Mem and Cog exam 1

Introspectionism

psychological science which proposed that people could be trained to accurately analyze the components of their own thoughts. problems: leaves no room for unconscious influences, people’s ability to understand their own thought processes tends to be very limited and hard to measure

Behaviorism

only objective, observable phenomena in behavior should play a part in psychological research (no black box), only concerned with external stimuli and behavioral responses

John Watson

Argued that behavior itself is objective and it should be the primary agenda of psychology (behaviorist)

B.F. Skinner

Argued that behavioral science is concerned with describing patterns of reinforcement and behavior (behaviorist)

Critiques of behaviorism

sometimes attribute internal capacities entirely to external behaviors. In their effort to avoid the black box, they had to fill the gap with something - it didn’t always make sense

Noam Chomsky

wrote a very influential critique of skinner’s book. This played into the generally degrading confidence in behaviorism

information theory

communication researchers led by C.E. Shannon were developing theories of communication in the WWII era; researchers began asking questions about information processing

Turing Machine

can perform any computation that a digital computer can perform. Uses tape divided into cells on which a binary language (0 or 1). It was important because it shows a physical system can perform computations, the human nervous system is also a physical system - we can explain how the turing machine performs a calculation, can we do the same for a brain?

Associative learning

adaptations to behavior driven by relationships observed in the environment between stimuli or events

Classical conditioning

(Pavlov) Involuntary response: Unconditioned stimulus (food) causes unconditioned response (saliva). Then pavlov used a neutral stimulus (bell), and bell turned into conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response was saliva with no food. Blocking = occurs when a neutral stimulus does not get conditioned because it does not add necessary info (like food is coming)

Operant conditioning

Voluntary response: Learning driven by reinforcement, in that a learner “operates” on the environment to produce an effect (receive a reward); ex: a rat pressing a lever for food

Observational associative learning

learner acquire knowledge by observing the behaviors of others, often parents or caregivers. Doesn’t feature tangible reinforcement

Falsifiable

a hypothesis must be practically possible to refute or disprove

replicable

Any researcher must be able to replicate the results using the same methods

Objective variables or measures

not subjective to or dependent upon the perspectives of people; ex of IV: stimulus properties, amount, DV: reaction times, accuracy rate

subjective variables or measures

Dependent upon or relative to the perspectives of people ex: mood, pain, etc

mathematical modeling

attempting to describe a cognitive phenomenon with a mathematical expression

empirical modeling

a model based on experiment data, often represented with flow displays and diagrams

computational modeling

generally built with a computer program or simulation

Marr’s level I

computational theory: can we describe what is happening and why it is happening? ex: what does the cash register do and why?

Marr’s level II

representation and algorithm : by what process is the theory of level I implemented? ex: by what process does the cash register perform arithmetic?

Marr’s level III

Hardware implementation : what is the physical realization of this process in the world ex: what is the physical realization of this process?

Marr’s low level vision

involves extracting immediate information from light on the retina (edges, motion, depth) where one object ends and another begins,

Marr’s high-level vision

requires integrating details to form a full image ex: objects, faces

Global Precedence Effect

found that participants seemed to apprehend the global form faster than the local objects (found when testing the letters made of other letters). It is not always observed though, depends on local object size and sparsity

Gestalt Psychology

Believed that in perception, the whole is more than the sum of its parts

Figure-ground principle

observers separate objects between foreground and background

similarity principle

observers tend to group like objects together

proximity principle

observers tend to group objects that are close together

common region principle

observers tend to group objects that are enclosed in the same space

Good continuation principle

observers tend to perceive contours and lines as continuous instead of favoring angles or joints

closure principle

observers tend to look for a discernible pattern, and if necessary, the mind will fill in the gaps

Good gestalt principle

A stimulus possess this quality if it is orderly, complete, coherent, balanced, and clear while being as regular as possible

interposition (depth cue)

when one object ‘A’ interrupts the form on another object ‘B’, ‘A’ is perceived to be in front of ‘B’

Linear perspective (depth cue)

As straight lines gradually converge, they may be perceived as parallel; greater distance at convergence

Relative size (depth cue)

objects appearing to be different sizes are perceived to be the same size, but at different distances

Size constancy (depth cue)

As an object moves further away and its retinal image becomes smaller, observers perceive it to be the same size throughout

Texture gradients (depth cue)

Gibson proposed that this serves as information by which humans may extract vision of depth; distant objects appear more “packed” than close objects

Motion parallax (depth cue)

when in motion, an observer can distinguish distance by the apparent “speed” of other objects in view; nearby objects seem to move faster than distant objects

Binocular cues (depth cue)

require use of both eyes. Stereopsis and retinal disparity involve the perceptual system’s ability to use the distance between the eyes as a geometric basis for determining distance

Feature detection theories

this theory posits that all objects are composed of distinct parts (features). Object recognition requires decomposing it into its features

Structural theories

These take both the features and their interrelations into account. Those relations are primarily spatial

geons

human visual perception could be reduced to these 36 basic shapes describing the spatial relations of components in the world

Template matching

proposes that objects are recognized in the environment by comparisons to templates stored in memory. The template most closely matching the object facilitates its identification

Weber’s Law

States that the just noticeable difference of stimulus intensity is proportional to the original intensity: Relates JND to original intensity 

Steven’s power Law

This law draws a relationship between perceived stimulus intensity and objective stimulus magnitude : Relates subjective to objective intensity

Shepard’s Universal Law of Generalization

the probability that a past stimulus will generalize to a new stimulus is inversely related to the distance between P and N in psychological space : Relates psychological distance with subjective similarity 

Tversky’s contrast model

similarity is based upon features. Similarity judgments are based upon the number of common features and the number of uncommon features : Based on common and uncommon features