Memory and Cognition Exam One Study Set

Be able to articulate and identify research areas/questions that fit under the scope of cognitive psychology

When first launched was focused on the scientific study of knowledge. The study of the acquisition, retention, and use of knowledge (study of how we gain and use knowledge).

Who was H.M. (later noted in Ch. 7) and how did his life experiences fit into the scope of cognitive psychology?

H.M was in his mid 20's. He had brain surgery to control his epilepsy. His epilepsy was then brought under control, but he suffered memory loss. He had little trouble remembering things prior to the surgery, but struggled to remember anything after. He could not remember his uncles death, and felt as though he had no sense of self because he could not remember his good deeds, transgressions, if he kept promises, or achieved goals.

What is top-down processing and how does it relate to the 'Betsy / Jacob piggy bank story'?

Top- down processing is starting with the general and moving towards the more specific. Expectations are influenced greatly by prior knowledge. The brain will fill in the blanks to anticipate what will happen next. This relates to the betsy and jacob story because prior knowledge of money, piggy banks, giving gifts, etc. allow us to assume what will happen next. If we had no knowledge of these things then we would not be able to follow the story as easily.

What roles did introspection and (then) behaviorism play in the cognitive revolution?

Introspection cannot inform us about unconscious mental events; and even with conscious thoughts claims are untestable. Behaviorism and introspection played a role in the cognitive revolution because we realized we cannot study the mental world directly, but we MUST study the mental world in order to understand behavior.

Be able to explain and identify how the transcendental method is utilized in cognitive psychology. Understand the language of "visible effects from an invisible cause".

Suggested by Immanuel Kant - transcendental method - begin with the observable facts then work backwards from these observations. How could these observations come about? What must be the underlying causes that have led to these effects? Think electrons, they aren't observable but their presence leads to observable results, visible effects from an invisible cause

What does it mean that a hypothesis should be testable, particularly in light of introspection?

Introspection - no way of telling if the reports are distorted or accurate especially with unconscious thoughts. Must be measurable.

How did the work of Edward Tolman challenge the behavioral thinking of the day?

Edward Tolman was a behaviorist... most behaviorists argued that learning could be understood simply as a change in behavior, but Tolman argued that learning involved something more abstract; the acquisition of new knowledge.

How did Gestalt psychologist contribute to the cognitive revolution?

Gestalt psychologists argued that behaviors, ideas, and perceptions are organized in a way that could not be understood through a part-by-part, element-by-element, analysis of the world. Instead they claimed elements take on meaning only as part of the whole, and therefore psychology needed to understand the "whole". Emphasis on the role of the perceiver in organizing his or her experience. We have schemas that help us organize.

In what way did electronic information technology of the 1950's inform cognitive psychology?

Psychological processes were explained in terms of buffer, gates, and central processors. These terms led psychologists to predict a broad range of new observations and led to many new discoveries. MRI, fMRI, etc.

Be able to distinguish amongst the four different research dichotomies addressed in class.

1. Experimental vs. Non-experimental - The experiment is out formal tool to establish a cause-and effect- relationship between variables. Non-experimental (no manipulation/random assignment, correlations, case studies, descriptive research

2.Pure vs. Applied: Pure - research motivated by curiosity, the desire to simply know more about something. Applied - research motivated to solve a problem/ directly benefit others...translational is research that aims to move pure finding into an applied context

3. Quantitative vs. Qualitative: Quantitative - utilizing numerical data vs. utilizing narritive [words, paragraphs, conversation transcript] data.

4. Lab vs. Field: Collecting data in a controlled setting vs. in a real-world setting

Be able to contrast cognitive neuroscience, clinical neuropsychology, and neuroimaging techniques.

clinical neuroscience - the study of brain function that uses, as its main data source, cases in which damage or illness has disrupted the working of some brain structure.

cognitive neuroscience - the effort toward understanding humans' mental functioning through close study of the brain and nervous system

neuroimaging techniques - enable us with some methods to scrutinize the precise structure of the brain and with other methods, to track the moment-by moment pattern of activation within someone's brain

What is an analogy and how does the idea of analogies fit into the context of a course in cognitive psychology?

Analogy - a way of thinking (rational argument) that is utilized to show how two seemingly different things are actually quite similar

Fits into psychology because we enable understanding and solutions that otherwise may not be attainable

Be able to outline the basic process / steps of visual perception.

1. Light (and reflected light) hit the retina where light sensitive tissue resides.

2. Photoreceptors on the retina (rods and cones) preform their tasks.

3. The rods and cones stimulate bipolar cells, which stimulate ganglion cells, which converge to form the optic nerve

4. The optic nerve carries information to a way station called the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)

5. From the LGN, information is transmitted to Area V1 of the occipital lobe

6. From Area1 numerous other areas of the brain are implicated including: parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and many others

Know the terms: cornea, lens, retina, fovea, and acuity. Regarding rods and cones, be able to make sense of (a) what they do, (b) their general location on the retina, and (c) how their function and processing can be illustrated by way of needing to pay special visual attention to something vs. trying to see something of low light.

