CognitivePsychology

What is Cognitive Psychology

1. Mapping the human mind
2. Mapping the mental world
3. Mapping the physical world

How does mind function in everyday situations?

1. Perception
2. Attention
3. Learning and Memory

What are the three forms of studying based on scientific literature used during lecture

1. Highlighting
2. Re-reading
3. Testing

Results for Highlighting when testing on words that were/were not highlighted

- Highlighting vs. Not = no significant difference when the students highlighted what they thought was important
- When test was on material that was highlighted = the highlighting participants did better
- When test was on material that was not highlighted = the ones that didnt highlight did better

= why? because highlighting hyper focused the participants t only the material they thought was important

Results for re-reading when students read passage of 1500 words

- 2-4 times re-reading the material had very little difference

thus additonal reading didnt help because the more you read it the more your brain is familiarized with it the information giving a false sense of understanding/knowledge

Results for testing

- read a passage
- reading = better scores when the delay was 5 minutes
- testing = better scores over a longer duration of time - 2 days

What is better for cramming the day before your exam and then the morning after?

- the day before it is better to test yourself as you are practicing in retrieving the information form your memory
- re-reading your notes is effective before you walk in to do your exam

Is there such thing as photographic memory

- there are many different aspects of memory but there is not such thing as photographic memory

Based on the research you learned about, name one important limitation of highlighting?

You are more likely to remember the material you are highlighting (hyper fixation) however you cannot always know what material an evaluator deems important and if there is an application question on the test your memory will be at a disadvantage as the hyper fixation limits you brain to find the connects between concepts when applied in each question

What type of test would cramming not be a good idea for?

An application/ inference test since you need spaced repetition and thorough understanding to make connections between concepts

What regulates sleep/wakefulness and are the effects of lesions in that part of the brain?

- the pons nucleus
- during sleep we are in a state of paralysis during sleep as well responsible for dreams
- if there were lesions in the pons we would be moving while we sleep which can lead to sleep paralysis

What happens during sleep paralysis

glitches between the transition of sleep and wakefulness

What regulates regulating breathing and eating?

brain stem

what regulates sense/cognition/behaviour

- Cerebral Cortex and it is divided:

1. Parietal lobe = ability to generate 3D projections of the brain
= Left = control right side of body
= Right = controls left side of body

What is visual neglect

- if someone has received a trauma effecting to one side of the parietal lobe

= ex. woman suffered stroke effecting we right side of her lob --> she cannot copy an image from the left hand side of the picture and when she doesnt complete it she still believes she has due to her memory filling in the neglect

What does a neuron consist of

- cell body
- axon
- dendrites

= 100 Billion neurons in the brain

What do dentrites do?

- Dendrites draw information in the cell body – information is send down to the axon
- The information then leaves through the axon terminals to other cells

What did Santiago Ramon y Cajal discover about neurons

-Neurons are not direct connected to one another
- Information terminal – chemicals are released and passed onto the next axon
- Form of communication = electric neural communication

How do neurons communicate with one another?

- Electrochemical communication – electric currents run through your brain and we attach electrodes on your skull to read it

- Any neuron at rest – the axon (the inner membrane of the axon) is relatively negatively charge to the outside of the neuron

- When information is passed through the axon – the charged flips making it positive relative to the outside of the neuron

- Sodium and potassium channels are involved