Cognitive Psychology 1

How do Amnesic patients (like H.M.) and Patient K.F. (Shallice & Warrington, 1970) provide a "double dissociation" for Short-Term Memory (STM) and Long-Term Memory (LTM)?

• Amnesic patients (e.g., H.M.): Have severely impaired LTM learning, but intact STM (normal digit span).

• Patient K.F.: Had severely impaired verbal STM (digit span), but intact LTM learning.

• Together, this double dissociation proves that STM and LTM are supported by separate, independent cognitive/neural systems, and that STM is not the only gateway to LTM.

Describe Atkinson & Shiffrin's (1968) Modal Model of Memory and its main criticisms.

• Structure: Environmental input -> Sensory stores (lost via decay) ->Attention Short-Term Store (STS) (capacity 7 pm 2 items or 3--4 chunks; lost via decay or displacement) ->Rehearsal Long-Term Store (LTS) (lost via interference).

• Criticisms: Over-simplified; assumes STS and LTS are unitary stores; overstates the role of rehearsal in everyday LTM encoding; cannot explain how LTM is accessed before STM (e.g., chunking relies on LTM knowledge) or how Patient K.F. formed LTMs with an impaired STS.

What are the four components of Baddeley's (2000/2012) Working Memory Model?

1. Central Executive

2. Phonological Loop

3. Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad

4. Episodic Buffer

What is the role of the Central Executive in Working Memory, and what are its three functions according to Miyake et al. (2000)?

It is an attentional, modality-free controller located in the frontal lobes (damage causes dysexecutive syndrome) that coordinates the "slave" systems but does not store information itself.

• Miyake et al. (2000) three executive functions:

  1. Inhibition: Suppressing dominant/automatic responses or distractions.

  2. Shifting: Switching attention flexibly between different tasks or mental sets.

  3. Updating: Monitoring and adding/deleting contents in working memory.

What are the two sub-components of the Phonological Loop, and what three experimental effects support it?

• Sub-components:

  1. Phonological Store ("inner ear"): Passive temporary store for speech-based sound.

  2. Articulatory Control Process / Loop ("inner voice"): Active sub-vocal rehearsal process that refreshes traces and converts visual words into phonological code.

• Experimental Evidence:

  1. Phonological Similarity Effect (Larsen et al., 2000): Recall is worse for words/letters that sound similar (e.g., B, V, G, P, T) than dissimilar ones.

  2. Word Length Effect (Baddeley, 2012): Recall is worse for words that take longer to pronounce (e.g., university, opportunity), unless blocked by articulatory suppression (repeating "the, the, the").

  3. Irrelevant Speech Effect: Unattended background speech disrupts verbal STM because spoken words gain direct, automatic access to the phonological store.

What are the two sub-components of the Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad (Logie, 1995), and how did Smith & Jonides (1997) support this distinction?

• Logie (1995):

  1. Visual Cache: Stores visual form and colour ("what" information).

  2. Inner Scribe: Processes spatial relationships and movement/rehearsal ("where" information).

• Smith & Jonides (1997) PET study: Found greater Left Hemisphere activation during visual object working memory tasks, and greater Right Hemisphere activation during spatial location working memory tasks, confirming separate visual and spatial systems.

Why did Baddeley (2000) add the Episodic Buffer to the Working Memory model?

The original 1974 model could not explain how visual, spatial, and phonological information are combined or how working memory links to LTM. The Episodic Buffer is a limited-capacity (approx 4 chunks), multi-dimensional temporary store that integrates information from the Phonological Loop, Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad, sense organs (smell/taste), and LTM into coherent "episodes.

What did Robbins et al. (1996) find regarding chess players using the dual-task paradigm?

Both weaker and stronger chess players showed impaired chess-move selection when performing secondary tasks that suppressed the Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad or the Central Executive, but not during Articulatory Suppression (Phonological Loop), showing that selecting chess moves relies on visuo-spatial and executive working memory rather than verbal rehearsal.

What is the Levels of Processing theory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Craik & Tulving, 1975) and what are its limitations?

