AP Psych Unit 5: Cognitive Psychology

Information processing model

1. Input is information, it is encoded when our sensory receptors send impulses that are registered by our brain

2. We must store/retain this information for a certain amount of time

3. We retrieve this information upon demand when it is needed

Donald Broadbent

Modeled human memory + thought processes using a flowchart that showed competing information filtered out early

Focused attention

Trying to attend to one task over another

Attention

Mechanism by which we restrict information

Divided attention

When we try to attend to two complex tasks at once

Dichotic listening experiments

1. Participants heard different messages through left and right headphones

2. They were directed to attend to one of the messages and repeat back the words

3. Very little about the unattended message was processed, unless the participant’s name was said

Cocktail Party Effect

Little about the unattended message was processed, unless the participant’s name was said

Anne Treisman’s feature integration theory

You must focus on complex incoming auditory or visual information in order to synthesize it into a meaningful pattern

Fergus Craik + Robert Lockhart’s Levels-of-Processing theory

How long and well we remember information depends on how deeply we process the information when it is encoded

Shallow processing

We use structural encoding of superficial sensory information that emphasizes the physical characteristics of the stimulus as it first comes in

Atkinson-Shiffrin three-stage model of memory

• sensory memory

• short-term memory

• long-term memory

Semantic encoding

Emphasizes meaning of verbal input

Deep processing

When we attach meaning to information and create associations between new memory and existing memory

Elaboration

When we create associations between new memory and existing memory

Self-referent encoding

Relate the new information to ourselves to facilitate later recall

Sensory memory

External events are held just long enough to be perceived

1. iconic memory

2. echoic memory

Iconic memory

Memory that completely represents a visual stimulus for less than a second, long enough to ensure we don’t see gaps

Echoic memory

Lasts for 4 seconds, long enough for us to hear a flow of information

Selective attention

Focusing of awareness on a specific stimulus in sensory memory, determines what small fraction of information perceived is encoded in short-term memory

Automatic processing

Unconscious encoding of information about space, time, and frequency, that occurs without interfering with our thinking about other things

Parallel processing

Natural mode of information processing that involves several information streams simultaneously

Effortful processing

Encoding that requires our focused attention and conscious effort

Short-term memory

Can hold a limited amount of information for about 30 seconds unless it is processed further

Capacity of STM

Seven (+- two) unrelated bits of information at one time

Rehearsing information

Allows us to hold our memory longer in the STM if we consciously repeat it

Chunking

Increases capacity of STM by grouping information in meaningful units

Alan Baddeley’s Working Memory Model

Three-part memory system that temporarily holds information

1. Phonological loop

2. Visuospatial working memory

3. Central executive

Phonological Loop

Briefly stores information about language sounds with an acoustic code from sensory memory and a rehearsal function that lets us repeat words in the loop

Visuospatial working memory

Briefly stores visual and spatial information from sensory memory, including imagery

Central executive

Actively integrated information from the phonological loop, visuospatial memory, and long-term memory as we associate old and new memory

Long-term memory

Permanent, unlimited capacity memory system

1. Explicit memory

2. Implicit memory

Explicit (declarative) memory

LTM of facts and experiences we consciously know and can verbalize

1. Semantic memory

2. Episodic memory

Semantic memory

Facts and general knowledge

Episodic memory

Personally experienced events

Implicit (non-declarative) memory

LTM for skills and procedures to do things affected by previous memory, without that experience being consciously recalled

1. Procedural memory

2. Prospective memory

Procedural memory

Motor, cognitive skills, classical/operant conditioning effects, performed automatically without thinking

Prospective memory

Memory to perform a planned action to remembering to perform that planned action

Organization of LTM

• hierarchies

• semantic networks

• schemas

• connectionist networks

Hierarchies

Systems in which concepts are arranged from more general to more specific classes

Concepts

Mental representations of related things, may represent physical objects, events, organisms, attributes, or even abstractions

Prototypes

Most typical examples of the concept

ex: robin is a prototype for the concept bird

Semantic networks

More irregular and distorted systems with multiple links from one concept to another

ex: concept of bird can be linked to fly, feathers, wings, animals, robins, etc.

Dr. Steve Kosslyn

We seem to scan a visual image of a picture (mental map) in our mind when asked questions

Schemas

Preexisting mental frameworks that start as basic operations and then get more and more complex as we gain additional information

• organize and interpret new information that can be easily expanded

Script

Schema for an event

Ex: Script for elementary school: expect it to have teachers, students, principal, etc.

