Honor Cognitive Psychology notes

Inattentional Blindness

The phenomenon where people fail to notice objects that are not the focus of their attention.

Change Blindness

A lack of awareness of changes in a visual stimulus.

Feature Integration Theory

A theory describing how individual features of an object are combined in perception through focused attention.

Selective Attention

The process of focusing on a specific object in the environment for a certain period while ignoring others.

Divided Attention

The ability to process multiple sources of information simultaneously, also known as multitasking.

Attentional Blink

A phenomenon where the ability to perceive the second of two stimuli is impaired if the first stimulus is detected.

Automatic Processes

Cognitive processes that are unintentional, unconscious, effortless, and do not require attention.

Controlled Processes

Cognitive processes that are intentional, conscious, effortful, and depend on attention.

Top-down Attention Control

Attention that is directed by the individual's voluntary intentions and expectations.

Bottom-up Attention Control

Attention that is captured involuntarily by an external stimulus.

Cognitive Control

The ability to guide behavior in accordance with goals and intentions.

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

A brain region involved in cognitive control and attention management.

Depth of Processing Theory

The theory suggesting that deeper levels of analysis during learning lead to more durable memory traces.

Dual-task interference

A decrease in performance when trying to carry out two tasks that interfere with one another.

Capacity Theory of Attention

The theory that attention is a limited resource that can be allocated to different tasks.

Pertinence Theory

The concept suggesting everything is analyzed for meaning, and the most relevant stimulus is selected for memory encoding.

The Stroop Task

A cognitive task that demonstrates the interference of automatic processing with controlled processing.

Memory Encoding

The process of converting information into a format that can be stored in memory.

Maintenance Rehearsal

A shallow form of encoding that involves repetition of information to keep it in short-term memory.

Elaborative Rehearsal

A deeper form of processing that involves linking new information to existing knowledge.

Hippocampus

A brain structure essential for the formation of new memories.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to form or retain new memories following a trauma.

Retrograde Amnesia

The loss of memory for events or information learned prior to a specific point in time.

Cued Recall

A type of memory retrieval that involves prompts or cues to help elicit memories.

Free Recall

A memory task where subjects are asked to retrieve information without any cues.

Sensory Memory

The initial, brief storage of sensory information.

Short-Term Memory (STM)

A limited-capacity system that holds information temporarily for immediate use.

Working Memory

A system that actively holds and manipulates information needed for cognitive tasks.

Neuropsychological Evidence

Research findings derived from brain-damaged patients that help investigate cognitive functions.

The Magical Number 7

Miller's concept suggesting that the typical limit for storing items in STM is 7 ± 2.

Iconic Memory

A type of visual sensory memory that retains visual information for a fraction of a second.

Echoic Memory

A type of auditory sensory memory that retains sounds for about 2-4 seconds.

The Brown-Peterson Task

An experiment designed to measure the duration of short-term memory by using a filler task.

The Von Restorff Effect

The phenomenon where an item that stands out from others is more likely to be remembered.

Transfer-appropriate Processing

A theory that memory is improved when the conditions at encoding match the conditions at retrieval.

Context-Dependence

The principle stating that memory retrieval is improved when the context matches that of the original encoding.

State-Dependency

The idea that memories are more easily recalled when the individual's state of mind during encoding matches the state at retrieval.