cognition y1

FM notes y1

what is cognition?

all aspects of knowing eg. sensation/ remembering etc

What was William James’ perspective on cognition?

• born tabula rasa (develop through learning)

• associationism

• behaviourism

what is associationism? (William James)

• Learning on the basic of contiguity: co-occurance of things in space and time

• Learning on the basic of frequency: how often things occur together

what is behaviourism? (William James)

• physical = observe, establish law then apply to other situations 

• The mind was too abstract as it can’t be directly observed, so focus on the behaviour to have prestige like other sciences

What was Edward Thorndike’s perspective on cognition?

• the mechanical explanation for the adaptability of animals’ behaviour

• law of effect (if it hurts, stop doing essentially)

• classical vs operant conditioning (strengthening S-R bonds)

what was J.B.Watson’s perspective on cognition?

• radical behaviourist - we can use behaviour analysis to explain all aspects of mental functioning

• we should only use observable , measurable events to understand data through S-R and physiological data

what was B.F.Skinner’s perspective on cognition?

• operant conditioning

• we are a deterministic system

• move behaviourism from observable to testable

• constructivism - we construct understanding and knowledge of the world through experiences and reflection

what was Tolman’s perspective on animal cognition?

• Tolman focused on goal directed behaviour, with an emphasis on molar achievements rather than molecular movements (not S-R chaining but ultimate goals of behaviour)

• Learning doesn't necessarily depend on particular S-R bonds

• Reinforcements are not necessary for learning (latent learning)

cognition vs behaviourism

• cognitive psychology - bio/env conditions to psychological traits to behavioural manifestations

• behaviourism - causes to outcomes

what was Noam Chomsky’s perspective on language?

• created rules for the production of language that Skinner disagreed with

• poverty of stimulus argument

• language acquisition device - we are predisposed to learn any natural language despite not being exposed to it

• simple phrase structure grammar - generative grammar

what is the poverty of stimulus argument? (Chomsky)

• argued against Skinner

• we are only exposed to so much language

• the env we learn in is noisy and people aren’t always using perfect grammar

• HOWEVER, we can use correct grammar even if not exposed to it

hypothetical organisation of memory sub-systems in info processing

info goes into iconic memory, then fast processing of visual info and slow processing for more semantic

eg HH easier to recognise similarity visually than identify letter

what were Rene Descartes beliefs about perception?

• I think therefore I am

• all we can really assume is what we’re thinking

• alternative view would be naive realism

what was Neisser’s perspective on perception?

visual perception under naive realism

1. visual experiences mirror external stimulus

2. visual experience starts and ends with the onset and dorset of the external stimulus (visual persistence and visual memory)

3. based on passive copies of the outside world which can be described using visual reports

what was the model Selfridge proposed?

• Model of visual letter recognition

• a passive bottom up process of perception

• we look of things we recognise and see which fits best

• we passively consume the data then decide which path it takes

what is passive perception?

• distal stimulus - a far away like a gramophone making sound

• proximal stimulus - the sound waves hitting the ear

• we use the proximal to determine the distal

what is the modularity of mind hypothesis?

• all input goes through the central processes then gets moved along

what are Gestalt’s laws perceptual organisation?

• we group things together by similar factors

• bottom-up law - as it occurs without our knowledge

examples

1. grouping by proximity

2. symmetry

3. common fate

Neisser vs Gestalt

• Gestalt contradicts the 3rd point as the sensory information is organised according to certain coding principles that operate to facilitate object recognition 

• The principles carve up the input into things that might 

• Quinn, Burke & Rush (1993) - This occurs in 3mth olds 

• Gestalt psychologists believe that perceptual organisation is innate, so not due to top-down influences

old look vs new look

old look

• Gestalt psychologists 

• Theorists were interested in passive coding accounts, with stimulus driven bottom-up approaches

new look

• Bruner 

• Top-down, knowledge driven theories

outline Bruner & Postman’s experiment.

• Presented ppts with set of cards (briefly presented)

• Normal cards were recognised more accurately than incongruous cards 

• This suggests expectation effects perception

knowledge and familiarity in the context of perception

• Ppts presented single letters briefly and masked, and then asked to say what they see 

• Common letters were better reported than rare ones 

• Novel cases 

• Distinction between seeing, and seeing as is the difference between perceptual and interpretive cases 

• The process of seeing is the same for both familiar and unfamiliar cases 

• However, this is different for familiar entities compared with unfamiliar

ambiguous figures in the context of perception

• Epstein & Rock (1960)

• Wanted to understand if recency or expectancy is the overriding factor in determining the current perception 

• Ppts presented with sequence of stimuli (old/young person), then ended with an ambiguous version 

• Recency effect was seen

what is the frame theory of perception?

• Role of expectancy

• Minsky (1975)

• based on our knowledge of the world we actively generate expectations about what will occur next 

• Such ideas are present in both theories of vision and audition

what is Bruner’s perceptual readiness theory?

• Need and value determine our perceptions of the world 

• Our perceptions of the world reflect how we construe the world

outline Bruner & Goodman’s study related to perceptual readiness theory.

