cognitive psychology 414 exam one

Imagine you are standing up and looking at a tree. The optics of the eye are such that light that light reflecting off the leaves projects onto the bottom of your retina and light reflecting off the trunk projects to the top of your retina, such that the image of the tree on your retina is "upside down." Does this create a problem that the visual system needs to solve? If yes, how does it do it; if no, why not?

No, this doesn't create a problem because the brain automatically interprets the image correctly, even though it's upside down on the retina. This process happens unconsciously as part of normal visual development, so we don't even notice it. Our brain interprets what we see based on our lived experience. We receive the input as a code, not as a physical image.

It's not a problem for visual perception that light reflecting off objects projects "upside down" onto our retinas, because:

conscious visual perception does not result from a "little person" inside our head watching what's projected onto our retinas like a movie.

It's not a problem for visual perception that light reflecting off objects projects "upside down" onto our retinas, because:

our brains represent visual information in codes, not in images that are "copies" of real-world objects.

What is a major difference between Behaviorism and Introspectionism?

One major difference between Behaviorism and Introspectionism is that Introspectionism focuses on examining our own thoughts and mental experiences, while Behaviorism only studies observable behaviors that can be measured and seen.

A principle goal of behaviorism was to

predict and control behavior

Which of the following is NOT a basic principle of behaviorism?

to be complete behavioral theories must be complex

What was a fundamental problem with the Introspectionist school of psychology?

One fundamental problem with the Introspectionist school of psychology was that it depended on subjectivity. Subjectivity means that one person's impressions can differ from another's, which is a problem because it makes thoughts and perceptions potentially unreliable and hard to measure

Introspection is a method for studying the mind by

observing one's own thought processes while performing a task

One problem with introspectionism was that

introspection does not give insight into processes that are "unconscious", or otherwise not accessible to intuition

Introspectionism had several problems. One problem with introspectionism was that

The method had poor replicability. The results of carrying out the same experiment were often different when carried out by different people.

What's one example of a theoretical construct this is not measurable as an input to or an output of the cognitive system, but nonetheless explains some aspect of cognition?

Prediction errors generated when an agent encounters something unexpected (i.e., "a violation of their prediction" about a situation) are responsible for learning new information. This is seen with the phenomenon of "blocking" in classical conditioning.

What's a DIFFERENT example of a theoretical construct this is not measurable as an input to or an output of the cognitive system, but nonetheless explains some aspect of cognition? (I.e., your answer can't be the same as your answer for MC question a)

The principle of level of processing in memory encoding. The level of processing model posits that the relation of the to-be-remembered information with preexisting knowledge of the world strengthens encoding. That is, HOW we think about information influences how well we will remember it later.

What's the difference between a lobe and a gyrus?

A lobe is a big section of the brain with a main job, while a gyrus is one of the bumps on the brain's surface that helps fit more brain in the skull.

"Gyrus" refers to

a convexity, or "bump" on the brain's surface

What is the basic processing element of the brain? How do these basic processing elements communicate with each other?

The basic processing element of the brain is the neuron, and neurons communicate with each other through electrical signals called action potentials that trigger the release of chemical neurotransmitters across synapses.

Researchers can measure the electrical activity of the brain with which of the following techniques?

electroencephalography (EEG)

Electroencephalography (EEG) can provide precise information about the __________ of a neural event, but not very precise information about the ________ of that event.

timing : localization

What does the word "cortex" refer to? What gives it its characteristic color?

The word "cortex" refers to the outer layer of the brain, and its characteristic gray color comes from the high concentration of neuron cell bodies and dendrites, which lack the myelin that makes other brain areas look white.

What is the function of the "white matter"?

to enable communication between different parts of the brain.

Summarize the terminology used to unambiguously refer to different parts of the nervous system,e.g., words that correspond to "top" and "on the inside", but that avoid the ambiguity of informal speech.

To unambiguously describe different parts of the nervous system, scientists use specific terms like dorsal (meaning toward the back or top), ventral (toward the front or bottom), medial (toward the middle), and lateral (toward the sides). They also use superior and inferior to mean above and below, and proximal and distal to refer to positions closer to or farther from the center of the body.

