Cognition Unit #1

What is Structuralism?

Founded by Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener, focuses on breaking down mental processes into their basic elements using introspection. The study of conscious mental events The elements of cognition 1. Sensations 2. Feelings 3. Images Method: Introspection which is the meditation on thought processes (i.e. thoughts, patterns, experiences, behaviors)

What is wrong with introspection?

1. Subjective: Viewer-dependent. Investigating the truth about recollection, not identifying the underlying messages. There could be confirmation bias, variability, and generalizations. 2. No way to confirm observations since it requires the ability to reflect that is only understood by the person. Things are available for reflection vs. things that happen unconsciously/not aware of. 3. No way to make comparisons

What is Functionalism?

Developed by William James, emphasizes studying the function of mental processes and how they help organisms adapt to their environment.

What was the Cognitive Revolution?

Shifted psychology back to studying mental processes using empirical methods, moving away from behaviorism.

What is the difference between between-subjects and within-subjects designs?

Between-subjects: Different groups receive different conditions. Within-subjects: The same participants experience all conditions.

What are experiments?

Manipulation of variables in a controlled setting. Manipulating variables in a controlled and precise manner to determine the effects of one variable on another. Pros: Can determine cause-and-effect, a researcher can exert control and target specific behaviors or processes to study. Cons: Lack of real-world validity, and ethical concerns. Low ecological validity, high control. Usually quantitative.

What are naturalistic observations?

Observing behavior in real-world settings. Pros: Can involve many individuals of interest, avoids artificial situations that may be involved in experiments or case studies. Naturalistic setting. Cons: Only provides a description of behavior not an explanation, observers cannot direct behavior and are subject to outside events. If an observed individual is aware that they are being studied, they tend to change their behavior like amplifying their positive behaviors, or downplaying their negative behaviors. High ecological validity, low control (low internal validity): observing real behaviors, exerting no control on what they are doing

Usually more qualitative than quantitative.

What are controlled observations?

Observation in a structured setting with some control over variables.

What is ecological validity?

How well results generalize to real-life settings. The extent to which the findings as a whole can be applied to the real world. Not just your population, but the whole idea. Internal validity and control - to what extent can you accurately measure what you want to measure by controlling the circumstances and the environment?

What is experimental control?

How well confounding variables are minimized.

Describe the Information Processing Approach

Atkinson and Shiffrin. 3 stages to memory. Recognition: Hold onto information. Short-term memory: Processing zone to solve things on the spot. Response output: thoughts, memory, decision-making.

Describe the Connectionist Approach

McLelland. Connection of brain and mind. Neural communication (i.e. sound activating concepts of language)

Describe the Ecological Approach.

Lave & Gibson - Information coming from the environment, objective reality

Describe the Evolutionary Approach.

Cosmides - Why the human mind works based on history, selective pressure, recognizing threats, automatic perceptual system

What is the hindbrain?

Controls automatic functions (e.g., breathing, heartbeat).

What is the forebrain?

Handles complex processes like reasoning, memory, and emotion. Responsible for effortful cognitive processes like decision-making.

What is Phrenology?

A discredited theory by Franz Gall suggests that skull shape determines mental abilities.

What is Localization of Function?

The idea that different brain areas specialize in different cognitive functions (e.g., Broca's area for speech production). Certain parts of the brain are specialized for particular functions. Irregular damage is different for each person so it is hard to generalize what a specific function of the brain is. Brain injury and disease (Neuropsychology) → reverse engineer how the brain works to find caveats. Broca - Damage to left frontal lobe resulted in the loss of speech production. More about Broca Aphasia: Organized thoughts are translated into verbal utterance from an audience perspective. Involves stutters and stammers. Lose ability of speech. Localized in the left hemisphere. People with this are better at communicating non-verbally. Wernicke - Damage to left temporal lobe resulted in loss of speech comprehension. More about Wernicke Aphasia: Temporal lobe localization. Makes sounds but they don't make sense. Choosing wrong words/substitutions of those words. Unintelligible speech. Language comprehension. More severe → affect language system → leads to incorrect grammar.

