cognitive proccesses exam 1

cognition

thinking and other mental processes used in everyday life; process of gaining knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses

metacognition

being aware of your own cognitive processes, basically “thinking about your thinking.”

Gustav Fechner and Wilhelm Wundt contribution

Gustav Fechner studied psychophysics and perception. Wilhelm Wundt studied introspection and perception.

cognitive psychology during the mid-20th century

Behaviorism became dominant and shifted psychology away from studying internal mental processes. Behaviorists focused more on directly observable behavior.

How did Noam Chomsky challenge behaviorism?

argued that language comes from internal cognitive processes and cannot be explained only by observable behavior; helped bring cognition back into psychology.

How did behaviorism still influence modern cognitive psychology?

providing it with strict experimental methods and a deep commitment to objective, measurable data

How did computers influence cognitive psychology?

inspired the information-processing model, which compares the brain to a biological computer that stores, processes, and alters information during learning.

Ulric Neisser

coined the term “cognitive psychology” in 1967; brought together memory, perception, attention, and language.

What are the three main modern approaches to studying cognition?

Representationalism, embodied cognition, and the biological perspective.

What is representationalism?

brain stores information as mental representations or symbols, then uses those representations to think.

How does representationalism explain perception?

perception happens when your brain detects features of something and stores them as mental symbols so you can recognize what it is.

How is representationalism related to computer models?

it became popular partly because of computer models. Neurons were compared to computer bits, with on/off activity similar to 1s and 0s.

embodied cognition

the idea that thinking depends on interactions between the body, a person’s experiences, and the environment.

What cognitive processes can be affected by embodied cognition?

Memory, language, and perception

biological perspective on cognition

explains cognition by focusing on how the brain and its networks of connections work.

How does the biological perspective differ from basic information-processing models?

focuses on patterns of activity and networks of connections throughout the brain

connectionist model

explains cognition using networks of connected units.

etc. language, where letters and words can function like features within a network.

What are the four core principles of the scientific method in cognitive psychology?

Empiricism, determinism, testability, and parsimony.

What are empiricism and determinism?

Empiricism means gaining knowledge through systematic observation, often using indirect measurements of mental processes. Determinism means behavior has underlying causes and involves cause-and-effect relationships.

What are testability and parsimony?

Testability means explanations must be evaluated through observation. Parsimony means the simplest explanation that fits the evidence is preferred, especially when choosing between competing explanations.

What are independent and dependent variables?

The independent variable is the variable the researcher controls or manipulates. The dependent variable is the behavior or outcome being measured.

What is a case study, and what are its strengths and weaknesses?

closely examines one individual, often someone with unusual characteristics. It provides detailed observations but is difficult to generalize to larger groups. H.M. is a famous example.

correlational study

examines relationships between variables in groups without much manipulation. Correlations can be positive or negative, and researchers can study many variables at once.

What is an experimental study, and what is a quasi-independent variable?

manipulates variables to examine cause and effect. variable acts like an independent variable but cannot actually be manipulated, such as age, though participants can still be grouped by it.

priming

when seeing or experiencing one thing affects how you respond to something that comes after it

EEG

measures electrical activity in the brain

fMRI

measures changes in blood flow associated with brain activity.

cognitive neuroscience

the study of how cognitive processes are related to the structure and function of the brain and nervous system.

Phineas Gage,

had a metal rod driven through his skull, damaging his frontal lobe; cognition and personality changed afterward, showing that the frontal lobe is important for cognition and personality.

What did Broca's patient "Tan" reveal about language?

patient who had aphasia and was unable to speak. Damage was found in the left frontal lobe, showing that this area is important for language production.

What is object agnosia, and what did the object-identification case show?

difficulty identifying or distinguishing objects despite otherwise normal cognition. One patient had trouble distinguishing living from nonliving things and even mistook furniture for people, while showing no other major cognitive problems.

\Henry Molaison (H.M.) and memory

\developed severe amnesia after surgery damaged his hippocampus. He could remember much of his life from before the damage, showing that the hippocampus is important for forming new memories.

neuron

a nerve cell. The brain contains billions that communicate using both chemical and electrical activity.

How does information travel through a neuron?

Neurotransmitters carry chemical signals to dendrites. The neuron processes these signals, an electrical signal travels through the axon, and neurotransmitters are then released into the synapse.

