PSYC10003

Cognition

Cognition

activities of “the mind“

involves acquisition and use of knowledge

include mental processes such as perception

Neisser defines cognition as the activity of knowing: the acquisition, organization, and use of knowledge

Mental representation

central to the study of cognition

format in which information is encoded, stored, and reconstructed/re-presented within our minds

Perceptual-cognitive cycle

in any given moment, our current experience is a product of integrating the perceptual present and the cognitive past

understand how our mental representations (schemas) are constantly being updated as we explore the world

Publication bias

tendency of journals to publish only significant results

lead to researchers to employ self-serving biases when making decisions about how to collect and analyze their data

solution: pre-register research designs and analysis plans and make all materials and data freely available

Credibility of the main claim

quality of evidence and argument used to support it

Learning

set of biological, cognitive, and social processes through which organisms make meaning from their experiences, producing long-lasting changes in their behavior, abilities, and knowledge

helps predict the future from out past experiences and use these predictions to guide adaptive behaviors

learning has occurred when we observe a change in the way human/non-human responds to its environment based on past experiences

central to adaptation and survival

ex. distinguish between edible and inedible food, friends from enemies/predator

Non-associative learning

fundamental form of learning that does not require stimuli association or pairing

2 forms: sensitization and habituation

Sensitization

temporary state of heightened attention and responsivity that accompanies sudden and surprising events

learner remains alert to potentially threatening stimuli in the environment and has an increased response to subsequent stimuli

enhancement of response to an event or stimulus leads to increasingly intense psychological or physiological responses

ex. someone who has repeatedly experienced trauma may become increasingly anxious each time they are exposed to related cues

ex. phobia, anxiety, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)

Habituation

reduction in response to a specific stimulus after repeated exposures

ex. perfume smells, spicy food, city noises, routine, heat/cold habituation

Classical conditioning/associative learning

important learning process

implicit learning of adaptive reflex response

shows the ability to allows us to predict the future

one form of associative learning

learn how events associate with one another

reflex is the basis of classical conditioning

learning a predictive relationship between a neutral stimuli and an unconditioned reflex response, which makes the neutral stimuli a conditioned stimuli that produces the same reflex response on its own

learned reflex response to a stimuli that wouldn’t usually have caused it

Biologically significant stimuli relate to survival

unconditioned stimuli: stimuli that naturally cause either defensive or appetitive reflex responses

reinforcers: stimuli that are naturally punishing (aversive) or rewarding (appetitive)

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

biologically significant stimulus that naturally causes a reflex response/unconditioned response

unconditioned=innate/”unlearned”

Neutral stimulus (NS)

a stimulus that doesn’t produce the reflex

Stimulus generalization

an individual responds to stimuli that are similar to the original conditioned stimulus

occurs naturally

Stimulus discrimination

the ability to distinguish between one stimulus and similar stimuli

Extinction

a response to a conditioned stimulus diminishes or disappears due to the absence of the unconditioned stimulus

occurs when reinforcement is withheld

not immediate, sometimes there is a brief increase in responding (extinction burst) followed by decrease in trained behavior

responses that are reinforced partially will be harder to extinguish than those reinforced continuously

Extinction burst

sudden spike in the frequency of a behavior when the reinforcement for that behavior is removed

because the action has produced a desirable result in the past, it is tried rapidly until it is clear the action no longer will result in the expected reward

Spontaneous recovery

reappearance of a Conditioned Response (CR) that has been extinguished

Rapid reacquisition

a renewal effect that occurs after extinction when animals are returned to a reinforced “trial context”

associate faster than initial learning

Operant conditioning

environments shape our voluntary behavior

behavior is shaped by the learner’s history of experiencing rewards and punishments for their actions

builds on classical conditioning through learning which adaptive voluntary behaviors lead to the acquisition of rewarding stimuli and which lead to the avoidance of punishing stimuli

