Cognition Exam3

Visual Imagery

seeing in the absence of a visual stimulus

another way of thinking, adds a dimension to verbal techniques

Mental Imagery

experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of a sensory input

Wundt

consciousness = sensations, feelings, and images

imageless thought debate that the cognitive rev revitalized

Imageless Thought Debate

Aristotle - not possible to think wo imagining

Dalton - it is possible

is imagery visual perception or language based?

Pavio

• 1963, 1965

• mem for words that evoke mental images is better than for words that do not (tree vs. truth)

• Conceptual peg hypothesis

• inferred cognitive from behavioral memory data

Conceptual Peg Hypothesis

images that words can “hang on to” - easier to remember words that are easily associated with a large number of things

boat-hat: hat can be many places, associates easily with other words

Shepard & Metzler

• 1971, mental chronometry

• RT method for mental rotation - polygon shapes, have to mentally rotate them to see if they match another shape

• quantitative method of imagery study → perception and imagery share a mechanism

Mental Chronometry

amt of time needed to carry out a task

Perception and Imagery Mechanism?

spatial representation of stim corresponds btwn imagery and perception

mental scanning, Kosslyn

Mental Scanning

participants create mental images then scan them in their minds

Kosslyn 1973

• memorize a picture then create an image of it

• in image move from one part to another, push button after

• took longer for mental movement of longer distances in the picture

• evidence for imagery being spatial

Lea 1975

alternative explanation to imagery being spatial: attentional

more distractions/interesting things encountered in a mental scan lead to a longer RT

rebuttal to Kosslyn 1973

Kosslyn et al., 1978

response to Lea, same implications as first study

island with 7 locations, did 21 trips, still took longer for greater distances

visual imagery is spatial

Pylyshyn 1973

spatial representation is an epiphenomenon

imagery is propositional - represented as abstract symbols

Epiphenomenon

something that accompanies a real mechanism but is not actually a part of it - 3rd variable

Viewing Distance

how far away you are from an object changes what it looks like

if the object fills the visual field → details become harder to observe

if the object is far away → details are lost

Kosslyn 1978

• imagine a rabbit and an elephant with the elephant filling the space

• or a flea and a rabbit similarly

• easier to give details about the rabbit with the flea by RT

• mental walk - had to move closer to smaller animals to provide details

• evidence that viewing distance effects imagery → imagery is spatial

Perky 1910

imagery and perception mix

low brightness projection on wall (participants could not see)

participants mistook the actual projection (picture) as their own mental image

Brain Imaging

Kosslyn 1995 - topographic map, image sizes

Grannis 2004 - overlap in frontal, differences in the back of the brain

Kosslyn et al. 1995

topographic map - activate specific locations on brain structure

size of mental images - smaller images to back of temporal

larger images activate a larger area of the brain

Granis et al. 2004

• imagine studied images when hearing a tone

• tell if object of imagining is wide or tall

• overlaps for seeing image/imagining in front (frontal lobe), differences in the back

• perceptual vs. imagery differences in the brain

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

decreases brain functioning in a particular area of the brain for a short time (highly magnetic wand)

if behavior is disrupted - that brain region is responsible for the behavior

TMS Perception vs. Imagery

view (perception) or imagine (imagery) bars and judge their lengths

TMS on visual cortex slowed RT for both

Visual Cortex Damage - removed right occipital

from MGS results of mental walk task

decreases the size of the visual field

15 ft → 35 ft away from a horse for it to fill the full visual field

Dissociations

evidence for independence of perception and imagery

CK vs. RM double dissociation

CK

visual agnosia - inabil to name images of objects even own drawings

could draw objects with great detail from memory

imagery intact, perceptual damaged

RM

occipital and parietal lobe damage

could draw accurate picture of objects in front of him

could not draw accurate pictures of objects from memory

had perceptual, did not have imagery

Perceptual vs. Imagery Conclusions

• separate mechanisms but some shared mechanism

• different in experience

  • perception is automatic and stable

  • imagery takes effort, is fragile, and faces difficulties with ambiguous swaps (rabbitduck)

Spatial Imagery

abil to visualize spatial relations

PFT - paper folding test

Object Imagery

ability to visualize details, features, and objects

VVIQ - vividness of visual imagery questionnaire

Individual Differences in Visual Imagery

spatial and object imagery ted to trade off

Aphantasia

inability to generate mental images voluntarily, 4% of the population

difficulty with WM tests w visual components

impairs visual search

Communication

system by which info can be exchanged

nonverbal/behavioral/pheronomal/verbal

Language

sys of communication using sounds or symbols, human specific

components combine to form larger units

Phonemes

letter symbols, smallest units of distinct sounds

Syllabaries

syllable symbols

Logographics

whole words and bound morphemes

un in unhappiness = morpheme

morpheme = smallest units that carry meaning

Alphabet

standardized list of symbols representing phonemes

Nature of Languages

Hierarchical - consists of a series of small components that can be combined to form larger units

