Midterm 1 (Ch1-5)

cognitive psychology

the study of human mental processes or the way humans interpret their environment, process information, and form responses

Donders

psychologist who did the first ever cognitive psychology experiment to see how long it takes for people to make a decision (compared simple reaction time and choice reaction time)

nativism

view that we’re born with certain knowledge

empiricism

view that knowledge stems from experience and can be studied with observation and experimentation

structuralism

view that argues that overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience (sensations)

Wundt

structuralist who wanted to make a periodic table of consciousness containing all the sensations that make up experience and wanted to use analytic introspection to do this

introspection

method in which trained participants describe their experiences and thoughts in response to stimuli

James

functionalist who used introspection to write the first every psychology textbook based on observations of his own experiences

Ebbinghaus

psychologist who wanted to measure memory and forgetting, used the savings method and found that forgetting occurs rapidly in the first 1-2 days after original learning

Watson

didn’t like introspection since it’s unreliable and subjective, so he suggested behaviouralism and his ideas were associated with classical conditioning

behaviourism

view that observable behaviour provides the only valid data for psychology, and everybody starts off with a blank slate (tabula rasa) and could be trained to do anything

cognitive revolution

shift from the behaviourist approach to one where the main goal was to explain behaviour in terms of the mind

Newell and Simon

psychologists that compared humans to computers, which provided a structure for how to think about thoughts and mental processes--made a computer program that could create proofs for logic problems

Miller

psychologist that presented his work on short term memory and concluded that there’s a limit of 7 + or - 2 items in storage and processing of short term memory

Chomsky

psychologist that argued that language is an inherited rule-governed system, believed that language is a product of the way the mind is constructed and not a result of conditioning

information processing approach

approach where the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages

levels of analysis

the idea that a topic can be studied in a number of different ways, with each approach contributing its own dimension to our understanding

neurons

cells that are specialized the receive and transmit information in the nervous system

nerve net

idea that neurons make up a continuous, complex pathway that conducts signals uninterrupted though the network

neuron doctrine

idea that individual neurons transmit signals in the nervous system (not continuous)

cell body

the metabolic centre of a neuron that contains mechanisms to keep the cell alive

dendrites

parts of a neuron that receive signals from other neurons

axon

part of a neuron that transmits signals to other neurons

synapse

gap between one neuron’s axon and another neuron’s dendrites or cell body

receptors

specialized neurons that pick up information from the environment

excitatory

type of neurotransmitters that increase the chances that the neuron will fire

inhibitory

type of neurotransmitters that decrease the chances that the neuron will fire

principle of neural representation

principle that states that everything a person experiences is based on representations in the person’s nervous system

feature detectors

neurons that respond to specific stimulus features in the visual cortex (ie. length, movement, orientation, etc.)

experience based plasticity

phenomenon that the structure of the brain is changed by experiences (ie. with a little practice, your brain is good at processing signals more and more efficiently)

sensory coding

how neurons represent various characteristics of the environment

specificity coding

idea that an object could be represented by the firing of one neuron that only responds to that object

population coding

idea that an object could be represented by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons

sparce coding

idea that an object could be represented by the pattern of firing of a small number of neurons, with the majority of neurons staying silent

localization of function

principle of brain organization where specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain

frontal lobe

part of the brain that is responsible for reasoning, planning, and emotion

parietal lobe

part of the brain that is responsible for perceptions of touch, pressure, temperature, and pain

temporal lobe

part of the brain that is responsible for hearing and memory

occipital lobe

part of the brain that is responsible for vision

prosopagnosia

damage to the temporal lobe causes this inability to recognize faces

perception

experiences resulting from stimulation of the senses-- the gateway to all other cognitions

visual perception

the process of interpreting visual information that is sensed by the eyes

cornea

the clear covering on the eye

iris

the ring of muscles in the eye that controls how much light gets in

lens

part of the eye that works with the cornea to focus light on the back of the eye

retina

the photosensitive membrane at the back of the eye where transduction takes place

fovea

the point in the eye with the highest visual acuity, where photocells/receptors get light directly instead of it being fed through other cells first

optic nerve

part of the eye that takes visual information to the brain

blind spot

point where the optic nerve leaves the eye so we fill this in/use completion so we don’t notice a gap in vision

inverse projection problem

the task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on the retina--it involves extending rays from the eyes to determine the object as the retinal image could be produced by different things at different angles

rods

photoreceptors that are very sensitive to light but have low acuity, so they’re used more at night

cones

photoreceptors that have low sensitivity to light but have high acuity (and have different types to respond to different colours of light)

blindsight

condition caused by damage to the occipital light so people can “see without seeing” as their conscious streams of sight are damaged, but the unconscious one is intact

ventral stream

allows us to determine an object’s identity-- also known as the what/perception pathway and goes from the striate to the temporal lobe

dorsal stream

allows us to determine an object’s location-- also known as the where/action pathway and goes from the striate to the parietal lobe

distal stimulus

stimulus that is out in the world--3D object

proximal stimulus

stimulus on the sense organ (retina) that is a 2D representation of what is out in the world