If a person is standing up facing you, rostral is to ________ as caudal is to ___________

front of head: back of head

If a person is standing up facing you, lateral is to ________ as medial is to ___________

toward the side: toward the middle

The precise terms for the "bottom" of the brain and the "top" of the brain, when seen from the canonical view, are:

"Bottom" = ventral; "Top" = dorsal

In lecture, the professor shared with the class that he was not horrified by the possibility that most of the students hadn't had their bodies severed at the waist and had their torsos propped up in seats in the lecture hall. He noted that all the windows in the lecture hall looked the same to him, even though each one projected a different shape onto his retinas. What is a general principle of visual perception that accounts for each of these examples? What stage of visual processing (early, mid-level, late) is implicated in these examples?

The professor's examples show that perception is an active, constructive process where our brain makes smart guesses about the world. When he said he wasn't disturbed by a room full of torsos, that's occlusion — we assume the rest of the body is hidden, not missing. When all the windows looked the same despite different retinal images, that's shape constancy — we know objects stay the same even if they appear different. When distant seats looked smaller or blurrier but still seemed like normal seats, that's depth perception using texture gradients and size constancy.

These are all part of mid-level vision, where the brain starts turning raw visual input into a structured scene.

The fact that the professor was not horrified by the possibility that most of the students hadn't had their bodies severed at the waist and had their torsos propped up in seats in the lecture hall is a demonstration of what property of visual perception?

Visual perception is robust to 'noise' in the visual scene (as caused, e.g., by occlusion) because it is an active process that is influenced not just by the bottom-up analysis of sensory information, but also by pre-existing knowledge about the world and by previous experience.

Which of the following is an example of the process of scene segmentation?

Inferring from depth cues, such as a texture gradient, which part of the visual scene belongs to the background.

What explains the fact that all the windows in the lecture hall "look the same", and we can be confident that they all have the same dimensions, even though wherever you sit in the room each one projects a different shape onto our retinas

The assumption of perceptual constancy.

List at least three reasons that visual perception is a hard problem?

Visual perception is hard because the brain has to figure out where one object ends and another begins, even when the boundaries aren't clear (image segmentation). It's also difficult because objects are constantly changing shape on our retinas as we move, yet we still recognize them as the same (shape constancy). Finally, we often only see parts of objects due to occlusion, so the brain has to fill in missing information based on past experience.

All of the following are factors that make visual perception a hard problem, EXCEPT

Over time, we've learned that light sources are most often located above objects.

All of the following are assumptions that the visual system makes about the world, EXCEPT

The object with the greater luminance (i.e., the brighter object) is the lighter colored object.

Summarize the primary idea(s) of the Gestalt principles of organization.

The Gestalt principles explain how our brain groups things we see into whole objects instead of just lots of separate pieces. For example, we group things that look alike (similarity), fill in missing parts to see a complete shape (closure), and follow smooth lines (good continuity). These rules help us understand and organize what we see quickly and automatically.

From the Gestalt principles of organization, one can conclude that visual perception:

often imposes an interpretation of the visual scene that could not be derived solely from the information that is available at the retina.

Explain the concept of transduction and how it relates to three domains of perception: vision; audition; somatosensation.

Transduction is the process where our sensory systems convert different types of energy from the environment into electrical signals that the brain can understand. In vision, this happens when photoreceptors in the retina change light into electrical signals. In hearing, hair cells in the ear turn sound waves into electrical signals. For touch, mechanoreceptors in the skin transform pressure or touch into electrical signals. This process is essential because without transduction, our brain wouldn't be able to make sense of what we see, hear, or feel.

For vision, transduction occurs in the ___________, where energy from ________________ is converted to _______________.

retina, visible light (photons), electrical signals

For vision, is transduction considered a key component of sensation or perception?

sensation

The physical bases of transduction for vision, audition, and somatosensation (touch) are

chemical, mechanical, and mechanical, respectively

The dominant model of visual object recognition is termed "feature analysis". How does this model work?

