PSYCH207 Modules 1-9

Concept

mental representation of some object, event/pattern which has relevant knowledge stored in

category

 a class of similar things that share either an essential core or a similarity in perceptual, biological/functional properties

the classical view of concepts

necessary to share a sufficient set of features; concepts thought of as characteristics + not representations; black-or-white categories where concepts are seen as equal

cons of the classical view of concepts

some categories have no defining features; people will judge members of a category based on goodness and stereotypes

the prototype view

flexible concepts using average features based on individual + unique experiences; family resemblance structure - more features shared = concept seen as typical; uses hierarchical categorization (basic, superordinate, subordinate)

Basic level of categorization

the compromise between grouping things together that are similar and groups that distinguish their important differences (piano and guitar)

Superordinate level of categorization

groups that contain members that are dissimilar in several respects (musical instruments)

Subordinate level of categorization

more specific categories that are less distinct than basic level ones (grand piano and upright piano)

cons of the prototype view of concepts

hard to draw boundaries/constraints, typicality isn’t fixed + depends on context

The Exemplar View of concepts

concepts draw from individual instances that act as examples used for comparison when categorizing new instances; no classifying features + atypical instances may be difficult to classify

cons of exemplar view of concepts

unconstrained, fails to specify what gets stored as exemplars, Doesn’t explain how different exemplars are triggered/come to mind

the schemata view of concepts

Concepts are frameworks of knowledge which embed themselves into each other hierarchically

cons of schemata view of concepts

Doesn’t specify clear enough boundaries between schemata, Not able to be empirically testable

knowledge-based view of concepts

Person uses their knowledge of how the concept is organized to justify the classification + explain why certain things go together in a certain category ; Categories become coherent when given a purpose

Concept attainment strategies (Bruner et. al., 1956)

multiple strategies used to organize concepts depended on task conditions (simultaneous, successive, conservative; concepts defined w/ necessary + sufficient features cause people to form representations that include them

acquiring concepts in the brain

early learning showed activation in frontal and parietal, as it progresses it spreads to left parietal and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; basal ganglia involved in processing of visual stimuli selecting appropriate actions based on it and processing of feedback to promote learning

 implicit learning (Reber, 1967, 1976)

storing info about individual exemplars and representations of them in memory are better than guessing what the structure/grammar rules are; Later classification compares new things to representations

5 factors that encourage storage of info about exemplars

Task requirements to learn info that distinguishes among individual instances; the original learning situation that houses the same instances repeatedly; instances vary in complicated ways + some stimuli is better for hypothesis testing; instances may belong to multiple categories; instances learned in natural settings are unknowingly called to use that info later at undetermined times/situations

Psychological Essentialism (Medin, 1989)

1. People generally acts as if objects, people or events have underlying natures that make them what they are

2. People’s knowledge of the essence of a category varies by level of expertise; one’s classification of instances changes when new knowledge/experience is acquired

3. The way people acquire and mentally represent concepts may also vary as a function of what the concepts are (nominal, natural, artifact)

Mnemonics

a collective term for techniques that aid remembering and recalling info

Method of loci

the first mnemonic; requires learner to imagine a series of places that have some kind of order to them, then divide the material you wanted to remember and mentally picture those pieces at certain landmarks

Dual-coding hypothesis (Paivio, 1969, 71, 83)

LTM has 2 distinct coding systems for representing info to be stored; verbal (linguistic meaning, verbal labels) and imagery (mental picture representation); visual imagery increases a function of concreteness; the more concrete the noun = the richer the image + more elaboration in internal code

Relational-organizational hypothesis (Bower, 1970)

Imagery is better for memory = creates more associations between to-be-recalled items than verbal labels; creating links between target info and other info makes it easier to retrieve

‘F’ experiment (Brooks, 1968)

Faster to verbally respond to F and spatially to sentence; latter is visual image and visual response would be disrupted by another spatial/visual task than verbal kind and vice versa

