cognitive psych. unit 1.

cognitive psychology

the study of mental processes and activities used in perceiving, remembering and thinking

introspection

observer looks inward and reports inner-sensations and perceptions

structuralsim

studies the basic elements of conscious experience

functionalism

focused on the useful functions of consciousness or conscious experience

behaviorism

rejected structuralism and functionalism.

verbal learners

behaviorists interested in memoryand language acquisition, focusing on how verbal information is processed and retained.

information processing perspective

mental processes are assumed to be coordinated within a multi-component system

hardware

refers to actual computer machinery— our brain central nervous system

software

computer programs that tell the computer what to do— cognitive processes we use every day

working memory

a limited capacity system that temporarily holds and manipulates information for cognitive tasks.

long term memory

the system responsible for storing information over extended periods, often for a lifetime, and includes both explicit and implicit memories.

theoretical model

meant to explain everything

duration

how long does it last?

capacity

how much information does it hold?

process models

specific hypotheses concerning particular mental process or experimental task

lexical decision task

a psychological experiment that answers what are the steps/stages we go through as we perform particular tasks

serial processing

processes will occur one at a time

parallel processing

mental processes occur simultaneaously

data driven (bottom up)

based on features and elements of the stimulus without existing knowledge or context

conceptually driven

processing guided by our knowledge that’s stored in LTM

semantic memory

contains general world knowledge— what should you eat for breakfast? shared knowledge

episodic memory

your autobiographic memory— what did I eat for breakfast. unique to us

techitiscope

a slide projector that controls the amount of time (ms) the stimuli are presented

ecological validity

real world meaningfulness

analysis-by-synthesis

the process by which pattern recognition is assumed to occur

phoneme

smallest unit of speech

formants

the concentration of physical energy in spoken words

preconscious

refers to processing of which you are unaware but you later could become aware of this material (subliminal perception)

unconscious information

is a term reserved for material which has been repressed and that you can’t become aware of it without special help

atteuator

a switch that allows gradations in the amount of energy passing through it

data limited task

those which are difficult or impossible even if we devote all of our porcessing resources to the task

resource limited task

those of which performance can be improved by increasing the amount of processing

anagrams

words whose letters are scrambled

automaticity

refers to the apparent lacks of central capacity requirements for a particular task

stroop effect

cognitive phenomenon in psychology that demonstrates the interference between automatic and controlled processes. It occurs when individuals are presented with color words that are printed in a different color than the word itself.