viewpoint invariance

our ability to recognize an object even when it’s from different viewpoints

binocular cues

information from both eyes that help us interpret distance and size (ie. convergence and binocular disparity)

convergence

when the eyes cross and lenses accommodate when objects are close--the more crossed the eyes are, the closer the object

binocular disparity

the slightly different views of the world projected onto each eye

monocular cues

properties from the proximal stimulus that help us determine depth

perspective

monocular cue in which parallel lines seem to converge at a distance, which tells you how big the object is/how far it goes

relative size

monocular cue in which bigger things tend to be closer

interposition

monocular cue in which closer objects obscure/cover distant ones

motion parallax

monocular cue in which closer objects move quicker than further ones--the faster an object seems to go, the closer it is

texture gradient

monocular cue in which the less detailed the texture is, the further away it is (blurring gives the impression of depth)

aerial perspective

monocular cue in which the farther something is, the more there will be a bluish haze to it

shading

monocular cue in which the light-from-above assumption allows us to interpret things like bumps and holes

Gestalt psychology

early approach that looked at how we segregate and group visual information--”the whole is more than the sum of the parts” which rejected the structuralist idea that perceptions are formed by 'adding up’ sensations

law of proximity

law in Gestalt psychology where things close together relative to other things are likely to be together

law of similiarity

law in Gestalt psychology where similar things appear to be grouped together

law of good continuation

law in Gestalt psychology where points, when connected, result in a straight or smoothly curving line appear to be grouped together

law of closure

law in Gestalt psychology where gaps, when filled in, make a shape/picture appear to be together

law of common fate

law in Gestalt psychology where things that move together appear to be together

law of Pragnanz

law in Gestalt psychology where organization should be as simple, stable, and as consistent as possible

bottom-up processing

processing that goes from the eye to brain and starts when environmental energy stimulates the receptors (data-driven process)

top-down processing

processing that starts at the brain, our knowledge of the environment enables us to rapidly identify objects and scenes (conceptually driven process)

template theory

theory that objects are represented by templates that current images are compared to--issue: object must match the template perfectly for you to identify it (same size, orientation, position, can’t be partially covered, etc.)

feature theory

theory that we analyze stimuli as a combination of elemental theories and recognize objects by searching our memory for objects with those features (linked with pandemonium theory where feature demons scream louder at distinct features)--issue: hard to say what features we have and it doesn’t account for spatial relations (if we break everything into features how do we know where things are in relation to each other)

prototype theory

theory that we have an image in our mind that is the ‘ideal’ for that category, and we compare objects to it in order to perceive them--issue: more flexible than features/templates but also more vague, hard to say how many prototypes we have

object centered theory

modified feature theory that states that we have 3D representations of objects, so we can recognize the same object from different viewpoints

recognition by components theory

an object centered theory by Biederman that states that everything is made up of geons, if we can recognize the components/geons then we can recognize the objects

viewer-centered theory

modified template theory that states that we store multiple representations of objects and do transformations of stimuli to match stored representations

multiple view theory

a viewer-centered theory that states that we don’t have 3D representations, we just take snapshots at a bunch of different angles to identify objects at different viewpoints

Helmholt’s inference

theory that because the image displayed on the retina is ambiguous, we use the likelihood principle, which means we perceive what is most likely making the image

Bayesian inference

theory that regularities in the environment provide information we can use to resolve ambiguities, we use our beliefs about the probability of seeing that object and the actual likelihood of it to figure out what we are perceiving

change blindness

not noticing a clear change due to either the flicker paradigm or some sort of movement

selective attention

process of attending to one thing while ignoring others

cocktail party effect

effect where you can be attending to one conversation among many but still notice critical information from other conversations (ie. your name)

dichotic listening experiments

experiments that involve different stimuli going to each ear and being asked to pay attention to only one

shadowing

the procedure of repeated the words as they’re heard in a dichotic listening experiment

Cherry

psychologist who did dichotic listening experiments and found that some information gets through from the unattended message--you can report if the voice was male or female, but not what the voice was saying--results suggest that some information is processed to some extent but gets filtered out

Broadbent

psychologist who was inspired by Cherry’s dichotic listening experiment and created the early selection/early filter model of attention

early selection model

theory/model that involves a filter that comes after detection and before recognition, so you select after detecting the physical characteristics but before detecting the meaning--issue: some information gets through like in the cocktail party effect how does your name get through if the filter comes before meaning detection

late filter model

theory/model that selection occurs after processing meaning

Treisman

psychologist who did a dichotic listening test with messages with meaning that jumped from ear to ear, his results made him combine early and late selection/filter models to create the intermediate selection model

intermediate selection model

model/theory by Treisman in which filtering can be based on physical properties or meaning, and it introduced the ideas of attenuators and dictionary units

attenuator

part of the intermediate selection model that analyzes incoming messages and the attended one is let through at full strength and unattended ones are let through at a weaker strength

dictionary unit

part of the intermediate selection model that has different thresholds for being activated--important or common words have low thresholds and uncommon words have high thresholds