Cognition Exam1

Cognitive Psychology

scientific study of the mind

Cognition

mental processes, perception, attention, memory that the mind creates, visualizing, language, categorization, problem solving, reasoning, decision making

Donders

• 1868, 1st cognitive psych experiment

• how long to decide using reaction time

• light flash (envi stim) → press button (visual processing → motor action)

• L or R trial - subtract simple RT from → choice reaction time

• mental responses inferred from participant behavior

• study age/cog decline, sports psych

Wundt

• 1879, first psych lab

• structuralism, used analytical introspection

• Leipzig Germany

Structuralism

basic units of sensation → overall

Analytic Introspection

trained to describe experiences and thought processes from stimuli

break down sensation into component parts and record those parts

Ebbinghaus

• 1885-1913, memory experiences

• recorded his own experience, read trigrams (nonsense syllables)

• forgetting curve / savings curve

• measured number of repetitions in order to repeat the list wo errors

Forgetting/Savings Curve

• how much retained over time

• short breaks → fewer reps to relearn

• savings = orig time to learn - time to relearn after delay

William James

• 1st psych course at Harvard, principles of psychology

• comments/theories based on self experience (armchair psych)

• descriptions of a wide range of experiences

John Watson

1913, behaviorism, little albert

classical conditioning (rat and metal pipe clanging)

Behaviorism

observable behavior, elim mind from study

analytical introspection issues - variable results that are hard to verify

BF Skinner

1938, operant conditioning, choice-behavior

stimulus response paradigms, Skinner box (rats, lever)

Operant Fundamentalism

shape behavior with rewards/punishments

rewarded = reinforced, behavior more likely to be repeated

punished = behav less likely to be repeated

positive = add something, negative = take something away

Tolman

• 1938, rats in 4 armed maze

• cognitive map, hypoth from observed behavior

• rewards speed up learned but are not required for it, latent learning

Latent Learning

retaining info wo reinforcement or motivation

Language Acquisition

1. Skinner - operant conditioning, imitate speech heard and rewarded for correct

2. Chomsky - not solely from imitation/reinforcement, nature

   1. some innate program, brain architecture

   2. children say things they’ve never heard and say things incorrectly

Cognitive Revolution

behaviorism → cognition (operation of the mind)

Paradigm

sys of ideas that dom science at a particular time

Digital Computer

WWII, information processing approach

Broadbent, Cherry, AI

Broadbent

1958, attention filter model, bottleneck

filter → detector → memory

Cherry

1953, dicodic memory task

selective attention, cocktail party effect

Cocktail Party Effect

abil to filter out all but one/a few stimuli. unexpected stim still capture attention (your name)

Artificial Intelligence

1956, machine imitation of human behavior

logic theorists - Newell and Simon

Neisser

1967, first cog psych book, Perception

ignored physiological, higher mental processes and overview

Atkinsen & Shiffrin

1968, Memory model

1. sensory <1s

2. short term sev secs, lim cap

3. long term long duration, high cap

Endel Tulvig

long term memory

1. episodic - life events

2. semantic - info retention

3. procedural - implicit, how to perform physical actions

Neuropsychology

behav of people w brain damage

Electrophysiology

electrical responses of the NS, cortical neurons

Brain Imaging

determ active regions during cognition, PET, fMRI (s, spatial), EEG (ms, poor accuracy, good temporal)

New Perspectives

• virtual reality, augmented reality

• sim envi outside lab - more repeatable, ethics

• more generalizable research findings

Blank Slate

humans are not

knowledge influences cognition and behavior, schema

Schema

grouped expectations

what will be in a kitchen?

Munker-White

color shift with lines

surrounding patterns and context are used to determine brightness

Sensation

how the NS receives stim energy from the environment

Perception

conscious experiences from stim of senses

Stimulus Response

envi stim → receptors → R processes → neural processes → ← perception → attention

Bottom Up

tiny elements combine to form perception

Top Down

experience, expectations, and context drive perception

can be primed

Language Learning

• learn transitional probabilities as they learn speech (which sound will likely follow another wi/btwn words)

