Cognitive psych Alexanders VER

What is the Representationalist Approach?

Knowledge is held in memory as representations that we can operate on. It uses a computer metaphor.

What is the Embodied Cognition Approach

Cognitive processes help us interact with the world. Our whole body actively takes in information through movement, senses, and experiences.

What is the Biological Perspective?

Cognitive processes are due to networks of concepts in neuronal connections. The brain uses a neural code.

What are the 3 research methods in cognitive psychology?

Case studies, correlational studies, and experimental studies.

What are commonly measured in cognitive psychology experiments On the computer?

Response time and accuracy of responses.

What are the research methods in cognitive neuroscience?

Autopsy, brain surgery, brain injury, and neuroimaging.

What does an autopsy allow researchers to study?

Dead brains and their structures.

How can brain surgery help cognitive neuroscience?

It can help surgeons learn about the brain and preserve important functions.

How can brain injury be used in research?

Brain injuries and diseases can be studied, mostly through case studies.

What is neuroimaging?

It shows which parts of the brain are active during different tasks.

What does a PET scan show?

How brain cells work by tracking their use of glucose (sugar) or oxygen.

What can PET scans show about brain deterioration?

They can show dark or empty spaces where parts of the brain are deteriorating.

What is fMRI?

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; it measures brain activity by detecting tiny changes in blood flow.

What can fMRI show?

Which areas of the brain are activated during activity.

How was fMRI used with epilepsy in the notes?

It identified damaged tissue involved in seizures, allowing the damaged section to be removed and seizures to be controlled with medication.

What is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)?

A noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain.

What can TMS do to the occipital lobe?

It can temporarily create blindness/visual scotomas for research.

What does the hippocampus do?

Memory/memory formation

What does the amygdala do?

Primitive emotions and reacts quickly when we are threatened. (Animal brain)

What does the olfactory bulb do?

Recives and processes smell

What does the corpus callosum do?

Connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

What does the occipital lobe do?

Vision and vision processing

What does the parietal lobe do?

Spatial recognition front part is aspects of touch.

What does the temporal lobe do?

Hearing and language comprehension; an area underneath it is involved in face recognition.

What does the frontal lobe do?

Higher-level executive decisions, voluntary muscle movements, and personality control.

What is the basic path of neural communication?

Dendrites → axon → myelin sheath → synapse/axon terminals → vesicle → receptor site.

What do dendrites do?

Communicate with other neurons

What happens in the axon?

It contains the electrical spark that carries the neural signal.

What does the myelin sheath do?

Insulates the axon and helps maintain the strength of the electrical signal.

What is the synapse?

The space/connection between neurons.

What do vesicles do?

Release neural chemicals.

What is a receptor site?

The site on another neuron that receives the chemical message.

What is behaviorism?

An approach that focuses strictly on measurable, visible actions instead of internal mental states.

What was the cognitive revolution?

A movement in the 1950s-1960s that shifted psychology from behaviorism toward studying the internal workings of the mind.

What is sensation?

The first step in perception; the process of picking up information from the world.

Types of senses:

Vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and kinesthetic sense.

What is kinesthetic sense?

The ability to perceive your body's position, movement, and orientation through internal sensory receptors without relying on vision.

What is the visual cortex?

An area in the occipital lobe responsible for vision.

What is the auditory cortex?

An area in the temporal lobe responsible for hearing.

What are association areas?

Parts of the cortex that combine sensory information into a cohesive whole and create more complex perceptions.

What does the cornea do?

Protects the iris and pupil.

What does the iris do?

Controls the pupil.

What does the pupil do?

Allows light to enter the eye; it dilates in dim light and contracts in bright light.

What does the lens do?

Focuses and unfocuses light for objects at different distances.

What is the retina?

Tissue at the back of the eye containing receptor cells that pick up visual information.

What does the optic nerve do?

Sends visual information from the eye to the brain.

What is the fovea?

An area of the retina containing the most cones; important for central vision and reading.

What do receptor cells do?

Transduce light information into neural impulses.

What do rods do?

Work in dim light and do not detect color.

What do cones do?

Work in bright light and are responsible for detail, visual acuity, and color vision.

What is the optic chiasma?

The point where visual information from the eyes crosses/organizes toward the appropriate side of the brain.

What does the LGN (lateral geniculate nucleus) do?

An association area involved in color processing and connects spatial and temporal information from vision and hearing.

What is V1?

The first visual processing area information is sent to before moving forward along the visual pathways.

What does the ventral pathway do?

