Cognitive Psych Exam 1

Mind

A system that creates mental representations of the world and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking and reasoning so we can act within the world

Cognition

Everything your mind does that allows you to think, learn, remember and make sense of and operate within the world around you

Cognitive psychology

Study of the mind and its cognitions

Receptor cells

Specialized cells that pick up information from the environment

Emergent property of the brain (aka we don’t know)

The mind is an

Donders

Conducted the first cognitive psychology research in 1868, researched how long it takes someone to make a decision. Supports that mental responses can’t be measured directly, only through behavior

Structuralism

First school of thought in psychology. Focused on dissecting the mind into it’s smallest components and “sensations”

Wundt

Earliest visual perception studies, his technique failed but he tried to study in a controlled manner. Structuralism

Analytic introspection

Trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimui

Ebbinghaus

Studied the nature of remembering and forgetting

Savings

Measure of forgetting

More forgetting

Less savings =

John Watson

Founded behaviorism, observable behavior provides the only valid data for psychology. Con is that consciousness and unobservable mental process aren’t worth studying

Gestalt theory

The experience of what we perceive is more than the sum of its parts

Pareidolia

When you perceive something meaningful where no meaning is present

Edward Tolman

A behaviorist, discovered the cognitive map

Feature detector

Mechanism in an information processing system which responds to specific features in a pattern of simulation (such as lines, corners, length, etc.)

Cognitive neuroscience

Study of brain activity and function - supports cognition coming from physical events in the brain

Long term potentiation

A lasting change in synaptic resistance following the application of electrical stimulation (gets easier for neurons to fire together the more they do

Cognitive neuropsychology

Study of brain activity and function in the presence of brain damage

Paradigm shift

A fundamental change when an old and dominant way of thinking is replaced by a new approach

Paradigm shift

A fundamental change when an old and dominant way of thinking is replaced by a new approach

CT/CAT

X-ray based methods that show brain structure (frequently used to look for tumors)

MRI

uses magnetic fields and radio waves to provide detailed picture of brain structure (can show brain matter location and density)

EEG

Records a brain’s electrical activity through a series of scalp electrodes. Frequently used in sleep research

fMRI

Measures blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) contrast to create picture of brain metabolism and activity (best resolution)

PET

Measures movement of radioactive tracer to create picture of brain activity

PET

Measures movement of radioactive tracer to create picture of brain activity

Ulric Neisser

Coined the term cognitive psychology

Inferred from behavior

The first experiments in cognitive psychology were based on the idea that mental responses can be

Nerve net

Finding that all neurons were physically connected to each other in a giant network. This was concept because of the stains available at the time

Neuron doctrine

Neurons are individual, separate cells that transmit signals to each other. Found by Ramon y cajal

Coding specificity

An object is represented by the firing of a specialized neuron that responds only to that object

Population coding

Representation of an object by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons

Sparse coding

Same as population coding but with fewer neurons

86 billion

How many neurons do we have

Neural representation

Everything a person experiences is based on representation’s in the person’s nervous system

Localization of function

Specific areas of the brain serve specific functions

Broca’s area

Responsible for language production

Fusiform face area (FFA)

In the temporal lobe, active in response to faces

Extrastriate body area

Active in response to body parts, but not faces or other images

Wernicke’s area

Responsible for language comprehension

Double dissociation

When damage to one part of the brain causes something to be absent while another function is present

Prosopagnosia

Abnormal function of FFA

Cortex

Surface of the brain

Sub-cortex

All of the brain inside the cortex

Cortex

Where does most conscious processing happen

Hierarchical processing

Progression of information processing from lower to higher brain areas

Distributed representation

Even a single task is associated with activation across many brain areas

Structural pathways

Physical highway of neurons

Functional pathways

Patterns of activation that occur within the structural pathways, the cars on the road

Default mode network

A network of brain structures that respond when a person is not involved in specific tasks. Responsible for mind wandering and day-dreaming

Cortical equipotentiality

Theory stating that different parts of the cortex have the capacity to take over and perform the functions of damaged or missing areas

Voxel

Fundamental unit to map and analyze the brain

Sensation

Process of sensing signals from the world. No interpretation, just raw input

Perception

The interpretation of information brought in by sensation; happens in the brain

Inverse projection problem

A number of different objects can create the same projection on the retina

Viewpoint invariance

The ability to recognize an object when it is seen from different viewpoints

Bottom up processing

Data driven processing. Doesn’t depend on memory

Top down processing

Schema driven processing. Assumptions. Perception triggered by input but shaped by prior knowledge

Speech segmentation

The process of perceiving individual words from the continuous stream of sounds in spoken language

Transitional probabilities

The likelihood that a particular sound or word will follow another in a given language

Likelihood principle

Idea that our perceptual system decides that whatever we are sensing is whatever is most likely to be

Unconscious interference

Process by which our perceptual system uses unconscious assumptions about the environment to create our reality

Gestalt principles

Rules by which our visual perception system organizes separate parts of an object or scene into an integrated visual perception

Semantic regularities

The characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes

Scene schema

Knowledge of what a given scene usually contains

Bayesian inference

Our perception is a combination of experiences and current visual inputs. Makes perception mathematical based on probablilities

Prior

Our initial belief about an outcome before considering current sensory evidence

Oblique effect

People can perceive horizontal and vertical orientations more easily than slanted

Light from above assumption

A heuristic where the brain assumes light comes from above, influencing how we perceive shadows, depth, and concavity

Brain ablation

The removal or destruction of a specific area of the brain to observe the resulting deficits

Temporal

The object discrimination problem is linked to what lobe

Parietal

The landmark discrimination problem is linked to what lobe

Ventral pathway

The what pathway is also known as the

Dorsal pathway

The where pathway is also known as the

Occipital to parietal

The dorsal pathway runs from ____ to _____

Occipital to temporal

The ventral pathway runs from _____ to _____

Perception pathway

Path from the visual cortex to the temporal lobe, equivalent to the ventral/what pathway

Action pathway

Path from the visual cortex to the parietal lobe, equivalent to the dorsal/where pathway

Haptic information

Sensory information obtained through active touch and manipulation of objects

Kinesthesis

The sense that detects movement and position of the body and limbs

Proprioception

The sense of body position in space

Mirror neuron

A neuron that fires both when an action is performed and when the same action is observed

Size weight illusion

A small object feels significantly heavier than a larger object with the same weight because of top down processes

Attention

Focusing on a particular stimuli or location

Selective attention

Focusing on one thing while ignoring something else

Broadbents filter model of attention

A filter lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli

Cherry

Person did a study, people could determine the gender of the voice in the unattended ear but not the content

Moray

Person did a study, participants were unaware of a word repeated 35 times in the unattended ear

Early selection model

Moray and cherry studies are evidence for

Early selection model

Incoming information is filtered out in beginning of processing

Treismans attenuator model of selective attention

An attenuator analyzes incoming information and lets through the attended information at full strength as well as the unattended but at a lower strength

Cocktail party effect

Ability to focus on one stimuli while primarily filtering out other stimuli, hearing your name in a crowd

Late selection model

Most incoming information is processed to the level of meaning before the attended message is selected

Biased competition hypothesis

All aspects of a situation “compete” for attention such that the bigger and brighter objects cause attentional capture. Good for evolution

Endogenous attentional system

Allows voluntary attentional focus that is goal driven. Could be influenced by experience.

Stroop task

The strength/importance of the external stimuli will impact our endogenous system

Saccades

Rapid jerky movements of the eye from one fixation point to the next. Allows for more detailed visual information and overt attention shifts