Mem & Cog

  1. Be familiar with Descartes’ beliefs about ideas and rationalism - lecture

  • True or False: Descartes believed that we needed our bodies in order to exist. 

    • FAlSE-he believed that we were our mind, and existed outside of just our body

  1. Be able to identify examples of structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, and cognitivism – lecture and textbook

  • Which of the following involves introspection, and the basic elements that comprise thought?

    • Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, or Cognitivism

    • Structuralism: knowing what the mind is made up of

  1. Know the tenets of empiricism supported by the British Empiricists – lecture

  • Which of the following is NOT one of the 3 founding assumptions of Empiricism?

    • Humans are natural

    • Everything around us, including our own behaviors are caused by other natural events

    • Uses the question of “why?” rather than “what?”

    • The movement of objects and the behavior of humans can be predictable

    • Uses the question of “why?” rather than “what?”: that is a component of Functionalism, not Empiricism

  1. Be familiar with the tenets of Behaviorism and be able to identify from examples the two kinds of learning discussed in class - lecture

  • Which of the following is one of the tenets of Behaviorism?

    • All theories must be parsimonious (make the fewest possible assumptions)

    • Humans have a basic tendency to organize what we see

    • There are three stages of development

    • We are the compromise between the body and mind

    • All theories must be parsimonious (make the fewest possible assumptions)

  1. Know the basic tenets of Gestalt psychology – lecture and textbook

  • True or False: Humans have a basic tendency to organize what we see is NOT one of the tenets of Gestalt Psychology 

  • False: It is a principle of Gestalt Psychology

  1. Be familiar with the evidence from studies on language, representations, and memory strategies that pushed the boundaries of behaviorism – lecture and textbook

  • Who believed that behaviorism could explain language?

    • Skinner

    • Chompsky

    • Descartes

    • Pavlov

    • Skinner believed language was a natural part of learning

  1. Know the general assumptions of information processing models of cognitive processing – textbook

  • What is the correct order of the stages of the Atkinson-Shiffron Model? (Sensory memory, short term memory, external input, long term memory)

  • External Input-> Sensory Memory-> Short Term Memory (Working Memory)->Long Term Memory

  1. Know the two basic principles associated with parallel distributed processing models (i.e., parallel and distributed) – lecture and textbook

  • Between the two principles of Parallel Distribution, which allows for greater complexity, flexibility, and accuracy?

    • Parallel 

    • Distributed

    • Attention

    • Awareness

    • Distributed

  1. Know how brain lesions and dissociations can lead to a better understanding of how cognitive processes correlate with regions of the brain - lecture

  • Explain a double dissociation:

    • Must include two areas of the brain

    • Causing injury to one part of the brain, therefore showing unimpaired performance on one task, but impaired performance on task 2 

    • Ex: if brain area a is hurt then x is effected but not y, and if brain area b is hurt then y is effected but not x

  1. Be familiar with the basic properties (spatial and temporal resolution, and what is being measured) of PET, fMRI, EEG, and MEG – lecture and textbook

  • Which of the following directly measures the neural activities/the changes in a neuron?

    • PET

    • fMRI

    • EEG

    • MEG

Lecture 2_Part 1 Outcomes:

  1. Be familiar with the three trade-offs inherent in low-level vision – lecture

  • Explain the inverse problem

    • Qualities of objects trade off with other qualities

    • The balance between these is how we identify objects

    • Ex: the orientation of an object can make it appear as a different shape, even though it remains the same thing

  1. Know the difference and be able to identify from examples top-down and bottom-up processing – lecture and textbook

  • Which of the following is NOT true about Top-Down Processing?

