Cognitive Psychology

The Cognitive Revolution

The Cognitive Revolution

A combination of technological advancements and human factors (WW2). Gestalt, Alan Baddeley were important psychologists in the revolution.

Donders (1868) Procedure

Simple reaction time versus choice reaction time

Donders (1868) Results and Conclusion

Choice reaction time takes 1/10 seconds longer; therefore, it takes 1/10 second to make a decision

Donders (1868) Contribution

First cognitive psychology experiment

Wundt (1879) Procedure

Analytic introspection

Wundt (1879) Results and Conclusion

No reliable results

Wundt (1879) Contribution

Established the first laboratory of scientific psychology

Ebbinghaus (1885) Procedure

Savings method to measure forgetting

Ebbinghaus (1885) Results and Conclusion

Forgetting occurs rapidly in the first 1 to 2 days after original learning

Ebbinghaus (1885) Contribution

Quantitative measurement of mental processes

James(1890) Results and Conclusion

Descriptions of a wide range of experiences

James(1890) Contribution

First psychology textbook; some of his observations are still valid today

Problems with analytic introspection method

Extremely variable results per person

Results difficult to verify due to focus on invisible inner mental processes

Behaviorism

Eliminate the mind as a topic of study. Instead, study directly observable behavior

Structural Model

Provide a representation of a physical structure and may mimic the form or appearance of a given object

Process Models

Represent the processes involved in cognitive mechanisms. Often boxes represent specific processes and arrows represent the connection between processes.

Axon

the neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands

Cell body

the cell's life support center

Dendrites

Branchlike parts of a neuron that are specialized to receive information.

Action potential

A neuron receives signals from the environment. The information travels down the axon of that neuron to the dendrites of another neuron.

Synapse

space between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite or cell body of another

Frontal Lobe

Language/music production Strategic thinking Social cognition Short-term memory Voluntary movements

Parietal Lobe

Complex visual/touch perception Body sense (R) Arithmetic, L/R sense (L)

Temporal Lobe

Hearing and language decoding Long-term memory Face/object identification Taste Smell

Occipital Lobe

Visual pattern recognition

fMRI

Is used to visualize the activity in its various regions

EEG

Measures the brain's overall neuronal activity over a continuous period by means of electrodes glued to the scalp

ERP

Are direct measures of brain activity that can be leveraged for clinically meaningful research

TMS

Lets researchers apply an electrical stimulus directly to the brain without having to open the skull surgically and install electrodes

Inverse Projection Problem

Refers to the task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on the retina

Objects can be hidden and blurry

Humans are pretty good at using context to identify ambiguous stimuli

Viewpoint Invariance

Objects look different from different viewpoints

Bottom-up Processing

Perception may start with the senses Incoming raw data Energy registering on receptors

Top-down Processing

Perception may start with the brain Person's knowledge, experience, expectations

Gestaltism

the idea that we perceive the form or configuration of things before we understand their parts

Distinctive Features

All complex perceptual stimuli are composed of distinctive and separable attributes called features

Recognition by Components Theory

Biederman's theory stating that we recognize objects by first identifying the geons that correspond to their subobjects

Template-Matching Theory

We have stored away an unlimited number of literal copies corresponding to every object we have experienced

Prototype Theory

Pattern recognition occurs when the features of the object to be recognized overlap in some way with the features of the prototype.

Phoneme

in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Pure Word Deafness

The ability to hear words, but only as sounds, not as language Can hear, speak, read, write, and comprehend non-verbal sounds

The Word-Superiority Effect

People are better at recognizing letters when they are embedded in real words than when those letters are seen in random strings of letters or when letters appear alone

Direct Pathway Model

model of pain perception that proposes that pain signals are sent directly from receptors to the brain

Helmholtz's Theory of Unconscious Inference

Our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions

Oblique effect:

People can perceive verticals and horizontals more easily than other orientations.

Light-from-above assumption:

Light usually comes from above in our environment. We perceive shadows as specific information about depth and distance.

Semantic Regularities:

The meaning of a given scene is related to what is happening within that scene, and semantic regularities are the characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes.

Scene Schema

The knowledge of what a given scene ordinarily contains. Bayesian Inference: One's estimate of the probability of a given outcome is influenced by the

Bayesian Inference

One's estimate of the probability of a given outcome is influenced by the prior probability (our initial belief about the probability of an outcome) and the likelihood of a given outcome.

