Psych 240 Exam 1

Main Effect

The effect of one IV on the DV, ignoring other IVs

Interaction

The effect of one IV on the DV depends on the level of another IV

Introspectionism

An early technique for studying mental states and processes in which people examined their own conscious thoughts and feelings. Titchener and Wundt believed in this approach

Classical conditioning

A learning procedure in which a naturally occurring stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a bell), and as a result, the previously neutral stimulus eventually elicits the same response as the natural stimulus (e.g. salivating).

Operant (instrumental) conditioning

A type of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through this method, an individual makes an association between a particular behavior and a consequence.

Cognitivism

An approach to studying the mind that uses experimentation to draw inferences about what is going on in the mind. This approach makes the assumption that the mind is somehow like a computer in the sense that it takes in information, processes it, and then produces an output

Behaviorism

A psychological approach which emphasized the observable behavioral aspects of thought and dismissed the inward experiential aspects. Pavlov, Skinner, and Watson believed in this school of thought.

3 Problems with Introspectionism

1. Introspectionism is hard to verify

2. Introspectionism deals with private events, not public

3. Introspectionism only deals with the END result, not the process itself

2 Problems with Behaviorism

1. Behaviorism limits science to the observable

2. Behaviorism doesn't account for the diversity of human behavior

Three assumptions of subtractive method and problems

1. Pure insertion (adding a stage to a process could influence other stages)

2. Additivity (some stages may be parallel)

3. Stages (we often don't know the stages)

Criticisms of cognitivism

1. Traditionally have only studied "healthy" people

2. Doesn't look at individual differences

3. Emotions and questions of consciousness aren't acknowledged but both affect information processing

Mental Chronometry

The study of the time course of mental processes

Neuron Doctrine

individual cells transmit signals in the nervous system

Action Potential

Cell potential must rise above a certain voltage threshold to fire; Ion pumps propagate action potential down the cell's axon; After firing, the neuron goes through a refractory period in which it cannot fire again

Neural Transmission

When the action potential reaches the terminal buttons, the buttons release neurotransmitters into the synapse (space between neurons); Neurotransmitters bind to receptors on the target neuron; This either excites (raises voltage) or inhibits (lowers voltage) the target neuron; Most neurotransmitters can bind to multiple types of receptor to different effect; If the combined effect at all receptors puts the target neuron above the threshold, it fires an action potential

Firing Rate

Rate of neural firing typically reflects (represents) strength of stimuli

Specificity coding

representation of a specific stimulus by firing of very few neurons specialized to just respond to a specific stimulus

Sparse coding

when a particular object is represented by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons, with the majority of neurons remaining silent

Population coding

representation of a particular object by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons—likely this is (often) the answer

Frontal lobe

Planning, thinking, reasoning, resolving conflicts; Orbitofrontal cortex: Evaluative meaning

Parietal lobe

Spatial attention; Somatosensory cortex: Touch, Temperature, Pain

Temporal lobe

Hearing, Taste, Smell; Object Recognition (memory)

Occipital lobe

Vision

Single Dissociation

a situation in which a patient is impaired on a particular task (task A) but relatively spared on another task (task B)

Double Dissociation

The phenomenon in which one of two functions, such as hearing and sight, can be damaged without harm to the other, and vice versa.

Dendrites

multiple branches reaching from the cell body, which receive information from other neurons

Cell body

performs metabolic mechanisms to keep cell alive; also, integrates incoming information (from dendrites)—which determines whether neuron "fires"

Nerve fiber

Tube filled with fluid; Sending information

Synapses

Connect axon from one neuron with dendrite from the other neuron; Allows communication of signals through neural networks

Neurotransmitters

Signaling molecules that are delivered to other neurons through synapses

Phenomenal awareness

Views consciousness as an experience (subjective experience/awareness, 1st order awareness)

Reflective Awareness

Views consciousness as not just experiencing something but also thinking about the experience (access consciousness, 2nd order consciousness)

Self awareness

Views consciousness as knowing that our experience is ours and our experience is different from their experience

Content consciouness

being aware of particular stimulus, when being alert and awake

State consciousness

the global state you are in: being awake or being in coma

Dualism (Descartes)

both the mind and body are real substances and are independent of each other

Idealism (Berkeley)

the mind is real, the physical world is a by-product of consciousness

Materialism/Physicalism

the physical world is real, consciousness is caused by the brain

Panpsychism

both body and mind are real, but not independent

Problem with Dualism

If mind and brain are truly independent, how can they interact at all?

