PSYC 3030 Exam 1 (Lucas)

black box

The biggest challenge for cognitive psychology is that the mind is a _____________ and unobservable...you can see a stimulus and the response it causes, but not what happens in between

cognitive processes

verbs...what your mind is actually doing

EX: perceive, recognize, comprehend, access, decide, remember, etc.

cognitive representations

nouns...visible responses

EX: letters, words, sentences, behaviors, etc.

Wundt & Titchener

- first 2 psychology research labs

- used/believed in structuralism

- counted sensations

James

- published Principles of Psychology (1890)...observations about the mind from personal experience

- used functionalism

- more of a philosopher than a scientist

Watson

- Little Albert Experiment (how classical conditioning affected behavior)

- used Behaviorism

Skinner

- operant conditioning (use of reinforcements and rewards to drive behavior)

- used behaviorism

Pavlov

- classical conditioning with salivating dog

- used behaviorism

Donders

- Reaction Time and Mental Processes

- mental chronometry

- detection and decision stages

- Subtractive Method

Ebbinghaus

- studied the time course of learning and forgetting

- used himself as subject

- savings method to measure forgetting

- quantitative measurement of mental processes

Tolman

- trained rats to find food in a four-armed maze

- said rats acquired a cognitive map of the maze and were navigating to a specific arm...he was right

- didn't agree fully with other behaviorists

Structuralism

- assumes you CAN see inside the mind if you are properly trained

- says our overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations (the mind's "periodic table")

- used analytic introspection....a technique used to identify individual sensations

- emphasis on representations

problems with structuralism

- difficult to verify

- difficult to replicate

- we observe the end product of cognition, not the process itself

Functionalism

- What is the mind for?

- What functions does it serve?

- emphasis on processes

problems with behaviorism

- limiting science to observable things is bad

- difficult to account for creativity and diversity of human behavior

- certain experimental findings difficult to reconcile

Behaviorism

- the mind was abandoned

- emphasis on what can be observed

- goal: predict behavior

Cognitivism

- infer what's going on inside the mind

- assumptions:

1. the mind is somehow like a computer

2. the mind is designed to take in and process information

analytic introspection

definition: a technique in which trained subjects described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli...required extensive training

- could quantify sensations

mental chronometry

the study of the time course of mental processes

Donders' mental chronometry experiment

- a simple reaction task (detection)

- choice reaction task (detection + decision)

- subtractive method...subtract just detection task from detection + decision task to get the duration of the decision stage

why is it historically significant?

- idea: you can identify & measure mental processes

- technique: reaction time procedure

- modern techniques make similar assumptions

1. assumption of pure insertion (all stages remain the same when the new one is added)

2. assumption of additivity (durations of all stages add together to yield the reaction time)

3. assumes you already know what the stages are

3 problems associated with Donders' subtraction method?

Ebbinghaus' memory experiment

design:

- forced himself to memorize nonsense syllables

- determined time necessary to learn the whole list

- after a delay, tried to learn the list again

- came up with a measure called savings to determine how the time course of forgetting...

(time to learn list 1st time - time to learn the list 19 min later = savings after 19 min)

key findings:

- forgetting decreases exponentially with time

- savings in re-learning occurred even when he remembered none of the words (savings could be non-conscious)

operant and classical conditioning

2 most common research methods used by Behaviorist?

why did they use them?

- could manipulate observable behavior

cognitive map

a mental map (the rat in Tolman's experiment developed a conception of the maze's layout inside its mind to find the food)

- limiting science to observable things is a bad idea

- difficult to account for creativity and diversity of human behavior

- certain experimental findings difficult to reconcile with behaviorism

criticisms of Behaviorism?

George Miller's 1956 paper

found that, in general, people can remember 7 (+ or - 2) pieces of information at one time

1. the mind is an information processor

2. the mind's processes can occur in distinct stages

3. the mind may have processing capacities or limitations

how did digital computer change the way psychologists thought about the mind?

computational view of the mind (information processing perspective)

the operation of the mind can be described as occurring in a number of stages

input --> input processor --> memory unit --> arithmetic unit --> output

challenge of cognitive psychology: that almost every experiment conducted in psychology can be explained by many models

solution: to eliminate alternative explanations, do more experiments

what does "ruling out alternative explanations" mean?

Huppert and Piercy study

- disordered and healthy patients 4 pics and gave 1 second to study

- shown another list 20 min later and asked if the pics were old or new

- disordered patients did worse (was is a problem with encoding, storage or retrieval?)

