Exam

Fechners'Law: A principle describing the relationship between the magnitude of a stimulus

and the intensity of the sensation produced, foundational in psychophysics.

Colour vision: Different colours have different light wavelengths. Perceived colour depends

on which light components are absorbed by material of object. Photoreceptors in retina

(cones) are sensitive to different wavelengths of light.

Stroop: colour of word does not match word. Creates slower reaction time. Must suppress

automatic process to name the colour of the word instead of reading the word, aka

controlled process. Congruent when colour match word, incongruent is when colour

doesnt match word

Trichromatic theory of vision: This theory proposes that the human eye has three types of

photoreceptors, each sensitive to one of the three primary colors (red, green, and blue).

These cones work together to allow us to perceive a broad spectrum of colors through the

additive mixing of light.

Endogenous and exogenous orienting: endogenous variables are determined within

the system or model, while exogenous variables are determined outside the

system or model and are considered independent

Face perception: Sub regions in IT play an important role in face recognition.

Capgras Syndrome: is in relation to well-known people. It was associated with

psychiatric illness, focal brain lesions, cerebrovascular... Impaired feeling of familiarity

for loved ones are the outcome of the decoupling of the brain representation of the face

from responses in the autonomic nervous systems

What is illusory conjunction: an example of a perceptual phenomenon where features from

multiple objects are miscombined, leading to errors in perception where one might see a

combination of attributes from different stimuli, often occurring when attention is divided

or overloaded.

Dual task situation; in which individuals are required to perform two tasks simultaneously,

can exacerbate the effects of illusory conjunctions, resulting in increased instances of

perception errors as cognitive resources are stretched thin.

Controlled processing: process that requires conscious use of attention resources. Allows

for goal-directed behaviorAUTOMATIC PROCESSING: process that does not require attention for its execution. Can

be carried out unconsciously with little awareness.

Task switch: cost is not fully eliminated when more time is given but the cost will decrease

if time is given.

Sustained attention: the ability to maintain focus on a task or stimulus over an extended

period, which is crucial for successfully completing complex tasks and exams.

Modal Model of Memory: a framework that describes the process of memory through three

distinct stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory, each with

specific functions and duration.

SHORT TERM/WORKING MEMORY: combines storage aspect of STM with active attention

component. WM is a memory system that allows for short term and retention and active

manipulation of information

WM as a TRAIT: individuals differ in terms of their working memory abilities. Working

memory Capacity (WMC), not really about storage or memory but about the capacity for

controlled sustained attention in the face of interference or distraction.

Coding specificity principle: the idea that information is best remembered when retrieval

occurs in the same context or environment in which it was initially encoded, emphasizing

the importance of context in memory recall.

DRM paradigm = false remembering of critical lures in recall and recognition. Occur

even when subject is informed about potential for memory illusions and instructed to avoid

them. Underscores the powerful role of interference and reconstruction in episodic

memory.

Flashbulb memory: tends to be believed with greater confidence, associated with great

vividness. Are they more accurate than everyday memory? Flashbulb memories seem to

be no more accurate than ordinary memory, despite high confidence

Amnesia: impairs declarative memory, performance on indirect memory tests, normal

semantic priming

Anterograde Amnesia: inability to form new lasting memory traces

Retrograde Amnesia: Inability to remember events that occurred prior to injuryImplicit sequence learning: often acquired without any explicit knowledge of the actual

sequence itself

Inclusion: complete stem with word from list or with first word that comes to mind

Exclusion: complete stem using words not in encoding list

Misinformation effect: When people who witness an event are later exposed to new and

incongruent info about it, their recollections often become distorted

semantic dementia:

Category fluency: name as many examples of something as you can

Semantic Dementia: Progressive and selective loss of semantic memory in both

verbal and non-verbal domains. Associated with frontotemporal dementia. Contrasts

with AD in which loss of episodic memory is more prominent

Exemplar theory Subjects do not form an abstract prototype for each category, Individual

exemplars are stored in memory. Categorization is based on the similarity between a

new test item and stored exemplars

Subordinate categorization: ability to categorize objects at a more specific niche level

(below ordinary) example might be golden retriever.

