Cog Processess

Cognitive Processes Exam 1 Study Guide

Cognition: mental process related to Acquisition ( initial stage of learning where a response is established), Storage (knowledge storing), and Retrievel (knowledge retrieval)
Primary Purpose in life: Survival
Know the historical contributions specific to our discussion of the following people
- Wilhelm Wundt: Structuralism which aimed to understand the structure of the mind by splitting mental processes into simple components using introspection
  - Introspection: people were trained to consciously report on the process that led froym a thought to a final project
    - Looking inward, being aware of your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
  - Issues of this:
    - Cant report a subconscious idea → you cant reflect on an idea that your not aware of
    - Perceptions are different
- Herman Ebbinghaus: Pioneer in the Formal study of human learning and memory
  - Non-sense syllables
    - Three letters
    - Not english
    - Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) format
    - Use them to understand memory without things like emotion, association, and personal meaning
    - Ex. DAX KIG
  - Savings Method
    - The difference in the number of trials needed to to relearn previously learned information
      - Measures how much faster you relearn info vs. the first time
      - Takes 10 mins to learn something then 6 months later you forgot it all but now it takes you 6 mins to learn it

→ You saved 4 mins

(Original Time - Relearning Time) divided by Original Time x 100%

Not on study guide: William James → Principals of Psychology
- Human mind is active, we process, choose, and interpret information
- Separate memory stored
  - A short term primary memory
  - A long term secondary memory
Sigmund Frued: Psychoanalytic Theory is theory that your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are driven by unconscious forced
- Unconscious mind: things buried deep like traumas, fears, urges
- Structures of the mind
  - Id → primal desires
    - Wants Pleasure NOW
    - Unconscious
  - Ego → reality checker
    - Balances what the Id wants and whats actually possible
    - Mostly conscious but is somewhat unconscious
    - Negotiates between the fun and the judgmental side
  - Superego → moral compass
    - Follows whats right not fun or realistic
    - Develops around age 5
    - Mostly unconscious but partly conscious
    - Judges you and rewards/punishes you with guilt or pride
- Defense Mechanism: attempt to alter the reality of the situation to make it less threatening and they're all unconscious processes
  - Unconscious conflict: two opposing thoughts, feelings, or urges clashing in your unconscious
Behaviorist
- Ivan Pavlov: Classical Conditioning
  - Law of Contiguity: associations are easily formed between experiences that occur close together in time
    - Ex. you ring a bell then give the dog food, after some time the dog will associate the bell with the food
  - Unconditioned Stimulus: stimulus that causes an automatic response or an Unconditioned response
    - Ex. food (stimulus) causes you to salivate (response)
  - Neutral Stimulus: the stimulus not causing the desired response (stimulus your brain deems unimportant)
    - Ex. a random bell
  - Conditioned Stimulus: neutral stimulus that, following a conditioning, causes a Conditioned Response
    - Ex. you ring a bell then give the dog food, after some time the dog will associate the bell with the food
  - Stimulus Generalization: response given by a new stimulus based on similarity to original stimulus
    - Ex. dog hears a buzzer and associates that with food since it sounds similar to the bell
    - Ex. child gets scratched by a cat so the child is afraid of all cats
  - Extinction: forgetting; decrease in response due to repeated non-reinforcement
    - Ex. dog no longer gets food after the bell so he forgets about the association
  - Spontaneous Recovery: reintroduce Conditioned Stimulus after Extinction, there will be a response
    - Ex. you start giving the dog food after the bell so he remembers the association
  - Non-Contingent/Independent Relationship: the outcome does not depend on the behavior
    - Ex. noncontingent → student will get a candy no matter what he does whether he is talking, disrupting class, or sleeping

Contingent → student will get a candy only if he raises his hand quietly, not when he is talking or disrupting

Stimulus Control: when stimulus can predict a response (associated)
- Ex. Pavlovs Dog AKA bell → food

