Cognitive Psych Exam 1

socrates/plato

epistemology (origins of knowledge)

plato compared knowledge to aviary/birds

aristotle

first psych book (de anima)

compared memory to a wax tablet, slowly cools to form an impression

explicit model of memory

empiricists

knowledge comes from experience

nativists

knowledge is a natural, genetic process

Donders

mental processes measured with mental chronometry

measured choice reaction time and simple reaction time with light flashes, subtraction method

simple rxn time: stimulus detection → response organization

choice rxn time: stimulus detection → identification → response organization

Helmholtz

unconscious inference (assume blue bar is one line under box)

Ebbinghaus

forgetting curve (not linear, lose information early on and then it evens out)

savings (how much easier it is to relearn something)

spacing effect (spreading out helps learning, not cramming)

Wundt

first psych laboratory

structuralism, introspection

structuralism

first school of psych

looks at ‘how does it operate’

trained people to describe their experiences (introspection)

limits of introspection

verification (can’t truly tell what they’re experiencing)

reliability (people report different info)

accessibility (some processes are automatic, can’t delve deep into it)

functionalism

next school of psych (William James)

looks at ‘why do we have it’

how are mental processes adaptive?

gestalt

next school of psych

the unified whole is different from the sum of its parts

we perceive the whole thing and interpret stimuli differently

ambiguous figures example

school of behaviorism

focused on stimulus and response, not mental processing

conditioned animals for entertainment

the limits of behaviorism → cognitive revolution

Skinner (behaviorism)

published Verbal Behavior

stated human language can be completely explained through imitation, reward, and lack of reinforcement

Chomsky (behaviorism)

criticized Skinner

introduced grammaticality judgement (can pick a grammatically correct sentence even if its nonsense)

cognitive maps / cognitive revolution

introduced by tolman

renewed interest in human factors engineering

new metaphors for information processing

new technologies allowed for new metaphors for human mind

*telecommunications → exchange of info through channels

*computers → input, processing, storage, output

generic information processing model (flow model)

inspired by computers

goal of studying the mind

understanding complex cognitive behaviors by:

*measuring observable behavior/physiology

*make inferences about underlying cognitive activity

structural model

looks at physiological elemtns (i.e. brain model, primate visual cortex)

process (flow) model

not structural, sequence of events

cognitive representations and processes must be inferred from…

behavior or physiology

behavioral approach

overt, deliberate responses from participants to infer their mental processes

physiological approach

physical repsonses that are not under conscious control

sensory neurons are …

afferent

motor neurons are …

efferent

activity of a neuron is indicated by …

rate of firing

specificity coding

each stimulus is a specific neuron

population coding

large collections of neurons associated with different concepts

pattern changes between specific objects

sparse coding

baseline firing for most neurons

select few fire for various stimuli

still uses patterns but less neurons

topographical organization

motor map in precentral gyrus

body parts close to each other are close together in brain

two paths for processing visual input

“where” pathway, dorsal pathway, parietal lobe

“what” pathway, ventral pathway, temporal lobe

brain regions and their functions

frontal lobe: cognitive functions, language, decision making

occipital lobe: vision

temporal lobe: auditory processing, memory, wernickes area (semantics)

parietal lobe: somatosensory strip, angular gyrus (language)

spatial resolution

precision and accuracy of location

temporal resolution

precision and accuracy of timing of the signals

physiological measures to measure brain activity

EEG, PET, fMRI, MEG, fNIRs (functional near infrared spectroscopy, light absorbed and sent back in banana shape)

physiological measure used to influence behavior

TMS

distrubuted processing

various areas for location, distance, motion, color, shape, etc.

ex. looking at faces: gaze direction, attrativeness, emotional reaction, and face recognition (FFA)

langauge also distributed processing

neural networks

groups of neurons or structures that are connected together

technique: diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and track weighted imaging

