PSY270

burton 2024

Cognitive Psychology

Study of intelligent behavior

4 Key Principles of Scientific Method

1. Empiricism (Knowledge comes from observation.)

2. Determinism (cause and effect relationship)

3. Testability (Theories must be testable and falsifiable.)

4. Parsimony (Simpler explanations are preferred.)

Wilhelm Wundt

First psychologist, investigated elements of immediate experience via analytic introspection.

analytic introspection

reflection on ones own thoughts, emotions and perceptions

What were the benefits of analytic introspection?

- Control: One participant undergoes many trials.
- Replication: Several participants make the same observations.

Structuralism

mental processes into their simplest components (Wilhelm Wundt and popularized in America by Titchener.)

Functionalism

studying the purpose of thought rather than it’s elements, William James

Behaviorism

Offered a way to study public observable functions of the mind

• ivan pavlov, b.f skinner, and e.c tolman

How did E.C. Tolman challenge Behaviorism?

proposed that behavior isn’t purely stimulus-response; people can learn without direct rewards, as seen in latent learning (e.g., rats exploring a maze).

What did Alan Turing contribute to Cognitive Psychology?

The Turing Machine —> which illustrated that mental activity could be understood as computations based on stimuli and responses, influencing the computational approach in psychology.

What impact did Noam Chomsky have on psychology’s shift from Behaviorism?

Criticized Behaviorism and studied Language; he believed that language could not be the result of a simple stimulus and response.

How did World War II and the development of computers influence Cognitive Psychology?

War emphasized attention, problem-solving, and decision-making.

• Computers as a Model: Helped psychologists understand the mind as a processor of information (input-output).

Themes in Cognitive Psychology

Representationalism —> how the unobservable mind can act on the real world

Computation —> assumes the mind is an information processor

Biological perspective —> information is represented as patterns of activity between neurons in a way similar to the brain

Embodied cognitions —> study of cognition as we interact with the world

Representations

Representationalism: Explains how the mind can process the physical world and interact with it through internal representations.

• Aboutness: The conscious experiences or thoughts we have about something in the world.

  • Example: Perceiving physical objects in the environment (like a tree) or thinking about possible real situations (like planning an event).

Physical world (e.g. objects) → perception & Possible real situations → thoughts

Computations

The mind processes information in steps ad it’s goal is to disocrver what the function is allowed progression from input to output

Process: Input → Store → Change → Output (it is rule-based to move on to one state to the next

• Symbols Systems: The mind uses symbols to represent and process information. (N&S suggested it)

  • Example: Input (seeing something) → Memory → Rules → Output (action or thought).

Biological Perspective

 information is processed as patterns of activity between interconnected neurons in a way similar to the brain 

• How the brain causes representation/ behaviour - Basis in computation: 

  • Connectionism → information is carried in connected neuron-like units 

  • Information isn't symbols BUT a pattern of activation spread across units

Embodiment

cognition as it interacts with the world 

•  Symbol systems face the grounding problem — replacing one symbol with another leads to the loss of the real meaning e.g. what is an apple? What is a fruit? What is eating? What is ingestion? What is safe? Etc. 

  • Computers cannot interact with the real world to counteract this problem (humans can!)

Explain the difference between different research methods used in cognitive psychology

Experiments → controlled manipulation of variables for causal relationships

Quasi-experiments → similar to experiments but use premade groups

Correlational studies → examine relationship between variables, no causation

Computer simulations → use simulations to replicate and study cognitive processes and behaviors

List and describe the most frequently used response measures in cognitive psychology

Accuracy: assesses correctness of responses to tasks or stimuli (effectiveness of cognition)

Reaction Time: measures duration between introduction of a stimuli and response to stimuli (complexity of cognition

What is Perception?

study of how external world gets represented in our mind so we can understand/act upon whats going around us

Agnosia

lack of knowledge; deficit that occurs during vision

Apperceptive agonisa

Patients cannot name, match, or discriminate visually presented objects. They struggle to combine visual information into a whole and have trouble copying images.

Associative agnosia

Can copy objects but can't link the visual form to meaning, meaning they can see but don't recognize what they see

What are the Steps to Visual Perception?

1. input/sensation → needed to have conscious vision

2. Basic visual components assembled → lacking in apperceptive agnosia

3. Meaning is linked to visual input → lacking in associative agnosia

The Experience Error

the false assumption that the structure of the world is directly given from our senses

Computational approach to study perception

concerned with discovering how the brain represents and interprets the distal stimulus

Bottom-Up Processing

Recognition of patterns through step-by-step analysis of sensory input.

Top-Down Processing

Perception influenced by prior knowledge, memories, and experiences

Template Matching

we have mental stencils for recognizing different patterns and objects

Feature Matching

A system for analyzing distinct features of visual items via feature detector neurons ()

What is Biederman’s Recognition-by-Components theory?

suggests that objects are recognized by their geons (basic shapes), which are viewpoint-invariant, although recognition can be impaired when viewed from unfamiliar angles.

is "viewpoint invariant" meaning that we can recognize something from any angle

nonaccidental properties result in ________.

viewpoint invariance

non-canonical viewpoints are ________.

atypical viewpoints

Arguments Against Bottom Up Processing

1. Time-consuming to analyze each feature individually

2. Difficulty explaining within-category discrimination

3. Influence of top-down effects on pattern recognition

Provide examples/evidence of the perception/action approach

When a golf hole is surrounded by big circles, it negatively impacts golfers putting, while when little circles surrounded the hole, it positively impacts putting.

