Edit · PSYCH 240 Exam 1

What is Cognitive Psychology?

The scientific study of the human mind. The study of structures and processes of the mind and brain that take in, transform, and use information.

Challenge of Cognitive psychology

The mind is unobservable. You cannot observe a mind. You can observe the stimulus and the products. "The mind is like a black box"

What cognitive psychologists can observe:

Products, output of the mind: behavior, physiology.

Three precursors to cognitive psychology

Introspectionism (Structuralism), Behaviorism, Functionalism

Introspectionism (Structuralism)

Means to look inward. To understand the mind, look inside and see the contents of the mind. What are the structures inside the mind that we can observe by looking inward and thinking about we experience.

Wilhelm Wundt

German who originated the school of psychology of Introspectionism (Structuralism)

Edward Tichener

(1896) Student of Wilhelm Wundt. (Introspectionist) cataloged 42,415 sensations.

Key problem with Introspectionism

It isn't really like empirical science like modern science. Difficult to verify objectively. Introspection by definition deal with private events.. You observe the end product and NOT the process itself. Hard to come up with a good detailed understanding of what's going on in the mind.

Functionalism

A reaction to structuralism (introspectionism) Result of people being dissatisfied with structuralism. Natural evolution.. Arguing for scientific study of mind using biology and physiology. Mind is evolved. Theres a reason why the mind does its things. What is the purpose of the mind. How are we using it? What can it accomplish.

William James

(1842-1910). Leader of functionalism movement. First person to distinguish between STM and LTM.

John Dewey

Leader of Pragmatist school. Subset of Fundamentalism.

Pragmatism

Put knowledge to use. Applied psychology. EDUCATION. Developing a practical use in the methods and ways of thinking of functionalist psychology. attribute of accepting the facts of life and favoring practicality and literal truth

Progressive Education

Ideas and practices with the objective to make school teachings more effective for a democratic society.

Behaviorism

Science of understanding behavior. Forget mind, mental processes. Trying to understand behavior. An approach to psychology that emphasizes observable measurable behavior. Dominant school of thought for the 20th century. Emphasis on what can be directly observed. Thirsty = "water deprived" operationally.

Ivan Pavlov

Behaviorist. Discovered classical conditioning.

John Watson

Pioneer of developing behaviorism. Systematic way of approaching psychology through behaviorist perspective. Behavior is all you need. You can understand between stimuli and responses (even complicated behaviors). Thinking is subvocal speech. founder of infomercials.

B.F. Skinner

Behaviorist. Took form of focusing on different kind of conditioning. OPERANT CONDITIONING. Language is developed through operant conditioning. EVERYTHING IS LEARNED. Everything can be predicted. If you know what kind of behaviors you want to have, you can create your society by operant conditioning. (radical behaviorism). TRULY DENIED EXISTENCE OF MIND. All stimuli and responses.

Operant conditioning

conditioning in which an operant response is brought under stimulus control by virtue of presenting reinforcement contingent upon the occurrence of the operant response.

Classical conditioning

conditioning that pairs a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that evokes a reflex

Problem with behaviorism

Behaviorist perspective can't account for the Limiting 1) Science limited to observable things is a bad idea. Whos's ever seen an electron? 2) creativity and diversity of human behaviors. can't account for someone creating something totally new. Ex. Language: Children learning the rules of language. Can take nonsense words and put an s for plural. The child has a rule (mental state) that links s's to words. Children make grammatical mistakes. There's no way the child was rewarded with that. if a child learning language can only produce utterances they have heard before, we have no explanation for why a child producing the plural version of a nonexistent word (like 'wug') will create the plural the same way they would with an existent word (so they would produce 'wugs' and not 'snaf'). On the other hand, if you believe that there is an underlying set of mental states / operations that creates plurals from singulars, you can explain why the child will produce 'wugs'.Why do children make grammatical mistakes? They've never been reinforced to say it.

Cognitivism. The cognitive approach

After developments, (Computers, etc.) Responses are still important. Take stimuli and responses, and infer what's going on in the mind. Use observable data to make inferences.