Problem with Idealism

The physical world exists and does influence our mind

Problem with Materialism/Physicalism

Has no way of explaining why XYZ brain function produces awareness

Problem with Panpsychism

It's counterintuitive that consciousness exists in all things

Contrastive approach in the consciousness research

Trying to get some information about consciousness by comparing two conditions, which are 'the conscious condition' and 'the unconscious condition'

Gallup's mirror test

Test that is used to determine whether animals have self-consiousness; Mark on animals' foreheads and see whether they recognize as the thing on themselves based on image reflected in mirror

Cambridge Declaration

Declaration that the majority of mammals and birds are conscious

Turing Test

Test for machine's consciousness; Asked to determine whether the communicating agent is a person or a computer. If it cannot be discerned, then it concludes that the machine is with some intelligence

Searle's Chinese room

Accounts for how machines can perform cognitive function without consciousness when relying on rules; evidence against Turing test

Neglect

Inability to attend to some area caused by damage to inferior parietal lobe; it seems to be the issue with accessing problem, which is part of reflective awareness; don't know they have it

Blindsight

Blindness caused by damage to primary visual cortex called V1; Patients can't explicitly detect objects in their blindsight, but their guess performance is pretty good (occipital lobe)

Bottom-up perception

processing that is driven by the external stimulus, rather than the internal knowledge

Top-down perception

processing that is driven by knowledge and expectations

Gibson's Theory of Direct Perception

The information in our sensory receptors, including the sensory context, is all we need to perceive anything. We do not need higher cognitive processes or anything else to mediate between our sensory experiences and our perceptions

Perceptual Constancies

Occurs when our perception of an object remains the same even when our proximal sensation of the proximal stimulus changes

Lack of Correspondence

When the percept does not correspond to distal stimulus

Paradoxical Correspondence

When the proximal stimulus does not correspond to distal stimulus, but the percept does

Cognitive Approach

Infer what's going on inside the box; use a computational view of the mind

fixed-interval schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed

variable-interval schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals

Discrimination/Identification Task

Stimulus leads to you needing to make a decision on top of just detecting it

Modern Cognitive Psychology

infer what's going on in the black box, use theories and possible computational models

consciousness

Realization that cognition/mental processes can be both conscious and/or unconscious

Cognitive Neuroscience

study of the physiological (brain) basis of cognition

Neurons

cells specialized to create, receive, and transmit information in the nervous system (in brain; also, sensory and motor pathways in body, spinal cord, etc.)

Nerve Nets

interconnected neurons which suggest a continuous network

Axon

tube filled with fluid that transmits an electrical signal to other neurons

Hierarchical Processing

processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain

Broca's area

speech production

Wenicke's area

language comprehension

Block's "Harder Problem"

This is a problem of consciousness that states "How can we tell if other beings have minds since their experiences are "private"

Split-brain patients

people whose corpus callosum has been surgically severed; yields two separate consciousnesses (shows that left is verbal, right is spatial/nonverbal)

Extreme hydrocephalus

Hydrocephalus involves enlargement of ventricles, "squeezes"/destroys brain tissue

Inverse Projection Problem

task of determining the object that caused a particular image on the retina

Viewpoint invariance

the ability to recognize an object seen from different viewpoints

Direct perception theories

Bottom-up processing; Perception comes from stimuli in the environment; Parts are identified and put together, and then recognition occurs

Constructive perception theories

Top-down processing; People actively construct perceptions using information based on expectations

Helmholtz's Theory of Unconscious Inference

Our perceptions strongly influenced by unconscious assumptions we make about the environment (top-down)

Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Organization

the notion that people group and interpret stimuli in accordance with similarity, proximity, closure, and continuity

Law of good continuation

lines tend to be seen as following the smoothest path

Law of pragnanz (simplicity or good figure)

every stimulus pattern is seen so the resulting structure is as simple as possible

Law of similarity

similar things appear to be grouped together

Gestalt laws are...

both intrinsic or informed by experience/learning (primarily top down)

Oblique effect

The finding that vertical and horizontal orientations can be perceived more easily than other (slanted) orientations.

Light-from-above assumption

Light usually comes from above (in real world)

Using this fact, we perceive/interpret shadows as providing information about depth and distance

scene schema

the knowledge of what a given scene ordinarily contains, how things relate to each other, etc.

experience-dependent plasticity

the process through which neural connections are created and reorganized throughout life as a function of an individual's experiences

Movement Facilitates Perception

Movement helps us perceive things in our environment more accurately than static, still images

Occipital-temporal pathway

identifying what an object is

Occipital-parietal pathway

identifying an object's location/movement

Attention

ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations in our environment

Selective attention

attending to one thing while (trying to!) ignore others

Divided attention

paying attention to more than one thing at a time

Dichotic Listening

a task in which people wearing headphones hear different messages presented to each ear

Early—Broadbent's filter model

early-selection model, sensory memory register, filter, detector, short-term memory

Intermediate—Treisman's attenuation theory

Attended message can be selected either early (if simple info enough) or later (if need meaning), depending on info needed to successfully select; attenuator, dictionary

Late--McKay

All stimuli are analyzed at high level (meaning) before selection

Lavie's perceptual load theory

Have limited processing capacity, but if one task doesn't use it all, some left over for other tasks; can't do this if primary task highly demanding

Automaticity

the ability to process information with little or no effort

Stroop Effect

the tendency to read the words instead of saying the color of ink

Change blindness

failing to notice changes in the environment