cog psych exam 1

philosophical approach to studying the mind

intuition, logic, reasoning

who used the philosophical approach to studying the mind

Plato, Aristotle, renaissance philosophers

scientific approach to studying the mind

uses scientific method, conducts empirical studies based on observation

who is the father of psychophysics

Gustav Fechner

what is psychophysics

relationship between physical energies and the resulting psychological experience

what was gustav fechner’s key contribution

showed that mental processes can be measured and specified mathematically

who is the father of psychology

Wilhelm Wundt

why is wundt considered the father of psychology

created the first scientific psychology lab

what method did wundt use

introspection

problems with introspection

relying on judgement of participant, can’t generalize results

what is wundt’s key contribution

champions idea that psychology can be studied as an observable science

what study did franciscus donders do

participants would press a key when a light flashed on a screen, second round had separate keys for multiple sides of the screen

what did donder’s study result in

was able to quantify decision-making, simple versus choice reaction time

what was the key takeaway from donder’s study

we can make inferences about the mind from observable behavior

what is ebbinghaus’ paradigm

ebbinghaus would create lists of nonsense syllables and record how long it took him to memorize the lists

what did ebbinghaus’ paradigm provide

quantifiable measure of memory and learning

what does ebbinghaus’ savings curve show

extreme drop in memory retention within first 9 hours after immediate recall, would even out for up to 31 days after

what did william james contribute

tip of the tongue phenomenon, primary vs secondary memory

what movement did john b watson found

behaviorism

what does behaviorism focus on

observable behaviors

what infamous study is associated with behaviorism

little albert

what is s.r. theory

stimuli can be directly observed, as can the organism’s response, but the mind cannot be observed and therefore cannot be scientifically studied

what do behaviorists often call the mind

the black box

what did b.f skinner’s “verbal behavior” attempt to do

explain language learning through conditioning and reinforcement principles

what did “verbal behavior” actually lead to

re-emergence of cognitive psychology

what study did tolman carry out and what finding did this lead to

rats in maze study, found that rats developed cognitive map of the maze

what did chomsky argue

children demonstrate behavior that cannot be explained by conditioning

how did war impact psychology developments

technology was rapidly advancing but people did not consider how humans would interact with it, so psychologists began working on discovering how to rectify this

what is AI defined as

the capability of machines to manifest such processes as perception, cognition, and learning as humans do

what is the turing test

tested whether machines could think by testing machine answers against human answers and compared similarities

what is weak AI

can only simulate human mental attributes

what is strong AI

the computer is a mind capable of understanding and having mental states

what is john searle’s argument against strong ai

distinguishes between syntax and semantics, states that computers only have syntax

what is syntax

manipulation of symbols according to specific rules

what is semantics

assignment of meaning to symbols

what is cognitive neuroscience

the study of the physiological processes of the brain

what is cognitive psychology

the study of the mental processes of the mind

how does cognitive psychology study the brain

through observable behavior, uses inferences from this data

examples of non-experimental behavioral methods

self-reports, case studies, naturalistic observation

what are non-experimental methods good for

generating hypotheses

what are experimental behavioral methods good for

testing hypotheses and inferring probable causation

what is converging evidence

evidence that is the same between two studies or multiple types of research

why is converging evidence good

shows that multiple experiments all showed the same conclusion

what is a quasi-experiment

compares conditions but does not manipulate the IV

what is accuracy

an amount reported correctly

what are ceiling effects

a task is too easy and it becomes difficult to notice a difference between conditions

what are floor effects

a task is too hard to the point where no one can properly complete it

what is the common reaction time test

the stroop demo, where you must name a color when it matches the word and doesn’t

what are judgements

subjective ratings and choices

what is significant difference

we have used statistical analyses to determine whether two measures are statistically significantly different from each other

what are dissociations

when two related mental processes function independently from each other

what are associations

when we see similar patterns of data for similar tasks

what is neuropsychology

examines the mind/brain relationship by studying individuals with brain injuries and abnormalities

what is physiological data in neuropsychology

location of injury

what is behavioral data in neuropsychology

performance on cognitive tasks

what is the physiological data in an EEG

electrical activity of neurons

what is the behavioral data of an EEG

performance on gonitive tasks

strength of EEG

excellent time resolution (sees when neurons respond to a stimulus)

weakness of EEG

limited spatial resolution (seeing where neuron activity occurs)

what do PET and fMRI scans measure

blood flow and relative activity

strength of PET and fMRI scans

excellent spatial resolution

weakness of PET and fMRI scans

limited time resolution

what is sensation

the unconscious, physical detection of a stimulus via a sensory system

what is perception

the conscious cognitive or psychological interpretation of a sensation

dualistic perspective of perception

physical body and mind are seperate, interact to give human experience

monist perspective on perception

all mental events arise from physica processes

what is naive realism

states there is a 1:1 relationship between our perception and the physical world, and what you see is what exists

problem with naive realism

does not account for variations in human perception

what is bottom-up processing

building from smaller parts to perceive the whole, using information in the stimulus to identify it

what is top-down processing

driven by prior knowledge and expectations, using information around the stimulus to identify it

what is the structuralist perspective

sensation is the building block of perception and perception is the summation of sensation

what does the gestalt perspective say

structuralism ignores the relationship between stimuli, and the relationship affects perception

what are the principles of perceptual organization

gestalt principles that help explain the way elements are grouped together to create larger objects

what is proximity

we group nearby figures together

what is continuity

we perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones

what is closure

we fill in gaps to create a complex, whole object

what is simplicity

we perceive the simplest version of the stimulus

what are environmental effects on perception

perception is influenced by our knowledge of regularities in the environment

what did palmer’s contextual scene study discover

the role of scene schemas

what did blakemore and cooper’s kitten study reveal

we have experience-dependent plasticity (lost neurons to respond to horizontal lines)

what did gauthier’s facial recognition study show

fusiform face area responded almost as well to fake “greebles” faces as real faces

what is the traditional approach to perception

purpose of perception is to create a mental representation of something in the environment

what is the action based approach to perception

purpose of perception is to guide actions in the environment and enable survival

what was witt’s theory of perception

perception depends on action

what is an affordance

relation between an object or environment that affords the opportunity to perform and action

which pathway is involved in the initial perception of an object

the what pathway between the striate cortex and temporal lobe

which pathway is involved in determining an object’s location

the where pathway from the striate cortex to parietal lobe

what is the methodological challenge in pattern recognition

research often involves a ceiling effect, since most people are skilled at visual perception

what is degraded stimuli

affecting an image to impact perception ability

what is brief presentation

showing an image very quickly

what is measure reaction time

measure time of response instead of accuracy

what is the general agreement on pattern recogniton theories

you compare a stimulus to something in your long-term memory, compare it, and identify it

what is the main difference in theories of pattern recognition

how we compare the stimulus to stored information

what is template matching theory

claims we have templates stored in our long-term memory that we use to make recognitions to new stimuli

what are the problems with template matching theory

does not account for stimulus variability, cannot accunt for different interpretations of the same stimulus

what is feature detection theory

matches features of stimuli to features stored in our long-term memory, then comparing and matching

how did neisser’s study support feature detection theory

participants had more difficulty recognizing letters in the feature similar background

how did hubel and weisel’s study support feature detection theory

researchers concluded that we have individual neurons for specific features of stimuli based on reactions to various lines

what did biederman’s study claim

most objects are made up of three dimensional shapes called geons, which we use for perception

pros and cons of recognition by components theory

accounts for viewpoint invariance, but does not account for things like facial recognition