Computational view of the mind

mainstream underlying assumption: the mind is somehow like a computer. Broad idea .. Takes information.. stores some of it.. keeps in temporary memory RAM and then process it. INFORMATION PROCESSING PERSPECTIVE. information, processes

information

1) sensory data - data receive from external world. 2) representations - various kinds of memory.

sensory data

data received from external world

representations

1) procedural representations. (KNOWING HOW TO DO THINGS)

2)declarative representation Knowing "that" something is true

-semantic memory

-episodic memory

semantic memory

knowledge that is true in general about the world. don't remember when you learned it necessarily. any fact about the world that is stored in your memory. you know its true. Obama is president of the united states. Trees have green leaves.

episodic memories

memories that are associated with the time we learned the memory. we remember learning it, being there, experiencing the learning of the fact. sometimes episodic memories turn to semantic. you need an episodic representation to remember a list of words in the future.

Processes

operations or procedures that change representations from one thing to another. something that transforms information. transformation from "turtle" to image of turtle. addition from "2+3" to "5"

Donders

Developed Mental Chronometry. Key contributions: idea: you can identify & measure mental processes. Technique: the reaction time procedure. modern research makes similar assumptions.. similar criticisms can apply.

Mental Chronometry

Measurement of time required to complete mental processes. Mind consists of several different kinds of mental processes. We want to understand the processes and how long they take. Sensory data-> processing > more processing >response. receives information from the previous stage. transforms the information. sends the information to the next stage. 1)Trying to determine what the identity of the stages are. 2)determining how long different stages took.

Origins of mental chronometry

Maskelyne's assistant (kinnebrook) 1795. kinebrook's reaction time for a star to pass were longer than maskelyns.blah. funny story waste of time.

Subtraction method

Method to determine what the lengths of processes are. , Involves estimating the time a cognitive process takes by subtracting the amount of time information processing takes with the process from the time it takes without the process

Problems with subtraction method

1) assumption of pure insertion, 2) assumption of additivity, 3) assumes you know what the stages are already

assumption of pure insertion

Inserting a new cognitive process (e.g., identification) does not

affect the processes underlying the existing task (e.g., detection).

assumption of additivity

All stages add together to give reaction time. BUT stages may occur in parallel!!!!

modern cognitive psychology

key methodological technique: eliminating alternative explanations

Huppert & Piercy experiment

study of amnesics...experiment 1: there is a deficit in amnesics. They're impaired at recognizing earlier pictures. how do they explain it? experiment 2: 80% correct when amnesics had MORE time. then tested recognition in 3 different times. THEY HAD THE SAME RATE OF FORGETTING AS CONTROLS!!! so the problem ISN'T storage/retrieval. They're being allowed to compensate their problem with encoding. their memory does okay once encoded. (% correctly recognized vs. when tested)

dependent variable

what you measure and analyze (e.g. reaction time, accuracy, brain activity)

independent variable

what you manipulate (number of items to be memorized. e.g. amount of alcohol ingested. passage of time) HAS LEVELS. : independent variable= time taken, control vs. amnesic group. dependent: %correctly recognized

Main effect

an effect of an independent variable on the dependent variable. You want to see if the independent variable has an effect on the dependent variable. if there is an effect, you say it has a main effect. the groups differ in their reaction time. used for statistical tests

Interaction

the effect of one independent variable depends on the level of a second independent variable. requires at least two independent variables. interactions are determined using statistical tests.

episodic memory

more tied with sensory information (smell like, sound like), more prone to forgetting, take longer to remember.

semantic memory

more meaning based and conceptual, less prone to forgetting, and tend to be recalled more quickly than episodic memories.

evidence that episodic is different than semantic

two kids brain damage 4, or at birth. had difficulty with everyday episodic memory (who was the person you just met, what was weather like yesterday) but they had normal semantic memory. they didn't remember episodic memory. important to keep them distinct.. different kind of experiences that we have.

