cognitive psychology

cognition

knowledge from personal view or experience; perception; a thing known

cognitive psychology

all processes by which sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stores, recovered, and used.

structure/representation

the knowledge you possess. Info in your memory

cognition

knowledge from personal view or experience; perception; a thing known

cognitive psychology

all processes by which sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, and used

who wrote the first book on cognitive psychology?

Neisser 1967

structure/representation

the knowledge you possess

process

an operation on external stimulus or internal representation. What you do with the information

performance

observable behavior we mist use as an evidence of cognition

Diogenes of Apollonia (500 BC)

believed air to be the vehicle for cognition. Emphasis on the integration of sensory information as a system rather than sensation/perception model

wax tablet

we remember and can retrieve experience that is imprinted with impressions

tabula rasa

we come into the world with no knowledge and learn it all through experience

doctrine of association

how things are related to each other and come together and how it shapes our understanding of things

psychophysics

study of the relationship between the physical characteristic of stimuli and the sensation they produce

reaction time

how long it takes to respond to the presentation of a stimulus

analytic introspection

procedure in which participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli

savings

amount of time saved in learning the list over again after a determined amount of time due to some information on the list remaining in memory

savings curve

plot savings versus time after original learning

cognitive map

mental conception of spatial layout

scientific revolution

occurs when there is a shift in thinking from one scientific paradigm to another

paradigm

system own ideas that dominates science at a particular time

paradigm shift

shift in thinking from one paradigm to another

cocktail party effect

ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out the other

artificial intelligence

ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human intelligence

neuropsychology

study of behavioral of people whose brains have been damaged by traumatic injury

electrophysiology

measures electrical responses of the nervous system and makes it possible to observe and measure activity of specific neurons

PET

see which areas of the brain are active during different cognitive tasks

fMRI

capable of higher spatial resolution, could more precisely identify specific locations of brain activity

transfer

how is information copied into the store

capacity

how much information can the store hold

forgetting

how does information get lost from the store

representation

what is the format of information in the store

retrieval

how is information recovered from the store

chunk

collection of elements that are strongly associated with one another but weakly associated with elements of other chunks

sensation

reception of stimulation from the environment and the initial encoding of that stimulation into the nervous system

perception

process of interpreting and understanding sensory information

cones

color sensitive

rods

luminance sensitive (achromatic)

saccade

quick movement of the eyes from one location to another

fixation

brief period when the eyes stop moving and process the visual scene (aprox. 200 msec)

perceptual span

number of items that the individual can report from a brief display that did not allow for eye movements (aprox. 4.5 items)

perceptual organization

rules governing how featured should be put together

principle of similarity

similar things appear grouped together

principle of good continuation

lines tend to be seen as following the smoothest path

law of pragnanz

every stimulus pattern is seen so the resulting structure is as simple as possible

unconscious inference

perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions, or inferences, that we make about the environment

likelihood principle

we perceive the world in the way that is most likely based on out past experiences

regularities of the environment

common physical and semantic properties of the environment

oblique effect

perceive vertical and horizontal lines more easily than other orientations because we experience them more regularly

light-from-above assumption

we assume light comes from above because the is common in our environment

scene schema

knowledge of what a given scene ordinarily contains

bayesian effect

ones estimate of the probability of s given outcome is influenced by two factors: prior probability and likelihood of a given outcome

movement and perception

movement adds complexity to perception, but moving around a stimulus offers more views to create accurate perceptions

inverse projection problem

infinite numbers of sources for any given retinal image

difficulties in designing a perceiving machine

inverse projection problem, hidden or blurred objects, viewpoint disadvantage, high level information

deep learning

a form of artificial intelligence that uses neural networks with many layers to model complex patterns in large databases

occlusion

perceptual phenomenons in which part of an object or scene are obscured from view

viewpoint invariance

ability to recognize an object seen from different viewpoints

speech segmentation

process of perceiving individual words within the continuous flow of the speech signal. Ability to tell when a word ends and another one begins

transitional probabilities

likelihood that one speech sound will follow another with a word

statistical learning

process of learning about transitional probabilities and other characteristics of language. Occurs for vision, baed on learning about what types of things usually occur in the environment

gestalt psychologists

group of psychologists who proposed principles governing perception, such as laws of organization, and perceptual approach to problem-solving involving restructuring

apparent movement

illusion of movement perception that occurs when stimuli in different locations are flashed one after another with the proper timing

semantic regulaties

characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes

brain ablation

procedure in which a specific area is removed from an animals brain to determine the function of this area by addressing the effect on the animals behavior

object discrimination

problem in which the task is to remember an object based on its shape and choose it when presented with another object after delay. Temporal lobe

landmark discrimination

problem in which the task is to remember an objects location and choose that location after a delay. Parietal lobe

temporal lobe in perception

neural pathway that reaches the temporal loves is responsible for determining an objects identity

what pathway

neural pathway extending from the occipital lobe to the temporal lobe. Associated with perceiving or recognizing objects

parietal lobe in perception

the pathway that leads to the parietal lobe is responsible for determining objects location

where pathway

neural pathway extending from the occipital lobe to the parietal lobe, that is associated with the neural processing that occurs when people locate objects in space. Associated when people take action

mirror neurons

neurons in promotor cortex that respond both when observing someone perform an action and when carrying it out (monkeys)

mirror neuron system

network of neurons in the brain that have mirror neuron properties (humans)

size-weight illusion

when a person is presented with two similar objects that are the same weight but different sizes

attention

the mental process of concentrating effort on a location/stimulus or mental event; the limited mental energy or resource that powers the mental system

Colin Cherry 1953

participants are told to focus on the stimuli of a single ear and shadow the message. Participants would report whether the unattended message was spoke by a male or female but could not report on the content of the unattended message

dichotic listening

presenting different stimuli to the left and right ears

shadowing

repeat words as they are heard

cocktail party effect

Broadbent 1958. Early selection model

sensory memory → filter → detector → short-term memory → long-term memory

sensory memory

holds all information for a fraction of a second and transfer it to filter

filter

identifies message that is being attended t based on physical characteristics and conveys only this message to next stage

physical characteristics of speech

tone of voice, pitch, talking speed, etc.

detector

processes information from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message. Only important information passed through the filter so all information that enters is processes

short-term memory

output of detector (decoded message) is sent here. Hold info for 10-15 seconds and is then transferred

long-term memory

can hold information indefinitely

Neville Moray 1959

dichotic listening test while shadowing the attended message, participants name is called on the unattended ear. 1/3 of participants detected their name

Gray and Wedderburn (1960).

participants were taking in meaning as they shadowed the message. Attention jump.

Anne Treisman 1964. Attenuation Model of Attention

attenuator → dictionary unit → memory

attenuator

analyzes incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language and meaning. Attended messages pass through attenuator at full strength, unattended messages with reduced strength

Attenuation Model of Attention

model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages

dictionary unit

processing unit that contains stored words and thresholds for activating the words

threshold

smallest signal strength that can barely be detected

language

how the message groups into syllables or words

meaning

how sequences of words crate meaningful phrases

priming

a change in response to a stimulus caused by the previous presentation of the same or a similar stimulus

repetition priming

when an initial presentation of a stimulus affects the persons response to the same stimulus when it’s presented later

lexical priming

involves the meaning of words

late selection model of attention

selection of a stimuli for final processing does not occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning

processing capacity

amount of information that a person can handle