*shows structural connectivity

*maps that show this wiring called connectome

functional connectivity

parts of the brain involved in the same processes

use resting state fMRI to compare activity levels and synchronization of activity

major networks of the brain

somatosensory network

executive control network

salience network

dorsal attention network

visual network

default mode network (self awareness, episodic memories)

sensation

the experience of the raw environment from sensory organs

transduction

turning raw data into nerve impulses

attention

allocating resourcces to the processing

perception

organizing and interpreting info in the context of prior knowledge

challenges to perception

inverse projection problem (projection on retina looks same for different object, how do we determine what it is?)

incomplete data: blurred images, we piece together data

varying viewpoints

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segmentation problem (separating words in speech, natural speech does not occur in convenient units)

how to overcome perception challenges

use knowledge and expectations (top down processing), such as unconscious inference and the likelihood principle

perceptual constancies/context effects (color and lightness constancy, top down overrides sensory info)

scene schema (expectations of an environment)

bayesian inference (estimation of probability of an outcome)

gestalt laws

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transitional probabilities (statistical probability of a phoneme following another, separate words)

gestalt perceptual organization laws

pragnanz (simplest form)

figure and ground (distinguish boundaries to separate object from background)

proximity (objects close together are grouped together)

similarity (objects that look alike are grouped together)

continuation (line going in same path we see as continuous)

closure (complete images even with gaps)

common fate (objects that move together are grouped together)

physical regularities

physical properties of the environment

ex. horizontal/vertical, not diagonal (oblique effect)

light from above heuristic

color constancy (color is the same in different light)

lightness constancy (light & dark in brightness/shadows)

semantic regularities

objects in a place are predictable

scene schema: expectations of an enviornment

Biderman and Palmer experiements

bayesian inference

estimation of probability of an outcome

*prior (intial beleif about probability of an outcome)

*likelihood (consistency of evidence with outcome)

plasticity of neurons

fine tuned to specific stimuli

selective rearing (neurons more responsive to lines of environment grew up in)

experience dependent plasticity

facial processing depends on…

experience

other race effect

easier to distinguish adults of same race as you

other species effect

easier to identify/distinguish faces in same category

greebles

gauthier, different faces and genders, all had names participants memorized, FFA lights up

dissociations

tool used to identify brain areas involved in given functions

*single dissociation: brain area X injured can’t do A but can do B, A+B involved in different mechanisms, not necessarily independent

*double dissociation: brain area X injured, cant do A but can do B, another person with brain area X injured, cant do B but can do A, A+B are independent functions

brain ablation

ungerleider and mishkin

removed parts of brain

oreintation vs action (damage to temporal lobe)

embodied cognition

many processes are interconnected

attention

ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations

limited, finite resource

*selective attention: one stimulus, ignoring others

*divided attention: multitasking

models of selective attention

broadbent: filter model

treisman: attenuator model

mckay: late selection model

filter model of attention

messages →sensory store → physical property filter → detector → memory

early selection model, selected before it gets to meaning

emotional or personally relevant information can get through

following the meaning (dear aunt jane expeirment)

attenuator model of attention

messages → attenuator → dictionary unit → memory

early selection model

all messages analyzed by dictionary unit

some words have lower thresholds: common, emotionally salient, personal relevance

late selection model of attention

(mckay)

dichotic listening experiment: ambiguous sentences, biased words in unattended ear

processed beyond physical properties to meaning

more effort to process for recogntion and then select

when we select the message depends on …

cognitive resources (processing capacity, varies from person to person)

perceptual/cognitive load (task demands, how cognitively challenging is it?)

load theory of attention

perceptual load and distractions

resources used by tasks have to add up

endogenous attention

voluntary

top down

comes from you

exogenous attention

involuntary

something from the environment grabs attention

attentional capture: motion or sudden changes automatically draw our attention

overt attention

attentional shift accompanied by movement of eyes

covert attention

attentional shift not accompanied by eye movement

capacity/load theory

simultaneous tasks are possible unless the combination requires more capacity than available (mental effort)

capacity and allocation are affected by arousal, enduring dispositions (things that affect involuntary attention), and momentary intentions (goals)

attention is…

a limited resource

influenced by capacity and allocation

arousal, dispositions, intentions, and goals

how do you improve multitasking?