What are dendrites, axons, neurotransmitters, and synapses?

Dendrites receive signals, the axon carries the electrical signal away from the cell body, neurotransmitters are chemical messengers, and the synapse is the space where neurotransmitters are released to communicate with another cell.

membrane potential

the difference in electrical charge between the inside and outside of a neuron's membrane.

action potential

the electrical signal that travels down a neuron's axon when the neuron fires.

localization of function

the idea that neural networks and specific brain areas are organized to perform particular functions.

lateralization

refers to some cognitive functions being more strongly associated with one hemisphere of the brain than the other.

How are complex cognitive abilities organized in the brain?

through large-scale, distributed neural networks that link multiple distant brain regions together

What are the main methods used to measure brain activity in cognitive neuroscience?

single-cell recording, EEG, MEG, MRI/fMRI, PET, fNIRS, TMS, and tDCS.

difference between passive recording methods and stimulation methods

Passive methods record or image brain activity, such as single-cell recording, EEG, MEG, MRI/fMRI, and PET. Stimulation methods like TMS and tDCS actively stimulate or inhibit neural activity.

Which cognitive neuroscience methods are invasive or noninvasive?

Most methods are noninvasive. Single-cell recording is invasive because a recording needle must be surgically inserted into neural tissue.

What are spatial and temporal resolution?

-how accurately a technique can identify where brain activity occurs.

how accurately it can show when brain activity occurs.

single-cell recording

measures electrical activity from individual neurons using a recording needle inserted into or near a neuron. It requires surgical insertion and is invasive.

What discoveries came from single-cell recording?

mirror neurons, which may be important in actions and social cognition, and grandmother neurons

EEG

records electrical signals from the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp.

event-related potential (ERP)

a change in EEG brain activity that occurs in response to a particular event or stimulus.

What is MEG, and how does it compare with EEG?

records changes related to neural activity using magnetic signals. It is newer and generally provides better accuracy for locating where activity occurs.

TMS

Transcranial magnetic stimulation, a noninvasive technique that uses a magnetic field to stimulate neurons; observe behavior changes to study that area's role in cognition.

tDCS, and how does it compare with TMS?

Transcranial direct current stimulation uses electrodes attached to the scalp to excite or inhibit neurons. It is noninvasive, easier to use than TMS, but generally weaker.

MRI

Magnetic resonance imaging, uses a magnetic field to create detailed images of brain structure and allows researchers to compare brain anatomy across individuals.

PET

Positron emission tomography, is a brain-imaging method often uses a radioactive dye, ligand, or tracer in the bloodstream to examine blood flow and brain activity.

fNIRS

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy, estimates neural activity through changes in blood flow using optical scanning. It works by shining near-infrared light through the head.

Barron study

mind-wandering and what happens in the brain when attention drifts away from the current task.

What did Segaert's research examine?

used fMRI to study language processing

What is the difference between sensation and perception?

Sensation is the detection of physical stimulation by the senses, while perception is the interpretation of that sensory information.

What role do sense organs and sensory systems play in perception?

Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin detect stimulation from the environment, while sensory systems process that incoming information so it can be interpreted.

What are the four main parts of the visual system?

eye, rods and cones, the optic nerve, primary visual cortex

How does visual information become something the brain can process?

Light enters through the pupil, is focused and projected onto the retina, and rods and cones convert the light into neural impulses through transduction.

transduction

The conversion of physical sensory energy, such as light, into neural impulses that the nervous system can process.

distal and proximal stimuli

The distal stimulus is the actual object or event in the environment, while the proximal stimulus is the representation of that object created in the sensory system and mind.

How are the left and right visual fields processed?

Information from each visual field is sent through visual pathways so that information from one side of space is processed mainly by the opposite side of the brain.

two main theories of color vision

The trichromatic theory explains color through three types of color-sensitive receptors, while opponent-process theory explains color through opposing color pairs.

What are the four main parts of the auditory system?

The ears act as the sense organs, hair cells are the receptor cells, the auditory nerve carries signals, and the primary auditory cortex processes sound information.

What do the gustatory, olfactory, and vestibular systems do?

The gustatory system processes taste mainly through the tongue, the olfactory system processes smell through the nose, and the vestibular system monitors motion and body position to help with balance and movement.

psychophysics

studies how physical stimuli become psychological perceptions and includes absolute threshold, difference threshold, and habituation.