important principles of how to study

levels of processing, elaborative processing, generation effect, desirable difficulties

levels of processing

deep vs. shallow processing (Hyde & Jenkins) deeper the level of processing when you're encountering matierla, the better you're going to remember it. experiment: incidental learning (don't know memory test) intentional learning (told about memory test). deep : rate words for pleasantness. shallow : determine whether e' or 'g' is present.

elaborative rehearsal

rather than shallow rote repetition, use deep semantic elaboration. relate ideas to each other and to other things you know. allows new ideas to be generated. allows you to practice recalling. "what's episodic memory? it is a declarative memory")

deep, elaborative processing lessons:

1) don't look over the chapter and your notes (shallow processing), note-taking: should focus on interpretation, stating information in new ways, relating ideas to each other, how does this differ from that? , set up situations for deep processing, go through chapter outline and write down questions that you try to answer without looking at text, make outline and fill in details, try to describe a lecture slide to a friend.

The generation Effect

simple finding: when people generate words (stem completion), they remember the word better. self=generated material is recalled better. uses learner's own words, which are easier to recall. produces more and better retrieval routes. (this practice is helpful too)

he generation effect: lessons:

when learning experimental results, draw figure or table from memory. draw graph from huppert and piercy. generate information whenever possible. don't just copy it or highlight it or underline. if you think that you know something you may be fooling yourself unless you produce it

desirable difficulties

no pain, no gain. things you do when you study and you won't like it. you'd rather do other things, but these things willl help you learn better. vary the conditions of learning. provide contextual interference during learning. interleaving rather than blocking practice. distributing or spacing study or practice sessions. using tests rather than presentations as learning events.

vary the conditions of learning

the context in which you learn. the place. . the more you vary your conditions when you study, the stronger your memory will be. however, testing THE SAME room is better. your memory hooks things together, the more hooks, the better.

ways to provide contextual interference during learning

interleave topics! INTERLEAVED BETTER THAN MASSED. why? enhances learning.

distributing or spacing study or practice sessions

cramming is inefficient. better off separating on separate days. the longer the delay between study and test, the longer the spacing should between study sessions

perception

the means by which information acquired from the environment via the sense organ is transformed into experiences of objects, events, sounds, tastes, etc. 1) distal stimulus , 2) proximal stimulus 3) representation 4) response.

distal stimulus

In the processes of perception, the physical object in the world

proximal stimulus

the 2-D optical image on the retina. 2-d pattern of energy. does not tell directly what the shape it.

representation

indication of what the object is in and looks like in 3-D

response

in perception.. verbalizing what the object is, pressing a button, has to be expressed through some kind of behavior

lack of correspondence

perceptual experience does not correspond to the distal stimulus. perceptual experience does not accurately represent the distal stimulus. Ex. (VISUAL ILLUSIONS)

paradoxical correspondence

PERCEPTIONAL CONSTANCY. when proximal stimulus does not correspond to the distal stimulus, but perception does (moving objects, moving eyes) (ex. person moving across room...follow him with our eyes their structure stays in the middle of our retina, but we still know they are moving; picture of a person close and far - we know that the two don't differ much in heigh but in the actual picture our retina sees that one is smaller - we know he is not) we activitely perceive the distal stiumulus but do not have all the proximal information. (SIZE CONSTANCY, SHAPE CONSTANCY, COLOR CONSTANCY)

perceptional constancy: size

our perception of the sizes of objects are CONSTANT despite the fact that the size of objects on the retina vary greatly with distance. (boat, two guys)

Perceptual constancy: color

our perception of the color of an object remains constant under different conditions of illumination. (lit up picture)

perceptual constancy: shape

our perception of the shape of an object remains constant despite changes in the shape of its retinal projection (i.e. the proximal stimulus) caused by the movement of the object relative to the viewer

historical theoretical approaches to understanding perception

structuralism, gestalt psychology

structuralism approach to perception

all perceptions are the elementary building blocks of perception. perceptions are created by the addition of numerous individual sensations. dots on the retina

gestalt psychology

the whole is different from the sum of its parts. structural analysis ignores the relationships between stimuli.

