cognitive psychology

Cognitive Psychology

investigates mental processes, how they're organised and constructed

cognitive revolution

intellectual movement away from behaviourism to allow for more testable inferences about human mental processes

cognition

acquisiton, storage, transformation and use of knowledge

cognitive neuroscience

study of neural substrates of mental processed

studying aspects of brain function + structures relevant to human cognition in an attempt to find out when and where cognitive processes occure

event-related potentials

recordings of electrical activity on the scalps surface

steps in experimentation

1 - identify the problem and form a testable hypothesis

2 - design an experiment

3 - conduct the experiment

4 - evaluate the hypothesis by examining the data

5 - communicate the results

cornea

entry point of light into the eye

iris

regulates dimension of the pupil to let more/less light into the eye

lens

attached to muscles that contract + relax to put things into focus

outermost layer of the retina

retinal ganglion cells, tell visual information to the visual cortex

muscles are flat when looking at a far object, muscles extend when looking at close object

middle layer of retina

amacrine cells, bipolar cells, horizontal cells

gather multiple photoreceptors at once and combine the information to multiple ganglion cells to allow multiple stimuli to be analysed at once

innermost layer of retina

photoreceptors, made of cones and rods

cones

sensitive to brighter lights and colours

rods

bigger cells, sensitive to lower intensity light and motion

let us see in high acuity, responsible for night vision

cells in lateral geniculate nucleus

parvocellular cells + magnocelluar cells

parvocellular cells

respond to colour, fine detail, slow/still details, projects these onto the temporal lobe

WHAT

magnocellular cells

respond to movement, projects this onto the back of the brain

WHERE

law of proximity

items that are close together tend to be percieved as a group

law of symmetry

items that are symmetrical tend to be percieved as a group

law of similarites

items that are similar tend to be percieved as a group

law of connectedness

items that are connected tend to be percieved as a group

law of continuity

items that go in the same direction tend to be percieved as a group

law of common fate

items that move in the same direction tend to be percieved as a group

law of praganz

figures are seen as their simple elements instead of complicated shapes

law of closure

our brain fills in missing parts to create a whole

law of likelihood

our 3D experience tells us how to percieve shapes, allowing us to percieve impossible figures

intrinsic factors

define the character of an object including its shape, surfaces and parts

extrinsic factors

relate to variation in viewing condition including position, lighting and occlusion

Biederman's recognition by components theory

objects are broken down into a set of basic sub-objects which is categorised into 36 geons

geons

shapes that are sufficiently different from each other to be easily discriminatef and view-invariant

greebles

30 novel objects similar to geons

fastest recognition when shown from same view, slower with rotation changes, slowest with brightness changes

apperceptive agnosia

deficit in perceptual processing, struggle to generate a perception, form a pattern or copy visual stimuli

associative agnosia

deficit in understanding visual stimuli, can copy a drawing but don't know what it is

early selection theory

unattended info is blocked before meaning is processed

attenuation theory

unattended info is weakened NOT discarded, so meaningful items can still break through

late selection theory

all stimuli are processed for meaning, attention decides which reaches awareness

key properties of attention

shiftability and selectivity

zoom-lens model

attentional beam can narrow to give high-resolution processing of a small area, or widen to cover a large area with less detail

automatic attention

triggered by external stimuli, stimulus-driven

controlled attention

triggered by internal goals, goal-driven

biased competition theory

says all stimuli in the visual field compete for neural representation and attention biases it so one wins and gets processed in detail

hemineglect

lack of ability to process stimuli presented in the hemisphere contralateral to the lesion of a hemisphere

symptoms of balints syndrome

simultanagnosia

optic ataxia

oculomotor apraxia

simultanagnosia

inability to process more than one object at a time

optic ataxia

difficulty reaching for objects under visual guidance

oculomotor apraxia

difficulty voluntarily shifting gaze, and engaging + disengaging attention

executive function

top-down mental process we need when we pay attention

includes control of thought processes, attention, and emotional and behavioural responses

automatic processes

fast and require little attention BUT are inflexible

supervisory attentional system

executive function model that intervenes when tasks are new, involve deliberate planning, or a strong habitual response has to be prevented

dysexecutive function

characterised by difficulty planning and controlling behaviour, associated with frontal lobe damage

ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (EF)

involved in simple tasks such as short term maintenance of information that can't be held in working memory

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (EF)

involved in difficult tasks and complex functions

anterior cingulate cortex (EF)

detects need for control when there's multiple options for deciding how to behave in a situation, signals to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex when high-level control is needed

memory

separate but interacting systems, crucial for understanding who we are and how we interact with the world

3 processes of memory

encoding, retrieval, storage

primacy recency effect

primacy + recency are favoured in short term memory in immediate and delayed recall

amnesia

associated with bilateral damage to hippocampus and medial temporal lobe

general knowledge

culturally valued knowledge, component of crystallised intelligence and part of semantic memory

semantic memory

general knowledge, information on language and words and other conceptual knowledge

category

set of objects that belong together

concept

mental representations of a category of objects from experience, efficient and helps us focus on similarities so we can make predictions about the world

prototype model

abstract, idealised representation of a category based on the average member

family resemblance

when an object is classified as belonging to a category because there's a match between the prototype

exemplar approach

making category judgements by comparing new stimuli with instances already stored on your memory (exemplars) rather than using prototypes

knowledge-based approach

we understand relationships between attributes/features, which impacts whether we believe objects belong in different categories

spreading activation model

semantic memory is organised by semantic relatedness, meaning when we think of something it activates the appropriate 'node' which then spreads to related concepts

schemas

mental structure we use to organise and simplify knowledge, larger units that concepts, help us understand situations

scripts

narrower than schemas, refer to well-structured events associated with a particular activity

stereotypes

simplified generalisations about groups

a type of schema that can influences social behaviour and cognitive processing

inductive reasoning

increases semantic information, often yield plausible conclusions BUT aren't necessarily true

deductive reasoning

conclusions ARE necessarily true

always truth preserving and only uses information presented

categorical syllogisms

syllogism consists of 2 premises and a conclusion, if premises are true then conclusion is also

belief bias

human reasoning is seduced by the believability of conclusions rather than their vailidity

propositional reasoning

formal system of logic, symbols are used in sentences, conclusions are reached via application of 'logical operators'

conditional reasoning

part of propositional reasoning, reasoning about operator

meaning of words is often different to their usual meaning, things can ONLY be true or false

4 inferences from conditional reasoning

modus ponens

modus tollens

affirmation of consequent

denial of antecedent

logic of humans

laws of logic are laws of thought

we can use generation, evaluation and logic tasks to assess humans

abstract rule theories

versions of mental logic aren't the same, although they share the same basic principles

comprehension component

premises must be converted to a mental representation that can be held in working memory

roots of cognitivism

in computer metaphors, emphasis on information NOT emotion

amygalas role in fear conditioning

learn that a stimulus is associated with a certain event

consequences of amygdala having reciprocal connections with sensory cortices

emotional nature of stimuli is processed before we're consciously aware

why do people with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions make risky decisions

they know logically that they're poor decisions but they have a lack of somatic markers (bodily feelings that act as signs during decision making)

emotional forecasting

tendency to overpredict emotions, and believe they will be mor extreme and last longer than they actually will

gestalt theory of problem solving

participants behaviour is reproductive (re-use previous experience) and productive (characterised by insight into problems structure)

functional fixedness

tendency to use objectd and concepts only in their usual way in the problem environment

mental set/problem solving set

tendency to solve problems in a particular way

using one approach when a different one would be more productive

labyrinth metaphor

problems are solved through exploration of different paths

problem space

abstract structure of the problem, there are number of alternative paths from initial state to goal state

heurisitics

intuitive strategies used to reduce the number of stages needed to pass through to reach goal

algorithms

formal procedures that will definitely solve the problem

isomorphic problems

problems with same formal structure

superficial similarity

solution-irrelevant details are seen in 2 problems

structural similarity

causal relationships between main components are shared 2 problems

procedural similarity

actions for turning solution principle to concrete operations are the same for 2 problems

4 types of problems

knowledge-lean

knowledge-rich

well-defined

ill-defined

wallas' 4 stages to creativity

1 - preparation

2 - incubation

3 - illumination

4 - verification

judgement

assessment of likelihood of a given event occurring on the basis of incomplete information

representativeness heuristic

relies on consistency across category members