Edward Thorndike:
- Connectionism → forming connections between stimulus and response through trial and error
- Instrumental Conditioning later known as Operant Conditioning → Do something then Get a result then Learn from it
- Law of Effect: if I behave in a way that results in something pleasant, I WILL do it again; if i behave in a way that results in something unpleasant, I WONT do it again
  - Role of Reward: makes behavior more likely
  - Role of Punishment: makes behavior unlikely
B.F Skinner: Operant Conditioning
- Contingent/Dependent Relationship: do a desired act to gain a reward
- Discriminative Stimulus: “this is the time to do the right thing’ “If i do this now, I will get a reward”
  - Ex. Owner tells dog to sit, the dog will sit right away because his mind knows that he will get a treat after
- Positive reinforcement: when added, it will increase behavior
  - Giving a treat for doing something right
  - Ex. Candy after finishing homework
- Negative reinforcement: when removed, it will increase behavior
  - Taking something unpleasant away to reward behavior
  - Ex. buckle your seatbelt in order for the car to stop beeping
- Primary Reward: something naturally rewarded
  - Your born to want it: water, food, sleep, attention
- Secondary Reward: something not initially rewarding, but when paired with a Primary Reward, it becomes rewarding
  - A reward that has to be learned, becomes good since its associated with primary reward: A+ = success + attention, Money = buying food
- Aversive Stimulus: something naturally harmful, it feels bad, doesnt have to be dangerous, can be used as negative reinforcement
  - Ex. embarassment, bad smell, loud noise
- Punishment: the removal of something rewarding or the introduction of something aversive
- Schedules of reinforcement:
  - Continuous V.S. Partial
    - Partial: slower learning, slower extinction
      - Rewards sometimes
    - Continous: faster learning, faster extinction
      - Always rewarding behavior
      - Stop rewarding behavior, it disappears
  - Fixed and Varied Ratio: reward after a set/randomnumber of responses
  - Fixed and Varied Interval: based on a set/random time between behavior and reward
    - Reward positve behavior and not negative behavior
John Watson: Little Albert → believed psychology was only observable/wanted it to be a real science
- Primary Contribution: to legitimize psychology, we must strictly adhere to the scientific method
- Little Albert experiment:
  - Showed a baby a rat which the baby had no reaction to (NS), but then started showing the baby the rat with a scary noise, so the baby associated the rat with the scary noise and would cry even if he saw the rat without the noise
  - Rate = Conditioned Stimulus Fear: Conditioned response
- Operant
  - Law of continuity and Law of effect
  - Contingent relationship
  - Placement reward after
- Classical
- Law of contiguity
- Noncontingent relationship
- Placement of reward is before

Gestalt Psychology
- Gestalt: completed object; the whole is greater than the sum of its part
  - Make sense of messy information
- Founders: Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler
- Key Concepts:
  - Phi Phenomenon: illusion of motion; motion thats experienced even when there's no motion
    - Ex. flashing lights look like theyr moving but ur brian is just filling the blanks in order to make sense of it
  - Necker Cube: experience it as a 3D object even though its a picture on a flat screen
  - Contextual Determinants: the lines are the same length but perceived different
    - Context effects perception
- Law of Perceptual Organization
  - Law of Pragnanz: we interpret complex or confusing images in the simplest, cleanest way possible
    - Olympic circles look like 5 circles not cut off shapes
  - Figure-Ground: the figure is the object of our focus; the ground is the surrounding information that gives meaning to the figure
    - Ex. black letters in book (figure) white page (ground)
  - Law of Proximity: we group things that are close together even if they are not connected
    - Ex. Things in a shelf are grouped together though they may not look alike
  - Law of Similarity: things that look alike and share characteristics are grouped together/group things by things they have in common
    - Ex. Menu → Pizza items are all near eachother because they are pizza even if they have different toppings
- Emergent Propety: an experience where you can’t identity the parts/pieced that make up a whole/you experience something a sa whole and not in parts
  - Ex. a face → you dont think those are eyes, nose , and a mouth; you think its a face
  - Ex. music chord has notes but u dont hear them individually you hear them as a whole