- let the disordered patients study pics for 48 seconds

- results now matched the healthy patients...problem = encoding

models in cognitive psychology

- representations of structures or processes that help us visualize or explain the structure or process...structural and process

- purposes: simplify, provide a starting point for research

structural model

definition: represent structures in the brain that are involved in specific functions

examples: plastic models of a brain, diagrams that depict how areas of the brain are connected

process model

definition: illustrate how a process operates

examples: boxes representing specific processes and arrows indicating connections between processes...Broadbent's filter model of attention

logic theorist

definition: program created by Newell and Simon, "thinking machine"...used humanlike reasoning processes to solve problems

relevance?

the first artificial intelligence program

dichotic listening task

2 sentences read to a person at the same time...person asked to ignore one and say the other aloud (shadowing)

easier:

- info presented to 2 diff. locations

- info spoken with diff. physical characteristics

difficult:

- meanings of the 2 sentences are different

3 characteristics that can separate one auditory channel from another

easy or difficult?

early attentional selection

If physical changes are noticed in the unattended message, then ________ features processed before filtering occurs

EX: broadbent's model, treisman's model

late attentional selection

If meaning-based changes are noticed in unattended message, then _______ information is processed before filtering occurs

EX: Deutch and Deutch model

Broadbent's filtering model

stages:

Input --> Sensory memory --> FILTER --> Detector

predictions of what info is detected from unattended message: specific physical characteristics (rate of speaking or pitch of the voice)

Treisman's attenuation model

stages:

Input --> Sensory Memory --> ATTENUATOR --> Dictionary Unit

predictions of what info is detected from unattended message: physical characteristics AND language of the message AND its meaning

overt shifts of attention

shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes

covert shifts of attention

shifting attention from one place to another while keeping the eyes stationary

attentional capture

a physical shift of attention due to something salient in the environment (contrast, motion, loudness)

example of bottom-up influence

bottom-up influences

- Information that begins in the senses; the energy registering on receptors

- Sequence of events from the eye to the brain

top-down influences

- Information that begins in the brain; knowledge, experiences, expectations

- Biases due to physical and semantic regularities in the person's environment

Posner Precuing Task

- You look at a cross in the middle of the screen the whole time...an arrow appears that may or may not tell you where a box will appear...box appears somewhere else and the time it takes for you to see the box without directly looking at it is recorded

- Valid trial had fastest response, then neutral, then invalid

disengage --> move --> re-engage

hemispatial neglect

- site of brain damage in neglect: right parietal lobe

- patients don't notice one side of their vision

- example of failure of attention

Balint's syndrome

- Rare disorder that results from bilateral parietal lobe damage

- Unlike hemispatial neglect, no preference for a specific visual field

- Inability to focus attention on individual objects

- Unusually high rate of conjunction errors

inattentional blindness

a failure to perceive information that is fully visible while performing an attentionally demanding task

change blindness

- Changes to a scene under typical viewing conditions will capture attention

- But, the change signal can be hidden by any sort of disruption

People are more likely to notice events that are consistent with expectations

How do peoples' expectations affect the likelihood that inattentional blindness will occur?

peripheral interference hypothesis

definition: interference from holding phone, dialing, looking at dial pad, etc.

supported by research of Strayer and Johnson? NO

attentional interference hypothesis

definition: interference from diverting attention from driving to the conversation itself

supported by research of Strayer and Johnson?

YES

- task difficulty (central capacity theories)

- task similarity (modular theories)

- practice (Shneider and Shiffrin)

3 factors that influence how well we're able to divide attention and findings from research to support

Central Capacity Theories of Attention

- Developed by Daniel Kahneman

- Says attention is a finite resource, only have a certain amount

- There is an amount of possible activities

- There is an allocation policy for how much attention you give to those possible activities

- Based on enduring dispositions and momentary intentions

- Also based on evaluation of demands on capacity

- Predicts performance trade-offs between two simultaneous tasks

- More capacity towards one = worse performance on the other

Modular Theories of Attention

- Tasks may be performed by independent cognitive processing systems

- Independent attentional resources

- Divided attention is hardest when tasks compete for the same resources

processing that occurs without intention and at a cost of only some of a person's cognitive resources

hallmarks of automatic processing

- Different parts of the brain process different types of information (motion, color, shape, etc.)