Describe TMS.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or artificially turning on/off brain activity. Non-invasive methods to stimulate areas of the brain to treat medical resistance.

What are the pros and cons of CAT Scans?

CAT Scan: Uses X-rays for structural images. Pros: Quick, good for detecting damage. Cons: Radiation exposure.

What are the pros and cons structural MRI?

Uses magnetic fields. Pros: High resolution, no radiation. Cons: Expensive, restricted for metal implants.

What are the pros and cons for PET Scan?

Uses radioactive tracers to measure activity. Pros: Tracks brain function. Cons: Invasive, expensive.

What are the pros and cons for fMRI?

Measures oxygenated blood flow. Pros: Non-invasive, high spatial resolution. Cons: Expensive, indirect neural activity.

What are the pros and cons for EEG:?

Measures electrical activity. Pros: High temporal resolution. Cons: Poor spatial resolution.

What are the pros and cons for ERP?

Uses EEG to measure brain responses to stimuli. Pros: Good for measuring processing stages. Cons: Poor spatial detail.

What are distal stimuli?

The actual object in the environment (Light reflected from the objects in the world).

What are proximal stimuli?

The image (2D array light on retina) projected onto the retina.

Describe Precept..

Organize, a 3D representation of objects in the world

What is bottom-up processing?

Data-driven; perception starts with sensory input.

What is top-down processing?

Knowledge-driven; perception influenced by expectations and prior knowledge.

What is Gestalt psychology as an approach?

Concerned with explaining perceptual organization. "The whole is not just the sum of its parts." Proposed rules about how we impose structure on what we see. Explain patterns in how people interpret information.

Describe the law of Pragnanz.

The law of good figure, also known as the law of Prägnanz, is a Gestalt psychology principle that states that the brain interprets complex or ambiguous shapes in the simplest way possible.

Describe the principle of common fate.

Things that move together will be grouped perceptually.

Describe the principle of proximity.

We tend to perceive elements that are close together as belonging together.

Describe the principle of similarity.

Like things appear to be grouped together

What is featural analysis?

Recognizing objects by their individual features.

What is template matching?

Comparing objects to stored mental templates.

What is prototype matching?

Matching objects to idealized prototypes, or representations.

What is Geons (Biederman

1987), Recognizing objects based on 3D component shapes.

Q: What is the visual search task?

1.) Present participants with a visual array and 2.) Participants must find a "target" object. The target object might get manipulated like how you find it or how fast

Describe the influence of context.

The context in which an object occurs influences our ability to identify it. Information can create what you are seeing.

What is the Word Superiority Effect?

Letters are easier to recognize when they form a meaningful word than when they are presented alone or in random order. (TRAP vs. 'R')

Describe the Constructivist Approach (as they relate to perception).

Marr - Combination of top and bottom processing to help interpret → varies in levels. What we perceive is a product of information from the senses and stored knowledge. Sensory information is incomplete 1. Anatomical - Light enters the eye. Information is ambiguous → Filling in gaps . We construct a representation out of this information using what we know about the world to make sense of it. Use both bottom (information available) / top (context/experiences to fill the gap) processing to get a coherent perception of the world. The mind works like a computer-processes visual information, sensitive to processing, and regulates how it can be interpreted.

Describe the Ecological Approach (as they relate to perception).

J.J. Gibson - The world is filled with objective information. Detect the information on what is happening to interact.

Describe Direct Perception.

Inherent environment. The information available from the visual environment is so rich that no cognitive processing is required. All you need to do is detect it.

Describe Optic Flow.

Motion parallax

Describe Affordance.

Think of a chair. Look at 4 legs and think "this chair will support me". Embody cognition: sensation to make up what makes sense in the world.

What are Kahneman's characteristics of attention?

1. Limited capacity - Finite resources. We allocate finite resources till you run out of activity 2. Flexible - Can shift focus as needed (i.e. we put less attentiveness in peripheral details). 3. Voluntary control - This can be directed toward goals. 4. Emergency mode - Fight-or-flight response increases focus.

