Cognition Final Exam

Choice reaction time

participant pushes a button if light is on right or left side

Cognition

the mental processes that are what the mind does (memory, attention, perception)

Cognitive psychology

the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind

Cognitive revolution

shift in psychologists focus from behaviorism to cognitive psych, 1950's, due to commercialization of the computer

Cognitive science

the study of the physiological basis of cognition

Mental chronometry

time measure, how long a cognitive process takes

Mental rotation

the ability to imagine how an object that has been seen from one perspective would look if it were rotated in space into a new orientation and viewed from the new perspective

Physiological approach

measuring relationship between brain activity and cognitive processes

Reaction time

measure interval between stimulus presentation and response

Simple reaction time

participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears

Structuralism

our overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience and sensations

Subtraction technique

a measure of the duration of a process is found by obtaining choice reaction time and subtracting simple reaction time to find time to make a decision

Action potential

impulse returning electrode to negative, 1 millisecond, a brief reversal of electrical charge that travels rapidly down the axon

Amygdala

region of the brain associated with emotional processes, especially anger

Autonomic nervous system

controls self-regulated action of internal organs/glands

Axon

output information, long processes that transmit signals to other neurons

Brain imaging

a range of experimental techniques that make brain structures and brain activity visible

Cell body

integrates, life center, metabolic center of the neuron

Cerebral cortex (cortex)

a layer of tissue covering the brain

Central nervous system

body system containing the brain and spinal cord

Convergence

when multiple neurons send information to a single neuron

Corpus Callosum

a heavy band of fibers that connects the 2 hemispheres

Dendrites

receives information

Dissociations

a disconnection between a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of who they are

Distributed coding

each memory is coded by a pattern of activity across many hippocampal neurons, job of hippocampus to link memory/neurons together

Double dissociations

when two mechanisms use different areas of the brain

Excitation

initiation of an activity

Excitatory neurotransmitter

excite the neuron and causes it to fire more frequently

Experience-dependent plasticity

in which the structure of the brain is changed by experience

Feature detectors

neurons firing to specific features, like orientation, movement, and length

Frontal lobe

executive control of behavior, planning, inhibition, motor control, language, memory, emotion

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

a brain scanning technique that measures blood flow in the brain when a person performs a task

Fusiform face area (FFA)

an area in the temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces

Glial cells

support cells in the brain, white matter

Hierarchical processing

neurons grow more complex firing from lower to higher areas of the brain, problem of sensory coding

Hippocampus

structure in temporal lobe, associated with learning and memory

Inhibition

stoppage of an activity

Inhibitory neurotransmitter

block or prevent the chemical message from being along any farther

Interneuron

major type of neuron inside the brain, bridges gap between sensory and motor neurons

Localization of function

the idea that certain functions have certain localizations or areas within the brain

Motor neuron

efferent, carry information from brain and spinal cord to the muscles

Myelin sheath

covers axon of some neurons to speed neural impulses, prevents escape of electrical signal

Nerve

several axons running together outside the central nervous system/brain

Neural circuit

group of interconnected neurons that are responsible for neural processing

Neural code

a pattern of neural signals that carries information about a stimulus and can serve as a representation of that stimulus

Neural processing

operations that transform electrical signals within a network of neurons or that transform the response of individual neurons

Neuron

the basic cellular unit of the nervous system

Neuropsychology

the study of the physiological processes of the nervous system and how they relate to behavior and cognition

Neurotransmitter

makes it possible for signal to go across gap that separates the end of axon from the cell body, chemical that's able to cross synaptic gap/cleft between neurons

Occipital lobe

vision

Parallel processing

our ability to deal with multiple stimuli simultaneously

Parasympathetic nervous system

under peripheral and autonomic nervous systems, "rest and digest", calming

Parietal lobe

spatial representation, vision, touch, executive control of attention

Propagated

transmitted or spread

Rate coding

when the stimulus gets more intense, the neuron fires more action potentials per second

Retina

the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information

Sensory receptors

a structure that reacts to a physical stimulus in the environment, whether internal or external

