PSYCH 240 Exam #1

Long-Term Learning

Improvement that lasts and is visible in any context

Short-Term Performance

Immediate improvement and visible in practice context

Short-term performance vs. long-term learning

Better performance during prise does not necessarily transfer to better long-term learning

Desirable Difficulty

Using training methods that introduce difficulties to make short-term performance worse. Used to maximize learning.

Simon and Bjork experiment GOAL

tried to get participants to remember keypress sequences. Used blocked and interleaved conditions

Blocked condition

practice the same sequence over and over. Better for short term and worse for long-term

Interleaved condition

practicing sequence in a weaving pattern. Mix up problems and jump between topics. Worse for short-term and better for long-term.

Criterion for study techniques

works in multiple environments, for different students, different material, and different testing styles

Ineffective study techniques

highlighting, re-reading

Highlighting Study - Fowler and Barker

Groups either read the article, read and highlights the article, or reads the highlighted article

Highlighting Study - Fowler and Barker RESULTS

All 3 groups remembered essentially the same amount of material

Highlighting Study - Peterson

Groups either underlined article and review marked article, underlined article and reviewed clean article, or doesn't underline and reviews clean article

Highlighting Study - Peterson RESULTS

For basic factual material, all 3 groups performed about the same. For interference-based questions, students who underlined did worse.

Issues with Highlighting

May cause individuals to focus on isolated facts and ignore bigger connections. Can cause issues in distinguishing central ideas from peripheral information (ineffective highlighting)

Re-Reading Study - Rothkopf's study

Groups either had never seen the passage before, read the passage one, read the passage twice, or read the passage 4 times. Students were given articles with blanks and told to fill the blanks in.

Re-Reading Study - Rothkopf's study RESULTS

reading the passage twice had the best results.

Issues with Re-Reading

Doesn't improve comprehension or performance on inference-based questions. Re-reading a 2nd or 3rd time doesn't help. Can give students the mistaken impression that they've mastered the material. Recall is HARDER than recognition.

Effective Study Techniques

Generating explanations, interleaved practice, distributed practice, testing yourself

Low Utility Study Techniques

Highlighting and re-reading

Moderate Utility Study Techniques

Generating questions and interleaving practice

High Utility Study Techniques

Distributed practice and testing

Generating Explanations

Coming up with explanations for why concepts are true, or how they relate to what you already know

Generating Explanations Study - Pressley et al.

Groups given a list of 2 sentences and either no explanations, or pre-written explanations, or told to generate an explanation.

Generating Explanations Study - Pressley et al. RESULTS

The group that generated their own explanations performed twice as well as the other groups. It forces you to think more about it and retrieve the information later on

Interleaved Practice Study - Rohrer and Taylor

Groups split into blocked or interleaved.

Interleaved Practice Study - Rohrer and Taylor RESULTS

Interleaved group did worse during practice, but better during test. Blocked group did better during practice, but worse during test

Distributed Practice

Spreading out your study over time with breaks

Distributed Practice Study - Bahrick

Groups had 30 min study sessions with all 6 in one day, 1 day apart, or 1 month apart

Distributed Practice Study - Bahrick RESULTS

Short-term results show that groups with squished practice do better. Long-term results show that groups with distributed practice do better.

Testing Yourself Study - Butler

Phase 1 is to study text passages. Phase 2 is to test half the passage or re-study half the passages. Phase 3 is to test on all the passages after a week.

Testing Yourself Study - Butler RESULTS

The group that had practice tests on half the material did better for both concepts and facts in all experiments.

Cognitive Psychology

The scientific study of the human mind. How we perceive our environment, learn new things, remember information we learned in the past, think and solve problems, etc.

Cognitive Psychology in the Context of the Structures and Processes

The study of the structures and processes of the mind and brain that take in, transform, and use information to decide actions

Structures of the Brain

What different parts of the brain do

Processes of the Brain

computations that occur in the brain

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #1

Perceive the letters

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #2

Recognize the words

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #3

Comprehend the English sentence

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #4

Access knowledge of robin, vegetables, and psychologists

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #5

Decide truth or falsity based on background knowledge

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #6

true-left, false-right

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #7

Decide which hand to raise

Process of Saying if a Sentence is True or False #8

Use movement processes to move the hand

Difficulties with Cognitive Psychology

Mind is unobservable

What We can Observe About the Mind

Manifestations (products and output) of the mind

What Manifestations Include

Behavior and physiology (indirect processes)

Examples of Physiology

Blood flow in the brain, brain waves, and blood oxyegn levels in the brain

Introspectionism

Look inside your own mind to make inference on what is going on

People Involved with Introspectionism

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) and Edward Titchener (1867-1927)

Edward Titchener

Tried to classify the different sensation that went through his mind and then categorize them by organ and # of sensations.

Issue with Edward Titchener's Study

His results can not be tested to confirm if they are true

Issues with Introspection

Difficult to verify scientific findings, results are private events, and only the end product is looked at.