The model works by breaking down visual stimuli into basic features like lines, angles, and shapes, which are then compared to stored representations in the brain to identify objects.

Which of the following is NOT true about feature analysis models of object identification?

they rely on viewing an object from precisely the same perspective as that from which it has previously been viewed.

All of the following are consistent with feature based accounts of visual perception, EXCEPT

Associative agnosia, the neurological syndrome in which patients can recognize "types" (i.e., categories of stimulus, such as faces, cats, cows, ...) but not "tokens" (individual examplars drawn from within a category, such as Morgan Wallen, Jordan Love, Danny O'Neil, Brad Postle, ....)

One variation of the feature analysis model posits the existence of "geons." What are these and how are they believed to contribute to object recognition?

Geons are simple 3D shapes like cones, cylinders, and blocks that act like building blocks for objects. We recognize objects by putting together these shapes, even if we see them from different angles or if part of the object is hidden.

Each of the following is an illustration of recognition-by-components geon theory, EXCEPT

the chessboard shadow illusion, whereby a black square in bright light and a white square in shadow are actually the same color.

One appealing feature of geon theory is that

parts of an object are defined in relation to each other, rather than to some other reference frame, and so a cat looks like a cat whether it's standing, laying on its back, or in any other position

There are several "transforms" that occur in V1--instances of the transformation of relatively simple signals coming from the retina into features that become the basis for low-level visual perception. Name at least three of these and provide a 1-sentence summary of how each is constructed in V1.

Edge Detection: V1 cells combine signals from the retina to detect edges by responding to lines at specific angles.

Spatial Frequency: Some V1 cells respond to fine details while others respond to broad shapes, helping us see both sharp edges and general forms.

Ocular Dominance: V1 keeps input from each eye partly separate, which helps the brain compare them and see depth.

How are edges with specific orientations constructed in V1?

Different V1 neurons are wired up to receive signals originating from photoreceptors that are adjacent to each other on the surface of the retina. If several of these are activated simultaneously, they will activate the V1 neuron to which they all project, and that feature (i.e., an edge with a particular orientation) will be detected.

How is color constructed as a feature in V1?

Neurons in V1 pool across signals originating from cones that are tuned to long- ("blue"), intermediate- ("green"), or short-wavelength ("red") light in the visible spectrum. By weighting the intensity of B, G, and R signalling they convert these signals into a single hue that appears somewhere on the Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet continuum of perceived color. That hue is a feature that is used by downstream processes to make sense out of the visual scene

How is the direction of motion detected as a feature by neurons in V1?

Different V1 neurons are wired up to receive signals originating from photoreceptors that are adjacent to each other on the surface of the retina, AND to only fire if the photoreceptors are activated sequentially. If several of these are activated in an ordered sequence, they will activate the V1 neuron to which they all project, and that feature (i.e., motion in a particular direction) will be detected

Summarize the primary features that distinguish early-stage visual processing from mid-level vision from high-level vision

Early-stage visual processing focuses on detecting simple features like edges, colors, and motion directly from raw sensory input. Mid-level vision organizes these features into shapes, surfaces, and basic object parts. High-level vision involves recognizing whole objects, understanding their meaning, and linking them to memory and context.

Early-stage visual processing is best summarized as

feature detection

Mid-level visual processing is best summarized as

the process of making assumptions about the visual scene that are needed for image segmentation, guided by such principles as using depth cues (e.g., smooth texture and color gradients; binocular disparity) and Gestalt principles for figure-ground segmentation; applying Gestault principles to resolve ambiguities caused by occlusion; and assuming perceptual constancy to explain away geometric differences between retinal projections of objects that "should" be the same (e.g., a row of windows on a wall; a receding row of telephone poles an a straight stretch of Kansas highway; a "column" of student's faces viewed from the front of a lecture hall; ...)

High-level visual processing is best summarized as

This ability to discriminate the face of your roomate/sibling/partner from those of many other similar looking people, or Professor Postle's dog Enzo from among a pack of inferior dogs

In the visual system, what is the difference between a neuron's tuning properties and its receptive field?

