Cognitive Psychology: Pattern Recognition, Attention, STM/WM, and Long-Term Memory

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering pattern recognition theories, selective and capacity models of attention, short-term and working memory components, and long-term memory systems based on the Reed lecture notes.

Data-driven (bottom-up) processing

Recognizing an object by starting with the sensory information received (such as lines, shapes, or colors) and using those details to identify it.

Theory-driven (top-down) processing

Recognizing an object by using prior knowledge, memories, and expectations to interpret incoming sensory information.

Template Matching Theory

A pattern recognition model stating that objects are identified by matching them to exact, stored mental patterns (templates) in memory.

Prototype Theory

A pattern recognition model stating that objects are identified by comparing them to a generalized, average mental representation rather than an exact copy.

Solso and McCarthy (1981) Study

An experiment demonstrating prototype formation where participants viewed facial exemplars varying in similarity (from 75% down to 0%) and later judged the never-before-seen prototype as "old" with high confidence.

Distinctive Features Theory

A theory proposing that objects and letters are recognized and distinguished by identifying the specific visual features that separate them from other objects.

Feature Integration Theory

A perceptual model proposing that the visual system initially detects individual features (such as color, shape, and orientation) automatically, requiring focused attention to bind them correctly into complete objects.

Illusory Conjunction

A perceptual error occurring when features of multiple objects are correctly detected but incorrectly bound together (e.g., viewing a red X and blue O, but recalling a blue X).

Global Precedence Effect

The perceptual processing tendency to identify the global, overall structure of a visual stimulus before perceiving its smaller, local component features.

Recognition by Components

Irving Biederman's theory stating that objects are recognized by segmenting them into basic three-dimensional geometric components called geons and determining their spatial relationships.

Geons

Basic three-dimensional geometric shapes (such as cylinders, cones, and blocks) that serve as visual building blocks in the Recognition by Components theory.

View Invariance

The cognitive capability to identify an object from multiple viewing angles because its basic component geons and their relational arrangements remain recognizable.

Sperling's Partial Report Technique

An experimental procedure presenting a 12-letter array followed by an auditory cue indicating which row to report, demonstrating that sensory memory briefly holds far more visual data than can be verbally reported before fading.

Word Superiority Effect

The cognitive finding that target letters are recognized faster and more accurately when presented within a meaningful word than when presented in isolation or within a nonword string.

Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)

A cognitive framework wherein information is analyzed simultaneously across interconnected processing levels (such as features, letters, and words) rather than strictly sequentially.

Alerting Network

An attentional network responsible for achieving and sustaining a state of heightened readiness and vigilance toward incoming sensory stimuli.

Orienting Network

An attentional network responsible for directing spatial focus and sensory receptors toward a specific environmental location or stimulus.

Executive Attention Network

An attentional network dedicated to conflict resolution, distraction inhibition, and deliberate behavioral control when facing competing responses.

Broadbent's Filter Model

An early selection theory of attention positing that an all-or-none bottleneck selects incoming information based solely on physical characteristics, blocking unattended sensory signals from semantic analysis.

Treisman's Attenuation Model

An attention model proposing that unattended messages are weakened (attenuated) rather than completely filtered out, enabling personally significant or primed stimuli to exceed the recognition threshold.

Kahneman's Capacity Model

An attentional capacity theory stating that total available mental capacity is flexible and varies with physiological arousal, where moderate arousal optimizes cognitive performance.

Multimode Theory

A flexible attention framework proposing that perceptual selection can occur early (requiring minimal effort) or late (requiring greater mental capacity), depending on specific task demands.

Unitization

The process of identifying familiar words as unified, single visual wholes rather than letter-by-letter strings, reducing cognitive load and preserving working memory capacity for text comprehension.

Attentional Blink

A brief temporal interval during rapid serial visual presentation wherein a second target cannot be consciously detected because processing resources are engaged with the first target.

Change Blindness

The perceptual failure to detect a substantial visual change in a scene when the change coincides with a brief visual disruption or interruption.

Inattentional Blindness

The inability to perceive an unexpected, fully visible object appearing in the visual field because attention is intensely engaged with a different visual task.

Automatic Processing

Cognitive tasks that are well-practiced, execute without deliberate intention or conscious effort, and demand minimal mental processing capacity.