• Theory: Memory retention depends on the depth of mental processing during encoding. Deep (semantic/meaning) processing produces more elaborate, durable, and stronger memory traces than shallow (structural/visual or phonemic/rhyme) processing.

• Craik & Tulving (1975): Words judged for sentence meaning (deep) were recognised far better than words judged for rhyme (intermediate) or capital/lowercase letters (shallow).

• Limitations: Circular/vague definition of "depth," and underestimates the importance of the retrieval environment.

What is the difference between Consolidation and Reconsolidation in LTM storage?

• Consolidation: The physiological process over hours/weeks by which fragile new memory traces (engrams) in the hippocampus are stabilised and transferred to the neocortex as remote memories.

• Reconsolidation: When a previously consolidated memory is reactivated/retrieved, it becomes temporarily labile (fragile/modifiable) again and must undergo a new consolidation process—allowing memories to be updated (or distorted by misinformation).

Contrast Proactive Interference and Retroactive Interference as explanations of forgetting.

• Retroactive Interference: New learning disrupts the recall of old information (Learn A -> Learn B -> Impaired Recall of A).

Proactive Interference: Prior/old learning disrupts the learning and recall of new information (Learn A -> Learn B -> Impaired Recall of B).

What is Tulving's (1979) Encoding Specificity Principle, and how did Godden & Baddeley (1975) demonstrate it?

• Encoding Specificity Principle: Retrieval is successful to the extent that the cues/con available at retrieval match the information encoded in the memory trace (low overlap -> cue-dependent forgetting).

• Godden & Baddeley (1975): Deep-sea divers learned word lists either on dry land or 20 ft underwater. Recall was significantly better when tested in the same environment where learning took place (Land–Land or Underwater–Underwater) than when mismatched.

Contrast Episodic Memory and Semantic Memory (Tulving, 1972), and explain the neuropsychological double dissociation between them.

Both are forms of Declarative (Explicit) Memory (conscious recollection):

• Episodic Memory: Memory for specific personal events situated in a specific time and place ("remembering"). Constructive in nature.

• Semantic Memory: Memory for general facts, concepts, and world knowledge ("knowing"), organised into hierarchical networks, schemas (chunks of knowledge), and scripts (sequences of events).

• Double Dissociation:

  • Vargha-Khadem et al. (1997): Young amnesic patients (Beth, Jon, and Kate) with early hippocampal damage had severely impaired episodic memory, but attended mainstream school and developed normal semantic memory.

  • Yasuda et al. (1997): Patient M.N. had severely impaired semantic memory (public events, historical figures, low-frequency words) alongside preserved episodic/autobiographical memory.

What does the Binding-of-Item-and-Con (BIC) model (Diana et al., 2007) propose about episodic recognition?

It distinguishes two processes in recognition memory:

1. "What" information (Item): Processed in the perirhinal cortex, supporting familiarity ("know") judgements.

2. "Where/When" information (Con): Processed in the parahippocampal cortex, while the hippocampus binds the item and con together to support conscious recollection ("remember") judgements.

Contrast Priming and Procedural Memory in Non-Declarative (Implicit) Memory, including their brain regions.

Both operate without conscious recollection:

• Priming: Facilitated processing of a specific repeated stimulus (e.g., word-stem completion). Occurs rapidly and involves the occipital lobe (perceptual/visual priming) or lateral temporal lobe (conceptual priming).

• Procedural Memory: Learning of motor and cognitive skills (e.g., mirror-reading, serial reaction time task). Occurs gradually over practice, generalises across stimuli, and relies on the striatum (basal ganglia) and cerebellum.

How do Patient H.M. (Scoville & Milner, 1957) and Patient M.S. (Gabrieli et al., 1995) provide a double dissociation between Explicit and Implicit LTM?

• Patient H.M.: Had severe explicit (declarative) amnesia after bilateral medial temporal lobe surgery, but showed intact implicit (procedural) skill learning on the mirror-tracing task despite having no conscious memory of ever practising it.