What is inattentional blindness?

The failure to notice an unexpected stimulus when focusing on something else (e.g., Gorilla Experiment, or door experiment).

What is the dichotic listening paradigm?

A study method where participants hear different messages in each ear and must focus on one. Results show we filter out unattended messages. What do they notice? (YES): Music vs. speech vs silence, gender of speaker, pitch, volume (physical properties) What do they not notice (NO): Meaning of stimulus. Actual message of what was heard and its underlying parts.

Describe Shadowing.

Paying attention to only one message and repeating it to themselves.

What is the filter model of attention?

Broadbent (1958) - Early selection; Only one stimulus is filtered out based on goals/intentions to get it to be stored in memory. Passive filtering based on bottom-up information

What is the attentuation model of attention?

Treisman, 1960 - Unattended stimuli are weakened but still processed at a subconscious level. Suggests the involvement of top-down information.

What is the Feature Integration Theory?

1. Feature search - stage one: Perceptual features detected quickly and effortlessly for basic features like color, shape, pitch, or volume. Automatic processing (pre-attentive), requires little mental effort. Pop-out effect - visual primitives like light vs. dark or textures. RT unaffected by the number of distractors. 2. Conjunction search requires a second stage: Attention focused on each to identify targets-requires mental effort. Controlled processing (post-attentive). The number of distractors affects RT (reaction time). Integrating information and putting more effort into processing complex objects. Mold using attention. More stuff to sort through = longer time to identify.

How do feature searches (parallel) relate to the retrieval from STM?

Retrieving all at once.

How do conjunction searches (serially) relate to the retrieval from STM?

Retrieving one at a time.

What is divided attention?

Splitting cognitive resources between multiple tasks. Performance depends on task difficulty, similarity, and practice. How much can they do?. It depends: How much mental effort is required by each task (the sum can't exceed your capacity)? How similar the tasks are (more similar = harder to juggle attention). Better to do one task at time.

How does practice help with attention?

Key to reducing the amount of mental effort. In some cases, practice can turn a controlled process into an automatic one. Frees up resources that can be devoted to other tasks.

What are automatic processes?

This is done without intention or awareness. Doesn't interfere with other mental tasks.

What are controlled processes?

More demanding, more effortful but limited due to resources we have. Requires attention and is under conscious control. Takes up cognitive resources.

What describes encoding?

How information is obtained from the environment, or how it is translated into a mental representation → accessibility.

What describes storage?

Where information is stored.

What describes retrieval?

How do we get information back out?

What is the Stroop Effect (1935)?

Demonstrates automatic vs. controlled processing—naming ink colors of incongruent words (e.g., "RED" in blue ink) is difficult due to automatic reading.

What is the Modal Model of Memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin 1968)?

Sensory Memory - Brief storage of sensory info (~1 sec). Short-Term Memory (STM) - Holds 7±2 chunks for ~20 sec. Long-Term Memory (LTM) - Stores info indefinitely.

What describes sensory memory?

Processing sensory information. The end stage of the attention process. Stimulus goes away to be perceived, but can be held on. Brief (c. 1 to 2 seconds-less than a second). Information preserved in original modality Visual: Iconic (Memory). Auditory: Echoic. Information stays in their sensory channel. Mostly discarded since it is redundant.. Wide but shallow. Wide - how much information being processed. Shallow - Not able to hold on to it for long. Most important information gets held on to while irrelevant information gets filtered out.

What describes short-term working memory?

"Conscious processing memory zone". Consciously processes information. Limited capacity (7 plus or minus 2 chunks). Fulfill goal. Engage to store it for future use. Short duration (20 sec to 2 minutes). If you did not do anything to engage with memory → lose it. Flexible, processing strategies. Rehearsal, elaboration, grouping. More limited to process all information at once.

What describes long-term memory?

Essentially infinite capacity/duration. Not going anywhere, the memory hard drive. Information rarely lost. Information stored semantically. Humans have not reached a threshold. The difference between access to memory vs. memory being there. Not accessible but memory cannot go away.

What is the primacy effect?