Mental rotation

ability to take a visual stimuli and rotate the image 3-dimensionally in one’s mind; Cooper (1975) suggests mental rotation works like physical rotation

Imaginal scanning

 forming + scanning a visual image, then moving it from one location to another in their image

distinct drawing (Kosslyn 1973)

showed mental images have spatial relations while looking a specific part

Heuristics (Tversky, 1971)

thinking shortcuts; can distort maps bc perceptual organization makes oddly shaped units like provinces more ‘orderly’ instead of based on actual location

Finke’s (1989) 5 principles of visual imagery

Implicit encoding: info stored unintentionally along with other info that allows you to construct visual images whereby it can be obtained; perceptual equivalence (processes used in visualization overlap w/ visual perception); spatial equivalence (location, size + distance reflects physical space); transformational equivalence (mental images have same laws of motion as physical); structural equivalence (images are coherent, well organized and can be re -ordered and -interpreted)

Tacit knowledge

personal, subconscious information difficult to articulate like intuition, motor skill, insight, individual wisdom/experience

Demand characteristics

when a part of an experiment (instructions, the task itself) cues the participant on how to behave

Experimenter expectancy effects

experimenters unconsciously giving subtle cues to participants

Propositional theory

there’s a single mental code used to store and mentally represent all info, visual, verbal or otherwise; closely-related ideas joined by sharing propositions

Neuro findings of visual/auditory imagery

visual imagery activates occipital lobe, level of activation depends on size of visual image created; forming mental images of faces activates fusiform face area which activates while looking at photographs; imagingin songs activates secondary auditory cortex in temporal lobes

Spatial cognition

how people represent + navigate in and through space

Space of the body

where the different parts of one’s body are located at any given moment; what objects body parts are interacting with; internal sensations (rumbly belly)

Space around the body

the area immediately around you, the region you can easily perceive and act on objects

Space of navigation

 larger spaces that require individual info be pasted together from multiple sources to understand how to explore/travel through it (walking through uptown waterloo + looking at a map to find your destination/give directions); requires locomotion and wayfinding

A natural language has 2 necessary things:

a system of rules (grammar) and is productive (infinite combo of things can be expressed in it)

Phonemes

different sounds that different languages have

Morphemes

smallest meaningful units of language, usually words but can be word endings, prefixes and tense markers

Syntax

structure of a sentence

Semantics

branch of linguistics for the study of meaning; how sounds produced communicate ideas

Pragmatics

the study of language as used in social contexts and between interlocutors; social rules + etiquette

Linguistic competence

 linguistic knowledge that lets people produce + comprehend language

Linguistic performance

Reflects linguistic competence only under ideal conditions, becomes faulty due to other factors

Phonetics

study of speech sounds and their production

Phonology

study of systemic ways speech sounds are combined and altered

Syntax

Creates ‘legal’ sentences based on what goes where (noun, verb, adj, etc.) which may be odd = the red ball chased the blue shoe

Theories of semantics must explain:

anomaly, self-contradiction, ambiguity, synonymy, entailment

pragmatic’s 4 ‘ives’

assertives, directives, commissives (commit to action later), expressives (speech acts that ARE actions)

2 fundamental problems of speech perception (miller 1990)

speech is continuous; sounds in same word blend together, pauses heard are illusory; a phoneme sounds different depending on context

2 processes responsible for semantic priming (Neely 1977)

automatic spread of activation; expectancy-driven process — time btwn presentation of prime word and target increased = slower response time for related items bc participants expected certain targets that were primed + activated in memory

Lexical ambiguity

when words have 2 meanings

selective attention

we usually focus our attention on one or a few tasks/events rather than many

Moray’s Cocktail Party Effect

hearing one’s own name disrupts shadowing a performance in either attended or unattended messages

Broadbent’s Filter Theory

argues there’s limitations to how much info a person can attend to at any given time; one uses an attentional filter to let some info through and block the rest

