COG PSYCH CHAPTER 1 TERMS

definition of cognitive psychology

scientific study of the mental processes involved in attention, perception, learning, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and thinking. an approach to understanding human cognition by observing how people perform various cognitive tasks

cognitive neuropsychology

focuses on studying participants with brain damage and injuries

cognitive neuroscience

combines evidence from both brains and behaviour to understand human cognition (also uses brain imaging). they want to understand human cognition by combining information from behaviour and the brain.

computational cognitive science

involves modelling human cognitive processes with computers

how does cognitive psychology differ from behaviourism/associationism

behaviourism focuses on how behaviours are learned and reinforced throughout environmental interactions. cognitive psychology is interested in the intermediate steps between stimulus presentation and responses/actions. the steps between stimuli presentation and response is what we study.

how did cognitive psychology used to be based on?

based on information processing models, which drew inspiration from an analogy of the brain as a computer. might include a sequence of events from the presentation of a stimulus, attending to the stimulus, perception of the stimulus, cognitive processes which use or transform that information, and then some decision is made based on the information, and an appropriate response oraction is made

early psychology models such as information processing models thought of the brain/mind as analogous to what?

a computer!

bottom-up processing

processing directly controlled by a stimulus

top-down processing

processing which is affected by the participant’s previous knowledge

serial processing

only one process can occur at any moment in time, and a process must be completed before a new process can start

parallel processing

more than one cognitive process can occur at the same time (we are more likely to use this when performing a highly practiced task rather than a new one)

limitations of cog psych research

ecological validity, experimenter bias, and paradigm specificity

ecological validity

since most of the research we have done is in a strictly controlled lab, it makes it hard to generalise the research

experimenter bias

how a researcher can influence participants’ behaviour in a study

paradigm specificity

occurs when the findings with a given experimental task are not obtained even when apparently very similar tasks are used

five assumptions of cognitive neuropsychology

modularity, domain specificity, anatomical modularity, uniformity of functional architecture across people, and subtractivity

modularity

assumes that the cognitive system is made up of separate “modules” that work independently of each other

domain specificity

assumes that each module is specialized for a specific purpose (i.e., “domain”, such as verbal vs. visual perceptual, vs mathematical tasks)

anatomical modularity

assumes that each module is in a specific area of the brain

uniformity of functional architecture across people

assumes that different people’s brain areas (modules) are organized in approximately the same way; for example, the fusiform face area (FFA) of the brain should be in approximately the same location and serve the same function across people

subtractivity

assumes that injuries to specific areas impairs the function of that brain are but does NOT change functioning or add new functions (this assumption is partially incorrect because partial recovery of functioning can occur via recruitment of nearby brain areas to compensate for an injury)

single dissociation

when a participant can perform normally on one type of cognitive task, but not another task

double dissociation

when one participant (with a specific pattern of brain injury) can perform normally on one type of cognitive task, but not another task. conversely, another participant (with a different pattern of brain injury) can perform normally on the latter task, but not the former. these are considered some of the strongest evidence that different cognitive functions exist as separate modules in the brain.

association

when one participant is impaired on two tasks, it might suggest that those cognitive functions share the same location in the brain; however, it could also suggest that those functions rely on brain areas that are anatomically close together in the brain

frontal lobe

towards the forehead

parietal lobe

top of the head and back

temporal lobe

on either side of the head, from ears and back

occipital lobe

toward the back of the skull

dorsal/superior

towards the top

ventral/inferior

towards the bottom

rostral/anterior

towards the front

posterior

towards the back

lateral

towards the side

medial

towards the middle

spatial resolution

how precisely they can identify where activity occurs in the brain; WHERE

temporal resolution

how precisely they can measure when activity occurs; WHEN

Electroencephalography (EEG) resolution

high temporal resolution, worse spatial resolution

magneto-encephalography (MEG) resolution

good spatial AND temporal resolution

positron emission tomography (PET) resolution

decent spatial resolution but relatively poor temporal resolution

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) resolution

very good spatial resolution, but temporal resolution is 2-3 seconds

converging operations

when research using different approaches and techniques to the same research question leads to the same conclusion, we can be more confident in that conclusion. if the results lead to different conclusions, that should indicate that further research and refinement of the theory or theories will be needed