A neuron's tuning properties describe what kind of stimulus it responds best to (like orientation or motion), while its receptive field is the specific area in the visual field where a stimulus will cause it to fire.

In the visual system, what is the difference between a neuron's tuning properties and its receptive field?

Tuning properties refers to the feature(s) to which the neuron responds preferentially, whereas receptive field refers to the region of the visual field that it represent

Explain the concept of a receptive field. Why are receptive fields representing regions in the fovea smaller than receptive fields representing regions in the periphery? Why are receptive fields in visual area V4 larger than receptive fields in visual area V1?

A receptive field is the specific part of the visual scene that a neuron responds to. Receptive fields are smaller in the fovea for small detail and larger in the periphery for broader, less detailed info. In the ventral stream (the "what" pathway), receptive fields get larger from V1 to V4 to recognize complex objects, while in the dorsal stream (the "where" pathway), they stay smaller to keep spatial precision.

Receptive fields representing regions in the fovea are smaller than receptive fields representing regions in the periphery because

Photoreceptors are packed much more densely in the fovea than in peripheral parts of the retina, meaning that each covers a smaller surface area, and therefore has a smaller receptive field.

Receptive fields in visual area where geons are detected are larger than receptive fields in primary visual cortex (a.k.a. "visual area V1"), where low-level features are detected, because

Each neuron in "geon area" receives input from several neurons in V1 in order to construct their a more complicated representation (i.e., a geon is made up of many distict low-level features). Sampling over multiple neurons necessarily results in a larger receptive field, because not all of the inputing neurons have overlapping receptive fields

Which of the answers best describes the reason that feature-detection neurons that detect motion in a particular direction usually have larger receptive fields?

Larger receptive fields allow these neurons to integrate information originating from retinal photoreceptors (which have much smaller receptive fields) that have adjacent spatial receptive fields, so as to integrate information from the motion trajectory of the moving object

Define what is meant by "bottom-up" vs. "top-down" processing. How does this relate the the concepts of "feedforward" vs. "feedback" signaling?

Bottom-up processing starts with sensory input and builds up to perception, while top-down processing uses prior knowledge and expectations to interpret input; this leads to feedforward (low to high) and feedback (high to low) signaling in the brain.

A purely bottom-up visual perception system would be expected to have difficulty with

Identifying the final letter if the word "LIFE" if the bottom piece of the "E" were obscured by a splotch of black ink.

What aspects of processing make the Interactive Activation Model (IAM) *interactive*?

The Interactive Activation Model is interactive because information flows both ways—bottom-up and top-down—between different processing levels. This means higher-level ideas can help shape how we interpret basic features, and vice versa.

In the Interactive Activation Model of word recognition, connections between units in the model

can be feedforward, feedback, or lateral

Top-down processing refers to

The way in which information at a higher level of representation can influence ongoing perception

The words 'parallel' and 'distributed' in parallel distributed processing refer to the fact that

processing can happen at many different levels of representation at the same time

How does visual perception benefit from the properties of parallel distributed processing and interactivity?

Visual perception benefits because it can process lots of information at once across different brain areas (parallel processing) and use feedback between levels to quickly refine and improve what we see (interactivity). This makes perception faster and more accurate.

Lateral connections (i.e., between two elements at the same level of representation) are beneficial for visual processing because:

they help speed the "winner-take-all" process of determining which of these elements corresponds to something in the visual scene

Define aperceptive agnosia and associative agnosia. In what way(s) do they give evidence for different levels of processing in visual perception?

Apperceptive agnosia is when someone can't properly see the shapes or forms of objects, while associative agnosia is when they can see objects clearly but can't recognize or name them. This shows that visual perception has different levels—one for processing shapes and another for attaching meaning.

"Aperceptive agnosia" results from

disruptions of such "mid-level" processes as scene segmentation and/or identification of "geometric primitives" (a.k.a. geons).