Dichotic listening task

participant listens to 2+ different messages played in opposite ears and asked to repeat one of them, then asked what info they remember from either message

Treisman’s counterfindings to Cocktail Party Effect

Treisman discovered that when messages switched ears, the attention would stay on the message from the ‘unattended ear’

Treisman’s Attenuation Theory

unattended messages had the volume turned down; some meaningful info might still be available (but possibly hard to recover)

primed words

expected to be used based on context and easy to recognize w/ little mental effort

Deutsch² Late-Selection Theory

all messages are routinely processed for some aspect of meaning and attentional selection occurs afterwards; Automatically process all recognizable objects and info that’s important is elaborated more (unelaborated material is forgotten)

automaticity

The more practice you have in a task, the less attention it takes to perform

The Stroop Effect

adult participants are so good at reading that they stumbled through reading words of colours when the font was a different colour from the word

automatic processing

doing something without being aware of it; must occur without intention + conscious awareness and mustn’t interfere with other mental activity

controlled processing

processing that operates serially, requires attention and is capacity limited and under conscious control; used for unfamiliar and nonroutine tasks

divided attention

performing 2+ tasks at once

Psychological Refractory Period (PRP)

the slowed response time of the second stimulus at short intervals between the presentation of the 1st + 2nd stimuli; time btwn 1st + 2nd task gets shorter = time to complete task gets longer

Attention Hypothesis of Automatization

attention is needed during the practice phase of a task and determines what gets learned + remembered during practice

Dual-task Performance

performing 2 tasks at once (e.g. talking on the phone and driving); When tasks become more demanding of attention, it becomes harder to do them simultaneously

Visual search

looking for a specific target in a field of distractors (e.g. looking for you family amongst a crowd in the airport)

Spatial Cue

directing attention to a particular area un/intentionally and regardless of goal (e.g. eyes drawn to flash of light while looking for family in airport)

Treisman’s Feature Integration Theory

we perceive objects in 2 stages; preattentive (registering features of objects) and 2nd stage (gluing features together to create unified object)

Inattentional Blindness

not perceiving a stimulus unless paying attention to it (could literally be right in front of you)

Encoding

acquiring information; occurs when info is first translated into a form that other cognitive processes can use

Retrieval

calling to mind previously experienced info

Storage

encoded info is held in one form or another for later retrieval

Forgetting

when one cannot retrieve info

Modal Model of Memory

Sensory, Short-term, Long-term

Sensory Memory

Unattended info presented very quickly is stored briefly; different memory for each sense

Icon (sensory memory)

the brief afterimage of a visual stimulus, like lightning/sparkler name

Echo (sensory memory)

sensory memory for auditory info; could last longer than icons up to 20 secs; lag of answering question after it’s been asked and you go ‘huh?’

Short-term memory

Attended info held for up to 20-30 seconds

Serial position effect

recalling more words at the beginning and end of list

Primacy effect

 improved recall of words near the beginning of list

Recency effect

better recall for words near the end

Rehearsal

repetition of items thought to help store them long-term

STM Capacity

the maximum number of independent units that can be held is 7 +/- 2

Chunking

to overcome the STM capacity, units can be combined into larger units

Coding

 the way info is mentally represented and which form it’s held in

Retention duration

if not rehearsed, info is lost from STM in 20 secs

Memory trace

 the encoded mental representation of the to-be-remembered information

Decay

 the mental representation breaks apart and is forgotten

Interference

the displacement of info w/ other info, making it harder to retrieve (e.g. a cluttered desk makes it hard to find what you’re looking for)

Proactive interference

material learned first can disrupt retention of material learned after

Parallel Search

examining a list of things at the same time and comparing them simultaneously to find the target item

Serial search

comparing items on the list one at a time

Self-terminating search

a comparative search which stops when a match is found

Exhaustive search

even if a match is found, one continues to search through every item on the list

Long-term Memory

Info needed for longer periods of time (days-years); can store large amounts