Cornea - a clear surface on the front of the eye; allows light to enter eye and assists in focusing power

Lens - focuses light (onto retina) by changing shape

Retina - light sensitive tissue on the back of the eye

Fovea - the center of the retina

Rods- sensitive to low/dim lights. Far from fovea, better to see dim light via periphery

Cones- sensitive to color, located closer to fovea, better acuity when looking directly at something. 3 different types when their rate of firing is combined enable perception of different colors

Acuity- ability to see fine detail

What is lateral inhibition, how does it result in edge enhancement, and how does it tie back to the idea that the optic nerve is actively involved in interpreting incoming information?

Lateral inhibition - a pattern of firing where cells inhibit the firing of neighboring cells leading to edge enhancement

Course of action:

- cells inhibit firing of near neighbors

-A middle cell is inhibited by 2 neighbors

-An edge cell is inhibited by 1 neighbor

Results:

- Edges are sharper

- Ability to recognize edges and ultimately, shapes, and form

Be able to make sense of center surround cells, edge detectors, and movement detectors and how these processes fit into the notion of parallel processing (particular in contrast to serial processing)

Parallel processing - a system in which many different steps are occurring simultaneously

1. Center surround cells - firing varies due to location of light

2. Edge detectors - firing varies due to direction/presence of an edge

3. Movement detectors - firing varies due to movement/direction of movement

serial processing?

How do the 'what' and 'where' systems illustrate parallel processing? How are case studies "dramatic confirmations" of the separateness of our visual system (p. 78)?

what system - plays a major role in the identification of visual objects, telling you whether the object is a cat, an apple, or whatever. At the same time activation from the occtupital love is also passed along a seconds pathway leading to the parietal coretext in what is often called the where system.

What is the binding problem? Be able to illustrate how your textbook author includes spatial positon, neural synchrony, and attention as examples of the fact that the binding problem, indeed, gets solved

WORK ON THIS ONE! Binding problem - the problem of reuniting the various elements of a scene given that these elements are initially dealt with by different systems

What are conjunction errors (see the specific blue H & red T example on p. 79)

Correctly detect the features present in a visual display but make mistakes on how they are bound together. Someone is shown a blue H and a red T but they may reverse them

What is the textbook author's goal of introducing the Necker Cube? What does it mean to say your perception of the Necker cube is not neutral? (p. 81).

You perceive the cube as having one configuration or the other, perception goes beyond the information giving in the drawing.

What is the difference between 'features" and 'form'? Use Figures 3.15 & 3.16 to illustrate these terms.

Features - the individual details of a stimulus; the angles, the curves, the parallel lines, the coloring

Form- the gestalt totality of that which is being viewed. Necker cube illustrates how features remain constant, yet form shifts.

Be able to define Gestalt psychology and relate to the content of Chapter 3.

1. Figure ground - The perceptual field is divided into figure and ground

2. Continuity - We tend to follow the elements of something in the direction they appear to be going

3. Proximity - We see things as appearing close to one another as belonging together

4. Similarity - similar elements are seen as belonging together

5. Closure - Our tendency to see incomplete figures as complete

Be able to explain the findings in which researchers pit a Gestalt view against a behaviorist view in a study in which chickens pecked on gray squares.

Behaviors prediction - the chickens will peck on the gray that they were reinforced for (lighter of the two shades)

Gestalt - the chickens will peck on the new grey paper darker of the two shades)

Transposition - a relationship may hold despite shift of degrees;

Be able to define and illustrate, using every day examples, the Gestalt principles of: Figure-ground, continuity, proximity, similarity, and closure.

Figure ground - To light a figure is to cast a shadow

Continuity - Shooting clay pigeon - the pigeon is moving out and away and either up or down, if you fire at the pigeon it will be in a different location than anticipated

Proximity - Shopping - two people were together when they simply were not

Similarity-social groupings

Closure - filling in another's sentences, not noticing errors in writing, playing the song in your head

Be able to define the various types of perceptual constancy discussed in the text and how the concept aligns with parallel processing

size constancy - perceiving the sizes of objects despite the changes in retinal image size

shape constancy - you correctly perceive the shapes of objects despite changes in the retinal image created by shifts in your viewing angle

brightness constancy - you correctly perceive the brightness of object whether they're illluminated by dim light or strong sun

What is unconscious inference and be able to relate to the textbook example regarding size constancy

Unconscious inference - the hypothesized steps that perceivers follow in order to take one aspect of the visual scene (e.g.; distance) into account in judging another aspect (e.g.; size)

Said differently : an involuntary, pre-rational, and reflex-like mechanism which is part of the formation of visual impressions

Be able to contrast the binocular cues and monocular cues (e.g., interposition, linear perspective) associated with depth perception

Binocular disparity

- two eyes seeing one object

Monocular distance cues

- Interposition.....

-Linear perspective.....

What are examples of redundancy in our visual system and why are these redundant efforts valuable?