    • It is strong when a stimulus is registered for just a fraction of a second

    • It is strong when stimuli are incomplete or ambiguous

    • Movement automatically captures attention

    • Involves consciously directed attention

    • Movement automatically capturing attention is bottom up processing

  1. Know the reasons and evidence for the importance of edges to low-level vision - lecture

  • TRUE or FALSE: Edges are important to to visual recognition

    • TRUE

  1. Be familiar with the properties of simple cells

  • TRUE or FALSE: Simple cells are bad at detecting lines and edges

    • FALSE: they are good at detecting lines and edges

  1. Know the principles governing figure-ground organization – lecture and textbook

  • Which of the following is false in regarding figure-ground organization?

    • Has definite shape and appears closer

    • Size and symmetry

    • Frames of Reference

    • The ground appears closer and in front of the figure

    • The ground appears closer and in front of the figure, because the grounds actually appears FARTHER and extends BEHIND the figure

  1. Be familiar with the results and significance of Bagust (2005) – lecture and textbook

  1. Be familiar with the data on change blindness - textbook

  • Fill in the blank correctly: Because we overuse ___________, we sometimes demonstrate change blindness

    • Bottom up processing

    • Top down processing

    • Attention

    • Multitasking

    • Top down processing

Lecture 2_Part 2 Outcomes:

  1. Know the problems with a template model of object recognition – lecture

  • In relation to object recognition, match the words distal and proximal with their definitions below:

    • Distal

    • Proximal

    • What is in the world

    • Our interpretation of the world

    • Distal=what is in the world

    • Proximal=our interpretation of the world

  1. Be familiar with the three pieces of evidence supporting a feature-integration theory of object recognition – lecture and textbook

  • Which of the following is not a piece of evidence supporting the feature integration theory?

    • Abandons the bottleneck theory altogether

    • Distributed Attention

    • Focused Attention

    • Cocktail Party Phenomenon

    • The Cocktail Party Phenomenon is in more relation with the bottleneck theory, not feature integration

  1. Be familiar with the results and implications of Biederman and Cooper (1991) - lecture

  • Which of the following is what the Bierderman and Cooper (1991) experiment was about?

    • Object priming

    • Attention

    • Memory

    • Emotional words

    • Object Priming

  1. Know the conditions which encourage top-down processing in object recognition – lecture and textbook

  • Which of the following is false?

    • Top-Down processing is strong when the stimulus is registered for just a fraction of a second

    • Top-Down processing is strong when the stimuli are incomplete or ambiguous

    • Object recognition combines both top down and bottom up processing

    • Object recognition is entirely top down processing

    • Object recognition is entirely top down processing, because it combines both

  1. Be familiar with the results and implications of Rueckl and Oden (1986) and the word superiority effect – lecture and textbook

  • In Rueckl and Oden’s experiment involving bears and beans, which of the following had a larger effect?

    • Top-Down

    • Bottom-Up

    • Bottom Up processing had a larger effect than top down

  1. Be familiar with the results and implications of Tanaka and Farah (1993) – lecture and textbook

  • In Tanakah and Farah’s experiment, when were noses most easily identifiable/correct?

    • Right side up

    • Upside down

    • When presented in a whole face

    • When presented individually

    • When presented in a whole face

  1. Know the three alternatives to a dedicated brain module for face processing – lecture

  • Match the three alternatives to a dedicated brain module for face processing to their definitions

    • Nature of the Task

    • Specific to faces

    • Perceptual Expertise

    • When viewing faces, people are more likely to look closer at a face to try to identify the features

    • We have been trained to recognize faces, and interpreting features from one another our whole life

    • Fusiform gyrus, which is a part of the brain that is triggered by facial processing, is more active with faces than other objects

    • Nature of the Task: When viewing faces, people are more likely to look closer at a face to try to identify the features

    • Perceptual Expertise: We have been trained to recognize faces, and interpreting features from one another our whole life

    • Specific to Faces: Fusiform gyrus, which is a part of the brain that is triggered by facial processing, is more active with faces than other objects

  1. Know why speech perception is difficult - textbook

  • Explain visions impact on speech perception:

  • Vision can help with speech perception if you can look at the persons lips while they are talking

  1. Know the evidence in support of a specific or general mechanism for speech perception – textbook

  • Which of the following is not in support of general mechanisms for speech perception?

