Psych 355 exam 1

Identify phases of the “structure of scientific revolutions” (& put them in the right order)

1. Pre-science

2. normal science

3. crisis

4. revolution

5. normal science

Identify the basic principle advocated by the Gestalt Psychologists

The whole is different from the sum of its parts

Explain the difference between the cognitivist (hamburger) and post-cognitivist (meatloaf) perspectives of cognition

Cognition (hamburger) is thinking the brain is a computer; uses symbols while post-cognition (meatloaf) focuses on sensory/perception that matters.

Explain what would happen if you were to somehow put your mind into another body (like in the movie Avatar or Hoppers) according to a cognitivist versus a post-cognitivist perspective

• Cognitive perspective = you remain the same person, cognition does not change

• Post-cognitive perspective = you do not remain the same person, changing body changes the mind

Define and distinguish between embodied cognition, distributed cognition, enacted cognition, and embedded cognition (the 4 Es)

1. Embodied: cognition is shaped by body’s structure

2. Embedded: cognition depends on real environments

3. Enacted: cognition arises through active engagement

4. Distributed: cognition is spread across people, tools, etc.

Distinguish theoretical and methodological tendencies of behavioral and cognitive neuroscience

1. Theoretical: Observable behavior; theoretical stance is closer to biological behaviorism

2. Cognitive neuroscience: mental representation, information processing; theoretical stance cognitive processing

Explain the difference between EEG and ERPs

• EEG= continuous waves and detection at different frequencies

• ERP= time-specific waves; repeated stimuli and the average of activity is taken

Identify how adding neuroscience jargon to explanations of research findings changes people’s judgment of those findings

bad definitions paired with jargon were ranked higher in terms of sounding more reliable

Define (& recognize examples of) demand characteristics (aka demand effects or participant demand)

• cues in a study that lead participants to guess the hypothesis or what the experimenter wants

• Eg: social desirability behavior

Identify the structure and function of the pupil, lens, and cornea

1. cornea= bends incoming light towards the lens + protects eye from debris

2. Pupil= opening center of iris; regulates amount of light entering

3. Lens= fine-tunes focus; adjusts shape to focus on objects

Define the terms sensation, perception, and recognition & explain why the boundaries between these steps are not entirely clear

1. sensation= initial detection of physical energy by sensory receptors

2. perception= organization + interpretation of sensory input

3. Recognition= identifying an object as belonging to a category stored in memory

• blurs the line because they happen simultaneously and not sequentially

Define transduction

physical energy from the environment (light) is converted into neural signals

Identify the reason we have a blind spot

the optic nerve leaves the eye

Explain the reasons for the Purkinje Shift (why, at night, everything looks bluish & blue/green colors appear brighter)

rods respond better in low light and the sensitivity moves to shorter wavelengths like blue

Identify differences between rods and cones 

• Rods= high sensitivity, no color, high convergence

• Cones= low sensitivity, color, low convergence

Define the term qualia (& give/recognize examples)

• subjective, first-person, felt qualities of conscious experience

• eg: taste of chocolate

Identify the role that the superior colliculus, thalamus, and hypothalamus play in visual perception

• super colliculus= visual alarm system

• thalamus= organized relay station

• Hypothalamus= body’s clock using light

Identify what type of stimuli V1 cells respond best to

oriented edges + bars

Explain the meaning of a "tuning curve"

shows how a neuron responds to a stimuli. The curve means the maximum response of a neuron

Distinguish between ventral & dorsal visual pathways in terms of location & function

• Dorsal =”where/how”; parietal cortex; Spatial + motion perception

• Ventral =”what”; IT cortex; object recognition, color perception, face recognition

Identify the pattern of cells firing action potentials that characterizes selective adaptation

1. neurons tuned to a specific stimulus fire strongly at first

2. decrease firing with prolonged exposure

3. later shows reduced responsiveness to same stimuli

Define the inverse projection problem and explain how cognitive & post-cognitive theories differ in the way they think about it

• many 3d objects can produce the same 2d image on retina

• cognitive= brain computes the most likely interpretation

• Post-cognitive= perception emerges from active engagement

Distinguish between different monocular & binocular size/depth cues & identify them in images