The altered perception impacts their action

Gestalt approach to perception

focuses on how perception is organized into meaningful units

What are the Gestalt grouping principles?

Law of Proximity: objects close to each other will be grouped together

Law of Similarity: objects similar in appearance will be grouped together

Law of Common Region: objects bounded in the same region will be grouped together

Role of experience: if objects have been associated already, they will be grouped in the future

Perception/Action approach to perception

assumes the goals of action to help determine perception - evolutionary approach: act now, think later

What is Gibson’s Direct Perception approach?

The environment provides all the necessary information for perception, and the goal of perception is to guide action without requiring cognitive processes.

What are optic array, optic flow, and affordances?

• Ambient optic array: Environmental structure in light containing all perceptual information

• Optic flow: Motion in the optic array, indicating observer movement

• Affordances: Information about object uses provided to the perceiver

The "What" Stream

Ventral Pathway → Processes object identity + Information sent to temporal lobe

The "Where/How" Stream

Dorsal Pathway → Processes object location and use + Information sent to parietal lobe

Ideomotor apraxia is ______.

damage to "where" pathway → causes difficulties in object-related actions

Agnosia is _______.

damage to the "what" pathway

What is a dissociation between perception and action?

Perception and action can be dissociated in cases like blindsight, where patients can act on visual stimuli without consciously perceiving them.

Attention

process of concentrating mental effort on sensory or mental events

exogenous

something out in the environment catches our attention + OVERT

endogenous

we decided what to attend + Covert

overt

when other people know what are we attending because we are looking at

covert

when other people know what are we attending when we aren’t looking at

automatic

the amount of attention being used for a task, doesn’t need as much

controlled

the amount of attention being used for a task

What is the Drivers of Attention?

driven by stimulus saliency (e.g., motion, color, brightness, contrast, orientation) and by important information or prior knowledge.

What is the link between attention and consciousness?

Attention is closely linked to consciousness, as seen in phenomena like inattentional blindness (failing to notice something in plain sight) and change blindness (failing to detect changes in a scene).

What is Broadbent’s filter theory of attention?

Broadbent’s early selection model suggests that attention acts as a bottleneck, filtering out unattended information early in processing, allowing only selected information to pass through.

What is the dichotic listening task, and what has it revealed about attention?

participants hear two different messages, one in each ear, via earphones. They are asked to focus on just one of the messages.

It reveals that people are good at selectively attending to one ear and can notice sensory information but not the meaning of unattended messages.

What is Treisman’s attenuation model of attention?

proposes that instead of completely filtering out unattended information, it is attenuated, meaning weaker stimuli can still be processed if they are important or intense.

(attention works like a volume dial, louder vs clearer, etc)

Why is Treisman’s Attenuation Model Important?

it explains why we can sometimes pick up on background info, like someone saying our name, even if we’re focused on something else.

threshold is determined by experience and importance

Divided Attention

our ability to distribute attentional resources across multiple tasks simultaneously.

• Low-load tasks can be done together; high-load tasks may need full focus

Cognitive Load vs Attentional Resources

the mental effort a task requires

We control how we divide attention across tasks

What is the Flanker Compatibility Task?

• Identify a target letter (e.g., “X”) and press a button.

• Flanker → While you’re trying to identify the target letter, there are extra letters (flankers) around it. For example, you might see something like “N X N.”

How does the Flanker compatibility task demonstrate divided attention?

shows that with low cognitive load, attention can ‘spill over’ to surrounding stimuli, but with higher loads, attention becomes more focused on the primary task.

What are the characteristics of automatic and controlled tasks?

Automatic Tasks → Little conscious effort, Fast, minimal attention, Develop with practice (e.g., driving a familiar route)

Controlled Task → Require effort and attention, Slower, deliberate, Used for new or complex tasks (e.g., driving in an unfamiliar area)

Explain Shiffrin and Schneider’s Classic Experiment (1977)

• examined how tasks transition from controlled to automatic with practice.

• Using a visual search task, Participants were trained to either search for specific target letters (automatic processing) or switch between different sets of target letters (controlled processing).

What is the Stroop Task, and what does it demonstrate about attention?

involves naming the ink color of a word that spells a different color (e.g., “RED” written in blue ink). It demonstrates interference between automatic and controlled processes.

What is vigilance in attention?

Vigilance refers to sustained attention over time to detect rare or infrequent events, as demonstrated in tasks like Posner’s experiment.

Explain the Posner's Spatial Cueing Experiment (1980)

Attention acts like a spotlight, and reaction times are fastest for valid cues, slower for neutral cues, and slowest for invalid cues.

Explain the Neisser and Becklen's Selective Attention Experiment (1975)

Participants missed unexpected events in the unattended video, showing the limitations of selective attention.

What is the Problem with Visual Features?

Researchers face the binding problem → how does the brain combine separate visual features into a single object?

Feature search

Looking for a single feature like shape (e.g., finding green circle among blue squares)

conjunction search

Looking for multiple features like shape and colour (e.g., finding a green circle among green squares and blue circles)

Which Has a Faster Reaction Time: Feature Search or Conjunction Search?

Feature Search

What are the independent and dependent variables in a visual search task?

Independent: Type of search, number of distractors, presence of target.

Dependent: Reaction time.

What is Treisman’s Feature Integration Theory?

The theory suggests visual processing occurs in two stages: preattentive (where single features pop out automatically) and focused attention (where multiple features are combined through attention).