Perception (2.1)

• Cognition: related to the mind, the way you think and behave

• Serial Positioning Effect: where an item is located on a list can affect how well you remember it

  • Primary Effect: you tend to remember the first few items because they are the first things that you’ve heard

  • Recency Effect: you tend to remember the last few items because they are the last things that you’ve heard

• Priming: your understanding can be influenced by previous information

  • Affects recognition and overconfidence

• Magical number of 7 (+2/-2): capacity for short term memory is around 7 terms with the range of 5-9 terms

• Bottom Up Processing: takes in the information bit by bit and then puts the pieces together to understand the complete information given to you

  • Part to whole and typically used for new information

  • Putting together a puzzle without a reference

• Top Down Processing: within the brain, it overlays information with understanding and makes an assumption and uses that to draw a template and draw a conclusion.

  • Uses prior information and applies it to the information being presented

  • Putting a puzzle together with the reference

• Schemas: framework for understanding. As we experience thing and build information, we create expectations based on the past

  • based on prototypes (ideal/ perfect example)

• Perceptual sets: what we will assume will happen next based on schemas. Informs us how to interact in that particular situation as we will in the banks.

  • Can be impacted by: context, experience, expectations and culture

• Gestalt Principles: our brains brings information and perceives it based on a pattern/ structure

• Cocktail Party Effect: if it’s something that pertains to us then we will pay greater attention to it

• Change Blindness: you would think that you would be able to notice the change of something but you don’t because you are not paying attention to it specifically so even though we see it, it doesn’t connect

• Binocular Cues: 2 eyes used for understanding depth and distance

  • Convergence: the closer something is to us, the closer our eyes get to see it

  • Retinal Disparity: the overlap of two images taken in by our eyes

• Monocular Cues: 1 eye used for understanding depth and distance

  • Linear Perspective: vanishing/ horizon point in which the further something gets, the closer it gets to the vanishing point and it gets more bunched together

  • Relative Size: closer something is, the bigger it is and the smaller something is, the farther away it is

  • Relative Clarity: the more detail something has, the closer it is and the less detail something has the farther away it is

  • Interposition: of something is blocking the view of what’s behind it, then its closer

  • Texture Gradient: part of a unit and uses sizes and patterns

• Perceptual Constancies: does not change even though it looks like it does

  • shape, size, color, brightness

  

• Apparent Movement:

  • Stroboscopic: flipbooks or stop motion

  • Phi Phenomenon: series of blinking lights makes it look like its moving

Thinking, Problem Solving, Judgment & Decision Making (2.2)

• Stroop Effect: when the eyes are presented with two conflicting information and it has to take time to disconcert the meaning. Perception problem when taking in information

• Can you change your mind:

  • Mental Set: we have typical steps that we take to solve a problem but when it doesn’t work ad we aren’t open to considering a new way to solve the problem you have a mental set

  • Assimilation: Not likely, fit new information into existing schemas

  • Accommodation: Yes, adjust schema based on the new information

• Problem solving:

  • Algorithm

    • Predetermined procedure and it goes through every possible solution

    • Takes a long time but you will definitely get the right answer

  • Heuristics

    • Mental shortcuts that take less time but there is room for error

  • Example: there is a lost car key and you want to leave it with the correct car, how will you find the correct car?

    • Algorithm: checking every car individually

    • Heuristics: using clues on the key such as the car model or the horn button

• Types of Heuristics

  • Representative: based on prototypes and then you make assumptions and act on them

  • Availability: based on information that you have recently seen

    • Example: Which state has the city with the highest crime rates?

    • Most people would say New York, California or Texas because those are popular states that come up often. Lack of background information

  • These work most of the time but they can lead to errors in judgement

• Impacts on Problem Solving

  • Mental Sets: how have we solved it in the past? was it successful? can you change the approach?

    • If you are unwilling to change that means you have a mental set (within you)

  • Priming: you can be influenced by other things by being ready to think a certain way based on things that you have been exposed to right before.

    • So when the information is presented, you will perceive it a certain way (externally influenced)

  • Framing: how the information is being presented to you

• Impairment on Decision making

  • Sunk Cast Fallacy: making a decision based on whether you’ve put a lot of effort/ work and energy into it or not. If you’ve already invested a lot into it, might as well continue or else it would be a waste

  • Gambler’s Fallacy: new outcomes are based on old outcomes but in realty past outcomes can’t affect future ones.

    • Flipping a coin, rolling a dice, roulette, winning, answer choices

  • Frontal Lobe and prefrontal cortex isn’t developed yet which leads to not the best decisions in organization, planning, goal oriented behaviors and critical thinking.

• Thinking:

  • Creativity has no definition and can’t be determined unless you see it

    • A test for creativity is the ability to overcome functional fixedness (finding multiple uses for an object rather than being fixated on the intended purpose of use)

Memory (2.3)

• Chunking: if we are able to break down the information in a way that has meaning, it makes it much easier to remember

• Levels of Processing: Shallow/ Sensory - Phonetic/ Recall - Semantic/ Meaning - long term memory

• Explicit Memory: declarative memories (with conscious awareness)

  • Episodic: unique to you, personal experiences

  • Semantics: specific facts or conceptual understanding

  • Prospective: remembering something for the purpose to remember it

• Implicit Memory: nondeclarative memories (without conscious awareness)

  • Procedural: knowing how to do something

  • Classically conditioned responses: learned associations that evoke emotional/ physiological responses

