Information processing: Sensory- perception, attention and memory

Chapter 6

Sensation

Information detected by sensory receptors.

Perception

Integration of sensory information to understand.

Attention

Focusing perception and cognition on a stimulus.

Memory

Ability to store and use information later.

Infant Vision

Basic visual capacities present at birth, including acuity, accommodation, colour vision, and pattern/face perception.

Depth Perception

Infants can perceive this by the age of 2 months, as demonstrated by the Visual Cliff experiment.

Vision and Hearing Integration

Newborns will look in the direction of the sound they hear.

Early Sensory Experiences

Stimulation required early in life for normal brain development.

First 3 months are critical for vision

Kitten eye experiment

Sensory Development in Childhood

Visual acuity improves to adult levels around 4-6 years, and contrast sensitivity around 7 years.

Three aspects of attention that improve in Children

Attention span becomes longer, more selective and more systematic.

Attention Improvements in Adolescence

Longer attention span and more efficient at ignoring irrelevant stimuli.

Leads to improvements in memory & problem solving

Multitasking

People are generally slower and less accurate when doing two things at once.

Sensory register

Logs input; very brief duration

Working(short-term) memory

Small amount of information; limited duration.

From attention of sensory register

Long-term memory

Large quantity of information; unlimited duration

From consolidation of working memory

Central executive

Controls attention and flow of information.

Phonological loop

Auditory information

Memory processes

Encoding, consolidation, storage, retrieval (recognition, cued recall, recal)

Types of Memory

Long-term memory divided into explicit and implicit.

Explicit (declarative)

Split into episodic and semantic

Episodic memory

Events also autobiographical, part of explicit memory

Semantic memory

Facts, general knowledge, part of explicit memory

Infantile amnesia

Cueing can improve memory performance

By age 2 years events can be recalled for months and less cue-dependent.

Why do we remember little about our early years (autobiographical memories)

Space in working memory, lack of language, sociocultural support, sense of self, verbatim vs gist storage, neurogenesis

4 Factors that influence autobiographical memories

Personal significance, distinctiveness, emotional intensity, life phase

Hearing Changes in Adults

Loss of sensitivity to high-frequency or high-pitched sounds most common

Otitis media

A major cause of hearing loss for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults and children.

Taste

Newborns can distinguish these, and Prefer sweet.

Smell (olfaction)

Good at birth, Exposure to familiar ones can calm.

Touch

Develops before birth cephalocaudal direction

Reflexive responses initiated by it.

Vision changes in Adults

Pupils become smaller and do not respond as well, The lens becomes denser and less flexible and Visual acuity steadily declines

Problem solving

The use of information processing system to achieve a goal or arrive at a decision.

Parallel processing

Simultaneously carrying out cognitive activities

4 Hypotheses for Improvements in Learning and Memory during Childhood

Changes in basic capacities, Changes in memory strategies, Increased knowledge about memory, Increased knowledge about the world

Executive control processes

Processes that direct and monitor the selection, organisation, manipulation and interpretation of information

Infant hearing

Can hear better than they can see, can localise sounds, startled by loud noise, prefer complex audio and preference for speech over non-speech sounds

Episodic buffer

Integrates audio & visual info, retains chronological order

Visual-spatial scratchpad

Visual & spatial info

Orienting system

Infants are captured by something

Focusing system

Children are directed towards something

Implicit memory (nondeclarative)

Split into skills, procedures habits & priming & other e.g. classical conditioning