• Patient M.S.: Had right occipital lobe removal resulting in impaired implicit visual priming, but completely normal explicit recognition memory.

How does Henke's (2010) Processing-Based Model challenge the traditional Declarative vs. Non-Declarative distinction?

Henke (2010) argues that memory systems are distinguished not by conscious awareness, but by the type of processing and encoding speed:

1. Rapid encoding of flexible associations: Hippocampus + Neocortex (Episodic memory).

2. Slow encoding of rigid associations: Basal ganglia + Cerebellum + Neocortex (Procedural memory, Classical conditioning, Semantic memory).

3. Rapid encoding of single/unitised items: Parahippocampal gyrus + Neocortex (Familiarity, Priming).

How does Autobiographical Memory differ from pure Episodic Memory?

Autobiographical memory is LTM for the events of one's own life across the lifespan. It combines both episodic memories (specific sensory-perceptual events) and personal semantic memory (facts about oneself, lifetime periods, and general themes in Conway's 2005 Self-Memory System model) and shows distinct brain activation patterns (Gilboa, 2004).

What are Flashbulb Memories (Brown & Kulik, 1977), and are they truly accurate?

Vivid, detailed, long-lasting memories of the circumstances in which one first learned of a dramatic, shocking, or consequential event (e.g., 9/11, Princess Diana's death).

• Accuracy: Although people report high confidence in them, studies (e.g., Pezdek, 2003 on 9/11) show that flashbulb memories are not uniquely accurate—details decay and distort over time just like ordinary memories, though the event itself is rehearsed more frequently.

What is Childhood (Infantile) Amnesia, and what are the two main theories explaining it?

The inability of adults to retrieve autobiographical memories from before age 3 years (Rubin & Schulkind, 1997).

1. Two-Stage Theory (Jack & Hayne, 2010):

   • Absolute amnesia (1--2 years): Lack of a developed sense of self.

   • Relative amnesia (2+ years): Lack of developed language to encode memories verbally.

2. Neurogenic Hypothesis (Josselyn & Frankland, 2012): High rates of neurogenesis (new neuron growth) and maturation in the infant hippocampus overwrite or prevent stable long-term memory traces.

What is the Reminiscence Bump, and how does the "Life Script" (Rubin & Berntsen, 2003) explain it?

The Reminiscence Bump is the phenomenon where older adults recall a disproportionately high number of autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood (15--30 years).

• Life Script Hypothesis (Rubin & Berntsen, 2003): Cultural expectations dictate that major positive transitional milestones (e.g., university, first job, falling in love, marriage, having children) occur in early adulthood. Berntsen et al. (2011) showed that positive life-script events (but not negative events) drive the bump.

What is Prospective Memory, how do Event-Based and Time-Based tasks differ, and how does it relate to OCD checking?

Prospective memory (PM) is remembering to carry out an intended action in the future.

• Event-based PM: Remembering to perform an action when a specific external cue appears (e.g., posting a letter when passing a postbox). Easier because external cues trigger retrieval (Sellen et al., 1997).

• Time-based PM: Remembering to perform an action at a specific time or after a time interval (e.g., taking medication at 4:00 PM). Harder because it requires self-initiated monitoring.

• OCD & Compulsive Checking (Cuttler & Graf, 2009): Compulsive checkers have impaired PM, low meta-memory confidence ("Did I lock the door?"), and poor inhibitory control.

Compare the Multi-Process Theory, Dual Pathways Model, and Dynamic Multi-Process Framework of Prospective Memory.

• Multi-Process Theory (Einstein & McDaniel, 2005): PM relies on both effortful attentional monitoring and automatic cue detection (which doesn't require active attention).

• Dual Pathways Model (McDaniel et al., 2015): Distinguishes between focal tasks (cue processing overlaps with ongoing activity -> spontaneous retrieval) and non-focal tasks (requires effortful strategic monitoring).

• Dynamic Multi-Process Framework (Shelton & Scullin, 2017): Monitoring and spontaneous retrieval dynamically interact depending on con.

How did Loftus & Palmer (1974) demonstrate the Misinformation Effect in eyewitness testimony?