increase capacity (brain games)

make one task easier (more automatic, improve automaticity)

what interferes with automatic processing?

voluntary attention

choking

change blindness

difficulty in detecting obvious change in scenes presented consecutively

creating a visual disturbance (flicker paradigm, change contingent during saccade, blinking, mudsplatter, continuous action)

inattentional blindness

not seeing something in plain view (not attending to it)

attention is captured by the task (something obvious and perfectly visible is not noticed)

parsing the environment is done by…

location based attention

object based attention

location based attention

spotlight model, attention is limited resource so we shine the spotlight on something particular

supported by precueing studies

effect of visual cue changes with distance from target

object based attention

cue flashes then you find object

target that’s in the cued location = fastest

same object advantage (at incorrect locations, same object = faster)

overlapping objects: can attend to one object and ignore another at the same location

location based vs object based

depends on circumstances, how complex is the enviornment?

static/simple: location based

dynamic/difficult: object based

feature tntegration theory (fit)

binding problem

triesman: display of geometric objects, flanked by 2 black numbers, name objects then numbers

illusory conjunctions

balints syndrome

visual search

balints syndrome

damage to occipital/parietal lobe and occipital/temporal lobe

no integration wihtin scene (simultagnosia)

difficulty guiding eye movements (ocular apraxia)

visual search

feature search (red x in sea of green o’s)→ parallel processing

conjunction search (red x in sea of green x’s and red o’s)→ serial processing

datt & deyoe experiment

attention in the brain

shift attention from one part of the disc to another

brain activation changes

attentional network

dorsal stream, top down

ventral stream, stimulus salience, bottom up

synchronization of neurons firing → more effective communication

attentional warping

category representation distributed across the brain

attention influences “maps” of catgeories

modal model of memory

atkinson & shiffrin

size: sensory memory (huge), STM (4-9 items), LTM (infinite)

duration: sensory memory (brief), STM (few seconds), LTM (forever)

sensory memory (modal)

sperling’s studies - whole, partial, and delayed partial report

found partial report to be most effective

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purpose of sensory memory:

*collect info for processing

*hold info during processing

*maintaining/filling in blanks during intermittent stimuli

STM (modal)

retention of information

serial position curve (start and end of list easier to remember, primacy effect (rehearsal) and recency effect)

digit span (5-9 numbers, George Miller)

Luck & Vogel measured STM for different complexities of objects (shape vs chinese character vs polygons)

chunking (combine stimuli into meaningful units)

baddeley’s argument against modal memory

STM is too simple

gave participants sentence and numbers to process

concluded that STM is storage + operations

working model of memory

baddeley

limited capacity “workspace”

*storage and control processing

central executive is in control

subsystems maintain auditory and visual/spatial information

phonological loop (working)

holds verbal and auditory information

phonological store: holds info

articulatory rehearsal process: rehearsal

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word length effect→ longer words take more time to pronounce, cant hold as many in memory

visuospatial sketchpad (working)

hold information on “what” and “where”

episodic buffer (working)

increases storage capacity

integrates information

facilitates communication with LTM

central executive (working)

inhibits unwanted, distracting stimuli

identifies relevant stimuli and allows for visual search

maintains goals

supervises and coordinates

switching tasks

splitting resources in divided attention tasks

getting info from LTM

OSPAN

measurement of working memory

measures the central executive

related to ability to control attention and ignore irrelevant information

*verify simple math problem, read word, repeat, recall words

correlates with measures of intelligence, and performance on many tasks

reading span

measurement of working memory

repeat last words of sentences

allocation of WM resources

controlled by central executive

easier to divide by subsystems

*sentence task: pointing Y/N easier than saying it

*corner task: saying Y/N easier than pointing to it

working memory in the brain

many areas implicated

PFC seems especially important

activity silent working memory

during retrieval, neurons activated more easily

change in connectivity = temporarily strengthened