PSYCH 207 QUIZ 1

UW psych207 (cognitive processes), modules 1-3

what is cognitive psych?

examination of key mechanisms underlying complex cognitive processes like perception, attention, pattern recognition, memory, comms and decision-making

empiricism (locke, hume, mill)

knowledge comes from own experience; acquired thru observation and analysis of experienced events

nativism (descartes, kant)

cognitive abilities come from biological roles/factors, hardwired into brain and difficult to modify w/ experience; individual differences attributed to innate abilities

wilhelm wundt + structuralism

found first experimental psych institute; goal to discover building blocks to conscious experience of the mind

structuralist’s preferred experimental enviro

in a lab where stimuli could be highly controlled

James Baldwin + introspection

wundt’s student; presented highly trained observers (grad students) w/ various stimuli and asking them to describe conscious experiences

caveats of introspection (baldwin)

believed basic elements of human consciousness could be uncovered; many aspects of cognition occur w/o conscious awareness though

william james + functionalism

one must study the whole organism irl to understand key functions of its mind

behaviourism (watson)

focus on overt, observable behaviour and relationships btwn environmental stimuli and behavioural responses; REJECTED INTROSPECTION + developed rigourous research methods w/o reliance on subjective measures

gestalt psych

Phenomenon can’t be reduced to simple elements but rather studied in their entirety; top-down method of breaking down perceptual experience into its basic elements

Sir Francis Galton

wondered if cognitive abilities could be inherited or subject to natural selection; known for study of mental imagery as cognitive ability and created many cognitive ability tests

4 eras of the cognitive revolution

human factors engineering > chomsky’s linguistics > localization of function in the brain > computers + AI systems

human factors engineering (cognitive revolution)

WWII developments required knowledge of the mind to understand operator’s physical and cognitive limitations while working in tandem with machines; finding most optimal way to design machines for human use; humans described as limited-capacity processors of info and sharing properties w/ machines designed

noam chomsky’s linguistics (cognitive revolution)

humans have innate capacity to acquire language and its development isn’t grounded by laws of conditioning

localization of function in the brain (cognitive revolution)

cognitive functions can be localized to specific parts of the brain; some of which construct themselves overtime by cell assemblies (visual perceptions)

computers and Ai (cognitive revolution)

comparison of peoples’ abilities to a computer; fed data through procurement of information thru senses, have info storage

Information Processing (WWII)

cognition = information, stimuli flows thru a system (the mind); different abilities thought of as as systems of interrelated capacities (built upon interacting sub-skills and abilities); pl are symbol manipulators and cognitive operations are multipurpose

Connectionism (80s)

cognition is highly interactive network of connections among simple processing units; connected via pos/neg weights modifiable by learning (pos = activation neg = inhibition)

evolutionary approach

cognition systems evolved over time as way to respond + change to evolutionary pressures, creation of specialized cognition mechanisms; most significant issues faced by ancestors were social = enhanced reasoning and decision making abilities in social situations

Ecological approach

cognitive activities shaped by culture context + situation they occur; must be studied in natural context to be fully understood

hindbrain

most primitive and oldest parts of brain from development; medulla = transmits info from spinal cord to brain, regulates life support function; pons = helps crossover of info btwn left and right sides of brain; cerebellum = coordinates muscle activity, balance, general motor behaviour + coordination + language, thinking

midbrain

tied to relaying info btwn other brain regions; reticular formation keeps us awake + alert, gives sudden arousal when detecting threat/attn-grabbing stimuli

forebrain

• Thalamus: relay info esp. to cerebral cortex; switching station for sensory info + involved in memory

• Hypothalamus: regulates basic biological functions (hunger, thirst, temperature); involved in emotions

• Hippocampus: learning, memory, emotions; formation of long-term memories

• Amygdala: memory, emotion, aggression; modulates strength of emotional memories and involved in emotional learning

cerebral cortex

divided into four lobes w/ 2 sections each; frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal

parietal lobes

processes somatosensory info like pain, pressure, touch, temperature

occipital lobes

processes general vision + colour perception

temporal lobes

auditory info, facial recognition, involved in memory

frontal lobes (3 regions)

motor cortex = fine motor movement, premotor cortex = planning fine motor movements, prefrontal cortex = executive functioning (planning, decison-making, inhibiting inappropriate behaviour, processing info thru working memory

faculty psychology (gall)

different mental abilities were independent and autonomous functions carried out in different parts of the brain

phrenology (Spurzheim)

a discredited idea that psychological strengths and weaknesses are correlated to relative sizes of different brain areas

Broca’s Aphasia

a brain injury to the posterior inferior region of the left frontal lobe (now called broca’s area) resulted in a disruption of expressive language

Wernicke’s Aphasia

the superior posterior region of the temporal lobe + often in left hemisphere was thought to control language understanding; aphasia in this area caused one to speak gibberish and impair ability to understand speech

primary somatosensory cortex

each part of it receives info from specific part of the body; more sensitive areas of the body take up more brain real estate

ablation

removal of parts of the brain

plasticity

some brain regions can adapt to take over functions of damaged regions (Depending on injury and function involved)

lateralization of function

The two hemispheres play different roles when it comes to some cognitive functions (e.x. language)

left hemisphere vs right hemisphere

Left hemisphere is the analytical one that processes info in a sequence; right hemisphere put individual components together to make up a whole (e.x. Constructing maps); connected by corpus callosum which sends info btwn them

Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) Scan

highly focused beam of x-rays passed thru body from different angles; pinpoint areas of brain damage via density differences and guess relative age of injuries

Electroencephalography (EEG)

cap made of electrodes, detects different states of consciousness (awake/alert, drowsy, comatose)

Event-related Potential (ERP)

attached electrodes to scalp, measures an area of brain response to specific event

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

injection of radioactive compound which can be detected outside of one’s head; measures blood flow to different regions of the brain which creates an electronic construction of the brain showing which areas are most active at a particular time

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

provides info about neuroanatomy in ‘textbook quality photos’ and doesn’t require radiation exposure; not great if you have metal in you tho

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

a noninvasive and nonradiative way to assess blood flow to various brain regions (blood has magnetic properties that change in severity based on if it’s near the heart (most magnetic) or capillaries (less magnetic)

Subtraction technique (Donders)

the relative amount of activation in a particular brain region needed for a given cognitive task can be measured by subtracting a control state from a task state

perception

interpreting sensory input (e.g. patterns, objects, people, events) in a meaningful way

distal stimulus

the real object that is being perceived

proximal stimulus

reception of info and its registration to a sense organ (e.g. retinal image of a book)

retina

 the surface of the back of the eye that reflected light hits to create the retinal image (The image formed by the retina)

percept

the meaningful interpretation of the proximal stimulus

size constancy

no matter how close or far an object is from your eyes, the size of it stays the same, even though the retinal image changes

pattern recognition

recognition of a particular object, event, etc. belonging to a category of similar things (e.g. lily = flower)

form perception

the segregation of the whole display into objects (aka the figure) and the background (aka the ground)

subjective contours

a simplifying interpretation of something that the perceiver makes without being aware of it; not completely determined by the stimulus display but rather the perceiver’s active participation

5 gestalt principles of perceptual organization

proximity, similarity, good continuation, closure, common fate

proximity (gestalt)

grouping things together that are near each other

similarity (gestalt)

grouping elements that are similar

good continuation (gestalt)

grouping objects whose contours form a continuous line

closure (gestalt)

mentally filling in gaps to create a close, complete, whole figure

common fate (gestalt)

elements moving together will be grouped together

Pragnanz (gestalt)

most gestalt principles are under this; we tend to select the organization that’s simplest and most stable when interpreting a display

bottom-up processes

the perceiver starts w/ small bits of info from the enviro that combines in various ways to form a percept

top-down processes

the perceiver’s expectations, theories or concepts guide selection and combo of info in pattern recognition process

template matching

Every object, event or stimulus encountered and want to derive meaning from is compared to a previously stored pattern (or template) to look for a match

featural analysis + features

We break down whole objects perceived into components (features) and use our recognition of those parts to infer what the whole represents

visual search task

looking for specific visual stimuli during an experiment; researchers present participants with an array of letters and ask them to look for specific ones

Pandemonium (selfridge)

a model developed for the perception of letters based on featural analysis; involves screaming demons that look for particular letters and features whose screams can be louder/softer based on confidence of found target objects

prototype matching

matching an input to a stored representation of information (prototype)

prototype

idealized representation of the thing it represents (object, event, etc.)

context effects

the accuracy and length of time needed to recognize objects vary within the context (e.g. quicker to perceive forks in a kitchen than a library)

change blindness

the inability to detect changes to an object/scene esp. When given different views of it (e.g. most people don’t notice continuity errors in movies)

word superiority effect

people can more accurately identify letters presented in the context of words than the same letters presented alone or in the context of nonwords.

connectionist model of word perception

input processed at several different levels and in terms of features, letters, phonemes or words; each level feeds into each other at diff levels of abstractions and certain nodes become active/inhibited while certain things are perceived

direct perception (james gibson)

perception consists of direct acquisition of info from enivro; the light hitting the retina contains highly organized info that requires little/no interpretation

consctructivist approach to perception

people add to/distort info in the proximal stimulus to obtain a percept (meaningful interpretation of incoming info)

affordances

 the acts/behaviours permitted by objects, places and events (e.g. for humans, chairs afford sitting)

schema

a cognitive structure derived from the knowledge base which contains expectations derived from context which guides the perceiver to explore the enviro in particular ways

visual agnosia

impairments of the ability to interpret visual information but can still see

apperceptive agnosia

able to process very limited amount of visual information (e.g. contours, outlines) but have a difficult time matching 1 object to another/categorizing them; recognizing an object in an unusual orientation; or a line drawing where parts of the outline is missing

associative agnosia

can (very slowly) match objects/drawings or copy drawings and will do so point by point instead of big features first

category-specific agnosia

difficulty identifying items of a particular category whereas their ability to identify other types of objects is unaffected

prosopagnosia

difficulty perceiving faces; Can see details (nose, eyebrows, etc.) but cannot combine visual details together into a coherent percept