Lecture 06: Sensory Registers, Perceptual Organization, and Consciousness

Flashcards covering key vocabulary terms and definitions from the lecture on Sensory Registers, Perceptual Organization, and Consciousness, including models of memory, principles of perception, and theories of consciousness.

Sensory Registers

Temporary holding places for raw data patterns that enter the information processing system by way of our sense organs, associated with each sense modality, also called sensory memory stores or very short-term memory stores.

Donald Broadbent

Proposed an influential serial model of the mind in 1958, which included an input buffer, a data selector, and a long-term memory store.

Input Buffer (Broadbent's model)

A temporary holding place for raw data patterns that entered the information processing system by way of our sense organs.

Data Selector (Broadbent's model)

A module that determined which items registered in the buffer should be passed forward into memory, and which items should be ignored.

Iconic Memory Store

The sensory register associated with visual information, which has been the most studied.

Echoic Memory Store

The sensory register that holds auditory information.

Memory (term usage)

Refers to performance on some sort of memory test (a phenomenon).

Memory Store (term usage)

Refers to a hypothetical construct described by a cognitive theory.

Preconscious (Sensory Registers)

A characteristic of sensory registers, meaning their contents have not yet been meaningfully interpreted or entered conscious awareness.

Precategorical Information

Information in the sensory registers that cannot be categorized because it has no meaning attached to it, maintaining raw patterns of sensory stimulation.

George Sperling

Developed techniques (e.g., the Sperling task) to study iconic memory in the 1960s.

Visual Persistence

The apparent endurance of visual stimuli beyond their actual physical presence.

Whole Report Technique

A method in Sperling's task where subjects are asked to report as many letters as they can from a briefly presented array.

Partial Report Technique

A method in Sperling's task where subjects are asked to report only specific rows of letters from an array, indicated by a cue presented after the display terminates.

Icon (Iconic Memory Trace)

The memory trace (or representation) held in iconic memory, which lasts about 350 ms before fading due to decay.

Backward Masking

A phenomenon in which a visual event impairs one’s perception of a previously encountered visual stimulus.

Erasure (Iconic Memory)

A process where the icon is degraded by a subsequent visual stimulus, removing information from the sensory register.

Categorical Cues

Cues that refer to meaningful categories (e.g., letters or digits); they do not allow for good partial report performance in iconic memory because the sensory register holds precategorical information.

Visual Afterimages

Psychological experiences resulting from the aftereffects of retinal ganglion cell stimulation, distinct from iconic memories.

Three-Eared Man Procedure

A special auditory presentation technique used in echoic memory studies, involving playing recordings to people through headphones to simulate sounds from different spatial locations.

Echoic Trace Duration

Considerably longer than iconic trace, lasting 2 to 4 seconds.

Modality Effect

Superior recall of end-of-list items when lists are presented using the auditory mode rather than the visual mode, consistent with longer echoic trace duration.

Suffix Effect

Higher error rates for the last items of an auditorily presented list when a word is used as an end-of-list signal compared to a simple tone, indicating erasure interference in echoic memory.

Perceptual Organization

An early step in creating meaning from multifaceted visual experiences, where principles determine which sensory elements 'go together' and which ones stand apart.

Gestalt Psychologists

German psychologists (e.g., Max Wertheimer) who adopted a perspective on mental processes similar to later cognitive psychologists, focusing on how elements are organized into wholes.

Principle of Proximity

A Gestalt principle stating that visual elements close together are perceived as being grouped together.

Principle of Similarity

A Gestalt principle stating that visual elements with similar characteristics (e.g., color, shape, size) are perceived as being grouped together.

Principle of Good Continuation

A Gestalt principle stating that we perceive visual elements in such a way as to form contours that appear to flow in a single direction.

Principle of Closure

A Gestalt principle stating that when an object is incomplete or a space is not completely enclosed, people perceive the whole by filling in missing information.

Principle of Common Region (Palmer)

A principle stating that elements will be perceived as grouped together if they are located within a common region of space, all else being equal.

Principle of Element Connectedness

A principle stating that elements connected by uniform visual properties are perceived as being more related than elements that are not connected.

Global Precedence (Navon)

A principle proposed by David Navon (1977) stating that we tend to better perceive the overall or global configuration of visual elements rather than the elemental constituents.

Ebbinghaus Illusion

A visual illusion where visual context (e.g., surrounding circles) influences the size perception of a central circle.

Local Precedence (Himba people)

The tendency, observed in the Himba people, to base matches on the identity of stimulus elements rather than overall form, suggesting learned perceptual tendencies.

Consciousness

One’s subjective awareness of mental contents and events, including all thoughts, feelings, ideas, and perceptions in our moment-to-moment mental awareness.

Cognitive Unconscious

Mental contents and processes that occur outside of conscious awareness.

Lexical Decision Task

A task in which people are shown a series of letter strings and asked to judge the 'lexicality' of each one (i.e., whether they form words), often measuring reaction time.

Repetition Priming

A phenomenon where people respond more quickly to the second presentation of the same word, reflecting persistent activation of the underlying word representation.

Semantic Priming

A phenomenon where the response to a word is faster if it follows a meaningfully related word (e.g., NURSE after DOCTOR), due to activation of related word representations in memory.

Tony Marcel (1980)

A key researcher who demonstrated unconscious perception by showing that backward-masked prime words could still cause semantic priming for subsequent unmasked words.

Daniel Wenger

Proposed that consciousness does not do anything; it is an effect (product of unconscious processes) rather than a causal agent of behavior.

Spurious Correlation (Wenger)

The relationship Wenger claims exists between consciousness and behavior, where both are correlated because they have a common cause (the cognitive unconscious), making consciousness seem causal when it's not.

The Mind's Best Trick (Wenger)

The cognitive system fools us into believing that our conscious mind is in control when in fact it does nothing, because the cognitive unconscious causes both behaviors and conscious thoughts.

Epiphenomenal Consciousness

The concept that consciousness plays no causal role in behavior, being merely a byproduct or side effect of unconscious processes.