Controlled Processing

Deliberate, effortful mental processing requiring conscious awareness and substantial cognitive capacity, utilized for complex or unfamiliar tasks.

Stroop Effect

A demonstration of cognitive interference where reading an automated color word delays the ability to name the mismatched physical ink color in which the word is printed.

Chunking

A recoding strategy that combines individual items into larger, meaningful, integrated units to overcome the capacity constraint of short-term memory.

Miller's Magic Number

The recognized capacity limit of human short-term memory, typically quantified as holding $7 \pm 2$ chunks of information.

Interference Theory

A theory of forgetting stating that information loss in short-term memory results from competing cognitive material rather than the simple passage of time.

Retroactive Interference

Memory disruption occurring when newly acquired information impairs the retrieval of previously learned material.

Proactive Interference

Memory disruption occurring when previously established memories prevent or hinder the learning or retrieval of newly presented material.

Maintenance Rehearsal

The rote, repetitive vocal or subvocal cycling of information to preserve it actively in short-term memory without deep semantic integration.

Elaborative Rehearsal

An encoding technique linking new target information to existing long-term knowledge, meaningful personal examples, or mnemonic structures.

Central Executive

The primary component of working memory that allocates attentional resources, coordinates slave subsystems, inhibits irrelevant input, and directs cognitive operations.

Phonological Loop

The working memory subsystem dedicated to temporarily storing and articulating verbal and speech-based acoustic material.

Visuospatial Sketchpad

The working memory subsystem that maintains, manipulates, and visualizes spatial layouts and mental images.

Episodic Buffer

The working memory component that integrates information across visual, spatial, and verbal modalities with long-term memory into cohesive, temporal representations.

Serial Exhaustive Search

A short-term memory retrieval mechanism (identified by Sternberg, 1966) wherein items in memory are compared sequentially one by one through the entire set, even after finding the matching target.

Dual Coding Theory

Paivio's hypothesis positing that concrete nouns are remembered more effectively because they activate both verbal and visual memory representations.

Word-Length Effect

The observation that lists of shorter words are remembered better than lists of longer words due to the reduced time required to cycle them through the phonological loop.

Phonological Similarity Effect

The finding that lists of words or letters that share similar acoustic properties produce more recall errors than acoustically distinct lists due to phonological confusion.

Irrelevant Speech Effect

The disruption of verbal working memory maintenance caused by background speech sounds, occurring even when the individual is ignoring the spoken background audio.

Explicit (Declarative) Memory

The long-term memory system involving conscious, intentional recollection of general knowledge and facts (semantic) or personal life episodes (episodic).

Implicit (Non-declarative) Memory

The long-term memory system wherein prior experience influences ongoing behavior and task performance without conscious or deliberate awareness.

Procedural Memory

A form of non-declarative implicit memory supporting the automated execution of motor and cognitive skills (such as typing or mirror tracing).

Perceptual Memory

A form of implicit priming memory where prior sensory presentation facilitates subsequent recognition or completion of degraded stimuli (tested via indirect measures like fragmented picture identification).

Primacy Effect

Enhanced memory retention for items presented at the beginning of a serial list, driven by greater rehearsal opportunities and consolidation into long-term memory.

Recency Effect

Superior recall performance for items located at the end of a serial list, driven by their ongoing availability in short-term memory at the moment of immediate testing.

Anterograde Amnesia

A profound memory impairment characterized by the inability to encode or form new conscious long-term declarative memories following brain or hippocampal damage.

Retrograde Amnesia

The inability to retrieve episodic or factual memories that occurred prior to an episode of brain trauma or neurological damage.

Reconsolidation

A neurocognitive process wherein reactivation or retrieval of an existing memory places it in a temporarily unstable, mutable state, requiring protein synthesis to stabilize anew.

Metacognition

An individual's overarching knowledge, evaluation, and deliberate regulation of their own ongoing cognitive processes ("thinking about thinking").

Metamemory

The introspective awareness and monitoring of one's own memory contents and capabilities, including subjective assessments like the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.

Retrieval Fluency

The subjective ease or speed with which learned information is retrieved, which can produce a false impression of mastery during passive rereading.

Cognitive Interview

A forensic memory retrieval protocol that utilizes mental context reinstatement, exhaustive reporting, chronological reversal, and alternative spatial perspectives to elicit accurate eyewitness details.