Cognitive Psychology Notes
Proprioception and Vestibulation
Somatosensation: General term for sensory perception of the body and its state.
Somatosensory and motor cortex: Areas of the brain responsible for processing sensory information from the body and controlling movement, respectively.
Homunculus: A distorted representation of the human body, based on a neurological map of the areas and proportions of the brain dedicated to processing motor functions or sensory functions.
Proprioception: The sense of body position and movement.
Body image: A subjective sense of one's own body, its appearance, and its capabilities.
Rubber hand illusion: A perceptual illusion where a rubber hand is perceived as one's own hand through synchronous stroking of both the real and rubber hand.
Phantom limb syndrome: The sensation that an amputated limb is still present and may be experiencing pain or other sensations.
Mirror box treatment: A therapy technique used to alleviate phantom limb pain by using a mirror to create a visual illusion of the missing limb.
Vestibulation: The sense of balance and spatial orientation coordinated by the inner ear.
Semicircular canals: Fluid-filled tubes in the inner ear that detect rotational movements of the head.
Otolith organs: Sensory structures in the inner ear that detect linear acceleration and head tilt.
Orientation: Awareness of one's position relative to the surrounding environment.
Direction: The path or course one is moving along.
Heading: The direction one is facing.
Tumbling room: A disorienting environment that challenges one's sense of balance and spatial orientation.
Vection: The illusory perception of self-motion caused by moving visual stimuli.
Optical flow: The pattern of apparent motion of objects, surfaces, and edges in a visual scene caused by the relative motion between an observer and the scene.
Anti-gravity hill: A perceptual illusion where a downhill slope appears to be an uphill slope due to surrounding visual context.
Tilt illusion: A visual illusion where the perceived orientation of a line is affected by the orientation of surrounding lines.
Mystery spots: Locations where perceptual illusions and apparent violations of gravity occur.
Representation and Imagination
Analog/propositional representation: Two contrasting theories on how information is stored in the mind. Analog suggests information is stored in a format similar to the original stimulus, while Propositional proposes information is stored as abstract, language-like propositions.
Kosslyn's imagery studies: Research exploring the nature of mental imagery, suggesting that images are processed in a spatially organized manner.
Imagination: The ability to form mental images or concepts of things that are not present or have not been experienced.
Mental rotation tasks: Cognitive exercises involving the mental manipulation of objects to determine if they are the same or different.
Visualization: The act of creating mental images or pictures.
VVIQ/VISQ: Questionnaires designed to measure the vividness and quality of visual imagery.
Aphantasia: The inability to form mental images. / Hyperphantasia: The experience of extremely vivid mental imagery.
Inner speech/inner monologue: The internal dialogue or self-talk that occurs in one's mind.
Categorization
Categorization: The process of grouping objects or ideas into categories based on shared characteristics.
Generalization: The ability to apply knowledge or skills learned in one context to other, similar contexts./ Discrimination: The ability to distinguish between different categories or concepts.
Necessary and sufficient conditions: Criteria that must be met for something to belong to a particular category.
Causal history: The events or factors that have led to the formation of a category.
Prototype: A mental image or representation of the most typical or representative member of a category.
Typicality ratings: Assessments of how well a particular item represents a category.
Exemplars: Specific instances or examples of members of a category.
Hierarchical structure of categories: The organization of categories into levels of abstraction, with broader categories containing narrower subcategories.
Categorical perception: The perception of distinct categories despite continuous variation in a physical property.
Group attribution error: The tendency to attribute the beliefs or behaviors of an individual to the entire group to which they belong.
Stereotyping: Assuming that all members of a group share certain characteristics./ Prejudice: Preconceived opinions or biases, often negative, about a group and its members.
Attention
Sensory memory: A brief temporary storage system for sensory information. (iconic: visual; echoic: auditory)
Focusing: Selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring others.
Concentration: Sustained focus on a particular task or stimulus.
Attentional bottleneck: The limitation on the amount of information that can be processed at any one time.
Attentional capture: The diversion of attention by a salient or unexpected stimulus (pop-out).
Attentional blink: A brief period of reduced attention following the detection of a target stimulus.
Feature-integration theory: A theory of attention proposing that objects are initially processed in terms of their individual features in a preattentive stage, and then features are combined to form a coherent object in an attentive stage.
Saccades: Rapid eye movements between fixation points./ Fixations: Periods of relative eye stability.
Broadbent's filter model of attention: A theory proposing that unattended information is blocked early in the processing stream.
Stable world assumption: The assumption that the world remains constant despite changes in sensory input due to movement.
Attenuation model: A modified filter model proposing that unattended information is weakened but not completely blocked.
Cocktail party effect: The ability to selectively attend to one conversation while filtering out other conversations, but still noticing pertinent information, like your name being said in another conversation.