Participants watched films of car crashes and were asked: "How fast were the cars going when they [smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted] each other?"

• Speed estimates: "Smashed" yielded 41 mph vs. "Hit" at 34 mph.

• One week later: Asked "Did you see any broken glass?" (there was none). 32% (16/50) in the "smashed" condition falsely remembered broken glass compared to 14% (7/50) in the "hit" condition. Explained by source misattribution or reconsolidation updating the original trace.

Define Weapon Focus, Unconscious Transference, Own-Age Bias, and the Other-Race Effect in eyewitness memory.

• Weapon Focus (Biggs et al., 2013; Pickel, 2009): Eyewitnesses fixate attention on a weapon during a crime, impairing memory for the culprit's face and clothing (especially when the weapon is unexpected/schema-inconsistent, like a woman holding a knife).

• Unconscious Transference: A witness correctly recognises a familiar face from elsewhere, but mistakenly attributes them as the perpetrator of the crime.

• Own-Age Bias (Wright & Stroud, 2002): Witnesses are more accurate at identifying culprits of a similar age to themselves.

• Other-Race Effect: Witnesses are more accurate at recognising faces of their own race than another race due to differential exposure and perceptual expertise.

What did Steblay et al. (2011) find when comparing Simultaneous vs. Sequential police line-ups, and what are the four components of the Cognitive Interview (Geiselman & Fisher, 1997)?

• Line-ups (Steblay et al., 2011): In Simultaneous line-ups (all suspects viewed at once), witnesses make relative judgements, leading to high mistaken identifications when the culprit is absent (54%). Sequential line-ups (suspects viewed one by one) slightly reduce culprit-present accuracy (44% vs. 52%), but dramatically reduce false identifications when the culprit is absent (32% vs. 54%).

• Cognitive Interview (Geiselman & Fisher, 1997):

  1. Mental reinstatement of the environmental and personal con of the crime.

  2. Report every detail (even trivial/partial ones).

  3. Describe the event in different chronological orders (e.g., backwards).

  4. Report the event from different viewpoints/perspectives.

How are False Memories studied in the lab using the DRM Paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995) and doctored photographs (Wade et al., 2002)?

• DRM Paradigm: Participants study a list of semantically associated words (e.g., bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, snore, nap) that all converge on a non-presented critical lure (sleep). Due to spreading activation, participants falsely recall/recognise the lure at high rates.

• Wade et al. (2002): Showed adults a doctored childhood photo of themselves in a hot air balloon (an event that never happened). By Interview 3, 50% had constructed partial or complete false autobiographical memories of the ride.

Contrast Retrograde Amnesia and Anterograde Amnesia.

• Retrograde Amnesia: Inability to retrieve old episodic memories formed before the brain injury/onset of amnesia.

• Anterograde Amnesia: Inability to form/encode new episodic memories after the brain injury/onset of amnesia. (Both can co-occur, e.g., Clive Wearing).

What are the neurobiological hallmarks and treatments of Alzheimer's Disease?

• Symptoms & Progression: Severe progressive deficit in episodic memory starting in the medial temporal lobes / hippocampus and spreading across the cortex.

• Neurobiology: Extracellular amyloid plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles, alongside depletion of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

• Treatments: Drugs that inhibit the breakdown of acetylcholine (acetylcholinesterase inhibitors) and monoclonal antibodies that attack amyloid plaques (e.g., Donanemab).

How can memory be improved using the von Restorff Effect, Mnemonics, the Testing Effect, and SQ3R?

• von Restorff Effect (1933): Distinctive or isolated items stand out and are recalled better than homogeneous items.

• Mnemonics: Method of Loci (associating items with locations along a familiar mental walk), Pegword system (one = bun, two = shoe), and Story mnemonics. Work via Ericsson's (1988) Encoding, Retrieval Structure, and Speed-up principles.

• Testing Effect (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006): Active retrieval practice (testing yourself, e.g., STTT) leads to significantly better long-term retention after 1 week than repeated passive studying (SSSS).

• SQ3R: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review.

