACT match like template matching

• Why we can identify different fonts of M as M

• Percept is compared to IDEALIZED representation in memory and matched to an approximate one

Selfridges’ Pandemonium Model

• Bottom-Up Processing

• Feature Analysis

• Data Demons see image

• Feature Demons yell when they see a their feature in the image

• Cognitive Demons see if there's enough yelling to match a identified stimulus

• Decision Demons listen to Cognitive Demons to see what stimulus is most likely perceived

Top Down Processes

• Conceptually driven

• Come from us, past experiences, environment, context

Visual Agnosia

• Can’t identify object by sight

• Visual skills not impaired just can’t identify by sight

Apperceptive Agnosia

• Can see contours/outlines but can’t RECOGNIZE them to distinguish objects

• Only process LIMITED amount of perceptual info

Associative Agnosia

• Can match objects but do it SLOWLY

• Cannot name objects JUST seen

• Can’t access MEANING!!! (semantics) from just visual description

Prosopagnosia

• Can’t identify faces of family members/own photographs

• See individual features but can’t put them together

• GSR produced

Capgras Syndrome

• Impaired implicit/covert face recognition

• Can’t produce galvanic skin response for their loved ones

Module 4

Woo! Halfway :)

Broadbent’s Filter Theory

• Info enters our unlimited capacity sensory buffer

• One input is selected based on physical characteristics (pitch or loudness)

• People can only PROCESS a limited amount of sensory info at a time, filtered out to be further processed based on physical attributes

Dichotic Listening Task

• Different sound playing in each ear

• Attention only to focused one, couldn’t remember anything from other

• Reveals limit on how much info a person can attend to at any given time

Treisman’s Attenuation Theory

• Unattended messages aren’t completely blocked, but at a lower volume unless a meaningful word (our name) is spoken

• Moray’s study where name is spoken in loud party

Corteen and Wood

• Paired Canadian city names with electric shocks to produce Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)

• Even though cities were played in unattended ear, people still got GSR

• Shows that meaning was processed even when full attention not given

Deutsch Late-Selection Theory

• All information is processed until we can access it's meaning in long term memory

• Then, selective attention guides our awareness to that info

Stroop Effect

• Shows how we automatically think with practice

• Participants given colour bars vs words with different color (labeled green but blue)

• Asked to name ink of each item without error, but found it difficult to not read label

• Example of automaticity

Rules of Automatic Processing

1. No intention

2. No conscious awareness

3. Does not interfere with other mental activity

Unilateral Neglect

• If damage to RIGHT parietal lobe occurs, person will neglect stimuli on the LEFT visual hemi-space

• Can SEE stimuli but can’t pay attention to it

Line Bisection Task

• Shows effect of unilateral neglect

• Attentional disorder, not visual

Bisiach and Luzzati

• Shown scene of Italian plaza

• Patients ignored all buildings on left side, regardless of direction

Straynor and Johnston’s Single and Dual Tasks

• Participants asked to keep cursor on moving target

• Press a button if target turns red/green

• While listening to radio/telephone

• More errors in dual task condition when talking on phone

  • Not radio though

Module 5

So close!

Clive Wearing

• No short term memory

• Plays piano really well but forgets wife

Atkinson and Shiffrin

• Modal Model of Memory

• Sensory Memory (brief storage, visual/iconic, auditory/echoic)

• STM

• LTM

Iconic Memory

• Feels lightening bolt lasts longer but it’s very quick

• Sensory memory stores brief imprint of image before you

• Lasts 1 second

Sperling’s Experiment

• Determine capacity of sensory memory

• Briefly shown matrix of letters

• Asked to report all letters

• Participants started forgetting as they reported them

• Added partial report condition

  • Only report a row based on the tone

  • 9/12 available in sensory memory

Primacy Recency Effect

• More rehearsal to words at start

• Can easily offload last words right away before they decay

Short Term Memory Capacity

• 7 +/ 2 bits of information (chunks)

Trace Decay (Forgetting)

• Automatic fading of the memory trace

Interference (Forgetting)

• Disruption of the memory trace by OTHER traces

• Proactive: Old info makes it hard to acquire new

• Retroactive: New info makes it hard to recall old info

Brown-Peterson Paradigm

• Forgetting with Trace Decay

• Given three letter trigrams and recall

• Prevents rehearsal by counting backwards

Wickens, Born, and Allan

• Forgetting with Interference

• Extended Brown’s paradigm but switched categories within trials

• Switching categories was a release from proactive interference

• Changing categories improved recall performance

How is long-term memory coded?

• Semantics (meaningful features)

Bahrick

• Retention of Spanish language

• Permastore: 40 years, lots of spanish knowledge remembered

• Forgetting happens rapidly but tapers off

Retrieval Cue

• Point to recover target memory (sticky note)

• Multiple memories to a cue makes it less memorable due to interference

Encoding and Specificity Principle

• Recollecting event happens only if the properties of the trace are similar enough to the retrieval info

Gaudin and Baddeley

• Look at effect of encoding specificity with context

• Asked scuba divers to learn words on land or underwater

• Given memory test on land or underwater

• Perfect double dissociation relationship

  • Land words recalled best on land

Baddeley and Hitch

• Two tasks at same time

• 1. Hold number in mind

• 2. Verify statement (A follows B)

• 3. Recall numbers

• Shows 7 +/ 2 isn’t correct

• Participants can carry on both tasks simultaneously

Working Memory

Central Executive - Directs info to…

Phonological Loop - Rehearsal and hold verbal info

Visuospatial Sketch Pad - Hold visual info

Endel Tulving

• Long term memory consists of 2 distinct but interactive systems

Episodic Memory

• Info about one’s personal experience with time and date attached

Semantic Memory

• General knowledge and facts about world

Anterograde Amnesia

• Can’t build new memories

• Affects episodic memory