Cognition Test 1

What did Donders study, and how?

Reaction time & decision making through simple vs choice RT.

What is cognition?

Mental processes like perception, memory, attention, language, problem solving, decision making.

What did Wundt contribute?

First psychology lab + analytic introspection + structuralism.

What is analytic introspection?

Trained reporting of sensations/experiences to study consciousness.

What did Ebbinghaus show?

Forgetting curve & savings through nonsense syllables.

What did William James do?

Armchair psychology + wrote Principles of Psychology.

What was Watson’s main argument?

Behaviorism: ignore mind, only observable behavior.

Difference between classical & operant conditioning?

Classical = reflex associations; operant = reward/punish voluntary behavior.

What did Skinner do?

Operant conditioning + reinforcement shaping behavior.

What did Chomsky criticize?

Language is too complex for simple reinforcement → innate structures.

What did Tolman discover?

Cognitive maps & latent learning independent of reinforcement.

What did Broadbent propose?

Information-processing attention filter model.

What is a paradigm shift in psychology?

Change from behaviorism to cognitive science.

Atkinson & Shiffrin model components?

Sensory memory → short-term memory → long-term memory.

Tulving memory categories?

Episodic, semantic, procedural.

What is sensation vs perception?

Sensation = physical input; perception = conscious interpretation.

What is bottom-up processing?

Information starts from raw sensory input → perception.

What is top-down processing?

Expectations, knowledge, experiences shape perception.

What is the likelihood principle (Helmholtz)?

We perceive what is most likely from environment cues.

What are Gestalt principles?

The mind organizes patterns: similarity, good continuation, good figure, apparent motion.

What is apparent motion?

Movement illusion from sequential static images (movies).

What are environmental regularities?

Brain expects vertical/horizontal orientation → oblique effect.

What is light-from-above assumption?

Brain assumes light comes from above → depth/shadow interpretation.

What is scene schema?

Knowledge about what belongs in a typical environment → helps recognition.

What is speech segmentation?

Using transitional probabilities to identify word boundaries.

What is Bayesian inference?

Perception = prior knowledge + current likelihood.

What is the inverse projection problem?

Retina receives ambiguous 2D images → brain must guess meaning.

What is viewpoint invariance?

Recognizing objects from multiple perspectives.

What did the Greebles study show?

Experience-dependent plasticity; face area can tune to expertise.

What & Where pathways?

Ventral = object identity; dorsal = spatial location/action.

What are mirror neurons?

Neurons that fire when performing AND observing actions.

What is selective attention?

Focus on one message while ignoring others.

What is divided attention?

Doing more than one task simultaneously.

What is inattentional blindness?

Failure to notice visible stimulus when attention is elsewhere.

What is change blindness?

Failure to detect changes between visual scenes.

Dichotic listening takeaway?

People notice physical info (pitch/gender) from unattended ear, not meaning.

What is the cocktail party effect?

Able to attend to one conversation in noise; name breaks through.

Broadbent model?

unattended info blocked

Treisman model?

unattended info attenuated, leaks through

What is the dictionary unit?

Words have activation thresholds → important words rise above noise.

What is a late-selection model?

Meaning processed before filtering.

What is perceptual load theory?

High-load tasks block distractions; low-load leaves room for interference.

Saccades

jumps

Fixations

brief pauses on targets

What is covert attention?

Attention without moving eyes.

What did Strayer & Johnston find about phones and driving?

4x accident risk + same danger hands-free.

What is the productivity illusion?

Belief multitasking increases productivity even though efficiency drops.

What is the preattentive stage in FIT?

Features unbound → illusory conjunctions occur.

What is the focused attention stage in FIT?

Attention binds features into coherent objects.