unit 2
Perception:
Process in which we interpret info through five senses
Sensation:
Info we receive from sensory receptors.
Top-down processing:
Using prior knowledge to interpret information
When sensory is simple
Helps us with quick manners
Proof-readers illusion:
Knowing what you will write but missing grammar errors your brain has missed.
Bottom-up processing:
Experience is complexed and not familiar to us
We build perception from the ground up
Doesn’t work with prior knowledge
Schemas:
Mental framework that’s built from past experience and cognitive structure.
Perceptual set:
Mental shortcut to quickly interpret something
Selective attention:
When we focus on one stimuli and filter out other stimuli
Brain still monitors other stimuli
In attentional blindness:
failure to notice stimuli in our field because we’re focused on something else
Change blindness:
Fail to see change in stimuli
Apparent movement:
When we see still images that seem like they’re moving even though they’re not
Phi phenomenon:
When lights blink on and off resulting in us perceiving the objects as they’re moving despite them being stationary.
Induced movement:
When it appears a stationary object is moving because of the motion of surrounding objects.
autokinetic effect:
When a stationary point of light in a dark environment appears to move
Gestalt psychology:
Explain how we organize perceptual world and how humans naturally group elements to form meaningful patterns.
6 gestalt principles:
Figure and ground:
How we separate what we see in 2 categories
Filter out back ground and what’s in front
Continuation:
Why eyes naturally follow continuous lines
Closure:
Brain subconsciously fills missing info when viewing a familiar yet incomplete object
Similarity:
Our brain grouping similar objects/patterns
Anomaly:
When one object is different from the rest, it becomes our main focus.
Proximity:
When objects placed close together are often perceived as one
But objects placed further apart are perceived separate
Symmetry:
Symmetrical object seen as one
Depth perception:
Being able to perceive relative distance of an object in visual field.
binocular cues:
Rely on both eyes
Eyes move inward for close object
Eyes move forward for distant objects
ALSO KNOWN AS CONVERGENCE
Retinal disparity:
Different images we see on left and right side
Monocular cues:
Requires only one eye
Perceive depth on flat surfaces.
6 types of monocular cues:
Relative size:
Helps know if object is far or close (large and small).
Interposition:
When one object blocks another
Blocked object is far, blocking object is closer
Relative height:
Objects higher, far
Objects lower, close
Shading contour:
Less detailed, further away
Clear and focused, closer
Texture and gradient:
Clear, focus, detail are close
Blurry and less detail, further
Linear perspective:
When parallel lines converge in the distance
Motion parallax:
Objects closer are moving quickly
Objects further away are moving slowly
Ex: in a car, a car drives past seems moving quickly but distant land is moving slowly.
Perceptual constancy:
Perceiving objects as having consistent shape, color, and lightness even when appearance changes
Size constancy:
Brain perceiving objects as same size
Color constancy:
Perceiving color of object to remain constant even if the lightning changes.
Shape constancy:
Perceive objects shape the same even at different positions.
Lightness constancy:
Perceiving black, white, and pray of object even under different lightning conditions.
Thinking, problem solving, judgement
Concepts: categories that help us organize/understand the world.
Ex: what you balls are used in a sport, the concept is ball that you will think of.
Prototypes: basic example of concept that serves a mental image that acts as a cognitive reference for the concept.
Ex: basketball and baseball are prototypes but ball is the concept.
Schemas: complexed mental framework that organize/interpret info about the world.
Assimilation: fitting new info into existing schema
Accommodation: changing a schema to add new info
Executive functions:
Cognitive processes that help us plan, organize, and carry out plans
Main function in the frontal lobe
algorithms: person handles problem step by step in systematic way.
heuristics: mental shortcuts based on past experience. Ex: retracing steps to find something.
Representative heuristics: making judgements based on how much something resembles a stereotype.
Availability heuristics: making judgements on how easily it comes to mind.
Mental set: cognitive framework relying on past experiences and successful strategies to solve new problems.
Priming: phenomenon where one stimulus influences how we respond to a later stimulus.
Repetition priming: exposed to specific stimulus that makes it easier to recognize the same/similar stimulus later on.
Semantic priming: influence of one word that we interpret with another related word. Ex: relating nurse with doctor.
Framing: how info is presented that shape how we interpret and react to it. Influences our desicion and judgment.
Ex: when media outlets use specific language and details to get in costumers.
Creativity-2 types:
Divergent thinking: person explores many possible solutions and expand range of options for problem solving.
Convergent thinking: narrowing down possibilities to identify the best solution.
5 components of creativity:
Expertise: the more knowledge someone has the more likely they’ll apply it in new ways.
Imaginative thinking: visual skills that explore the possibilities beyond reality. Involves thinking outside the box.
Venturesome personality: person who willingly seeks out new challenges and experience to grow.
Intrinsic motivation: a person must have an internal drive to pursue a goal for personal satisfaction.
Creative environment: a person to surrounds themselves with creative people tend to be more creative and innovative.
functional fixedness: limiting a persons use in an object besides the traditional way. Ex: mostly using a hammer for nailing and over looking that it can help to be a door stopper.
cognitive biases:
Gambler’s fallacy: if event happens more frequently than normal during a given period it will happen less frequently in the future and vice versa.
Sunk-cost fallacy: tendency to continue to Pursue an action that you already put your resources into regardless of future value. Ex: your business failing which you put resources into but continue investing anyway because you don’t want your resources to go to waste.