According to Simons & Chabris (2011) from the Memory Tutorial, what are the common public myths about memory that experts reject?

1. Myth: Memory works like a video camera (False – memory is reconstructive).

2. Myth: Amnesics cannot recall their own name or identity (False – retrograde loss of personal identity is rare in organic amnesia and mainly a movie trope).

3. Myth: Flashbulb memories are permanently imprinted and never change (False).

4. Myth: Hypnosis accurately recovers forgotten eyewitness memories (False – increases suggestibility and false memories).

5. Myth: Eyewitness confidence is a reliable indicator of accuracy (False).

Define Psycholinguistics and distinguish between a "Signal" and "Language".

• Psycholinguistics: The study of the psychological processes involved in how individuals comprehend, produce, and acquire language (Harley, 2014; Carroll, 2004).

• Signal vs. Language: A signal can be informative (unintentionally providing info, like scratching your head or shivering) or communicative (intentional, like a vervet monkey alarm call or bee waggle dance). Language goes beyond signals: it is a system of symbols (words) and rules (grammar/syntax) that allows infinite novel combinations.

What are Hockett's (1960) four key "Design Features" of human language highlighted in the lecture?

1. Arbitrariness: Words/sounds do not resemble or directly convey their meaning (e.g., the word "dog" doesn't sound like a dog).

2. Displacement: We can communicate about things, events, and ideas remote in time and space (not physically present).

3. Openness (Productivity): We can combine a finite set of words/rules to generate an infinite number of novel sentences.

4. Duality of Patterning: A small, finite number of meaningless sounds (phonemes) are combined to form meaningful words (morphemes). (Note: Animal communication systems like cicadas' 4 calls or vervet monkeys' 36 calls have fixed reference, lack openness, and show no displacement).

What are Clark & Clark's (1977) five characteristics of language and Crystal's (1997) main functions of language?

• Clark & Clark (1977) Characteristics: Communicative, Arbitrary, Structured, Generative, Dynamic.

• Crystal (1997) Functions: Communicate ideas, emotional expression, social interaction, sound as power (chants/games), control of reality, record information, instrument of thought, expression of identity.

Define the four levels of analysis in language: Phonology, Syntax (and Morphology), Semantics, and Pragmatics.

1. Phonology: How sounds are used in a language. The basic unit of sound is a phoneme (vowels = open vocal tract; consonants = restricted vocal tract). Includes suprasegmentals (pitch, stress, rate; e.g., in Mandarin Chinese, the syllable /ma/ means mother, hemp, horse, or scold depending on pitch contour; Zhao & Kuhl, 2015).

2. Syntax & Morphology: Syntax (grammar) is the set of rules governing word order and combination. Morphology studies how morphemes (the smallest meaningful units of language) combine (e.g., "houses" has 2 morphemes: house + -s; "revolts" has 2 morphemes: revolt + -s).

3. Semantics: The study of meaning. Stored in the mental lexicon (our mental dictionary holding a word's phonology, semantics, orthography, and syntax).

4. Pragmatics: The use of language in a social con—how we go beyond literal meaning, make inferences about intentions, use indirect speech acts (90% of English requests are indirect; Gibbs, 1986), and take turns.

What are the core claims of Noam Chomsky's Universal Grammar, and what is the difference between Competence and Performance?

• Universal Grammar: Language is rule-based, modular (processed by a dedicated language module), and pre-programmed (innate understanding of abstract grammatical rules; behaviourist conditioning cannot explain language acquisition).

• Competence (I-language): Our idealised, internalised knowledge of the rules of language.

• Performance (E-language): Actual externalised speech production, which is imperfect and limited by memory capacity, time, and distractions.

Contrast the Traditional Cognitive View of language with the Social-Pragmatic View (Turnbull, 2003).

• Traditional Cognitive View: Intrapersonal and individualistic. Treats talk as a monologue—transforming internal thoughts/concepts into semantic, lexical, phonological, and motor forms to transfer information. Focuses on competence.