The "what?" pathway; determines the identity and meaning of visual objects.

What does the dorsal pathway do?

The "where?" pathway; processes spatial awareness and visually guided action.

What is the IT cortex involved in?

Face recognition.

What is V4 involved in?

Fusing parts together for object and scene recognition.

What is Gestalt Psychology?

The idea that we see patterns as wholes rather than as individual parts.

What does "Gestalt" mean?

A whole or complete thing.

What is closure?

Filling in missing information to make sense of an incomplete object.

What is similarity?

Using similar features to help find and group things.

What is proximity?

Grouping things that are close together.

What is continuity?

Perceiving patterns as continuing rather than abruptly stopping.

What is object recognition?

The stage in which a stimulus is identified.

What is Template Matching Theory?

The idea that we have templates or "cookie cutters" in memory for objects and compare incoming stimuli to them.

What is the main problem with Template Theory?

Life is variable, so we would need millions of templates to recognize everything.

What is Feature-Analysis Theory?

We break objects into features and compare those features with representations stored in memory.

What are distinctive features?

Features present in one pattern but not another that help us tell similar stimuli apart.

What did Riggs et al. find?

When images were stabilized on the same photoreceptors, they disappeared in feature-sized chunks, suggesting that the visual system processes individual features.

What did Hubel & Wiesel discover about feature detectors?

Certain neurons in the visual cortex respond to specific line orientations/angles, showing that the brain detects individual features.

What is feature confusion, and how does it support Feature-Analysis Theory?

We can confuse objects when they have similar features, showing that we use features to distinguish between objects.

What are the two types of evidence for Feature-Analysis Theory?

Neuroscience evidence (Riggs; Hubel & Wiesel) and psychological evidence (Gibson).

What is a major problem with Feature-Analysis Theory?

Complex stimuli have constantly changing features, and basic features are not always easy to identify in the real world.

What is Prototype Theory?

Comparing a stimulus to an idealized pattern, average or prototype, stored in memory.

What is an advantage of Prototype Theory?

It can account for variation between different examples of the same object. We learn and add to our prototypes.

What is a problem with Prototype Theory?

It does not explain exactly how prototypes are formed. (No specific process)

What are feature nets?

A model where neurons work together in groups called nodes, with connections between nodes representing features, concepts, words, and meanings.

What is activation?

Sensory input activates nodes; a node needs enough activation to reach its threshold and become recognized.

What is a threshold?

The amount of activation needed for a node to become active/consciously recognized.

How does repetition priming work?

Seeing a word once makes you faster at recognizing it again soon afterward.

What is the frequency effect?

Frequently seen words are recognized faster than less frequently seen words.

What is the McClelland-Rumelhart Model?

An updated feature-net model, also called the Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) model.

What is the Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) Model?

model that helps recognize information even when some of it is unclear or blocked (occluded).

What does the PDP model need to recognize something?

Just enough information to make a recognition.

Why is the PDP model also called a neural network model?

Because it more closely relates to the way the brain works.

What can connections in the PDP model be?

Excitatory or inhibitory. Learning can increase the strength of connections. Activation can flow up, down, or sideways

What is the Recognition by Components Model?

A structural theory that analyzes and compares combinations of geons.

What are geons?

Combinations of features used to represent objects.

What is a major problem with Recognition by Components?

It needs modification to explain some human data.

What evidence supported the RBC Model?

fMRI research showed single-cell activation to geons. Sketchy, so it did not do a good job explaining how humans recognize objects.

Is there one clear winner among pattern-recognition models?

No. There is no clear winner because humans are very good at pattern recognition and no single model explains it completely.

What is bottom-up processing?

Data-driven processing that starts with information from the external world and senses and moves toward the brain.

What is top-down processing?

Concept-driven processing that uses memories, expectations, previous experiences, and context to interpret what we see.

Why is top-down processing useful?

It makes perception faster and more efficient.

Can top-down processing cause mistakes?

Yes. Expectations and previous experiences can sometimes trick our perception (Illusions)

Do top-down and bottom-up processing work separately?

No. They work together at the same time to help us understand the world.

What does the Necker Cube demonstrate?

Everyday perception depends on top-down processing, not just bottom-up processing.

Why do visual illusions happen?

They can result from failures in top-down processing as the brain uses previous knowledge to interpret ambiguous information.

What is the Fusiform Face Area?

An area in the brain used for quickly identifying faces.

What is the Composite Face Effect?

Difficulty identifying faces when different faces are combined/spliced together.