- Yet, we perceive the world as a set of integrated, coherent objects ("rolling red ball")

"binding problem" in cognitive psychology

Object --> Preattentive Stage --> Focused Attention Stage --> Perception

stages of feature integration theory

illusory conjunctions

Perceptual mix-ups between object features due to lack of attentions

how does FIT explain them?

in the preattentive stage, each feature exists independently of the others...they are "free floating" and can be incorrectly combined

feature search

a visual search in which the target can be located based on a single feature

conjunction search

a visual search in which the target must be located based on a combination of features

processing capacity (the amount of info people can handle) and perceptual load (the difficulty of the task)

According to Lavie's Load Theory of Attention, what are two key factors that determine how well someone can ignore a distracting stimulus?

Stroop effect

when the names of the words cause a competing response and therefore slow responding to the target

EX: the word RED is printed in blue ink

cell body

part of a neuron that contains mechanisms that keep the cell alive...contains organelles

axon

part of the neuron that transmits signals from the cell body to the synapse at the end

dendrites

structures that branch out from the cell body to receive electrical signals from other neurons

neurotransmitters

chemical that is released at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials

synapse

space between the end of an axon and the cell body or dendrite of the next axon

action potential

propagated electrical potential responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons (typically travel down a neuron's axon)

depolarization

repolarization

hyperpolarization

resting potential

difference in charge between the inside and outside of a nerve fiber when the fiber is at rest (no other electrical signals present)

rate of firing increases as intensity increases

How do neurons respond to changes in stimulus intensity?

hierarchical processing

processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain

edges and lines

what type of visual info processed by early visual regions (V1)?

shapes

what type of visual info processed by later visual regions (V2/V4)?

faces and objects

what type of visual info processed by temporal lobe regions (IT)?

specificity coding

the representation of a specific stimulus by the firing of neurons that respond only to that stimulus (firing of a neuron that responds only to one person's face)

population coding

neural representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons

sparse coding

neural coding based on the pattern of activity in small groups of neurons

some functions only require one specific area of the brain while other functions require many areas of the brain

What does it mean to say cognitive functions are both localized and distributed in the brain?

double dissociation

2 functions are localized in different parts of the brain and:

area A is important for function X, but not function Y...area B is important for function Y, but not function X

effects of damage to Broca's area

damage impairs language production, not comprehension

effects of damage in Wernicke's area

damage impairs language comprehension, not production

different aspects of speech are located in different parts of the brain

how is speech processing organized in the brain?

fusiform face area

an area of the temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces...damage causes "face blindness"

parahippocampal place area

an area in the temporal lobe that contains neurons that are selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes

extrastriate body area

an area in the temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies, but not by faces or other objects

neuropsychological (lesion) methods

studies of cognition in people with brain damage

what questions can be answered?

- whether a particular area of the brain is specialized to serve a particular cognitive function

MRI

measures the volume of the brain and individual structures (takes advantage of magnetic properties of hydrogen atoms to construct images)

- excellent for revealing brain structures but not neural activity

diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)

examine white matter tracts or bundles of axons that allow signals to travel across the brain (measures the extent to which water moves along the length of the tract)

structural brain imaging

CORRELATIONAL

- used for measuring brain structure, not function

fMRI

measures changes in blood flow in a region of the brain following task-evoked changes in neural activity (indirect measure of neural activity)

- high spatial resolution

- low temporal resolution

EEG

measures small electrical changes at the scalp that reflect the firing of large populations of neurons (direct measure of neural activity)

- high temporal resolution

- spatial resolution cannot be determined

functional brain imaging

CORRELATIONAL

- measures what is going on in the brain while people are performing cognitive tasks

transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

- electromagnetic coil used to induce electrical activity in underlying brain tissue

- Can be used to disrupt OR enhance neural activity

limitations:

- can only stimulate structures accessible from skull

- effects are short-lived

- rarely, can cause seizures

correlational/causational: CAUSATIONAL

function-to-structure mapping

- identifying neural correlates of a cognitive function

advantages:

- easy first step to apply neuroimaging to new areas

- can generate hypotheses for future experiments

disadvantages:

- doesn't teach anything about the mind

- relies on the assumptions of the subtraction method (assumption of pure insertion is especially problematic)

function-to-structure deduction

- if 2 behaviors correlate with qualitatively different patterns of activity over the brain, it can be inferred that these behaviors reflect 2 different cognitive processes

advantages:

- tells about the relationships among cognitive processes

disadvantages:

- pure insertion problem is still in play