Resource model: A theory proposing that attention is a limited resource that can be allocated to different tasks.
Task switching: Shifting attention between two or more tasks./ Multi-tasking: Attempting to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.
Overt orientation: Shifting attention by physically moving one's eyes or head./ Covert orientation: Shifting attention without moving one's eyes or head.
Inattentional blindness: Failure to notice an object or event that is fully visible because attention is focused on something else./ Change blindness: Failure to notice a change in a visual scene because attention is not directed to the changing object or area.
Consciousness
Philosophical zombies: Hypothetical beings that are physically identical to humans but lack subjective experience or consciousness.
Easy question of consciousness: Questions about the mechanisms and functions of consciousness that can be answered through empirical investigation./ Hard question of consciousness: Questions about the subjective experience of consciousness and how it arises from physical processes.
Neural correlates of consciousness: The specific brain activity patterns associated with conscious experience.
Blindsight: The ability to respond to visual stimuli without consciously perceiving them.
Neglect: A neurological condition in which a person is unaware of stimuli on one side of their body or environment.
Optic ataxia: A neurological condition in which a person has difficulty using visual information to guide movements.
Global workspace hypothesis: information is integrated and broadcast throughout the brain to make it available to various cognitive processes.
Masked priming: The presentation of a stimulus (the prime) is immediately followed by another stimulus (the mask), this can influence the processing of the subsequent stimulus.
Gist: The overall meaning or essence of a scene or situation.
Reverse hierarchy model: A theory proposing that conscious perception begins with high-level, abstract representations and then proceeds to lower-level details.
Dual visual system theory: The visual information is used for perception and another for action.
PTSD and the amygdala: Post-traumatic stress disorder is associated with heightened activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in processing emotions.
Working Memory and Executive Function
Primacy effect: The tendency to remember the first items in a list better than subsequent items. / Recency effects: The tendency to remember the last items in a list better than preceding items.
Phonological loop: A component of working memory that processes and stores auditory information.
Visuospatial sketchpad: A component of working memory that processes and stores visual and spatial information.
Central executive: A component of working memory that controls and regulates the flow of information between the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term memory.
Episodic buffer: A component of working memory that integrates information from the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term memory into a coherent episode.
Span tasks: Tests used to measure working memory capacity by assessing the number of items that can be held in memory.(digit span is an example)
Working memory capacity: The amount of information that can be held in working memory at any one time.
Chunking: Organizing individual pieces of information into larger, more meaningful units to improve working memory capacity.
Rehearsal: Repeating information over and over to maintain it in working memory.
Word-length effect: The finding that it is easier to remember a list of short words than a list of long words.
Phonological similarity effect: The finding that it is more difficult to remember a list of phonologically similar items than a list of phonologically dissimilar items.
Corsi block task: A test of visuospatial working memory in which participants must remember and reproduce a sequence of touched blocks.
Concurrent tasks: Performing two or more tasks simultaneously to assess the allocation of attentional resources.
Object tracking tasks: Tasks that require participants to track the movement of multiple objects.
Executive function: A set of cognitive processes that control and regulate thoughts and actions.
Inhibition: The ability to suppress or inhibit irrelevant information or responses.
Frontal lobes: The brain region associated with executive function.
Wisconsin card sort test: A test of executive function in which participants must sort cards based on changing rules.
A-not-B error: A developmental error in which infants continue to search for an object in a location where they previously found it, even after seeing it hidden in a new location.
Marshmallow task: A test of delayed gratification in which children are given the choice between receiving a small reward immediately or a larger reward later.
General fluid intelligence (factor g): The ability to solve novel problems and reason abstractly.
Near transfer: Transfer of learning to similar situations. / Far transfer: Transfer of learning to dissimilar situations.
Explicit Memory
Schema (schemata): A mental framework or blueprint for organizing and interpreting information.
Serial reproduction method: A technique used to study how stories change as they are passed from one person to another.
Recall: Retrieving information from memory without cues. / Recognition memory: Identifying information that has been previously encountered.
Encoding: The process of converting information into a form that can be stored in memory./ Storage: The process of maintaining information in memory over time./ Retrieval: The process of accessing information stored in memory.
Atkinson-Shiffrin model: A model of memory proposing three distinct stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
Levels of processing model: A model of memory proposing that information is better remembered when it is processed deeply, such as by focusing on its meaning.
Elaborative encoding: Encoding information by relating it to existing knowledge and experiences.
Semantic networks: Networks of interconnected concepts and ideas in memory.
Mnemonics: Memory aids or techniques used to improve encoding and retrieval (method of loci is an example).
Testing effect: The finding that memory is better when information is retrieved through testing rather than simply rereading.
Interleaving material: Studying different topics or concepts in an interleaved fashion rather than in blocks.