Connectionism

Theory that memory is stored throughout the brain in connections between neurons, which work together to produce a single memory

• Changes in the strength of synaptic connections are the basis of memory

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

Learning involves the strengthening of neural connections at the synapses

• Increase in the efficiency with which signals are sent across the synapses within neural networks of long-term memories

• Requires fewer neurotransmitter molecules to make neurons fire and an increase in receptor sites

Flashbulb memory

Vivid memory of an emotionally arousing event is associated with an increase of adrenal hormones triggering release of energy for neural processes

Role of thalamus in memory

Encoding sensory memory into STM

Hippocampus

+ frontal and temporal lobes + limbic system involved in explicit long-term memory

Anterograde amnesia

Caused by destruction of the hippocampus

Inability to put new information into explicit memory, no new semantic memories are formed

Retrograde amnesia

Involves memory loss for a segment of the past

Role of cerebellum in memory

Involved in implicit memory of skills along w/ basal ganglia

Retrieval

Process of getting information out of memory storage

Recognition

Identification of learned items when they are presented

Ex: MCQ

Recall

Retrieval of previously learned information

Ex: Essay questions

Reconstruction

Retrieval of memories that can be distorted by adding, dropping, or changing details to fit a schema

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Experimentally investiaged properties of human memory using lists of meaningless syllables

1. Practiced lists by repeating syllables and keeping records of his attempts at mastering them

2. Tested how long it took to forget a list

3. Recognition easier than recall to measure forgetting

Savings method

Amount of repetitions used to measure retention of information

Overlearning effect

Continuing to practice after memorizing information well, the information was more resistant to forgetting

Serial position effect

When we try to retrieve a long list of words, we usually recall the last and first words best, and forget the middle

Primacy effect

Better recall of the first items

Recency effect

Better recall of the last items

Retrieval cues

Reminders associated with information we are trying to get our memory

Ex: words, phrases

Priming

Activating specific associations in memory either consciously or unconsciously

Distributed practice

Spreading out memorization of information or the learning of skills is better

Massed practice

Cramming memorization of information into one session

Mnemonic devices

Devices that help us retrieve concepts

Method of loci

Uses association of words on a list w/ visualization of places on a familiar path

Peg word mnemonic

First memorize a scheme and then us it to mentally picture

Ex: Using “One is a bun, two is a shoe” to mentally picture a chicken in the bun, the corn in a shoe, etc.

Context-dependent memory

Recall is better when we try to recall information in the same physical setting as when we encoded it

Mood congruence

We recall experiences better that are consistent with our mood at retrieval

State-dependent memory

Things we learn in one internal state are more easily recalled when in the same state again

Encoding failure

Stimuli to which we were exposed to never entering the LTM because we did not pay attention to them

Relearning

Measure of retention of memory that assesses the time saved compared to learning the first time when learning information again

If relearning takes as much time as initially learning it, then the memory of the information has decayed

Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

We know that we know something but can’t pull it out of memory

Interference

Learning some items may prevent us from retrieving others, especially when they are similar

Proactive interference

When something we learned earlier disrupts the recall of something we experience later

Ex: learning a new phone number will disrupt the memory of the old phone number

Retroactive interference

Disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

ex: someone asks us for our old address and is blocked because our new address interferes with our recall of it

Repression + Sigmund Freud

Unconscious forgetting of painful memories occurs as a defense mechanism to protect self-concepts and relieve anxiety

Confabulation

Filling in gaps in memory by combining/substituting memories from events other than the one we are trying to remember

Misinformation effect

We incorporate misleading information into our memory of an event

Misattribution error

Forgetting what really happened, distortion of information as a result of confusing the source of the information

Ex: putting words in someone’s mouth, remembering something on the Internet as what actually happened

Language

Flexible system of spoken, written, signed symbols that help us communicate

Phonemes

Basic sound units

Morphemes

Smallest meaningful units of speech

Ex: simple words, prefixes, suffixes

Grammar

How sounds and words can be combined to communicate meaning

Syntax

Set of rules that states the order in which we can combine words into grammatically correct sentences

Semantics

Set of rules that enables us to derive meaning from morphemes, words, sentences

Stages of children’s language development

1. 4 months- babbling (production of phonemes

2. 1 year- holophrases

3. 2 year- telegraphic speech

4. 2-3 years- expanding vocabulary, more complicated sentences

5. 3 years- following rules of grammar

Overgeneralization/overregularization

Children apply grammatical rules without making appropriate exceptions

Noam Chomsky’s Theory of Language

Brains are prewired for universal grammar of nouns, verbs, subjects, objects, negotiations, questions

• Grammar switches are turned on as a child is exposed to language

Critical period

Chomsky’s period for language development

If children are not exposed to language before adolescence, they will be unable to acquire language

Skinner’s Theory of Language

Children learn language by association, reinforcement, and initiation.

• Babies imitate the phonemes around them and receive reinforcement

Benjamin Whorf

Proposed radical hypothesis that our language guides + determines our thinking

Whorf’s linguistic relativity hypothesis

[discredited by empirical research] Different languages cause people to view the world differently. People who speak more than one language frequently report a different sense of themselves depending on the language they are speaking at the time

Metacognition

Thinking about how you think

How we solve problems

1. identify the problem

2. generate problem-solving strategies (using algorithms or heuristics)

Algorithm

Slow, step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution to many types of problems

Heuristics

Solving problems quickly and use mental shortcuts