• Bruner & Goodman (1947)

• Given a task to alter the size of a spot of light so that it matched a comparison disc, which varied in size and nature 

• When discs were neutral, the estimates of size were good, however, when replaced with coins estimates were worse 

• Size was overestimated when coins, which increased with the value of them

• Poor children  had more extreme estimates than rich one

what is the minimum principle? (simplicity vs likelihood)

• Hochberg (1981)

• We perceive whatever object or scene would most simply economically fit the sensory pattern

what is the likelihood principle? (simplicity vs likelihood)

• Hochberg (1981)

• We perceive whatever object or scene would, under normal circumstances, most likely would fit the sensory pattern

outline the simplicity vs likelihood debate.

• A general assumption is that light tends to come from above, so determines which are seen as hollows 

• The minimum principle does not account for this as light form above is the same simplicity as light from below, but perceptual bias of light shining down determines interpretation 

• Peterson & Hochberg (1983)

• Interpretation of figures depends on where the ppts fixate 

• So there are other factors than minimal coding

discus global to local processing.

• Global preference 

• Reaction times shorter when classifying global than local 

• There is global to local interference 

• Reaction times are slowed when letters point to different responses 

• There arent many cases of local to global interference 

• Watt (1988)

• How the visual system distinguished crude from fine levels of analysis

what is the information processing theory?

input - mind processes - output

Posner & Mitchell letter experiment.

• Presented a pair of letters, time how long it takes ppt to respond

• Speeded choice reaction time (CRT)

• Ppts had fairly rapid responses 

• Faster to same to physical matches over name, but both quicker than different

• Same responses to vowels are faster than same responses to consonants 

• The results imply a temporal hierarchy:

• Physical aspects 

• name/identity

• Semantic category

Cooper & Shephard mental transformation of letters.

• rotated the letter R

• it took ppts the same amount of time to recognise this as it would take for them to actually rotate the letter

• this suggests that they simulate the rotation

what are analogue operations?

• refer to evidence that the visual codes produced by
  stimuli resemble the objects that they represent in the sense that the
  operations such a rotation and expansion, which can be performed upon
  them during matching, produce similar latencies to those that would be
  expected if the actual object were to be physically transformed (Posner,

• mental problem solving relies on us mentally simulating the actual physical events to create teh solution

outline a study into the classical mental rotation effect.

• Shepard & Mezler (1971)

• showed maps of mental origami to make cubes

• found a direct correlation between the amount of folds needed and the amount of time taken

what is Kosslyn’s cathode-ray-tube model?

• we use the mind’s eye interpretive function to project the image to the mental spatial display

• spatial display shows surface representation

• also uses LTM for deep representation

outline Kosslyn, Ball and Reiser’s research support for analogical representations.

• ppts learnt a map with certain areas on it eg sandy cove

• ppts asked to mentally scan this image

• found that scanning time was directly proportional to the distance between landmarks

• they believe mental images have spatial properties and magnitudes like pictures do

outline Pylyshyn’s challenging research into analogical representations.

• completed the same map experiment with different conditions

1. same experiment

2. ppts told 1 image is signalled by a light, and then it moves to another location, press a key when it switches

3. ppts asked to give the compass direction between two locations

• same results for condition 1 but nothing for the others

• so, mental imagery phenomena may be due to how ppts understand the task

the case for structural descriptions

• Reed - visual percepts appear based on description of the stimulus rather than the copy of it

• Sutherland - structural description specifies the salient parts of the image and the key relations between them

what was Asch’s study about the associationistic model of human learning

 

• A + B fixed unchanging elements, if association is formed between these two things then they also remain unchanged 

• needs to have contiguity

1. If A occurs B follows 

2. An association between A + B is formed 

3. In learning about A + B neither change

paired associate learning and interactive imagery.

• Present a list of word pairs with the instruction that subjects must learn particular pairings 

• First word acts as stimulus and second as response as first acts as a cue 

• They had two phases (study and test)

• Tested 3 groups of subjects in study phase

1. Interactive imagery

• Imagine each word interacting with each other in an integrating scene  

2. Separation imagery 

• Imagine words side by side 

3. Rote repetition 

• Overt repetition of word pair whilst it is presented

• no impact on recognition, but big on recall

• CRITICISES associationism and law of exercise

importance of organisational factors in memory

• Mandler & Pearlstone (1966)

• ppts asked to either free sort cards or constrained sorting

• if given categories, despite htem looking at the words for longer both conditions had the same recall so noy always repitition

importance of depth of processing in memory

• Craik and Tulving (1975)

• orienting question given then word

• give a yes/no response

• meaningful questions like category meant higher levels of retention

• relational encoding and distinctive relations

• better memory if supported by fact

outline Kay’s study

• 60-70% accurately reproduced, btu wording was bad

• repeated errors they had made

importance of testing for learning

• 600 words and 25 mcqs

• longer delay = less memory

• test improved performance of subsequent tests

• alternating learning and tests gave best performance

importance of retrieval on learning

• Roediger

• ) ST – standard learning. Study 1 – test 1 (mashua - ?) repeat for times and
  do this for the whole list.
  2) SNT – One a word is correctly recalled drop it from study but include it at
  test.
  3) STN – Once a word is correctly drop it from test but continue to include it
  during study.
  4) SNTN – Once a word is correctly recalled drop it from both study and test.

• no difference found

• week later only test improved not studying