What are absolute threshold, difference threshold, and habituation?

Absolute threshold is the minimum stimulation needed to detect a stimulus, difference threshold is the smallest detectable difference between two stimuli, and habituation is a decreased response after repeated or prolonged exposure.

What are the three main approaches to perception?

The computational approach focuses on stimulus features and cues, the Gestalt approach focuses on organization of whole patterns, and the perception-action approach focuses on how perception guides behavior and action.

bottom-up processing

Perception begins with basic sensory features and builds upward toward recognition and interpretation

geons and how they help with object recognition

basic three-dimensional components such as cylinders, cones, and blocks. Objects can be recognized by identifying these parts and how they are arranged.

top-down processing

Interpretation depends on previous knowledge, expectations, and experience rather than only the immediate sensory input.

How can top-down processing cause errors or illusions?

Prior knowledge and expectations can cause sensory information to be interpreted incorrectly, producing mistaken perceptions or illusions.

theory of unconscious inference

The brain automatically and nonconsciously uses past knowledge and experience to interpret sensory information and construct perception.

main idea of Gestalt psychology

Perception depends on organizing sensory information into meaningful wholes, and the whole is more than simply the sum of its individual parts.

Gestalt principles of similarity and proximity

Similarity means items with shared characteristics are perceived as belonging together, while proximity means items close together are perceived as part of the same group.

What are good continuation, whole perception, and Prägnanz?

Good continuation means patterns are seen as continuing smoothly, whole perception means separate pieces are organized into complete objects, and Prägnanz means objects are perceived in the simplest and most organized way possible.

perception-action approach

It focuses on what perception is used for and how sensory information helps a person carry out actions and reach goals.

affordance

a quality of an object or environment that shows an organism what actions it can perform

How are perception, action, and perspective connected?

What a person perceives affects how they act, actions can affect perception, and judgments can change depending on a person's current position or viewpoint.

ventral visual pathway

along the underside of the cortex mainly involved in identifying what an object is.

dorsal visual pathway

along the upper part of the cortex mainly involved in determining where an object is and how to interact with it.

How does the computational approach explain motion perception?

Movement is detected using visual cues such as changes in retinal images over time, differences in how much images move, and other cues in the visual scene.

How do changes in retinal images help detect motion and speed?

If an image changes position over time or moves more than surrounding images, the visual system can use those changes to infer movement and speed.

How does the perception-action approach explain motion perception?

Movement is understood in relation to actions and goals, such as adjusting body movement to catch a moving ball.

apparent motion

The perception that something is moving even though the actual stimulus is stationary.

phi phenomenon

An illusion of motion created when stationary lights or pixels are presented in sequence, making them appear to move.

How does the Gestalt approach explain the phi phenomenon?

The visual system organizes separate stationary stimuli into a meaningful pattern of continuous movement even though no actual object is moving.

What is attention, and why is it important?

the set of abilities used to complete tasks, and helps people handle complex activities such as driving while listening to GPS

executive function

A group of mental abilities used to plan, control behavior, manage attention, and complete tasks.

Stroop task

a person must respond to conflicting information, such as naming the ink color of a word rather than reading the word itself.

difference between automatic and controlled processing

Automatic processing happens without intention and uses few cognitive resources, while controlled processing requires effort and attention and can reduce response speed and accuracy.

two main ways attention can be directed

outward toward the external environment or inward toward internal thoughts and cognitive processes.

How does auditory attention work?

People selectively act on sounds depending on the situation and filter out less relevant auditory information while focusing on important input.

shadowing task

A task in which a person focuses on and repeats information from one auditory source while ignoring another, selective auditory attention.

cocktail party effect

The ability to focus on one conversation while filtering out others, but still notice highly meaningful information such as hearing your own name.

How are habituation and working memory involved in auditory attention?

Repeated background information may be tuned out through habituation, while meaningful information such as a person's name can still capture attention and enter working memory.

What does it mean that attention acts as an attenuator rather than an all-or-none filter?

Unattended information is weakened rather than completely blocked, while attended information is strengthened.

two main functions of visual attention

Orientation and integration.

visual orientation /spotlight function

Attention acts like a spotlight that selects a limited area of the visual field, filtering information and allowing faster responses to attended locations.