  • Prime responses: exposure to one thing unconsciously influences future thoughts and behaviors

• Sensory Memory:

  • Iconic: brief memory for visual inputs- decays quickly

  • Echoic: brief memory for auditory inputs- decays quickly but holds more information

  • By repeating something (maintenance rehearsal/ repetition) you can move information from sensory to short term memory

• Short term memory: limited information, temporarily maintained, cognitive tasks

  • Capacity: 7 (+2/-2) with the range of 5-9 items

  • Duration: 15-30 seconds

  • If we keep repeating the information, we can keep it there for a while and encode it into long term

• Long term memory:

  • With effortful processing you can move information from short term memory to long term memory however it requires conscious effort

  

• Working memory model has a phonological loop and a visuo- spatial sketchpad

• Central Executive Boss: planning and decision making (prefrontal cortex)

• Phonological loop: verbal input - information you might be saying over and over to remember (this uses the Broca’s Area)

• Visuo- Spatial Sketchpad: maintain a visual memory of it. Parietal lobe handles spatial perception and occipital lobe in the visual cortex.

Encoding Memories (2.4)

• Encoding memories: transferring information to Long Term Memory

• Encoding Strategies:

  • Mnemonic Devices:

    • puts meaning to the letters or a play on words Ex: PEMDAS- please excuse my dear aunt sally

  • Method of Loci (Memory Palace): making a story with items and then placing them in different places in your mental “house”

    • You are more likely to remember the items because you give them meaning

  • Grouping: chunking, hierarchies (most to least important) and categories

  • Spacing Effect: massed practice vs. distributed practice

• Impacts on encoding: how information is presented and how much intent and effort you put into the task of encoding information

Storing Memories (2.5)

• Improving Storage:

  • Working with the information: maintenance rehearsal

    • Takes longer and not as effective

  • Creating Meaning: elaborative rehearsal

    • Lasts Longer and you remember the information better

• Autobiographical Memory: easier to remember since its memories and information from your life

• Storage Impairment:

  • Amnesia: results from damage to the brain

    • Anterograde: inability to form new memories

    • Retrograde: inability to remember old memories

  • Alziehmer’s: related to dementia

  • Infantile Amnesia: can’t remember things before the age of 3

Retrieving Memories (2.6)

• Ways to express what we remember

  • Recall (better indicator of how well you remember information) and Retrieval

• Enhancing ability to retrieve memory:

  • Conext Memory Dependant: your surroundings affect your ability to remember in that place. For example, if you come to class and sit in the same place everyday, on the test day, being in the same familiar environment will make you better at recalling the information taught to you in that place

  • Mood Congruent Memory: more likely to remember things based on our moods. When we feel happy, we think back to all our happy memories but when someone makes us upset we thinks of all the times in the past when they have made us feel this way as well

  • State Dependant Memory (state of consciousness): more likely to remember things based on our state of consciousness. When people were drunk they were taught something but when they sobered up they couldn’t remember it until they became drunk again.

• Methods:

  • Retrieval practices: testing affect→ you are more likely to remember the mistakes you make on a quiz or practice test so you don’t make the same mistake on the actual test.

  • Metacognition: thinking about thinking. Thinking about thought processes by helping create meaning.

Forgetting and Other Memory Problems (2.7)

• Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

  • Illustrates how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it; highlights the rapid decline of memory retention shortly after learning.

  

• Why do we forget? COGNITIVE

  1. Encoding failure: we forgot because the information wasn’t encoded from short to long term memory

  2. Retrieval failure: it was encoded but there was trouble bringing it up. Tip of the tongue phenomenon

  3. Interference: other information competes with the memory, making it harder to retrieve. Old vs New information have a conflict. Must be similar

     1. Proactive: previous information interferes with new information

     2. Retroactive: new information interferes with remembering old information

• Why do we forget? PSYCHODYNAMICS

  1. Repression: actively trying to forget you have memory that was traumatic and you want to forget it. Except it can resurface and cause you do certain things and behave a certain way

• Why do we remember incorrectly?

  1. Misinformation effect: you remember the event but certain details are wrong

  2. Source Amnesia: you are unable to remember where you got the information. It makes it harder to disconcern between credible vs. non credible sources

  3. Imagination inflation: you convince yourself that the things you think are true, actually are true

IQ and Achievement (2.8)

• IQ Tests

  • Some people don’t like it because it’s culturally inexclusive. They don’t think it accurately gauges intelligence and provides an incomplete picture

  • IQ: Mental age/ chronological age x 100

    • Mental age can be determined by taking the IQ test and if you score higher than others your age you have a higher mental age than physical age and the same for reverse

    • Average IQ: 100%

  • IQ represents cognitive processing speed and g (general intelligence)

    • If you do good one part of the test, you generally do better on the other parts as well and things in life generally come easier

  • There are different types of intelligence

  • Tests have to be regenerated every generation

• How do we measure?

  • Assessments and Psychometricians (make sure the tests are appropriate)

  • Characteristics of Assessments:

    1. Standardized: reduces variables that affect your score & give others an advantage other than having more knowledge than others

    2. Valid: construct validity (measures what it says it will measure) and predictive validity (measures something for the future)

    • SAT measures your ability to be successful in college

    3. Reliable: only thing that impacts the score is the amount of knowledge you have.

    • Split halves: split the test into two parts and you should score similarly on both parts

    • Test retest: if you take the test the 1st time and then after a few days, you take the test again, without any extra practicing or knowing previous results, you should score around the same