Memory:
Information can be stored and retrieved later.
Metacognition:
Being aware of own cognitive processes
Explicit memory:
memory we consciously recalls
Requires thought and effort
2 types of explicit memory:
Episodic memory: person experiences and events
Semantic memory: knowledge and facts
Implicit memory: info/skills we learn without being fully aware of it. Ex: taking in smell of room you’re studying in.
Procedural memory: helps recall how to perform tasks. Ex: routines and motor skills.
Prospect memory: remembering to perform future actions. Ex: take pills or attend meeting.
Parallel processing: handles multiple streams of info simultaneously.
Long-term potentiation:
Strengthens synaptic connections between neurons in the brain
Helps form strong neuron bonds
Helps use retain knowledge
Working memory: short for short-term memory
Temporarily holds info for cognitive tasks
4 parts of working memory:
Visuospatial sketch pad: visual info that helps us visualize objects and location.
Phonological loop: verbal and auditory info.
Central executive: control center of working memory: focus attention, tasks, info
Episodic buffer: how long term and working memory combine. Temporary storage system that brings info from Visio spatial sketch pad and phonological loop.
Multi-store model: explains how info is processed, stored, and retrieved.
Start with stimulus, then sensory memory (iconic and echoic memory).
Then, it goes to working memory. If the info interests you, it goes to short-term memory.
Short term memory can hold a certain amount of info.
Maintenance rehearsal: going over the info over and over
Elaborative rehearsal: relating info to real world.
Then the info goes through encoding, to long term memory.
Iconic: why you can see flashes of the flame after it goes out
Echoic: why we can remember the last thing someone says to us.
Semantic processing: deepest level that focuses on meaning of info.
ENCODING:
Process/strategies used to take in info and store in long term memory.
You see, touch, feel, elaborate, focus to encode
The way we take in information can effect how we encode
Mnemonic devices:
Help us remember info more easily by organizing it in a way to make recalling easier
Method of Loci:
Helps remember info by associating it with specific locations in familiar setting
Chunking:
Grouping individual pieces of info into larger manageable units.
Ex: break down phone number into parts
We organize with categories and hierarchies so our brain can make connections to related ideas.
Spacing effect:
Space out and practice can help to recall and understand info
Testing effect:
Helps us understand what we know and don’t know in the material
Creates understanding of weaknesses and strengths
Set order of studying:
Serial position effect:
The order of what’s presented can effect our ability to remember the material.
Things in the front and end are easier to remember than info in the middle (due to primary and recency)
STORING MEMORY:
Sensory memory:
Briefest form of memory
Few seconds
Iconic and echoic memory stored
Short term memory:
Holds 7 items at a time
20-30 seconds
Working memory:
Updated form of short-term memory
Stores and processes info
Limited in how much can be stored but still important
Long-term memory:
Unlimited capacity
Can store for long periods
For facts, experiences, skills
Memory consolidation:
Process where short term memories transform into long-term memories
Neural pathways strengthened
Often happens in sleep
Flashbulb memories:
Very specific memories
Form in stressful, traumatic, and emotional events
Autobiographical memory:
Memories connected to our personal lives
More memorable
Damage done to parts of brain that process memories can make it hard for a person to recall information.
Ex: if hippocampus is damaged a person can struggle to recall explicit memory.
Anterograde amnesia:
Can no longer form new memories
Almost always due to hippocampus damage.
Retrograde amnesia:
Can no longer retrieve past info
Can happen if you take a blow to the head
Source amnesia:
Can remember info but not remember where/how they learned it
Infantile amnesia:
Adult can not remember personal experiences from early years
Ex: memories you can’t recall when you were 3 years.
RETRIEVING MEMORIES:
Recall info without cues/hints.
Recognition: use retrieval cues to help access info
Context-dependent memory:
Retrieval is improved when you’re in the environment you first learned it in.
Mood-current memory:
Most likely recall memory that match your mood.
State-dependent memory:
Memory retrieval improved if you’re in the same physical or mental state as when the memory was encoded.
metacognition:
Reflecting on your own thinking process to know what your do/don’t understand.
Forgetting and memory challenges:
forgetting curve:
Forgetting what we learned very quickly.
This can be countered if we practice the info.
Proactive interference:
Older memories interfere with the recall of newer memories
Retroactive memories:
When newer memories interfere with the recall of older memories.
Sigmund Freud:
ID, superego, ego
Id: unconscious (instincts)
Superego: pre conscious (morality)
Ego: conscious (reality)
Ego’s job to work with id and superego.
Ego decides what should be done.
Repression:
Autonomic process that shields a person from confronting difficult emotions/experiences.
Constructive memory:
The brain combines stored info with additional elements (assumptions, expectations, new info)
Memory constantly changes the more you retrieve.
Reconsolidation:
Storing/replacing an older memory with altered memory.
Intelligence and achievement:
Intelligence 2 parts:
fluid intelligence:
Ability to quickly reason and breakdown complexed problems
Crystallized intelligence:
Accumulated knowledge and verbal knowledge
Psychometric principles:
Standardization: tests that are administered to prevent bias
Reliability: produces consistent results. The score should be the same if you retake it.
Validity:
The Flynn effect: IQ scores have increased across the world due to increase of education, economic stability, health, etc.