Psych 355 Exam 1 Flashcards

Classic psychology

1, analytic introspection

mental chronometry

the difference between a participants’ average time on a go-no go task and their simple reaction task. Identifies there is some cognition happening (early early psych)

gestalt psychology

the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

behaviorism

2) studying behavior, not inner mind

cognitive psychology

3) the study of mental processing, thinking, etc as a separate entity from sensation

post cognitivism

4) cognition is intertwined with sensory processing 

hamburger model

cognition; idea that cognition is made of different stuff and is “sandwiched” between sensory inputs and motor outputs

meatloaf model

post cognitivism: cognition is made of the same stuff as sensory & motor signals and cannot be separated

embodied cognition

cognition grounded in physical experience

enacted cognition

cognition about goal-related actions

embedded cognition

cognition tied to culture and society

extended cognition

cognition using tools and the world around us

tendencies of behavioral neuroscience

• Non human animals

• Small anatomical focus

• Cares about behavior

• Topics: sleep, sensation/perception, control of movement, motivated behaviors, learning

tendencies of cognitive neuroscience

• Human focus

• Large anatomical focus

• Makes inferences about cognition from behavior

• Topics: language, attention, decision making, consciousness, emotion, social cognition, memory (& learning)

lesion method

observe the effects of brain damage (lesions); good cause and effect

EEG

can detect different frequencies of neural activity through a variety of scalp locations; good temporal resolution, directly measures brain activity

MRI

powerful magnet aligns the electrical field of protons,gives us a high-resolution 3D image of brains. Can compare volume, surface area, shape, cortical thickness etc. between groups (observational or experimental)

fMRI

uses magnet technology from MRI to indirectly measure brain activity through comparing BOLD (blood oxygen) signals; good spatial resolution but risk of false positives and indirect measurements

TMS

transcranial magnetic stimulation, pulsed magnetic field over the scalp changes brain activity. can be excitatory or inhibitory. changes brain activity, gives cause and effect

tDCS

run a weak electrical current through scalp, skull & brain between entrance & exit electrodes. directly changes brain

ERP

event related potentials, data analysis technique for EEG where present stimulus and average electrical activity in the second after each presentation

neuroscience jargon and research findings

adding neuroscience jargon makes people positively judge bad explanations

demand characteristics

when participants behave in a way they think the experimenter wants them to behave. often occurs unintentionally

Cornea

clear covering that protects the eye and begins to focus incoming light

pupil

a small center in the center of the eye where light passes through

iris

colored part of the eye that controls the size of the pupil by constricting/dilating in response to light intensity

lens

a structure that focuses the incoming light into the retina

sensation

the process by which our sensory receptors receive & represent stimulus energies from the environment (usually not considered “cognitive”

perception

conscious awareness of signals from sensory receptors / information about stuff in the world that gets to your brain (usually IS considered “cognitive”)

recognition

connecting perception to knowledge, or categorizing. Considered “higher” levels of cortex

transduction

the transformation of one type of energy into another. Sensory receptors respond to different kinds of environmental energy & transform it into neural signals

blind spot

where the optic nerve leaves the eyeball / where receptors and cell fibers meet (no rods or cones in the area)

Purkinje Shift

Rods are more sensitive to light and respond to lower light levels, and rods respond most to bluish/greenish light on the low frequency spectrum of colors. Therefore, things look more blue at night and blue things seem brighter at night (because the rods are responding a lot to them)

rods

• 120 million / eye

• Mostly in the periphery

• One type

• Peak sensitivity in bluish light

• More sensitive and respond to lower light levels

• Low acuity/ability to see detail

cones

• 6 million / eye

• Mostly in fovea

• 3 types with overlapping sensitivit curve

• Less sensitive, only respond to higher levels of light

• High acuity

qualia

ineffable subjective experience (we don’t know if someone is subjectively perceiving things the way we are)

superior colliculus

 tracks moving blobs/visual stimuli and directs rest of senses to point attention > leads to blindsight and people being able to avoid obstacles without seeing them