pragnanz: law of simplicity

gestalt psychology. every stimulus pattern is seen in such away that the structure is as simple as possible. we try to come up with a simple explanation to what we're perceiving. laws of perceptual organization.

law of proximity.

gestalt psychology. law of perceptual organization. things that are closer together are seen as part of a group. 6 lines instead of 48 dots

law of similarity

things that are similar seem part of the same group. circles and squares.

law of good continuation

things are grouped together if they seem to be lying on the same contour. two pairs of earphones.

law of closure

gaps in figures tend to be filled in. instead of 4 arcs, a circle. lines, a square.

law of common fate

things are grouped together if they move together.

figure-ground segregation

part of the image will be treated as the figure (foreground object) and part will be treated as the ground (background). things that are symmetric tend to be seen as a figure.

modern theoretical approaches to perception

direct perception. constructivist theory

direct perception school of thought

environment provides all the necessary information for us to create an accurate perception. all the information you need is in the proximal stimulus. stimulus information is unambiguous. our brains are pre-wired to pick up this information. no need to have prior idea. movement helps us to pick up the formation. dotted walking person.

direct perception

A theory of perception, proposed by James J. Gibson, holding that information in the world is "picked up on" by the cognitive processor without much construction of internal representations or inferences. The emphasis is on direct acquisition of information. GIBSONian. dotted walking person.

james gibson

direct perception

constructivism

school of thought to approach perception. perception uses data from the world and our prior knowledge and expectations. sensory information is often ambiguous. must rely on knowledge/expectations. we don't see things as they are, we se things as we are.

bottom-up processing

information processing driven by stimulus data only. direct perception: perception is purely bottom-up

top-down processing

information processing driven by prior knowledge and expectations. constructivism: perception combines bottom-up and top-down processing.

cues for depth processing

linear perspective

linear perspective

lines that are parallel in the 3-d will appear to converge in the image. renaissance art. perceive distance

texture gradient

objects of the same size form smaller images when they're further away. perceives distance.

aerial perspective

the atmosphere scatters light. more distant objects are fainter and less distinct.

relative size

if two objects are the same size, the more distant one will appear smaller in the image

interposition

an object that breaks another object's contour is perceived as the closer one.

shadow

shadows are assumed to be produced by light shining from above

binocular disparity (retinal)

requires both eyes. distance information from the difference in the image seen by the two eyes. 3 d glasses. present two images to each retina .. makes it look 3d. . things DONT HAVE TO BE MOVING

motion parallax

depends on movement. closer objects appear to move faster than more distant object. monocular.

accommodation

extra-retinal cue. based on muscular sensations inside the body. round lens for things near. your body knows by the size of the lens how far something is.

convergence

muscles that control the direction of the eyes produce a cue that's related to how far something is. something close.. eyes turned inward. something far... eyes more outward. unconscious information.

increasing complexity WHICH LOBE?

on and off center cells. project to visual cortex. simple cells --> complex - > hyper complex. the things that the cells become sensitive to are extremely complex. cells that are sensitive to particular things (faces, grandmother, buildings) there's not a cell for every person. WHAT pathway, identification. occipital lobe.

mehvish question

if you do an experiment, longer reaction time when people scan long distances than . you want to say that the evidence supports your theory. confirming evidence may support your theory but there are multiple explanations. when you have alternative theories.

hermann grid

standard explanations : on center cells.. foveal representation

important principles of vision

feature analysis, what vs. where

fovea

dent in eye. fewer cells between light and photoreceptor cells

photoreceptors

rods and cones

rods

black and white (light to dark). high sensitivity (only takes a little bit of light). low acuity (no details). periphery (in periphery more.. not fovea) NIGHT VISION. 120 million

cones

color vision. low sensitivity (takes more light to make them go) high acuity (better detail from visual world) fovea (highest concentration of cones. in FOVEA.6 million