Scientific Method:
- Ask a question
- Form a hypothesis (a testable guess)
- Design an experiment
- Collect data
- Analyze results
- Draw a conclusion
- Repeat/test again
- Independent Variable: the one you manipulate to test hypothesis, what the expriementer changes
- Dependent variable: what you measure in the experiment, the effect caused by the changes in the independent variable
  - Hypothesis: The more sugar in the recipe, the sweeter the cupcake will taste.
    - Independent Variable = Amount of sugar you use
    - Dependent Variable = How sweet the cupcake tastes
- Control Group: does not receive the change and is used as a comparison group
- Experimental Group: receives the change or whats being tested
  - Ex. Does adding sugar make cupcakes taste sweeter?
    - Experimental Group = Cupcakes with added sugar
    - Control Group = Cupcakes with no added sugar (the normal version)
Factors Contributing to the Study of Cognitive Psychology
- Less behaviorism
  - Psychologists realized that language, memory, and problem solving can't be observed through behavior but has to be through the mind
- Noam Chompsky: Language Acquisition Device
  - We are already primed to learn to speak a language, it doesn't have to have reinforcement
  - Supported cognition
- More Study of Memory
  - Memory became a process not a Stimulus → Response
  - Led to sensory memory, long term memory, short term memory
- Jean Piaget: Theory of Cognitive Development
  - Studied children's development in stages
  - Showed that children’s thinking qualitatively grows with age
- Information Processing Model
  - Compared the brain to a computer
    - Input (stimulus)
    - Processing (thinking, memory)
    - Output (behavior)
    - Allowed things like attention, memory, and decision-making to be studied scientifically
Reoccuring Themes of Cognitive Psychology
- Cognitive processes:
  - Active, not passive
    - Brain is not a sponge, it selects and interprets what we experience
    - Ex. your brain decides what to make sense of
  - Accurate and efficient
    - Your brain helps u make quick decisions to survive
    - Detects danger, food, etc
    - Survival mechanism; if your alive = good cognition
  - Generally not observable
    - Cant see thoughts but can infer them through behavior, brain imaging, etc
  - Handle positive info better than negative info
    - Learn it fast, react stronger to it, bias
    - Learned positive info faster as it helps our motivation and emotional balance
  - Interrelated
    - Perception, attention, memory, language, and decision-making are not separate systems → they work together constantly
- Acquisition → taking in info
- Storage → putting it away into memory banks
- Retrieval → being able to recover info from memory banks
Memory: Recall/Recognition Procedures (how memory is measured)
- Recall:
  - Free Recall → you are asked to retrieve info, it can be recalled in any order
  - Serial Recall → retrieve info in a specific order (usually in the order that it was presented)
  - Paired-association → presented 2 items. At the time of recall, you are presented with one item and have to recall the other
- Recognition:
  - Yes/No → have you seen this before? When shown things previously and asked to recognize them
    - Don't have to choose, just say if u recognize
  - Forced Choice → multiple choice exam; presented a series of items where only one of them is correctly seen before
    - Forced to choose amongst options
Perception: process that allows us to use previous info to gather and interpret new sensory information
- 3 Perceptual Processes
  - Sensory register or memory
    - The site through which info first enters the system
    - Why is it important?
      - Allows us to hold a representation of information beyond the stimulus itself so we can determine if the next stimulus belongs to it or is the start of something new
      - Holds a Snapshot preview of incoming info to decide if you need this, if it connects to the previous stimuli or if its new info
    - Holds raw unprocessed information in its veridical form for 2 seconds
      - Premeaning - no meaning assigned to stimulus
      - Oce meaning assigned, it is no longer veridical
    - Decays rapidly for new info to come
    - Visual memory → iconic memory (visual afterimage/holds info for short time 0.5 - 1s)
    - Auditory memory → echoic memory (sound left in ur head/ holds info for longer 2 - 4s)
    - Evidence for sensory memory:
      - George Sperling’s tachistopic study
        Subjects are shown a 12 letter config for a specific amount of time ( usually 50 millisecs)
        Full report procedure → subject is asked to report as many configs as possible
        Findings: 3-4 letters at a time (30%)
        Subjects reported that during debriefing they remembered more than 3-4
        Partial report procedure → same but immediately after presentation subjects heard a high, medium, or low tone/sound which is the line they're supposed to report
        Findings: 3-4 letters with 75-100% accuracy of the letters reported
      - Iconic memory has high capacity but fades quickly
      - Loftus study - 2 conditions (icon vs no icon)
        Icon condition:
        Subjects are shown 72 slides via tachistoscope for 270 millisecs (the afterimage is allowed to form)
        Theyr then shown the original 72 and 72 new slides; your asked to say yes/no if you've seen it before
        69% accuracy rate
        No icon condition(icon memory was disrupted):
        Same procedure as above except there's masking after each slide; making → a distracting neutral image
        Subject then performed same yes/no task
        Subjects had to see the original slides for 370 millisecs to get the same accuracy rate
      - Icon allows us an additional 1/10th of a second to process info
  - Pattern Recognition
    - Processes that we use to compare prior knowledge to new information
    - 3 models
      - Template: using an existing “cookie cutter” to exactly match information in your memory (has to be exact match)
        Ex. you recognize letters because their images are stored in your brain
        Flaws:
        Too slow, very inefficient (different fonts etc)
        Does not take into account context of info
      - Prototype: does not require an exact match to associate information, just a general representation
        Flaws:
        Prone to errors bc of the “good enough” approach
        Misidentify something that resembles what u think it is
        Does not take context into account
        Does Not adjust to situation
      - Feature analysis/distinctive feature → start from the features and then make a whole concept from that; bottom up processing → use parts and work up to recognition of the whole