Antecedent

stimulus that sets the occasion for a response to be reinforced in operant conditioning

a cue that signals the availability of a reinforcer

antecedent-reinforcer relationship is based on classical conditioning

ABC model of operant conditioning—antecedent to behavior to consequence

drive habitual behaviors

antecedent can be a discriminative stimuli

Discriminative stimuli

same actions can be punishment for one, but it can be reinforcement for another (ex. in Skinner box, a green light may signal food whereas a red light may signal impending foot-shock)

used in animal training to learn different behaviors

Skinner use it to teach pigeons to turn either clockwise or counter clockwise to distinct different reward in each box

Reinforcement

a desirable outcome leads to strengthening of a behavior

more likely to be repeated

Reinforcer

any consequence of a behavior that makes that behavior more likely to recur in the future

positive or negative

Positive reinforcement

learn to reproduce a behavior if the consequence is receiving something pleasant

Negative reinforcement

learn to reproduce a behavior if the consequence is that something unpleasant will stop

Positive reinforcer

something pleasant that is added to increase behavior

Negative reinforcer

something unpleasant that is removed to increase behavior

Continuous reinforcement

repeated reinforcement of a behavior every time it happens

rarely occurs in natural environments

leads to rapid extinction once the reinforcer is withheld

Partial reinforcement

a behavior or response is reinforced only a portion of the time, rather than every time it occurs

leads to more persistent learning because the learner becomes accustomed to reinforcement occurring on some occasions and not others

Schedules of reinforcement

rules that determine how often an organism is reinforced for a particular behavior

either the ratio of reinforced to non-reinforced behaviors or the interval of reinforcers, which can be fixed or variable

Variable-ratio schedule

occurs when a behavior is rewarded unpredictably after varying numbers of performances

ex. underlies the way rewards are distributed in gambling—player knows that there are rewards for their behavior, but they don’t know exactly how many times they will need to “roll the dice“ to receive a reward, which keeps player playing to test whether the next attempt will bring the reward

Shaping

presentation of reinforcement for exhibiting successive approximations of a target behavior

Successive approximation

process of reinforcing steps of desirable behaviors which are getting closer to the target behavior

reinforcing in small steps

Punishment

experiencing an undesirable consequence

behaviors are less likely to repeat

Skinner said that there are many drawbacks when using punishment to change behavior

Punisher

any consequence of a behavior that makes that behavior less likely to recur in future

positive or negative

Positive punishment

stop producing a behavior when unpleasant stimulus is the consequence

rarely works for long-term behavior

suppress behavior rather than teaching a more desirable behavior

Negative punishment/response cost

stop producing a behavior when something desirable is taken away

Positive punisher

unpleasant stimulus that weakens behavior when added as consequence of the behavior

Negative punisher

pleasant stimulus that weakens behavior when removed as a consequence of the behavior

When is punishment effective?

Contingency—relationship between the behavior and the punisher must be clear

Contiguity—punisher must follow the behavior swiftly

Consistency—punisher needs to occur for every occurrence of the behavior

many punishments are short-term, and sometimes undesirable things are rewarding, such as when people speed drive to get to their destination faster

Drawbacks of punishment

if the threat of punishment is removed, behavior returns

produces negative feelings in the learner, which don’t promote new learning

harsh punishment may teach learner to use such behavior towards others (social learning)

negative punishment is often more effective than positive punishment

ex. misbehavior leads to time out (positive punishment) but at the same time, they get the attention they want (desirable behavior), which makes positive punishment less effective

Alternatives to punishment

stop unintentionally reinforcing a rewarding behavior

reinforce an alternative behavior that is both constructive and incompatible with the undesirable behavior (ex. when a child whine to get what they want, try to only attend the child when they speak in a normal tone)

reinforce the non-occurrence of the undesirable behavior (ex. when kids don’t fight for a certain amount of time, they get more screen time)

Cognitive map

mental representation of spatial characteristics of a familiar environment

Latent learning

learning occur in the absence of rewards and punishments

hidden learning

Observational learning

learning can occur indirectly, without direct reinforcement or punishment

takes place socially and vicariously through observing others (models)

takes place through active judgement and constructive processes that involves cognitive processes of mental representation

Social-cognitive learning theory (Bandura)

humans learn behaviors by observing others and choosing which behaviors to imitate