Redundancy - the simultaneous inclusion and interpretation of similar information

Binocular disparity is great, but only if objects are close

Motion parallax is great but only if you are moving

Be able to make sense of findings from word recognition studies (figure 4.5a/b & Figure 4.6) particularly in relation to the ideas of familiarity, recency, & context.

- Familiarity: Our mind has tracks already laid down to identify a stimulus and thus we already have a sense for it; familiarity is tied to probability - the probability "it" will appear again

Recency : A primed stimulus indicated that the object/letter of interest has been recently accessed and thus is more accessible as compared to an unprimed stimulus

Context: By providing the surrounding conditions (context), we can already begin to place a stimulus in our broad scheme of understanding

Be able to define, contrast, and understand examples illustrating top-down vs. bottom-up processing

Top-down (aka concept driven) - A sequence of mental events that is drive by already contained knowledge and expectations

- A constructor of information

Bottom-up (aka data driven) - A sequence of mental events that is driven by the pattern of incoming information - a conduit of sensory information

Be able to describe the components of a feature net; utilize key terms as activation level, response threshold, & bigram detectors

feature net - network of detectors organized in layers. The bottom layer is concerned with the features and that is why networks of this sort are called feature nets.

activation level - reflects the status of the detector at that moment-roughly, how energized the detector is. When it receives input it increases

Response threshold - the activation level will reach the detectors response threshold, the detector will send its signal to the other detectors to which is is connects

Be able to tie in the concepts of familiarity, recency, frequency, & context to the feature net. Be able to utilize particular examples that illustrate confusion (ambiguous stimuli) and/or recognition errors.

Feature nets are a neural network with input, activation level increases. They have receptive fields, fire above threshold, and are complex assemblies of neurons. They contain distributed knowledge.

Frequency: Baseline activation of a detector, word or letters a person experiences often.

Recency: Temporary activation, recently used detectors retain higher activation levels.

Familiarity: The overall well established nature of a stimulus. Less bottom up feature evidence to be recognized.

Context: Top down priming, they send excitatory signals down to their letter detectors.

What does it mean for knowledge to be distributed (as opposed to locally represented) particularly in relation to letter and word recognition?

Knowing that your DOE-detector is better primed than your ROE-detector.

Knowledge that CS- and QR- detectors are unusual bigrams.

Be able to explain the outcome of efficiency over accuracy

Efficiency over accuracy results in faster decision-making, reduced mental effort, and cognition strain. Memory errors, cognitive biases, impaired learning.

Be able to contrast the idea of viewpoint dependent with viewpoint independent. What evidence is supported with the Jennifer Aniston cell example (Figure 4.13)?

Viewpoint independence - no matter your positioning, you will be able to identify the geons and thus identify the object

Viewpoint-dependent - some positions, we are not able to identify the geons/object and must employ mental rotation to make sense of the inputs

I seem to recognize your face

Haunting yet familiar yet

I cant seem to place it

Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name

Lifetimes are catching up with me

Be able to contrast the "simple" feature net model with the McClelland & Rumelhart model and with the RBC model. Know key terminology associated with all three models

Recognition by components model

Geons: geometric ions, basic building blocks of all objects we recognize.

Viewpoint-independence: no matter your positioning, you will be able to identify the neons and thus the object.

Viewpoint-dependent: given some positions, we are not able to identify the geons/object and must employ mental rotation to make sense of the inputs.

What evidence supports the claim that facial recognition operates differently than object recognition (see Figure 4.15, 4.16, & 4.17)? What evidence lumps facial recognition with other recognition processes (hint: warblers)?

- Faces are very relevant to us. We are ultra-social creatures. Being able to recognize a face is going to be extremely useful

- Generally speaking, faces are pretty similar. It will be out ability to detect minor differences that will matter when distinguishing between multiple target faces

- A single face can be altered dramatically via emotional expression and intentional messaging

PART OF BROADER SYSTEM

- Warblers and cars

- Facial recognition involves a holistic processes - the complex relationship created by a face's overall configuration

- Unresolved issues with facial recognition: familar vs strange faces and how preocessing differs, The role of memory, knowledge, thought, and attention

What does it mean to say that facial recognition employs holistic perception? Link to Gestalt psychology

THE COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP CREATED BY THE FACES OVERALL CONFIGURATION....parts of the whole

1. How does the example of recognizing the word CELERY implicate top-down processing?

We already know what celery is and we know that we are supposed to eat it.

- Understanding of individual words, language syntax understanding, necessity or know fact (e.g.; celery is a food)

Analogies can be useful in understanding a new concept.

Identify an analogy used in one of the four text book chapters for Unit 1.

Explain both (a) the textbook concept

and (b) how the analogy is useful in understanding the concept.

The computer metaphor: compares the human mind to an information-processing system

Next, come up with your own analogy for a textbook concept. Make clear (a) the textbook concept you are illustrating and (b) how your analogy is useful in understanding the concept.

"The eye acts as a camera. The cornea and lens focus light onto the retina, which acts as the film."

Bottom up processing: takes in raw data and transmits it to the brain.

On a clear night look at our visible universe. Explain how both features and form are relevant when drawing perceptual conclusions of stars and constellations.