The tendency to remember materials presented early in a series. Attributed to rehearsal of these items and transfer into LTM. due to memory rehearsal. Less competition for the first few items → hit capacity in STM → juggle middle words.

What is the recency effect?

The tendency to remember materials that occur later in a series. Attributed to presence in STM.

Describe an Icon.

Visual / Memory memory.

Describe Echo.

Auditory memory.

What is the STM capacity?

G. Miller (1956): Magical Number 7, Plus or minus two. How do we test the capacity of STM? Memory span-the longest string of information person can recall. 5-9 items. What is an item? Digit span test. Failure: # of times you failed to remember. Children have shorter STM than adults. Neurodegenerative can also affect STM capacity i.e. Dementia/Alzheimers (no longer store 7, only 4 to 5 items at most). Acetylcholine channels are suppressed. Conversations are topical like talking in circles because the information is overloading.

What is chunking?

Grouping information into meaningful units to expand STM capacity. Dependent on knowledge, it only matters that the chunks are meaningful to you (can go beyond restrictions).

What is interference?

Information displacing other information and making it harder to retrieve.

What is decay?

Loss of information due to the passage of time. If information in STM is not being engaged due to external tasks, then it won't remember information after 20 seconds.

What is working memory?

A system for actively processing information

What is Phonological loop?

Processing sounds or language based information. Repeating information to yourself. Mental description or image being processed.

What is Visuospatial sketchpad?

Responsible for manipulation of visual and spatial information. Call up images from LTM.

What is the Central executive:?

"Attentional overlord"; Allocating attention resources based on memory demand. Put resources where they are needed. Chooses between loop or pad when allocating mental resources.

What is long-term memory?

Essentially infinite capacity/duration of memory. Not going anywhere, goes to the memory hard drive.

What is the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve?

A graph showing rapid initial forgetting followed by a slower decline over time, suggesting information was lost or disconnected. The relearning where you are reintegrating the information can take less mental effort and mental resources to store it.

What is Encoding Specificity?

Memory is best when the retrieval condition matches the encoding condition.

What describes Context dependent memory?

External states: odors, noisy vs. quiet environments, the room. Smell has direct connection to hippocampus. Internal states: mood, intoxication (i.e. happy mood)

What describes spacing effect?

More and more spread out study sessions lead to better performance. Leads to more variety of retrieval cues. More context you can create more likely to retrieve information.

What is Implicit memory (knowing how)?

Non-declarative-Influence of past experience without conscious awareness like procedural memories.

What is Explicit Memory (knowing that)?

Declarative-Memories about life and events that are consciously remembered like episodic, or semantic memories.

What are the levels of processing?

Focused on the process of memory rather than the structure of memory where more and stronger associations to existing knowledge can assist in retrieval. Memory actions act as memory cues where they can activate memory.

What is shallow processing?

Poor retention. Does not take a lot of mental processing to remember.

What is deep processing?

Good retention. Takes more time and effort to make meaningful connections.

What are Autobiographical memories?

Events and issues related to the self that could be ordinary. Sometimes everyday events tend to get summarized into schemas.

What are Flashbulb Memories?

Surprising, emotionally arousing events.

What are False Memories?

When one's permastore does not match up with memory and confidence in memory never changes because they are pulling in different contexts of that one event, mixing up information and distorting their memory.

What are repressed memories?

Memories that are unconsciously avoided or blocked, usually due to a traumatic experience.

What is Anterograde Amnesia?

An inability to create new memories and remember events following the onset of amnesia (damage to hippocampus - think HM or Dory from Finding Nemo)

What is Retrograde Amnesia?

An inability to remember events prior to the onset of amnesia (damage to frontal lobe).

What is proactive interference?

Information already in memory makes it harder to remember new information. (i.e. old password vs. new password)

What is retroactive interference

Newly encoded information makes it difficult to remember older information. (i.e. Waugh-Newman task, or struggle to remember your ex gf's name)

What is state-dependent learning?

Memory is best recalled when in the same state as when it was encoded (e.g., learning while caffeinated → better recall when caffeinated).