Zeitgeist

defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time

Vicarious reinforcement/punishment

learning occur socially through observation, in the absence of directly experienced consequences

Memory

set of storage systems and processes for encoding, storing, and retrieving information acquired through our senses and for relating this information to previously acquired knowledge

involves the mental representation of the information we have experienced, imagined, and learned

Multi-store model—Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

3 stores: sensory memory, short-term memory (working memory), long-term memory

stores distinguished based on duration and capacity of information stored, which is different for each memory system

initial registration of information is in sensory cortex, then attention to parts of experience allows information to encode to STM. By rehearsal, temporary representation of attended information is stored in LTM. when information is retrieved, its moves from LTM to STM. there are information lost in every store.

Encoding—memory processes

involve in attending to and acquiring information from experiences and mental processes

register information in sensory regions of brain

attention to elements of an experience

interpretation and integration of experience with prior knowledge

Storage—memory processes

encoded environmental information are consolidated to store in networks of neurons

ex. neurons in visual cortex store information about sights that were part of an experience

ex. neurons in amygdala store information about the emotions that were experience

Retrieval—memory processes

everything about past experiences, recalling facts, executing practiced motor skills, to conditioned responses

reconstructive and sometimes error-prone process that changes the memory trace through “reconsolidation“ after retrieval

Sensory memory

temporary, sensory-based representation of input received through sensory channels

serves as a holding area between early sensory processes and later cognitive processes

some of the information are retained

brief duration

large capacity

Iconic memory

visual memory

Echoic memory

auditory memory

Short-term memory (STM)

conscious representation of the present moment

temporary store in which we integrate current sensory experience with LTM to achieve current goals

purpose: encode information meaningfully to produce LTM traces

content is determined by current attentional goals

make sense of current experience by relating current sensory experience to knowledge from LTM

whether information consolidate into LTM depends on the extent to which we can maintain attention and engage in encoding processes whilst the information is in STM

limited capacity: 3 or 4 till between 5 and 9

15-30 seconds of duration

Maintenance rehearsal

proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin

keep information active in STM

conceived as an “inner voice“ (language-based auditory code) or verbal rehearsal

Retention intervals

period of time between a participant's exposure to information and being tested for retention of that information

Trace decay

all memories fade automatically as a function of time

Serial position effects

immediate free recall of lists of numbers or words is affected by the position of items in the studied list

primacy effect provides evidence for transfer to LTM for items that receive more rehearsal, but it is eliminated if rehearsal is prevented by introducing a concurrent task (executing multiple tasks at the same time)

recency effect reflects availability of information still in STM and is reduced by introducing a filled retention interval before recall

items in between are harder to retrieve

provide evidence for the existence of separation

Phonological loop

mental workspace for manipulating auditory and verbal information

digit-span backwards (recalling backwards to disrupt rehearsal) is considered a test of phonological/verbal working memory because you must actively manipulate the information in memory, rather than just maintain the sequence

important in language development and verbal reasoning tasks

left hemisphere fronto-temporal lobe network, such as Broca’s and Wernicke’s area

Visuospatial sketchpad

temporary store for representations of visual and spatial information such as faces, objects written words and cognitive maps

enable mental manipulation of visually and spatially represented information such as mental rotation of objects, visual/spatial mnemonics, mental arithmetic, cognitive maps for navigation

right occipital-parietal network

Corsi block tapping task

example of spatial working memory task

similar to digit span, but use locations tapped by the experimenter. participants can’t see the numbers, only experimenters can see them

participants are suppose to tape the blocks in the order the experimenter did

an average of 5-6

Central executive

executive functions—processes that allow us to focus our attention on our goals and control and regulate our behaviors

executive processes → pre-frontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex

controls attention to incoming information from sensation and from LTM

specific set of attention-regulation skills involved in conscious goal-directed problem solving