Rule Based Nature - specify permissible ways for arranging words and phrases

Universality of Language

• deaf children with invent their own sign language (one lang mastery is important to reach cognitive potential)

• all humans with normal capacity develop a lang and learn its rules

• lang is universal across cultures

• lang dev is sim across cultures

  • coo → babble → 1st words → multiwords

• lang are unique - dif words, sounds, and rules

• but the same - nouns, verbs, negatives, questions, and past/present tense

Imagery - Vision and Language

both routes to imagination

aphantasia - lack of imagination, use lang to compensate

Internal dialouge

Lack of Internal Dialogue

1. deficit in creative achievement

2. originality during divergent thinking

3. lack of diverse responses

4. compensate using visual imagery

Nature vs. Nurture Lang 1957

BF Skinner - nurture, language learned through reinforcement, Verbal Behavior

Noam Chomsky - nature, Syntactic Structures, human lang coded in genes, similar underlying basis of all lang, children produce sentences they have never heard before (never been reinforced)

Psycholinguistics

discovery of psychological process by which humans acquire and process lang

1. Comprehension - understand

2. Representation - cognitive activation/grouping/connection

3. Speech Production - physical process

4. Acquisition - learning

Lexicon

all the words a person understands

Semantics

meaning of a language, literal

Lexical semantics

meaning of words, each has 1+

Word Frequency Effect

respond to common words faster than uncommon

Rayner and Duffy 1986 - eye tracking, more time to access low frequency words

Complications in Understanding Words

variable word pronunciation

speech segmentation - perception of individual words even tho there are no true silences btwn spoken words through contect, stat learning, meaning, and frequency

Understanding Ambiguous Words

lexical ambiguity - words have multiple meaning

Tanenhaus 1979 - lexical priming, name a known category after a sentence is shown, speed boast if item of category (as itself or the verb) is given (rose → flower) → access all word meanings at brief delay

Lexical priming

people briefly access all meanings of a word before relying on context to determine accurate meaning

Meaning Dominance

when one meaning is used more frequently than the others

biased dominance = one dominant meaning, slower response to nondom word

balanced dominance = all meanings on same level, slower response

Understanding Sentences

semantics, syntax, parsingS

yntax

rules for combining words into sentences

Parsing

mentally groups words into phrases

helps listener create meaning

Garden Path Sentences

begin by appearing to mean one thing → end up meaning another

temporary ambiguity - one meaning adopted before error causes shift to correct meaning

from late closure

Parsing Model

use heuristics - simplest syntactic structure

late closure - parser assumes each new word is part of the current phrase

Constraint Based Parsing

info, word meaning, and context used to make predictions about parsing

memory load/prior lang experience - infrequent in english, object relative construction

Object Relative Construction

requires holding of early part of sentence in mind to understand the full sentence

Tanenhaus and Truesnell 1995

scene context, visual world paradigm - respond to spec instructions in a scene and process info

eye tracker - place the apple | on the towel | in the box

measured erroneous eye mvmt

Coherence

rep of text in ones mind that creates clear relations

inferences help maintain coherence btwn text and with the stories plot

Inference

readers create info during reading that is not explicitly stated

anaphoric = connecting obj/people

instrument = tools or methods something was done with

causal = events in one clause caused by events in prev sentence

Situation Model

mental rep of the topic of the text

represent events as if experiencing the situation, protag POV

slow downs occur from mismatch btwn mental rep and the sentence

Brain Imaging - Reading

unexpected words incongruent with the situation create a larger N400 response

situations simulate properties of objects, related concepts and motor movements

Given-New Contract

speaker constructs sentences so they include given and new information

sentences are easier to understand when they do not require inferences

Common Ground

some idea of what the other person knowns

Entrainment

synchrony btwn two convo partners

Syntactic Coordination

using sim grammatical constructions

Syntactic Priming

production of a specific grammatical construction by 1 person increases the chances the other person will use that construction

reduces comprehensional load in conversation

Conversation Skills

Theory of Mind

Prosody

Turn taking - when to enter convo

Theory of Mind

being able to understand what others feel, think, or believe

nonverbal communication - being able to interpret and react to a persons gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice, and other cues to meaning