Generative learning: Actively constructing knowledge by generating new ideas and solutions.
Savings on re-learning: The finding that it takes less time to relearn information that has been previously learned.
Desirable difficulties: Learning conditions that are challenging but ultimately lead to better retention and transfer.
Ebbinghaus forgetting curve: A curve illustrating the decline in memory retention over time.
Decay: The gradual fading of memories over time.
Proactive interference: Interference from previously learned information that disrupts the retrieval of new information./ Retroactive interference: Interference from newly learned information that disrupts the retrieval of old information.
Memory consolidation: The process by which memories become more stable and durable over time.
Perma-store: The idea that some memories can become permanently stored and resistant to forgetting.
State-dependent memory: Memory that is better when the internal state during retrieval matches the internal state during encoding./ Context-dependent memory: Memory that is better when the external context during retrieval matches the external context during encoding
Tip-of-the-tongue effect: The experience of knowing that you know something but being unable to retrieve it from memory.
Rosy view: The tendency to remember past events more positively than they actually were.
Intrusion errors: Errors in memory in which information that was not part of the original event is recalled.
Boundary extension: The tendency to remember a scene as being wider than it actually was.
Reconstructive memory: The process of filling in gaps in memory with inferences and guesses.
Seven sins of memory: Sins of omission: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking. Sins of commission: misattribution, suggestibility, bias, persistence.
Misinformation effect: The tendency for post-event information to distort or alter memories of the event.
Flashbulb memories: Vivid and detailed memories of emotionally significant events.
Implicit Memory
Behaviorism: A school of psychology that emphasizes observable behavior over internal mental processes.
Classical conditioning: A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus.(process includes unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response)
Operant conditioning: A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences.
Reinforcement: Consequences that increase the likelihood of a behavior./ Punishment: Consequences that decrease the likelihood of a behavior.
Implicit memory/learning: Memory or learning that occurs without conscious awareness.
Anterograde amnesia: The inability to form new memories after an injury or event.
Procedural memory: Memory for skills and habits. (also known as muscle memory)
Implicit tasks: Tasks that assess implicit memory or learning.
Speech Perception
Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another.
Place: Where in the vocal tract the sound is produced./ Manner: How the sound is produced./ Voicing: Whether the vocal cords are vibrating during sound production.
Characteristics of vowels: Sounds produced with an open vocal tract.
Formants: Resonant frequencies of the vocal tract that distinguish different vowels.
Phonemic restoration effect: The tendency to perceive missing phonemes in speech when they are replaced by a non-speech sound.
Phantom word illusion: The perception of words that are not actually present in a sound stream.
Sine wave speech: Speech that is synthesized from sine waves to mimic the formants of natural speech.
Segmentation: Identifying word boundaries in continuous speech./ Matching: Mapping perceived sounds to phonemes and words./ Ordering problems: Determining the sequence of phonemes in a word.
Coarticulation: The overlapping of articulatory gestures in speech production.
McGurk effect: The perception of a different phoneme when visual and auditory information conflict.
Auditory vs. motor theories of speech perception: Competing theories on whether speech perception is based primarily on auditory processing or on motor representations of speech gestures.
Psycholinguistics
Language: A system of communication that is generative, referential, extendable, combinatorial, and shared.
Generative: Capable of producing an infinite number of utterances./ Referential: Used to refer to objects and events in the world./ Extendable: Able to incorporate new words and concepts./ Combinatorial: Allows for the creation of complex meanings by combining simpler elements./ Shared: Understood by a community of speakers.
Displaced reference: The ability to talk about things that are not present or that do not exist.
Clever Hans: A horse that appeared to be able to do math but was actually responding to subtle cues from the audience./ Koko: A gorilla that learned sign language.
Broca's aphasia: A language disorder characterized by difficulty producing speech also the Broca's area in brain/ Wernicke's aphasia: A language disorder characterized by difficulty understanding speech also the Wernicke's area in brain.
Phonotactic regularities: The rules governing the permissible sequences of phonemes in a language.
Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language.
Ambiguous syntax/semantics: Sentences or words that have multiple possible interpretations.
Garden path sentence: A sentence that initially leads the reader to one interpretation, but then requires a different interpretation.
On-line processing of language: The real-time comprehension and production of language.
Prosody: The rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech.
Neologisms: Newly coined words.
Discourse markers: Words or phrases that signal relationships between ideas in discourse.
Backchannels: Verbal and nonverbal cues used to indicate engagement and understanding in a conversation.
Problem-solving and Decision-making
Well-defined problem: A problem with a clear goal and a specific set of steps to achieve it./ Ill-defined problem: A problem with a vague goal and no clear path to a solution.
Algorithm: A step-by-step procedure that guarantees a correct solution to a problem./ Heuristic: A mental shortcut or rule of thumb used to solve problems more quickly.