Episodic buffer

integrates multi-modal information in an integrated episodic trace within the parietal cortex (association cortex)

integrate input from different sensory processes into a unified representation

Declarative memory (explicit)

consciously recollected and declared or described to other people

knowing what, why, where, when

facts, events, locations, autobiographical knowledge (semantic)

personally experienced events (episodic)

hippocampal-dependent

dependent on the structures of medial temporal lobes (MTL), such as hippocampus

revealed through explicit memory test

Non-declarative memory (implicit)

knowing how

motor skills

cognitive skills

support skill learning, conditioning, habit memory, and priming (exposure to certain stimuli without awareness)

non-hippocampal dependent, which means memories can be encoded, stored, and retrieved even when hippocampus and associated areas in the MTL have been removed

previous experience facilitates performance on a task

improvement in performance doesn’t require conscious recollection of the prior learning experiences (we get better at things with experience and practice and we learn associations between recurring stimuli in the environment)

revealed through implicit memory test that don’t require description of contents of memory, but rather reveal memory processes indirectly through observed changes in performance

subdivision includes priming, procedural memory, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and non-associative learning ()sensitization and habituation)

Episodic memory

declarative memory

vivid first-person recall of personally experienced events

when/where memories

contextualized memory

mental time travel

retrieval of information regarding the spatial and/or temporal context in which the remembered event occurred

conscious knowledge of temporally dated, spatially located, and personally experienced events or episodes

Semantic memory

declarative memory

general knowledge of facts about the world and yourself

what/why memories

abstract knowledge, includes abstract self-knowledge

knowledge about words and concepts, their properties, and interrelations

accumulate semantic knowledge across multiple experiences in a variety of contexts

Procedural memory

non-declarative memory

learning and performance of motor and cognitive skills

Priming

non-declarative memory

demonstrated by a change in the ability to identify a stimulus as the result of prior exposure to that stimulus, or a related stimulus

either repetition priming or associative/semantic priming

Repetition priming

prior exposure to a word in a lexical decision task (determine whether a word is real, “GIRL“ and “XLFFE“) will make that word easier to respond to if it is repeated in the task

improvements in a behavioral response when stimuli are repeatedly presented

when a word is repeated some number of trials after an initial response to the same word

persist over many trials—faster response time

Associative/semantic priming

prior representation of the word “nurse“ facilitates subsequent identification of the word “doctor“

using a context to speed up processing for stimuli that are likely to occur in that context

Amnesia

deficits in memory caused by brain damage, disease, drug abuse, or psychological trauma

provide support for the proposed division between the declarative and non-declarative memory systems

Retrograde amnesia

inability to remember knowledge acquired before the brain injury

usually temporally graded

Anterograde amnesia

inability to recall anything since the time of the brain injury

inability to learn new information

capable of new procedural learning, such as mirror-tracing task, despite they have never performed the task before, improvements are shown over time, but they might not remember themselves doing it

intact classical and operant conditioning

intact priming effect

normal habituation and sensitization

Medial temporal lobe in relation to consolidation of declarative memory

suggests from the severe anterograde amnesia that results from the removal of hippocampus

Craik 2020 → elaborative encoding include process of interacting meaningfully with information in working memory and additional process of consolidation mediated by the hippocampus

crucial for retrieval of consolidated episodic memories, but not for semantic memories

encoded episodic memories undergo consolidation, which make them stable over time and ultimately exist independently of the medial temporal lobe, which explains why HM can recall childhood memories but had difficulty remembering events that happened during years of major seizure and near surgery

interactions between medial temporal lobe and cortex can store memories outside medial temporal lobe by slowly forming direct links between the cortical representations of the experience

Attention

ability to preferentially process some parts of a stimulus before processing other parts of the stimulus

the object focused is more clearly perceived than other objects in the scene

it is needed due to limited capacity of perceptual system and to avoid being overwhelmed by stimuli

can’t process everything in visual scene simultaneously

Overt attention

selectively processing one location over others by moving the eyes to point at that location

eyes move to focus on an object

Covert attention

paying attention without moving the eyes

ex. a person may be driving and keeping their eyes on the road, but then, even though their eyes don't move, their attention shifts from the road to thinking about something else

Monitoring attention

looking at object to which you attend/interested

can tell where someone is attending just by tracking their eye movements

Saccades

eye movement in which they jump from point to point rather than scans smoothly, which is impossible

eye movement between fixations are ballistic (very fast)