Basic categorization: ability to categorize objects at a base level, example might be if you

said dog instead of golden retriever.

Superordinate categorization: ability to overgeneralize objects of a category, example

might be if you said mammal instead of dog.

Phonology: sound pattern of language

Syntax: grammatical organization of words in a sentence

Semantics: meaning of words and sentences

Linguistic empiricism: Parental reformulations. School. A lot of language learning happens

outside the home

Surface structure: particular words used to convey meaningDeep structure: underlying meaning of sentence

PROBLEM SOLVING

Functional Fixedness: when faced with a novel problem, our instinct is to rely on what

we’ve done in the past in similar situations; this can lead to the trap of functional

fixedness. Particularly problematic when we are faced with insight problems which require

us to think from a different angle. People can overcome this when given a relevant hint

Pre-utilization: children shown box full of objects (storage device)

No pre-utilization: empty box, can have alternative uses to storage

Dunker’s radiation problem: a classic example of an insight problem where participants

must devise a way to destroy a tumor without harming surrounding healthy tissue,

highlighting the importance of viewing problems from multiple perspectives.

Eye movement patterns: can be predictive of success rate for problems

NEED MORE ON EYE MOVEMENT

CREATIVE THOUGHT

Remote association (convergent thinking): what do arm, coal and peach have in common?

Answer pit

Unusual uses test (divergent thinking): participant lists as many different uses as possible

for a common object

Final Recall: recall as many uses for object

Incubation: creative problem solving often enhanced by a break

Fluency Heuristic: leads to false recognition. When unaware of the matching prime,

participants attribute facilitated processing to prior exposure

Availability Heuristic: when it's easier to come up with something so we go with that even if

it’s wrong. The more info we are forced to produce the more it can influence preference

Representativeness Heuristic: when judging the probability of an event by comparing it to

an existing prototype in our minds, which can lead to misinterpretation if the example is

not truly representative.Loss Aversion: People dislike losing more than they like winning. Loss of x amount is

perceived as more negative than gain of x amount is perceived positive

CONSCIOUSNESS

Wakefulness: refers to physiological state in which one is awake and aware of their

surroundings

Subjective experience: the idiosyncratic and experiential aspects of our mental life

DISSOCIATION METHOD: Logic, demonstrate a dissociation between two measures of a

perceptual performance, one of which measures conscious awareness of stimulus

information and other measure the influence of that stimulus without awareness.

Qualitative difference approach: focuses on analyzing the unique characteristics and

qualities of different states of consciousness, emphasizing how these differences can

influence perception, thought processes, and behavior.

Hypnosis: Can be thought of as intense state of concentration, focus, and absorption.

Individuals vary widely in the degree to which they are susceptible to hypnotic suggestion

Hypnotic suggestibility: typically assessed using validated protocols, Standard Hypnotic

Susceptibility Scale Form C (SHSS – C)

Protocols: designed to measure how susceptible people are to hypnotic suggestion by

gradually increasing the complexity of the suggested behaviors and observing compliance

by the participant

Do highly hypnotizable people have a unique brain structure?: YES, high hypnotizable had

larger rostrum compared to low hypnotizable people

Does suggestion impact behaviour?: YES

LEARNING STYLES: the idea that individuals differ in terms of what mode of learning is

effective

But are these styles supported by evidence?: Peoples self reported preference with

modality in which material is delivered. Existence of learning preference is not disputed,

people do exhibit stable and reliable affinities for learning in particular modalities

Growth vs fixed mindset: view failure as opportunity to learn, not indicative of fixed abilities

but rather an opportunity to improveRAPID SERIAL VISUAL PRESENTATION (RSVP): Allows eyes to stay in one position but

eliminates helpful regressive saccades, removes helpful information in parafovea