Insight: A sudden realization of the solution to a problem.
Functional fixedness: The tendency to see objects as having only one particular function.
Incubation: Taking a break from a problem to allow for unconscious processing.
Solving by analogy: Using the solution to a similar problem to solve a new problem.
Solving by embodiment: Using physical actions and sensations to solve problems.
Convergent creativity: The ability to come up with a single, well-established solution to a problem./ Divergent creativity: The ability to come up with multiple, novel solutions to a problem.
RAT (Remote Associates Test): A test of convergent creativity in which participants must find a word that is associated with three given words.
Optimal economics: Making decisions that maximize economic outcomes.
Expected value: The average outcome of a decision, weighted by the probability of each outcome.
Bounded rationality: The idea that people make decisions that are rational within the constraints of their cognitive abilities and available information.
Psychological utility: The subjective value or satisfaction derived from a decision.
Behavioral economics: A field that combines psychology and economics to study how people make decisions.
Satisficing: Choosing a satisfactory option rather than searching for the optimal option.
Embodied simulation and decision-making: Using mental simulations of physical actions and sensations to make decisions.
Paralysis by analysis: Overthinking a problem to the point where no decision can be made.
Dual processing theory: the mind has two systems for decision-making: System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slow, deliberate, and logical.
Confirmation bias: The tendency to seek out information that confirms one's existing beliefs.
Baader-Meinhof phenomenon: The illusion of increased frequency of a word, concept, or thing after noticing it for the first time.
Availability heuristic: The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events that are readily available in memory.
Representativeness heuristic: The tendency to judge the probability of an event based on how similar it is to a prototype or stereotype.
Anchoring: The tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information received when making decisions.
Framing: The way in which a problem is presented can influence the decisions people make.
Dunning-Kruger effect: The tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their abilities and for experts to underestimate their abilities.
Loss aversion: The tendency to feel the pain of a loss more strongly than the pleasure of an equivalent gain.
Sunk costs: Costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.
Logical fallacies: Errors in reasoning that invalidate an argument.
Sure, here are some examples:
Well-defined problem: A mathematical equation that needs to be solved using a specific formula.
Ill-defined problem: Deciding on a career path or how to improve employee morale.
Algorithm: A recipe for baking a cake.
Heuristic: Using the process of elimination to answer a multiple-choice question.
Insight: Suddenly understanding the punchline of a joke.
Functional fixedness: Using a hammer as a paperweight instead of thinking to use it to hammer a nail into the wall.
Incubation: Taking a break while writing an essay after experiencing writer's block, and then coming back to it with a fresh perspective.
Solving by analogy: Understanding how the heart works by comparing it to a pump.
Solving by embodiment: Grasping the concept of leverage by actually using a lever.
Convergent creativity: Finding the one correct answer on a multiple-choice test.
Divergent creativity: Brainstorming various marketing strategies for a new product.
RAT (Remote Associates Test): Finding the word "salt" that is associated with "deep", "foam", and "sea”.
Optimal economics: Choosing to invest in a high-yield, low-risk stock.
Expected value: Calculating the potential winnings from a lottery ticket based on the odds of winning and the payout.
Bounded rationality: Choosing the first suitable apartment instead of spending countless hours searching for the absolute perfect one.
Psychological utility: Buying a product based on its brand image and emotional appeal rather than its practical value.
Behavioral economics: Understanding why people save less for retirement when they are automatically enrolled in a retirement plan, but have the option to opt-out.
Satisficing: Buying the first laptop that meets all your essential needs without researching every possible model.
Embodied simulation and decision-making: Imagining yourself using a product before buying it to assess its usability.
Paralysis by analysis: Spending too much time researching different diets and never starting one.
Dual processing theory: System 1: Quickly swerving to avoid a pedestrian; System 2: Carefully comparing different car insurance plans.
Confirmation bias: Only reading news articles that support your political views.
Baader-Meinhof phenomenon: Suddenly noticing a particular brand of car everywhere after deciding to buy one.
Availability heuristic: Believing that plane crashes are more common than car accidents because they receive more media coverage.
Representativeness heuristic: Assuming that someone who wears glasses and enjoys reading is a librarian.
Anchoring: Being more likely to buy a product that is initially priced high but then discounted, even if the discounted price is still higher than similar products.
Framing: Choosing a medical treatment with a 90% survival rate over one with a 10% mortality rate, even though they are statistically equivalent.
Dunning-Kruger effect: An inexperienced person confidently presenting themselves as an expert in a field.
Loss aversion: Feeling more upset about losing $100 than feeling happy about gaining $100.
Sunk costs: Continuing to invest money in a failing business because of the money already invested.
Logical fallacies: Arguing that climate change is not real, because it snowed this winter.