• Social-Pragmatic View (Turnbull, 2003): Interpersonal. Treats talk as social action and interaction where speakers co-construct their social worlds, coordinate actions, and rely on social/cultural con.

What is Common Ground (Clark & Carlson, 1981), Lexical Entrainment (Wilkes-Gibbs & Clark, 1992), and how did Horton & Keysar (1996) model it?

• Common Ground: Shared knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions between speakers (Communal = cultural/societal knowledge; Personal = shared experiences between specific individuals).

• Lexical Entrainment (Wilkes-Gibbs & Clark, 1992): In the tangram matching task, a 'Director' and 'Matcher' rapidly converge on shared shorthand labels for abstract shapes (e.g., "the ice skater", "Geisha girl").

• Horton & Keysar (1996) Models:

  • Initial Design Model: Speakers take the listener's common ground into account from the very start of speech planning.

  • Monitoring & Adjustment Model: Initial speech planning is egocentric (ignores common ground), and speakers monitor listener reactions and adjust afterwards.

In Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1976), define Locution, Illocutionary Force, Perlocutionary Force, and Searle's five Macro-Classes.

• Three aspects of a speech act (e.g., "Could you pass the salt?"):

  1. Locution: The literal words spoken ("Could you pass the salt?").

  2. Illocutionary Force: The speaker's intended function/meaning (requesting the listener to pass the salt).

  3. Perlocutionary Force: The actual effect/action produced on the hearer (they pass the salt).

• Searle's (1976) Five Macro-Classes:

  1. Representative: Commits speaker to the truth of a statement ("It is a warm sunny day").

  2. Directive: Attempts to get the hearer to do something ("Switch on the lamp, please").

  3. Commissive: Commits the speaker to a future action ("I'll be back soon", promising).

  4. Expressive: Expresses the speaker's psychological/emotional state ("I'm really sorry").

  5. Declaration: An utterance whose performance immediately changes reality ("I now pronounce you husband and wife", firing, sentencing).

What are Grice's (1967) four Maxims of the Cooperative Principle, and what are the four ways a maxim can be broken?

• Grice's Four Maxims:

  1. Quantity: Give enough information, but not too much.

  2. Quality: Be truthful (do not say what is false or lacks evidence).

  3. Relation: Be relevant.

  4. Manner: Be clear, brief, and orderly; avoid obscurity and ambiguity.

• Four Ways Maxims are Not Observed:

  1. Flouting: Intentionally and blatantly breaking a maxim assuming the listener knows and will infer the hidden meaning (e.g., irony, metaphor, hyperbole: "I'm 251 years old").

  2. Violating: Quietly breaking a maxim knowing the listener will only understand the surface meaning (e.g., lying/deception).

  3. Infringing: Unintentionally failing to observe a maxim due to nerves, intoxication, or cognitive deficit.

  4. Opting out: Refusing to cooperate while signalling why (e.g., "My lips are sealed", "No comment").

Explain Brown & Levinson's (1987) Politeness Model, "Facework", and Transactional vs. Interactional functions.

• Politeness Model: Critiques Grice for treating politeness as secondary. Argues that maintaining social relationships and preserving "face" (self-esteem/public self-image) via facework is a primary driver of how we speak.

• Indirect Speech Acts: Saying "I'm a bit chilly" instead of "Close the window!" is inefficient for raw information transfer (transactional function), but essential for politeness and preserving the listener's face (interactional function). (Supplemented by Leech's 1983 politeness maxims: tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, sympathy).

In Conversation Analysis (Sacks, 1972; Schegloff), what are TCUs, TRPs, and the three rules of Turn Allocation?

• Turn Construction Unit (TCU): The basic linguistic unit (word, phrase, clause, or sentence) out of which a conversational turn is built.

• Transition Relevance Place (TRP): The point at the end of a TCU where the floor can legitimately change to another speaker.

• Three Turn Allocation Rules at a TRP:

  1. Current speaker selects next speaker (via name, gaze, or directed question).

  2. Next speaker self-selects (if no one was selected, someone jumps in, often using turn-entry devices like "Well..." or "You know...").