thalamus

sensory gateway and processing for visual perception; communicates to perceive vision

hypothalamus

connects to the vision system through neural pathways and tracks light signals into circadian rhythms and autonomic responses

v1 cells

care about contrast and lines, especially orientation and color contrast of a line

tuning curve

V1 cells have a preferred stimulus and they fire the MOST in response to their preferred stimulus; They fire less & less to stimuli as they get farther from their preference

ventral stream

“what pathway,” identifies objects (Temporal lobe)

dorsal stream

“where pathway”, identifies location (Parietal lobe)

selective adaptation

Neurons eventually become fatigued when presented with lots of their preferred stimulus ; for a little while, they don’t fire in response to their preferred stimulus. Nearby neurons that have a different preferred stimulus are unaffected, so only a select group of neurons adapt to the stimulus

inverse projection problem

The perception of the size & distance of objects is integrally related; theoretically , infinitely many different world states could cause the same pattern of activity on the receptors (cognitis are worried about it, post cognitivists think its only a problem if you study perception in an ecologically invalid way)

relative height

monocular cue; stuff with its base closer to the horizon (usually higher in your visual field) is farther away

relative size

monocular cue; if you know two objects are the same size but one of them looks bigger, that is the closer one

linear perspective

monocular cue; parallel lines (in the world) appear to converge in the distance (usually at the horizon)

shadows

monocular cue; shadows help determine the location of objects relative to a light source

interposition/occlusion

monocular cue; objects are often in front of or behind other objects (and the ones in front are closer)

aerial/atmospheric perspective

monocular cue; objects in the distance appear blurrier than those close up and are also slightly tinted blue (only works in air NOT picture)

motion parallax

monocular cue; if you are moving, objects close to you move more quickly across your retina than those far away

convergence

binocular cue; our eyes move inwards when looking at nearby objects & we feel it when that happens (fancy term for becoming cross-eyed)

binocular disparity

binocular cue; the differences in the images on the left & right retina. Stuff far away has a greater disparity than stuff closer

bottom-up perceptual processing

data based; processing based on the stimuli

top-down perceptual processing

knowledge based; processing influenced by knowledge and expectations

unconscious inference

perception is dominated by inferences, many below the level of unconscious awareness or control, based on our experiences of the world (combination of bottom-up sensory input and top-down expectations based on experience)

face perception

combination of innate & learned mechanisms - innate because babies even a few hours old look more at face-like stimuli than other stimuli, learned because ideas such as the fusiform face area can be trained on things such as “greebles” and have high plasticity

the binding problem

where and how in the brain are different features bound together? sometimes makes mistakes

feature integration

combined with the binding problem; features are seen separately at first, then bound (integrated) by attention. in the preattentive stage we only perceive features, not options

bottom up attention

fixate on visually salient objects (changes in color, texture, intensity, orientation)

top down attention

scene schemas (you know what objects belong in certain types of scenes and pay attention to anomalies), observer interests and goals, task related knowledge (just in time strategy- you look at objects relevant for your next action)

attentional selection timeframes

Multiple timescales! 50, 180-200, 300 ms

change blindness

failing to notice a change from a previous state to a current state

attentional blindness

failing to notice something right in front of you

load theory

attention has limits (perceptual capacity) and various tasks are heavier or lighter than one another (perceptual load). If you are doing something easy, you have room for distraction, but if you’re doing something hard you have NO room for distraction

switch cost

response times are longer on switch trials because:

• Must inhibit previous task 

• Must reconfigure system for new task

hemineglect

loss of attention to left side of space as a result of right parietal/hemisphere damage

spatial neglect

ignore left half of world (hemineglect)

allocentric neglect

ignore the left half of objects (hemineglect)

personal neglect

ignore left side of body (hemineglect)

Kosslyn theory

mental imagery is picture-like; create a mental image and scan it in your mind, faster when visualizing, and spatial like real images

Pylyshyn theory

spatial imagery taking more time may be a demand effect - mental imagery is propositional like all cognition. Reaction time differences could be caused by a different number of steps in propositional logic