1. binocular: each eye gets a different image

• convergence

2. monocular: work with one eye

• occlusion

• relative size

• linear perspective

• texture

• aerial

• shading + shadows

• familiar size

Recognize & give examples of top-down vs bottom-up perceptual processing

1. Bottom-up= raw sensory input (eg: shape you’ve never seen before)

2. Top-down=shaped by expectations, memory (eg:faces in clouds)

Identify principles of figure-ground relationships & explain why these principles are not arbitrary

1. surroundedness

2. size

3. symmetry

4. convexity

5. meaningfulness

6. lower region

• they are not arbitrary because they reduce ambiguity

Define unconscious inference & give/recognize examples

• perception involves automatic, involuntary guesses about what is out in the world

• eg: light-from-above assumption

Explain why face perception appears to be a combination of innate & learned mechanisms

• face perception shows strong built-in biological specialization from birth

Explain what the "binding problem" is (& provide a theory about how we could solve it or reject it)

• how and where in the brain different features of objects are bound together

• Feature-integration theory= features are seen separately but bound by attention

Identify (& distinguish between) factors that influence bottom-up and top-down attention

• bottom-up: the stimulus grabs you

• top-down: you choose what to focus on

Identify timeframe(s) in which attentional selection occurs

• early= filter before meaning

• late= process meaning then select

• intermediate= task load determines selection point

Define change/attentional blindness and give/recognize examples

• you miss a change because of a visual interruption or attention elsewhere

• eg: gorilla in suit basketball video

Identify big picture brain areas that are involved in selective visual attention (for places or objects)

• FFA, LOC, IT

Explain why people are generally more distractible when doing easy tasks than difficult tasks

in easy tasks, you aren’t using all your attention resources. Room for distractions

Identify two reasons for switching costs

1. configuration: takes time to activate new mappings

2. Interference; old task interferes with new one

Identify patterns of damage and deficits typical of hemineglect

• damage to right hemisphere

• deficits: possible anosognosia, left object based neglect

Identify factors that can make hemineglect symptoms more or less severe

• more severe= high task demands or multi-region lesions

• less severe= top-down instructions

Identify classic findings about reaction time and mental imagery (i.e. if given a description of a reaction time study, be able to say which mental imagery related task would take longer to perform)

1. mental scanning

2. mental rotation

3. image zooming

4. mental walking

5. imagery vs verbal

Recognize differences in opinion between Kosslyn and Pylyshyn about how to interpret reaction time experiments about mental imagery

• Kosslyn: RT differences show imagery is spatial

• Pylyshyn: Rt differences show knowledge, not spatial images

Explain ways in which actual visual perception and mental imagery are similar and different (i.e. how are mental images different than real pictures?)

• both rely on similar brain areas

• difference: when looking at ambiguous images, perception allows an easy flip between the two while imagery struggles

Identify typical patterns in the accuracy of people's judgements about their own mental imagery

• people are overconfident

• vividness does not equal accuracy

• overestimate detail in mental images

Identify differences between sub-components of working memory (given the classic Baddeley working memory model, not the updated one)

1. central executive= controls attention, no storage

2. Phonological loop= stores & rehearses veral info

3. Visuospatial sketchpad: stores visual & spatial information

Identify common experimental procedures that are used to test working memory capacity

1. change detection

2. readng span

3. digit span

Identify features/tasks that can increase or decrease visual or verbal working memory span (or interfere with the ongoing "work" of workng memory)

• verbal= chunking, short words- verbal dual tasks, long words

• Visual= organized layouts, chunking patterns, mental rotation, tracking tasks

Explain how working memory might connect to the "inner monologue" that some people experience, or to the idea of attention or a "train of thought" more generally

• phonological loop

• people with stronger verbal working memory often report more consintuous inner speech

Lesions

• determine causal relationships between brain regions and behavior

• shows causal deficits (eg: damage here means loss of function x)

EEG (electroencephalography)

• measures electrical activity from populations of neurons

• tells you when the brain does something

• high temporal resolution

• poor spatial resolution

• waveforms (eg: alpha)

MRI

• Create high-resolution images of brain anatomy

• Gray/white matter

• tumors, lesions

• structural data only

fMRI

• measures brain activity via blood flow

• cognitive tasks

• high spatial resolution

• low temporal resolution

• where activity happens

TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation)

• noninvasive brain stimulation that temporarily disrupts or enhances neural activity

• treat depression

• test causality

tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation)

• apply weak electrical currents to modulate cortical excitability

• enhancing learning, memory, etc.

• changes in performance

• nudges brain activity to go up or down