  3. Current speaker continues (if no one self-selects).

What do Pickering & Garrod (2004) propose in their "Dialogue not Monologue" model?

They critique traditional psycholinguistics for studying isolated monologues in unnatural lab tasks, arguing that natural language is built for dialogue, where successful communication occurs because speakers automatically align their mental representations across phonological, syntactic, semantic, and situation models.

What is divided attention?

Divided attention is paying attention to two or more stimuli at once, or performing two or more distinct tasks simultaneously.

What environmental factor did Salame and Baddeley (1982) identify as the most disruptive source of interference in office environments?

Background noise that contains speech was found to cause the greatest interference with cognitive performance and concentration.

What is Central Capacity Theory (Kahneman, 1973)?

A theory proposing that humans have a single central pool of attentional resources that can be allocated flexibly across activities. Available capacity varies with cognitive arousal, and performance suffers if combined task demands exceed this central limit.

What are the key components of Kahneman's model of attention allocation?

A central processor that allocates capacity based on: 1) Arousal level, 2) Enduring dispositions (involuntary attention grabbers like hearing your own name), 3) Momentary intentions (voluntary goals like listening to a lecture), and 4) Evaluation of demands on capacity.

What is Multiple Resource Theory (Wickens, 1984; Allport, 1989)?

A theory proposing that attention does not rely on a single central pool, but rather on multiple separate processing resources. Tasks that compete for the same resource pool interfere with each other, whereas dissimilar tasks can be performed concurrently with minimal interference.

What are the three dimensions of processing resources in Wickens' 3D Model?

• Input and output modalities (visual versus auditory; manual versus vocal response).

• Stages of information processing (encoding/perception, central processing, or responding).

• Processing codes (spatial versus verbal).

What three factors determine whether multitasking will be successful?

• Task Similarity (similar modalities, stages, or codes create interference).

• Task Difficulty (complex tasks demand more capacity).

• Processing Type (automatic versus controlled processing through practice).

What does the Yerkes-Dodson Law state regarding arousal and performance?

Performance follows an inverted U-shaped relationship with arousal. Optimal performance occurs at moderate arousal. For complex tasks, lower arousal is optimal; for simple tasks, higher arousal is tolerated or beneficial.

What are the defining characteristics of automatic processing versus controlled processing (Posner & Snyder, 1975)?

Automatic tasks operate without conscious control, without awareness, require low effort, operate in parallel, and run fast. Controlled tasks require conscious control, active awareness, high effort, operate serially, and run slow.

What are the three stages of skill automatisation proposed by Fitts and Posner (1967)?

• Cognitive Stage: Conscious, explicit rules, serial execution, high effort.

• Associative Stage: Error detection, eliminating mistakes, speeding up.

• Autonomous Stage: Rapid, accurate, automatic, parallel execution, resistant to capacity limits.

What are the two primary causes of performance breakdown in multitasking?

• Attention capacity overload: Task complexity or similarity exceeds available cognitive resources.

• Under-capacity / under-arousal: Highly automatised, solitary skills leave excess capacity, allowing attention to stray to worries and distractions.

Why does Central Capacity Theory struggle to explain task similarity effects?

Central Capacity Theory predicts that any two tasks of equal difficulty should interfere equally. However, experimental evidence shows that two dissimilar tasks (like driving and listening to music) are much easier to combine than two similar tasks (like reading a map and driving), which is better explained by Multiple Resource Theory.

What is involuntary attention?

Involuntary attention is the automatic capture of attention by salient, intense, or unexpected environmental stimuli, characterized by exogenous and bottom-up processing.

What is the difference between exogenous and endogenous attentional orienting?

Exogenous orienting is bottom-up, involuntary, and triggered by external stimuli in the environment. Endogenous orienting is top-down, voluntary, goal-directed, and controlled by internal intentions.

How does bottom-up processing differ from top-down processing in perception and attention?

Bottom-up processing is data-driven, beginning with raw sensory inputs from the environment. Top-down processing is conceptually driven, guided by prior knowledge, expectations, goals, and schemas.