Prosopagnosia

People who are unable to recognize familiar faces are said to have prosopagnosia, which is sometimes referred to as face blindness

Early selection:

Only the attended channel gets through the filter and meaning is only extracted from the attended channel. Selection is based only on the physical characteristics (pitch, loudness) not on meaning.

Late selection:

Meaning is extracted for everything. Attentional selection is based on meaning AND on the physical characteristics of the system.

Attenuation (leaky filter)

Selection is based on physical characteristics of the signal. The unattended signals are weakened but they aren't blocked completely. Attended to messages is let through the attenuator at full strength. Unattended messages are let through at a much weaker strength.

Perceptual Load Theory:

Selection appears to be early with the perceptual task is difficult. All resources are needed to identify the target so there are no leftover resources left to process a flanker (a nearby distractor).

Automatic Processing:

Automatic tasks do not require effort. These are things that are so well learned that we can do them without conscious effort.

Controlled Processing

Controlled Processing do require effort

The Stroop Task:

The name of the word interferes with the ability to name the ink color.

Overt vs. covert attention

Overt Attention: with eye, head, or body movements Covert Attention: without eye, head, or body movements

Visual Search (feature vs. conjunction)

Feature: tend to be constant across set sizes Conjunction: tend to increase with the number of objects in the display.

Bottom-up vs. top-down attentional guidance

Bottom-up: Targets distinguished by high feature contrast (salience) are found efficiently. Top-down: Eyes movements are determined by task. Eye movements precede motor actions by a fraction of a second.

Divided attention

Attention is a resource distributed among tasks. Our ability to focus attention varies with the number and complexity of the tasks and how mentally energized we are at the time.

Change Blindness

Change is undetected when it coincides with a visual disruption.

Inattentional Blindness:

Failure to detect an unexpected event that is fully visible.

Binding:

Is the process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object.

Whole Report:

Participants asked to report as many as could be seen They averaged of 4.5 out of 12 letters (37.5%)

Partial Report:

Same array presented, but is followed by a tone that indicates which row they should report. Participants averaged 3.3 out of 4 letters (82%). Performance similar across all of the rows.

Delayed partial report:

Tone delayed for a fraction of a second after the letters were extinguished As the tone delay increased, performance decreases

Brown-Peterson Task

Cognitive exercise purposed for testing the limits of working memory duration.

Proactive interference:

Is when something that you have already learned interferes with your ability to recall more recent events.

Retroactive interference:

Occurs when what you know now makes it difficult to recall something that occurred previously.

Duration:

The duration of unrehearsed information in STM is approximately 15-20 seconds.

Primacy Effect:

tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well

Recency Effect:

tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well

LTM Capacity:

The capacity of LTM has no obvious limit!

Coding:

Long-term memory is able to work many perceptual codes: semantic, visual, sound, spatial, kinesthetic.

Clive Wearing:

A case of viral encephalitis destroyed Clive Wearing's hippocampus, amygdala, and other parts of the temporal lobe. He suffers from both anterograde and retrograde amnesia.

Episodic Memory:

The portion of LTM that stores and connects the specific times, places, and events in an individual's life—it is autobiographical in nature.

Semantic Memory:

The aspect of LTM that retains conceptual knowledge stored as an independent knowledge base. Facts and knowledge.

Procedural Memory:

Stored knowledge that allows us to behave skillfully in spite of the fact that we cannot remember learning the individual skills needed to perform a particular task.

Priming:

Presentation of one stimulus changes the way a person responds to another stimulus.

Conditioning:

Pairing a neutral stimulus with a reflexive response.

Shallow processing:

Little attention to meaning, focus on physical features, poor memory

Deep processing:

Close attention to meaning, better memory

Rehearsal Studying techniques:

Visual Imagery Self-Reference Effect Generation Effect Organizing to-be-remembered information Relating words to survival value Retrieval practice

Retrieval cues:

Is an effective reminder when it helps re-create the specific way an experience was initially encoded.

Encoding Specificity

The way you think about information when you store it has an effect on what sort of retrieval cue will be useful in helping you recall the information.

Multiple Trace Hypothesis:

The assumption that the hippocampus is important only at the beginning of consolidation.

Sleep and consolidation:

Consolidation is enhanced during sleep. But, some memories are more likely to be consolidated than others!