prosody

Prosody

pattern of intonation and rhythm in spoken language, creates emotion

limited in text

Bilingualism Benefits

1. cognitive reserve - protection from age related decline, stim neuroplasticity

2. metalinguistic awareness - compare linguistic features cross lang

3. code switching - cognitive flexibility

4. attentional control - selectively attend and inhibit distractions

Bilingualism Drawbacks

1. tip-of-the-tongue states - impede comm

2. slower lexicon access speed

3. language attrition - less used lang may decline

4. mixing/blending during lang processing

Problem

obstacle btwn present state and a goal without an immediately obvious solution

difficult to solve

Gestalt Approach

based on how you represent a problem in the mind

restructuring, Kohler’s circle problem

Restructuring

changing the problems representation

Insight

sudden realization of a problem solution, often requires restructuring

Metealfe and Weibe

Metealfe and Wiebe 1987

triangle of dots - move 3 to make it face the other way

chain problem - 4 chains of 3 links, can open and close 3, make a loop

asked warm/cold every 15 seconds

rapid solving of insight problems after cold for a while, gradual solving of algebra problems

Fixation

focus on spec chars of a problem that keep one from arriving at a solution

Functional Fixation

restricting the use of an obj to its familiar functions

candle problem, 2 string problem - Maier 1931

Maier 1931

candle problem - candles, matchbox, tacks - get candle on wall in a way that doesn’t drip wax everywhere

2 string problem - 2 strings attached to ceiling too far apart to reach them both at once, have pliers and metal chair - must tie them together

Mental Set

preconceived notion about how to approach a problem based on past experiences with the problem

Luchins water jug

Information Processing Approach

1. initial state - conditions at beginning of problem

2. goal state - problem solution

3. Intermediate state - conditions after each step made towards solution

4. Operators - actions that take the problem from one state to another

5. Means-end Analysis - reduce dif btwn initial and goal state

6. Subgoals - small goals that help create intermediate states that are closer to the goal

Tower of Hanoi

information processing approach

discs moved one at a time, only the top disc can be moved

larger discs cannot be placed on top of smaller discs

Multilated Checkerboard Problem

importance of how a problem is stated - think aloud protocol helps

2 corners removed, can 31 dominos still cover the checkerboard

blank, colored, color names, or bread & butter boards

bread and butter worked the best

Analogies

making comparison in order to show similarities btwn 2 different things

Analogical Transfer

transfer from 1 problem to another (source → target problem)

lock and key → checkerboard

Gick & Holyia

analogical problem solving

noticing a relationship

mapping an overlap btwn source and target

applying the mapping to create a parallel solution

Dunker’s Radiation Problem

analogue problem solving

inoperable deadly tumor, strong ray can destroy tumor and healthy tissue, weaker ray will not penetrate the brain

Analogy: fortress attack, mines on roads that small groups can travel over, divide up troops over many roads

Analogical Encoding

process by which 3 problems are compared and the similarities btwn them are determined

Negotiation strategy

trade off - you get x if I get y

contingency - if x happens you get y

Analogical Paradox

can be dif to apply analogies in the lab but used frequently irl

3-15/hr bio-immunologist, 1/5min engineers

naturalistic setting of research → dif isolating variables and understanding the process of where such thinking emerges

Expert

person who, by devoting a large amount of time to learning about a field and practicing and applying that knowledge has become acknowledged as being extremely knowledgeable or skilled in that field

chess board set up, grouping of physics problems

only advantaged in their field, spend longer analyzing problems, less likely to be open to new ways of looking at problems - Dunning-Kreguar effect

Creativity

anything made by people that is in some way novel and has potential value or utility

• poor for arts/theatre description

• fitness indicator - more creative are better mates

• divergent thinking - open ended, large # of potential solutions

Generating Ideas

examples reduce creativity - functional fitness

group brainstorming - share whatever ideas come to mind wo criticism, fewer ideas shared than individual, some dominate the convo

Creative Cognition

technique to train people to think creatively

randomly pick 3 obj, spend 1 min making project

preinventive forms - ideas that precede creation of the finished creative project

Chi and Snyder 2012

draw 4 lines through dots wo lifting the pen

deactivated left anterior temporal lobe causing people to think outside the box (inc to 40% of people solve)

Kounios et al. 2006

the prepared mind

EEG on compound remote → association problems

frontal lobe activity inc before insight solutions

occipital lobe activity inc before non-insight solutions

Incubation

• facil by mindwandering, getting ideas after taking a time out

• assoc w default mode network (active brain areas during rest)

• inc functional connectivity btwn executive control network and DMN → creative people