U2b AP Psych In-Class Notes

Perception

• Selective Attention: focus of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus

• We cannot multitask! We are only shifting our attention back and forth very quickly

• Cocktail party effect

• Inattentional Blindness: failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere

• Change Blindness: failing to notice a visual change or visual cue that is obviously there

• Perceptual set: a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another

  • What is on your mind affects what you perceive

• Figure Ground Relationship

  • First gestalt perceptual decision is what is the image is the figure and what is the background

  • Which part of the picture is the actual image and what is the background

Perceptual Organization: Gestalt

• Gestalt Psychology: emphasizes our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful holes (Imaginary triangle picture example) 

• Gestalt psychologists focused on how we group objects together

• We innately look at things in groups and not as isolated elements

• Principles:

  • Closure (continuity): objects form a continuous form are perceived as same group (semicircles vs one line example)

  • Similarity: objects similar in appearance are perceived as being part of same group

  • Proximity: group objects that are close together as being part of an object (impossible doghouse shape)

Depth perception

• Ability to see objects in three dimensions

• Allows us to judge distance 

• ******more notes

• If you are old enough to crawl you are old enough to see depth perception (Elenor gibson and her visual cliff experiment)

• We see depth by using 2 cues 

Depth cues

• We see depth by using 2 cues 

• Monocular Cues: Methods used by a single eye to judge depth perception (know what these mean:)

  • Interposition

  • Linear perspective

  • Relative size

  • Relative clarity

  • Texture gradient

• Binocular Cues: 

  • Methods used by both eyes to judge depth perception

  • Retinal Disparity: as an object comes closer to us the differences in image between our eyes becomes greater

  • Convergence:  as an object comes closer to our eyes have focused on the object

Perceptual Constancy

• Perceiving objects as unchanging even as illumination and retinal image change in 

  • Color

  • Shape

  • Size

Perceived Motion

• Phi phenomenon: illusion…………………

Videos from class

• Product Design

• Donn Norman

• The design of everyday things

• Human Centered Design

• Human centered AI

• Christmas fire-show illusion

Recall vs Recognition

• Recall: you must retrieve the information from your memory

  • Fill in the blank

  • Essay tests

• Recognition: you must identify target from possible targets

  • multiple choice, police line up

Memory process

1. Encoding: the processing of information into the memory system..

2. Storage: The retention of encoded material over time. 

3. Retrieval: The process of getting the information out of memory storage.

Three-Box/multi-store/Information Processing Model:

Sensory Memory:

• A split second holding tank for ALL sensory information

• Getting rid of things as old things come in

• Just enough delay to catch things before they're lost

• Echoic Memory

  • When parents are like are you listening to me, even though you're not listening you can pull out what they said

• Sperling's iconic memory

  • 9 letter pitch test

  • Your mind is choosing what to see

Short term memory

• Can hold 7 items (5-9)

  • We recall digits better than letters

• Stays for 20 seconds

• The things we encode from sensory goes to Short term memory

• Events are encoded

  • Visually (visually remembering)

  • Acoustically (hearing memory)

  • Semantically (remembering basics/facts/knowledge -- like quadratic formula)

    • Won't remember this specific period in this class, but will remember what you learned in class 

Ways to remember things in STM so they go to LTM

• Chunking: organizing items into familiar manageable units

• Mnemonic Devices

• Rehearsal 

Long Term Memory

• Unlimited storehouse of information

• Explicit (declarative) memories: Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare”

  • Episodic memory (playing back memories, watching memories back like tv)

  • Semantic memory (even though you don't remember anyone telling you george washington was the first president, or was around to remember it yourself, you still know it -- facts, figures, knowledge)

• Implicit (non declarative) memories (Independent of conscious recollection)

  • procedural memory

    • Sports, writing, 

  • Conditioned memory

    • The bell rings, the fire alarm goes off

Storying Memories

• Long term potentiation

  • Long-lasting enhancement in signal transmission between two neurons that results from stimulating them synchronously