Behaviorism

Psychology is the "science of behavior". Emphasis on what can be directly observed - stimuli, responses, reinforcements/rewards, and rats in mazes.

What Behaviorism Ignores

The mind (unobservable)

People Involved with Behaviorism

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), John Watson (1878-1958), and B.F. ("Fred") Skinner (1905-1990).

Ivan Pavlov

Studied salivary amount produced by dogs. Accidentally noticed that when we walked into the lab, the dogs would start to salivate, as they were conditioned to correlate his entrance with getting fed.

John Watson

Extremist that argued that there's nothing going on inside the black box (of the mind). Said that thought was subvocal speech.

Subvocal speech

talking to yourself

B.F. ("Fred") Skinner

Studied reinforcement learning in rats. Said that virtually all human behavior could be explained in terms of the history of reinforcement

Issues with Behaviorism

can't account for the diversity of human behavior (like language). Also limiting science to the observable is a bad idea.

Cognitivism

Infer what is going on inside the box. Computational view of the mind with the mainstream underlying assumption that the mind is somehow like a computer program.

Usefulness of Cognitivism

Can potentially be used to falsify theories to figure out what is actually going on inside the mind.

Dependent Variable (DV)

What you measure/analyze. On the Y-axis. Includes - reaction time, accuracy, brain (physiological) activity

Independent Variable (IV)

What you manipulate as a researcher to see how the DV is affected

Which Variables a Recognition Test Utilizes

Utilizes the IV and DV

Main Effect

Changing the IV has an effect on the DV

No Main Effect

graph is a straight line (slope = 0)

Two Main Effects

two IV that are parallel times

Interaction Between Independent Variables

At least 2 IV. Non-parallel lines.

Mental Chronometry

The study of the time course of mental processes. Another name for reaction time. Invented by Donders (1868)

Reaction Time Method

assumes that the mind is an info processing computer and that there is a lot going on inside of the black box of the mind.

Relevance of Reaction Time Method

Similar assumptions in modern research and similar criticisms can apply

Donders Contributions

the idea that you can measure mental processes and the choice reaction time procedure. Said that there are different information processing stages.

Information Processing Stages

Each stage receives information from the previous stage, transforms the information, and sends information to the next stage. Stimulus → processing → more processing → response

Detection Task

Simple cognitive test where participant detects a stimulus (light flash) and presses a button to any color light as fast as possible. S → detection → R.

Choice task

Press left button for red light and right button for green light. S → detection → decision → R

Subtractive Method

Subtract detection RT from choice RT. Still used today, but has issues associated with it.

Assumption of Pure Insertion

Assumes that all stages remain the same when the new one is added.

Issue with Subtract Method - Assumption of Pure Insertion

Adding the decision stage may influence another stage (like detection)

Assumption of Additivity

Assumes that the duration of all stages add together to yield the reaction time

Issue with Subtract Method - Assumption of Additivity

Stages might operate in parallel, causing an underestimation of decision time

Issue with Subtract Method - Knowing Stages

Assumes that you already know what the stages are, but you don't know.

Example of Knowing Stages

S → detection → memory lookup → decision → R. Memory lookup is remembering which leg is red or green. Can lead to overestimation of how long the decision stage is.

Issues with Modern Cognitive Psychology

It is asymmetrical in scientific inference. Can't prove that a hypothesis has to be right, only can falsify things

Huppert and Piercy

Trying to figure out what made amnesics have bad memory

Huppert and Piercy Experiment 1 (1977)

Participants studied pictures, waited 20 min, and did an old/new recognition test. 93% of control subjects were correct; 75% of amnesics were correct

Old/New Recognition Test

Shown a picture they might have seen in the past or a new picture. The participant needs to say if the picture is old or new.

Possible Learning Impairments in Amnesics

Encoding, storage, and retrieval

Encoding

putting new information as memories in brain

Storage

memories are in the brain

Retrieval

pulling memories out of the brain at a later time to access it

Huppet and Piercy Experiment 2 (1978)

Focused on seeing if improving encoding help amnesics' memory. Give everyone enough time to study the picture until they are able to answer 80% correctly. Then, everyone waits 10 minutes before taking the old/new recognition test. Retested after 1 day and 1 week.

Huppet and Piercy Experiment 2 RESULTS

Amnesics and controls had similar results, suggesting that storage is not the issue for amnesics.

Accommodation Condensing the Eye

Condensed lens (made thicker) = image is close to you

Accommodation Stretch of Eye

Lens is stretched (made thinner) apart = image is far from you

Binocular Cue Definition

Need both eyes for the cue to work

Binocular Depth Cues

Convergence and retinal disparity

Biological Motion

There's a lot of information in the stimulus itself

Bottom-up Processing

Processing that is driven by the external stimulus, rather than internal knowledge. Direct perception claims perception is purely bottom-up.

Constructivism in terms of bottom-up and top-down processing

it is both