        Flaws:
        Too focussed on parts - how do we know which features go tg
        Slow for familiar things
        Does Not consider context
    - Context role:
      - Word superiority effect → you recognize features of a real word much faster than random letters/images
        FRAB vs BARF → A is the most recognizable
  - Attention: the active action of focusing on something
    - “My experience is what I attend to” - William James
      - No attention = No learning
    - 2 topics of study:
      - Divided Attention - ability to focus on more than task/stimulus at the same time → addresses limited ability to attend to multiple stimuli
        Irrelevant Info needs to be filtered out, prioritize important information
      - Selective Attention - Concentrate on what's relevant and useful → addresses the mechanism that determines what info we will or will not attend to
    - How its studied
      - independent variable (number of choices needed to be made, how long something is shown to someone, increasing/decreasing task complexity)
      - dependent variable (reaction time, percent/number of correct responses)
    - Dichotic listening study:
      - right/left ear are listing two different messages:
        Shadowing - u ask subject to repeat word for word one of the messages heard
        Illustration - shows how attention filters info + how much is processed from the info your not paying attention to
        Earl selection → decision to attend to one or the other is made early
        Prediction: little to no representation of the unattended info (filtered out) but absolute representation of shadowed info
        Late selection → decision to attend to one or the other is made late, all info processed but were aware of attended info
        Prediction: some representation of the unattended info
        Bottle neck → point where you decide what to attend to
        Shift from parallel (all info briefly enters) to serial processing (only one input is processed)
    - Studies
      - Cherry - 2 different phrases in different ears
        Told to shadow one ear
        Subjects had little to no awareness of the other phrase
        Supports early selection
      - Moray - list 7 words heard 35 times in each ear
        Told to attend to one ear
        Support for early selection bc subjects had no recollection of one channel over the other
      - Gray & Wedderburn
        Channel 1: Mice, 4, cheese
        Channel 2: 3, eat, 5
        Results:
        What drives attention is meaning
        Subjects report “Mice Eat Cheese” or “3 4 5”
        Supports late selection
      - Triesman
        Channel 1: in the picnic basket she had pb, books, leaves, keys, & cards
        Channel 2: cat, large, day, apple, friend, sandwiches, & chocolate brownies
        Results
        “In the picnic basket, she had pb sandwiches & chocolate brownies”
        Supports late selection
      - Lewis
        Channel 1(attended): bank
        Channel 2 (unattended): river or money
        Results:
        Unattended word influences the reported definition of the control word
        Supports late selection
    - Significance:
      - Attention is directed by meaning
      - Attention is not necessary for learning to occur
      - Unattended info can impact meaning of attended info
Information P processing Model (how info moves three memory systems)
- Atkinson & Shiffrin - 2 assumptions:
  - Stages - info is broken down into steps and features as it moves through info processing stages
  - Limited capacity - finite ability to attend to and hold info
    - Attention demanding vs automaticity
      - Demand slows down processing speeds & decreases ability to perform other tasks
        Requires focus and mental effort
      - Automaticity speeds up processing & does not interfere with other tasks
        Little effort and can be done while multitasking
  - 3 distinct systems:
    - Sensory memory → pattern recognition, template model, prototype model, feature analysis
    - Short-term memory → info were currently using/aware of
      - Can be called conscious, working, or primary memory
      - Range of 5-9 items/chunks at a time
      - Held for 30s unless u do something else (Decay)
        Storage strategies like repetition
      - Intervenening task.info → distractirs; input that immediately clears out short term information/memory
      - Coded:
        Visually: info thats seen (Posner Study)
        Acoustcally: info thats heard (errors made on sound)
        Semantically - info thats meaningful
        Errors based on meaning
    - Long term memory → “permanent” storehouse of all accumulated knowledge
      - Learning = long term memory
      - Infinite store, indefinite store time
      - Multiple representation of the same stimulus → we can recognize different independent features of the same thing
      - Allows to easily recall frequently occurring patterns
      - Empirical evidence:
        Serial position curve → stronger memory for first few items and last few items
        Primacy effect - memory for first few (long term)
        Recency effect - memory for last few (short term)
      - Info encoded how
        Intention
        Strategies
        Rehearsal - repetition
        Elaboration - deeper processing of info; assigning meaning ot info
        Self - reference - application of knowledge to self or someone you love
        Recognition is completed, we give it meaning then it goes from short term to long term
    - Problems w info processing model:
      - Grouping (Muller & Schuman Study)
        Zup Rif Foz Jir Wur Dek Siv Kul
        Results:
        People had trouble remembering anything about the info unless they were grouped
        Chunking info is crucial but model does not explain it
      - Law of Belongingness (Thorndike)
        If nature relationship exists between 2 events or ideas, the connection between the is more readily established
        Semantic context matters
      - Processing as either feature to whole or whole to feature
        Bottom Up - Feature to Whole
        Top down - Whole to Feature, use prior knowledge to guide perception
        Model assumed bottom up processes but we use both
Navon Study - letter/letter configuration
- Subjects a saw a large letter H made up of the letter F
- Global feature (H) - whole component
- Local Feature (F) - individual component
- Report as quickly as possible feature they heard
- Results: Global Feature Reported > Local Feature
  - There was a delay reporting the letter F because they saw H first, so when they heard F it was delayed
- Demonstrated top down processing: saw the whole (H) then the parts (processed the letter F)