Sensory neuron

afferent, carry information from our body to central nervous system

Subcortical structures

a group of diverse neural formations deeps within the brain that include the diencephalon, pituitary gland, limbic structures, and basal ganglia

Subtraction technique

finding a cognitive process by taking a reaction time that consists of the process and subtracting a reaction time that does not

Sulci

depressions in the brain, folding in part, singular sulcus

Sympathetic nervous system

under peripheral and autonomic nervous systems, "fight or flight", arousing

Synapse

small space separating a sending neuron and receiving neuron

Temporal lobe

hearing, language, music, memory, higher visual functions

Thalamus

major communication center within a hemisphere, processes and relays sensory/motor information, communicates between brain areas in hemisphere, optic and auditory nerve, distinct sensory and motor nuclei

Transduction

receptors transform energy from environment into electrical energy

White matter

glial cells, support cells, myelinated for waste, insulation, blood vessels

Algorithm

procedure guaranteed to solve a problem

Bottom-up processing

image generating electrical signals transmitted through the retina, then to the usual receiving area of the brain

Change blindness

when people fail to detect changes to the visual details of a scene

Feature integration theory (FIT)

stage theory that explains how 2 stages allow us to perceive, treisman

Heuristic

rule of thumb, provides best guess solution to a problem

Perception

the process or result of becoming aware of objects, relationships, and events by means of the sense, how we make meaning of the world

Pragnanz, law of

every stimulus pattern is seen so the resulting structure is as simple as possible, most statistically likely thing, restating law of simplicity, solution is simplest, most stable

Recognition by components theory

all objects can be made up of simpler, 3-D forms called geons, biederman

Sensation

any concrete, conscious experience resulting from stimulation of a specific sense organ, sensory nerve, or sensory area in the brain

Word superiority effect

the idea that letters are easier to identify when they are part of a word than when they are seen in isolation or in a string of letters that do not form a word

Association cortex

includes most of the cerebral surface of the human brain and are largely responsible for the complex processing that goes on between the arrival of input in the primary sensory cortices and the generation of behavior

Attention

the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations

Attenuation theory

a model of selective attention proposed by Anne Treisman, unattended inputs are weakened, modification of early selection theory

Automatic processing

a type of processing that occurs (1) without intention and (2) at a cost of only some of a person's cognitive resources

Binding problem

how features are linked together so that we see unified objects in our visual world rather than free-floating or miscombined features

Contralateral neglect

after damage to the right parietal lobe, neglect of left half of space in all senses

Controlled processing

are processes in the mind that require a great deal of a person's mental resources, require time and effort

Covert orienting

type of attention not requiring re-orientation of eyes

Dichotic listening

subjects listening to an input in one ear while ignoring an input in the other, can't judge semantic content in the unattended ear

Early-selection model

the selection of task-relevant information occurs at an early perceptual level of processing, so that only targets are perceptually encoded

Endogenous attention

type of attention that's internally driven and requires intention

Exogenous attention

type of attention that's stimulus driven and automatic in nature

Fixation

when eyes are stuck on a particular object/salient property, briefly pausing on one object in the environment

Flanker-compatibility task

a set of response inhibition tests used to assess the ability to suppress responses that are inappropriate in a particular context.

High-load task

a task requiring all available perceptual resources, doesn't allow for processing of irrelevant information, early selection

Inattentional/change blindness

failure to notice a conspicuous change in an object or scene, due to failure in attention

Late-selection model

all sensory information is processed without attenuation, capacity limitation occurs at post-perceptual (response) level

Lavie's "Hybrid" model

a model merging the early selection and late selection theories with differentiation between high load (early) and low load (late) tasks

Limited capacity

we must choose what to may attention to because we can't process all

Low-load task

a task not requiring all available perceptual resources, allows for the processing of irrelevant information, late selection

Saccades

rapid movement of the eye between fixation points

Selective attention

the processes that allow an individual to select and focus on particular input for further processing while simultaneously suppressing irrelevant or distracting information

Shadowing

the procedure of repeating the words as they are heard, with dichotic listening tasks, participants repeat out loud what they hear