    • We can explain speech perception without proposing any special phonetic module

    • Research in Event Related Potentials (ERPs) where adults listen to speech or music

    • Speech perception proceeds in stages

    • Speech perception depends on familiar cognitive processes such as feature recognition, learning, and decision making

    • All of the above support general mechanisms for speech perception

    • All of the above are true and support general mechanisms for speech perception

Lecture 3 Outcomes:

  1. Know the definitions of, and relationship between, the two properties of attention (limited and selective) - lecture 

  • True or False: Limited property of attention states that not all sensory stimuli simultaneously get continued processing 

  • True, since it is limited

  1. Know the difference between early and late filters of attention – lecture 

  • Does the Bottleneck theory of Attention support early or late filters of attention?

    • Early, because people dont notice when the language/semantics/meaning/gender of words/speaker change

  1. Know the conditions in which participants fail to detect information from the unattended ear in the dichotic listening task and the conditions in which they succeed – lecture 

  • Under what conditions do participants fail to detect information from the unattended ear?

    • Speech is played backwards

    • Language changes

    • Frequency of speech is changed

    • Gender of the speaker changes

    • All of the above are correct

    • All of the above are correct

  1. Be familiar with the cocktail party effect and alternative explanations – lecture 

  • Explain the Cocktail Party Effect:

    • When you are at a party or in a busy room with multiple conversations, you have to choose what to put your attention on. If you are listening to the person talking to you, you shouldnt be able to hear your name said in a different conversation, but ⅓ of the time you do. This is because you were switching between conversations or zoning out and not shadowing the conversation you were a part of.

  1. Be familiar with the properties of distributed and focused attention – lecture and textbook 

  • Which of the following relates to focused, rather than distributed attention?

    • Parallel processing

    • Slower serial processing

    • Identify features simultaneously

    • Low level processing

    • Slower serial processing is focused attention..the rest above are distributed

  1. Be familiar with the effects of cell phone use on multitasking – lecture and textbook 

  • Fill in the blank with a number percentage:Reaction times during driving while using a cell phone are ____% slower than driving without cell phone use

    • 15

    • 20

    • 5

    • 80

    • 20% slower

  1. Be familiar with the Stroop effect and clinical uses – lecture and textbook

  • Which of the following describes the Stroop Effect test?

    • Reading color words in different colored fonts

    • Reading emotional words 

    • Attempting to multitask

    • Counting how many passes each team made

    • Reading words of colors in different colored fonts

  1. Be familiar with the results and implications of Sperling & Melchner (1978) – lecture 

  • Please state what the overall finding was of the Sperling & Melchner study.

    • Subjects were able to direct their attention to certain features on a spotlight, but not certain spaces

  1. Be familiar with the results and implications of Johnston & Heinz (1978) – lecture 

  • In the Johnston & Heinz study on visual attention, was the subject reaction time faster with gender or occupation?

    • Gender

  1. Know evidence for and against the metaphor of attention as a spotlight – lecture 

  • Please discuss how attention could be viewed as a spotlight below

    • Attention is a spotlight. We can shift what it lights up or focuses on, but everything in the realm of the spotlight should be clear, equally attended to, focused on and understood. Everything outside that spotlight won't be

  1. Be familiar with the orienting vs. executive attention networks - textbook 

  • Which attention network is responsible for attention required for visual search?

    • Executive

    • Orienting

    • Orienting..executive is responsible for the attention we use when a task focuses on conflict

  1. Be familiar with the isolated feature (disjunctive search)/combined (conjunctive search) effect – lecture and textbook

  • True or False: People can typically locate an isolated feature more quickly than a combined feature

    • TRUE

      13. Know the patterns of eye movement during reading - textbook

  • While reading, do our eyes move smoothly across the lines, or do they make little jumps across the page?

    • Smoothly

    • Jumps

    • Jumps..although people self report that their eyes move smoothly, this is incorrect