• speech segmentation, stat learning

• top down, context dependent

Helmholt Likelihood

perceive obj most likely to cause pattern of stim

unconscious inference from envi assumptions

top down

Gestalt Psych

perceptual organization involves rules for grouping small components of a scene

rules to how things are put together

Apparent mvmt

due to stim in dif loc flashing one after another w proper timing

stroboscopic effects (movies), optical art

Principle of Similarity

sim things are perceived as groups

Principle of Good Continuation

lines seen as following the smoothest path

Good Figure

interpret stim pattern as the simplest possible structure

good continuation contributes

Oblique Effect

vert and horz lines are more easily perceived

learned, based on regular exposure

Light From Above Assumption

affects perception of illuminated objects

Muller Liers > - <, < - <

checker shadow illusion

Scene Schema

knowledge of what a given scene normally contains

Bayesian Inference

probability estimate from prior probability (prior knowledge) and likelihood of a given outcome

Perception Approaches

1. Unconscious Inference

2. Environmental Regularites

3. Bayesian Inference

4. Gestalt Principles - bottom up

Inverse Projection Problem

scale, many things are the same shape. id from many angles

Occlusion

partially hidden/blurred objects

Viewpoint Invariance

id obj from may viewpoints

Issues with AI Perception

1. inverse projection

2. occlusion

3. viewpoint invariance

4. categorically ambiguous objects

Greebles Study

FFA neuroplasticity

computed generated creature identification

Ventral Pathway

lower brain, object identification, informs perception

what, occipital → temporal

Dorsal Pathway

upper brain, occipital → parietal

where, how to do

Perception-Action

mvmt facil perception - adds complexity + more views

interaction - constant combo in brain of perception while acting

Mirror Neurons

Iacoboni, more mirroring if subject intends to do the action, fMRI

Attention

abil to focus on spec stim/locations wi envi

selective, divided, capture, scanning

Selective Attention

attending to one thing while ignoring others

dichotic listening

filter out most info, promote other

Divided Attention

paying attention to more than one thing at a time

Capture Attention

rapid shift of attention caused by sudden stim

Scanning Attention

movement of eyes from one location to another - looking for a specific thing

Attention Filter

1. Early - Broadbent, filter sensory stim, before meaning attached

   1. cannot explain cocktail party

2. Intermediate - Treisman attenuation model, leaky filter

   1. attenuated messages are passed on more strongly. dictionary unit

3. Late - Akley 1973, MacKay, attention selected after meaning is understood

Dictionary Unit

words w thresholds for activation

common words (name) have lower activation thresholds

MacKay

chose which meaning was closest to unattended messages (dichotic)

word in unattended affected participant choice

Processing Capacity

how much info a person can handle at any given moment

Perceptual load

difficulty of a given task. speed accuracy trade off

high load = difficult, uses more processing capacity

Load Theory of Attention

abil to ignore task irrelevant stimuli depends on the load

low load = more perceptual capacity left over

Endogenous Attention

focusing on a voluntary stimulus, goal driven

Exogenous Attention

involuntary transient attention capturing

Directing Attention by Scanning a Scene

eye mvmts, attention, perception, look in direction of faces

Fixations

short pauses on areas of interest

Bottom Up Determinants of Eye Mvmt

stimulus salience - areas that stand out and capture attention (color and motion)

Salience Maps

heat maps from eye tracking, gen red = more attention

Top Down Determinants of Eye Mvmt

scene schemas, task (eye mvmt predict muscle mvmt)

Overt Attention

saccade, move eye, can see it

Covert Attention

attention shift wo eye mvmt, look from corner of eye

Attention Outcomes

1. Prequeing - covert

2. Divided Attention

3. Task Switching - req disengagement

4. Multitasking - divided attention + task switching

Productivity Illusion

fake belief that multitasking makes a person more productive

multitasking dec productivity and quality

Mind Wandering

daydreaming, own thoughts distracting, can cause forgetting right after studying

Inattentional Blindness

people unaware of clearly visible stim if not directing attention towards it - gorilla

Change Blindness

don’t notive difference wo looking for them or if too many change

Treisman Feature Integration

analyze obj in preattentive, combine features in focused attention

binding = process of combining features (color, form, motion, loc)

Feature Integration Theory

up to 4 obj at a time

Treisman and schmidt, RM Balints

focused attention is key for feature combination

Treisman and Schmidt 1982

participants report feature combo from dif stim

illusionary conjuctures occur (swap features) → free floating features

req focused attention

Treisman and Schmidt 1982 p2

feature integration is a bottom up process

top down helps - fewer illusionary conjectures with named shapes

RM Balints Syndrome

parietal lobe damage

inabil to focus attention on individual obj

high # of illusory conjuctions