  • Neurons learn to fire together and get better at it creating  memory

  • We cant read neuron firing and know whats happening

Psychology on computer design

SICK MISSED NOTES 

Add dylan’s notes she sent

Thinking:

• Metacognition: thinking about thinking

• Cognition is fancy word for thinking

• 2 types of thought

  • Concepts

    • Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. Usually based on prototypes (what you picture as a man, what it should be, what you are most familiar with) = a mental image or best exam

    • Schemas are prejudices and emotional attachment, personalities

  • Images

    • Mental pictures we create our mind

• Problem solving

  • Algorithms: guarantees you will find the answer to a problem

    • Usually by formula

    • Can be impractical

    • Like grocery store or hacking password

  •  Heuristic

    • Generally gets you the answer but is prone to errors

    • 2 major types of heuristics

      • Representativeness Heuristic: Judging situations based on how similar the aspects are to the prototypes the person holds in their mind

        • Like thinking everyone with glasses is nerdy or blonde is not smart

        • Different from stereotype because stereotypes are negative and faulty reasoning (close your eyes and you think of your dad)

      • Availability Heuristic: judging based on examples of similar situations that initially come to mind

        • Vivid examples in the news often cause an availability heuristic 

    • Belief Perseverance (you will not change your mind even if your beliefs are proven wrong)

      • Maintaining a belief even after it has been proven wrong

      • Thanksgiving and round earth

    • Belief bias

      • People will trend to accept any and all conclusions that fit in with their systems of belief, without change or any deep consideration of what they are actually agreeing with

      • If a source fits your worldview you will accept it without questioning it

    • Framing

      • The way a problem is presented can drastically affect the way we view it

    • Mental set (rigidity)

      • Tendency to approach problems in the same way they were solved in the past

    • Functional Fixedness

      • inability to see a new use for an object 

      • Macgyver

    • confirmation bias

      • We look for evidence to confirm our beliefs

      • Ignore contradictory evidence

  • Creativity

    • Impossible to define

    • Little correlation between intelligence nd creativity

    • Convergent thinking (leads to one answer)

    • Divergent thinking (leads to multiple answers)

• Intelligence (ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations)

  • Brain or head size has no correlation with intelligence or IQ

  • Higher performing brains are more active (use less glucose)

    • Neurological speed is also quicker

    • Little kids neurological thinking is quicker

  • No actual definition but there are two theories of intelligence

    • Crystalized intelligence (facts & knowledge & memories - declarative intelligence, stays with you)

    • fluid intelligence (problem solving, divergent thinking, critical thinking, how do you process things -- declines with age)

  • Charles Spearman and his G factor (also referred to as just “g”)

    • Used factor analysis discovered that what we see as man different skills is just one General Intelligence

    • If your good at one thing your probably smart in other areas

  • Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences

    • 7 different types of intelligence

1. Linguistic

2. Logic-mathematical

3. Spatial

4. Musical

5. Body-kinesthetic

6. Intrapersonal

7. Interpersonal

8. Naturalist 

3 intelligences

1. Social intelligence (comprehending social situations and managing oneself successfully)

2. Work ethicjk

Savant Syndrome: low cognitive functioning with one exceptional talent. (computation, drawing)

Binocular cues are depth cues that require the use of both eyes, such as retinal disparity, where the slightly different views from each eye help the brain perceive depth. On the other hand, monocular cues only require one eye, such as relative size or texture gradient. So, while both types of cues are important for depth perception, the term specific to the use of two eyes is "binocular cue."

Semantic memory deals with the information we know about the world, like facts and concepts, whereas episodic memory relates to personal experiences and events.

Psychology of grocery stores

How do we Assess Intelligence

• Mental age: what a person of a particular age should know

• Binet wanted to help struggling children catch up but it just categorized them

• Standford translate into english

• Terman

• IQ = mental age/chronological age x 100

Assessing INtelligence

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

  • Most widely used intelligence test 

  • Subtests

    • Verbal

    • Performance (nonverbal) 

• Flynn Effect: the average score on intelligence tests have gone up

• Genetic influences (intelligence is genetic)

• Stereotype threat