Subtle forms of aperceptive agnosia can manifest as:

the ability to identify objects under ideal viewing conditions, but impairment under "noisy" viewing conditions, such as with lighting that creates unusual shadows, or when the objects are partly occluded by other objects

To what do the terms "dorsal stream" and "ventral stream" refer? Include anatomy and function in your answer.

The dorsal stream and ventral stream are two pathways in the brain's visual system. The dorsal stream, running from the occipital to the parietal lobe, helps with locating and moving objects ("where/how"), while the ventral stream, going to the temporal lobe, is involved in recognizing and identifying objects ("what").

The "dorsal stream" refers to

visual processing of spatial information carried out in the parietal cortex

The "ventral stream" refers to

visual processing of object-identity information carried out in occipitotemporal regions

Why is attention important for the cognitive system?

Attention is important because it helps the brain focus on the most important information while filtering out distractions, making it easier to process and respond to the world efficiently.

Why is attention important for the cognitive system?

At any moment in time, there is much, much more information coming in through our sensory organs than we are able to process effectively.

Selective attention is necessary for successfully carrying out most tasks in everyday life, because

it allows us to concentrate on behavioral goals, and not get overwhelmed and/or distracted by the many other souces of information in the environment.

What is the distinction between early-filter and late-filter theories of attention? Give experimental evidence for each.

Early-filter theories say attention blocks out unwanted information right after basic sensory processing, so only simple features like pitch or voice get noticed (evidence: Cherry's dichotic listening task where participants only noticed a voice change, not the message). Late-filter theories argue that the factor determining whether or not a stimulus gets selected, and therefore enters conscious awareness, can be influenced by either semantic or physical characteristics.

In Cherry's (1953) dichotic listening tasks (from Chapter 4) which of the following characteristics of the speech on the unattended ear would participants be able to report?

A switch from a male voice to a female voice

According to early filter theories of attention, a person yelling "FIRE!" in a movie theater would attract your attention because

the loudness of the yell.

According to late filter theories of attention

the factor determining whether or not a stimulus gets selected, and therefore does or does not enter consciosous awareness, can be influenced by either semantic (meaningful) or physical characteristics.

What does "inattentional blindness" refer to, and what might explain it?

Inattentional blindness is when you fail to see something obvious because your attention is focused somewhere else. It happens because your brain can only process a limited amount of information at a time.

One prominent example of inattentional blindness in daily life is "distracted driving." Distracted driving

can happen when the driver's eyes aren't on the road (e.g., when texting while driving) but also when the driver's eyes are on the road but they are carrying on a phone conversation (even if it's a "hand's free" set up).

In the Whodunnit? video clip that started off Tuesday's lecture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRFMuGBP15U), what explains the fact that you likely didn't detect many of the 21 changes that occurred?

None of the swapped-in objects were semantically/thematically different from what they replaced, and because they were background and not the focus of your attention (which was presumably the plot), the changes simply weren't noticed.

In the Posner (1980) spatial cuing task, describe the effects of valid cuing and of invalid cuing, relative to a neutral cue, and then describe the model that explains these results.

In Posner's spatial cuing task, valid cues (which correctly predict where a target will appear) speed up reaction times, while invalid cues (which mislead about the target's location) slow them down compared to neutral cues. This shows attention acts like a spotlight, focusing on expected locations to process info faster, explained by the spotlight model of attention.

Relative to a neutral cue, a valid cue has what effect?

It makes RT faster.

In the Posner (1980) cued spatial attention study, relative to a neutral cue, what is the effect of an invalid cue on performance?

It lengthens the RT (i.e., it imposes a cost on performance)

Define was distinguishes an exogenous shift of attehntion from an endogenous shift of attention, and describe how the temporal dynamics of these two phenomena differ.

An exogenous shift of attention is automatic and triggered by something outside you, like a sudden flash, while an endogenous shift is voluntary and controlled by you, like looking where someone points. Exogenous attention happens quickly but fades fast, whereas endogenous attention is slower and by choice.

Endogenous shifts of attention are the result of

A volitional, "internally derived" choice to shift attention.

Which of the following is true about the temporal dynamics of exogenous versus endogenous shifts of attention?