what are rods specialised for

vision in low light conditions

where are rods primarily located

periphery

what are cones specialised for

colour and detailed vision

where are cones located

the fovea

what is the “m” or magnocellular pathway known as (how/where or what)

how/where

what is the “p” or parvocellular pathway known as (how/where or what)

what

what is the m pathway most sensitive to and where does it proceed to

movement information and proceeds to posterior parietal cortex

what is the p pathway most sensitive to and where does it proceed to

colour and fine details and proceeds to inferotemporal cortex

what is the ventral stream for

vision for perception and used to identify objects

what is the dorsal stream for

vision for action and used for visually guided action

what is coding like in the ventral stream

allocentric (object centered)

what is coding like in the dorsal stream

egocentric (body centered)

are representations in the dorsal stream sustained over time

no

achromatopsia

condition involving little to no colour perception but otherwise intact vision; affected area is V4

akinetopsia

condition where motion perception is impaired (although stationary objects are perceived normally); affected area is V5

optic ataxia

condition characterised by impaired ability to make visually guided movements despite no impairments to visual perception; may be caused by damage to posterior parietal cortex; generally worse in peripheral vision

visual form agnosia

condition characterised by impairments to shape perception (important for identifying objects); caused by injury to ventral stream

dichromacy

two working cone types but one is missing

prosopagnosia

face blindness; characterised by impaired face processing

object agnosia

condition characterised by impaired object recognition

pattern recognition

identification and classification of two-dimensional things; it is highly flexible; generally we process the overall structure/meaning of an image more quickly than specific features of the image

object recognition

3D things; primarily occurs in the ventral strea,

Which combinations of large and small letters lead to more / less interference in tasks to identify the large or small letters?

performance speed with the small letters was greatly slowed when the large letter differed from the small letters. in contrast, decision speed with the large letter was NOT influenced by the nature of the small letter.

what did gestalt psychologists study

first studied how complex visual stimuli were organised

law of pragnanz

fundamental principle that posits that we usually perceive stimuli following the simplest possible organisation

law of proximity

elements that are close together tend to be perceived as grouped together

law of similarity

more similar elements tend to be grouped together

law of good continuation

we group together those elements requiring the fewest changes or interruptions in straight or smoothly curving lines

law of closure

the missing parts of a figure are filled in to complete the figure

two systems model

suggests that object recognition (i.e., local processing) primarily occurs in the ventral stream, and the greatest neuronal activity and largest receptive fields occur at higher levels of visual processing

recognition by components theory

suggests that objects consist of basic shapes called “geons,” where different combinations of geons (and how specifically they are connected) provide representations of more complex objects (what shapes are important for defining a mug)

lobe of the brain primarily (but not solely) responsible for visual processing

occipital

dependent on the observer’s position, relative to perceived objects

egocentric

a furrow or grove in the cortex of the brain

sulcus

another term for congifural, having to do with processing a complex stimuli as a whole and accounting for the relations between individual parts

holistic

the pathway from the eye to the visual cortex which primarily has inputs coming from the cone cells

parvocellular or p pathway

holistic processing

integrating information from the entire object; involves the relations between features as well as the features themselves

face-inversion effects

disproportionately harder to recognise than upright faces relative to objects; also have been found in experts on other specific topics as well

part-whole effect

face part is recognised more easily when presented as part of a whole face than when presented in isolation

What types of stimuli is the Fusiform Face Area especially activated by? Remember that while it is generally MOST activated by faces, that is not ALL it is activated by.

activated by objects of expertise

model proposed by duchaine and nakayama

face detection, structural encoding, then emotion & gender OR face memory

ELECTROENCEPHALOGORAPHY (EEG)

measures brain activity indirectly from the surface of the scalp; less invasive than single-unit recording

MAGNETO-ENCEPHALOGRAPHY (MEG)

similar idea to EEG but instead measures magnetic fields caused by electrical activity in the brain

POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY (PET)

involves participants being injected with small amounts of radioactively labelled water, which moves to active areas in the cortex of the brain. a device detects the positrons, so brain areas that are emitting more positrons are more active during some tasks

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING (MRI)

uses powerful magnets to briefly align protons in the brain, and when that alignment is ended, the protons emit a small amount of energy that can be detected and used to map the structure of the brain

TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION (TMS)

technique that uses a magnetic coil near a participant’s head to induce a magnetic pulse that inhibits electrical activity in a small area of the brain under the coil