Fixation

the rests between the jumps during eye movement, where the eyes stay looking directly at one part of the scene

what you fixate is determined by your goals and expectations

What directs our attention?

initial involuntary process due to attentional capture of salient (important or noticeable) parts of the scene

-contrast links with quality of salient (color, size, orientation, motion)

subsequent voluntary process guided by your goals and expectations after a few fixations

Effects of attention

speeds responses (Posner)

influence appearance (Carrasco)

influence physiological responding because neurons in the brain respond more strongly to attended stimuli than to unattended stimuli

Binding problem

features of an object need to be bound together by some neuronal mechanism across a population of neurons, so that the object can be perceived as a whole

different aspects of a stimulus are processed independently, often in separate brain areas

Feature integration theory FIT (Treisman and Gelade, 1980)

suggests that binding problem is solved by attending to only one location at a time

only features associated with that location are processed, so only those features are bound together

avoids binding features from different objects

Illusory conjunctions (Treisman & Schmidt, 1982)

combine features of two objects into one object

when attention is inhibited, features from different objects will be incorrectly bound together

Balint’s syndrome

a rare disorder associated with difficulties in visual and spatial coordination

ex. RM is a patient who has parietal lobe damage, so when multiple objects are present, RM has difficulty focusing attention on a single object. When 2 letters with different color was shown, he got it wrong 23% of the trials when he can view the letter for 10 secs. So he is prone to experience illusory conjunctions because he can’t focus attention on just a single object

Visual search

a type of perceptual task requiring attention that typically involves a scan of the visual environment for a target object among distractors

2 types of visual search: conjunction search or feature search

Conjunction search

binding is required because target contains same features as the distractors

target and distractors only differs slightly

FIT predicts that attention is needed to be applied to each object to determine whether or not the attended object is the target

this study takes time→slow

Feature search

without solving binding problem

target contains feature the distractors don’t contain

FIT predicts that attention doesn’t need to apply to each item

these studies are predicted to be fast

Change blindness—Ronald Rensink

attention determines what we remember

if you don’t attend, you are less likely to remember

because you can only remember a few parts of a scene at one time, so if the change tends to be the ones you remember, you will see the change. if the change appears at places where you are not as attended, chances are you won’t notice the change

for change blindness to occur, the change needs to be missed when attention is not drawn to the location of the change but the change must then be obvious when attention is drawn (can’t be changes that were hard to see, but also not too obvious/salient that drew attention within sensory memory’s capacity)

Motion transients

a change that occurs in a short period of time

when 2 images with only a few changes, the changes are more attended because of the small amount of motion transient involved

when 2 images with only a few changes had a blank screen in between them when displayed, motion transient occurs for every part of the image, not just the parts that changed

motion transient don’t guide attention to the change

What makes object perception hard?

stimulus on the retina is ambiguous (uncertainty about the probabilities with which outcomes can occur)

-in a 1D retinal image, every line between the area gives the same retinal image

-in a 2D retinal image, multiple stimuli can give the same retinal image

objects can be hidden or blurred, and because the object in the image isn’t “complete“, so machines are most likely to have difficulty recognizing the item

objects look different from different viewpoints and in different poses, so under unexpected poses/angles, machines fine it hard to identify the item

Structuralism—Edward Titchener, based on his studies under Wilhelm Wundt

distinguish between sensations (simple processes that occur in response to stimulus) and perceptions (conscious awareness of objects and scenes)

sensations combine to form perceptions, which means you first response and interpret the information, then you form memories that brings conscious awareness

conscious awareness is the sum of the sensations and contain everything that has already present in the sensations

Gestaltism

directly contradicts structuralism

conscious awareness is more than the sum of elementary sensations

apparent motion and illusory contours support gestaltism

Apparent motion

observer sees 2 stationary dots flashed in succession, and they see motions when they are actually static

shows that conscious awareness has a character that is not present in the sensations, in this case motion is not present when it is obviously static

conscious percept of motion was constructed and was not present in the sensations, since physical stimulus itself is not moving