Exogenously triggered shifts of attention are relatively fast (maximum deployment by ~100 msec), but also short-lived (the effect of the shift doesn't persist beyond ~400 msec. Endogenously triggered shifts of attention, in contrast, are relatively slow (max. deployment takes ~300 msec) but they can be sustained indefinitely.

What is the distinction between endogenous control of attention and exogenous control of attention? Give an example of each. What brain systems suppor these two aspects of attention?

Endogenous attention is when you voluntarily focus on something based on your goals (like looking for a friend in a crowd), while exogenous attention is when something in the environment grabs your focus automatically (like turning toward a loud noise). Endogenous control relies on the frontal and parietal cortex, while exogenous control involves the temporoparietal junction and ventral frontal cortex.

Which of the following is an example of an exogenous capture of attention?

hearing your name being called across the room

Which of the following is an example of an endogenous shift of spatial attention?

On a trial of the "Posner" spatial cuing task, shifting your attention to the right after being cued with the word "right

Which is true of the systems in the brain associated with exogenous versus endogenous control of attention?

Exogenous shifts are triggered by the ventral attentional network (VAN), which includes temporoparietal junction (i.e., dorsal temporal and ventral parietal) and inferior frontal regions, and endogenous shifts are controlled by the dorsal attentional network (DAN) which includes frontal eye field (FEF) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC).

In a target detection task like the Posner spatial cuing task, summarize the effects of valid and of invalid spatial attentional cues, relative to neutral cues. What is the explanation for these effects?

Valid cues speed up reaction times because attention is already focused where the target appears, while invalid cues slow reaction times because attention has to shift away from the wrong spot; neutral cues fall in between. This happens because attention helps process information more efficiently when it's directed to the correct location.

An invalid spatial cue ...

... slows reaction time relative to valid and to neutral cues.

A valid spatial cue speeds reaction time relative to a neutral spatial cue because ...

because the valid cue allows the subject to engage attention at the target location before the target appears, thereby leading to it's quicker processing and a quicker response

Although the idea of a spotlight is often used as a metaphor for spatial attention, some details of the influence of valid vs. neutral vs. invalid cues on performance of the "Posner" spatial cuing task suggest that reaching and grasping with one's hand might be a better metaphor. Why?

Reaching and grasping works better as a metaphor because, like moving your hand, attention has to let go, move, and grab onto a new spot—showing why invalid cues slow you down and valid cues make you faster.

Manual grasping is a better metaphor for spatial attention than the spotlight because:

The act of grasping an object is more like selection than is just touching an object, and a spotlight can't grasp something, it can only touch (i.e., illuminate) things.

Summarize the main point of the Early Filter theory of attention, and the main point of the Late Selection theory of attention.

The Early Filter theory says we block out irrelevant information right after basic sensory processing, before we fully process its meaning. The Late Selection theory says all information is processed for meaning, but only the most important gets through to influence our awareness and actions.

Which of the following is an example of the fact that we ARE able to apply an early filter to our processing of sensory information?

In a dichotic listening task, if we're instructed by play attention to the words being spoken by a woman, and to ignore the words being spoken simultaneously by a man, we don't notice if, partway through the sequence of words, the man switched languages.

Which of the following is evidence consistent with late selection theories of attention?

In the read-the-sentence-in-ink task that we did in lecture, even though we could ignore most of the words in black, we quickly noticed the word in black if it was predicted. (E.g., when the first words of the sentence were "The name of the UW's mascot is Bucky ____," we predicted that the next word would be "Badger," and so we readily read the word "Badger" even though it was in black ink.)

Is hemispatial neglect due to disruption of the source or the site of attentional control? Explain your reasoning.

Hemispatial neglect is due to disruption of the source of attentional control, because the brain regions that normally direct attention (like parts of the parietal cortex) are damaged, so attention isn't sent to the neglected side even though the visual system itself is still working.

The fact that hemispatial neglect results from damage to the dorsal stream indicates that:

hemispatial neglect is due to a disruption of a source of attentional control, because the dorsal stream is associated with the representation of space, and the control of where in space to direct attention