Unit 2 - Cognitive Psychology (Week 15)

Module 16 - Basic Concepts of Sensation & Perception

Processing Sensation & Perception

• Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events

Selective Attention

• Selective attention: The focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus

  • Ex: We may think we can dully attend to a conversation/class lecture while checking & returning texts, but our consciousness only focuses on one thing at a time

• Cocktail party effect: Your ability to attend to one voice among a sea of voices

  • Ex: When your name is called, however, your cognitive radar, operating on the mind’s other track (& in the right frontal cortex) instantly brings that unattended voice into consciousness

• Rapid toggling between activities is today’s greatest enemy of sustained, focused attention. When we switch attentional gears, especially when we shift from & to complex tasks, we pay a toll-a slight & sometimes fatal delay in coping

• Inattentional blindness: Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed somewhere else

• Change blindness: Failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness

• Change deafness: A phenomenon where individuals fail to notice significant changes in auditory stimuli (such as differences in voices, sounds, or speech production), due to limitations in attention or memory

Module 17 - Influences on Perception

Perceptual Set

• Perceptual set: A mental predisposition to perceive one thing & not another

• Past experiences, expectations, emotions, culture & context determines our perceptual set

• Context, motivation, & emotions can affect our interpretations

  • Context: In which we perceive something can shape our interpretation

    • Ex: The same sound might be interpreted as louder at night than during the day because of the surrounding quiet

  • Motivation: Our desires & needs influence perception

    • Ex: A thirsty person might see a water bottle as closer than it actually is,highlighting how motivation shapes what we focus on

  • Emotion: Can color perception

    • Ex: A sad song might feel even sadder if you’re already feeling down, as your emotional state impacts how your interpret sensory input

Module 19 - Visual Organization & Interpretation

Perceptual Organization

• Gestalt: An organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes

• A fundamental truth all gestalt psychologists illustrate is that our brain does more than register information about the world

• Figure-Ground: Organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground)

• Grouping: Perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups

• Rules of grouping:

  • Proximity: We group nearby figures together

  • Continuity: Perceive smooth, continuous patterns rather than discontinuous ones

  • Connectedness: Fill in gaps to create a complete, whole object

• Depth Perception: The ability to see objects in 3 dimensions although the images that strike the retina are 2-dimensional; allows us to judge distance

• Visual cliff: A laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants & young animals

• Does depth perception grow with age????????????

• Binocular cues: A depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes

• Retinal disparity: A binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the 2 images, the close the object

• Monocular cues: A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspectives, available to either eye alone

• Stroboscopic movement: Our brain also perceives a rapid series of slightly varying images as continuous movement

• Phi phenomenon: An illusion of movement created when 2 or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession

• Fundamental lesson in regards to perception?????????

• Perceptual constancy: Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape and size) even as illumination and retinal images change

• Color constancy: Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object

  • EX: View tomato through a paper tube throughout the day as the light changes, and its’ color would also seem to change

• Brightness constancy: We perceive objects as having constant brightness even as its illumination varies. Depends on retina luminescence (amount of light an object reflects to its surroundings)

  • EX: White paper reflects 90% of light while black paper reflects 10%

****Context governs our perception****

• Shape constancy: We perceive the form of familiar objects as constant even while our retinas receive changing images of them. Visual cortex neurons rapidly turn to associate different views of an object

• Size constancy: We perceive an object as having unchanging size, even while our distance from it varies

Perceptual Interpretation

• When the critical period (exposure of certain stimuli) has passed, sensory restrictions later in life do no permanent harm

• Perceptual adaptation: The ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field

Module 31 - Studying & Encoding Memories

• Memory: The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information

• When someone has Alzheimer’s disease, it severely damages the brain, and in the process strips away memory

• Retention measures:

  • Recall: Retrieving info that’s not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time

  • Recognition: Identifying items previously learned (An MC tests this)

  • Relearning: Learning something more quickly when you learn it second/later time

• Our recognition memory is impressively quick and vast

• Hermann Ebbinghaus retention (forgetting) curve??????

• Information-processing model:

  • Encoding: Process of getting info into memory system

  • Storage: Process of retaining encoded info over time

  • Retrieval: Process of getting info out of memory storage

• Parallel Processing: Processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain’s natural mode of info processing for many functions

• Stages of the memory-forming process according to Atkinson and Shiffrin

  • Sensory memory: The immediate, very brief recording of sensory info in the memory system

  • Short term memory: Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as digits of a phone number while calling before the information is stored or forgotten

  • Long term memory: The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences

• The Atkinson and Shiffrin model has been updated to include working memory and automatic processing

• Working memory: A newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual information and of information retrieval from long-term memory

• The central executive: A memory component that coordinates the activities of:

  • Phonological loop: A memory component that briefly holds auditory information

  • Visuospatial sketchpad: A memory component that briefly hold information about objects’ appearance and location in space

• Without focused attention, information often fades

Encoding Memories

• Explicit memories: Retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare” (Also known as declarative memory)

• Effortful processing: Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort

• Automatic processing: Unconscious encoding of incidental info, such as space, time, and frequency and of well-learned information such as words meanings

• Implicit memories: Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection (also called non declarative memory)

• Examples of how we use automatic processing:

  • Space: While studying you often encode the place on a page or in your notebook when certain material appears; when you want to retrieve the information, you may visualize its location

  • Time: While going about your day, you unintentionally note the sequence of its events. Later, realizing you’ve left your backpack somewhere, the event sequence your brain automatically encoded will enable you to retrace your steps and find the backpack

  • Frequency: You effortlessly keep track of how many times things happen, like when you realize “This is the 3rd time I’ve run into someone today”

• Iconic memory: A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a preimage memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second

• Echoic memory: A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds, and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds

• We can store 7 or so pieces of information in short term memory according to George Miller

• Working memory capacity varies depending on age and other factors

• Effortful processing strategies:

  • Chunking: Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically

  • Mnemonics: Memory units, especially those techniques that use visual imagery and organizational devices

  • Hierarchies: When people expertise on an area, they process information not only in chunks but also in hierarchies composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts

• Distributed Practice: We retain information better when our encoding is distributed over time (produces better long-term recall)

• Testing effect: Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced

  learning

• Shallow processing: Encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words

• Deep processing: Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention

• We can avoid some mismatches of what we remember by rephrasing what we see and hear into meaningful terms

• The point to remember: The amount remembered depends both on the time spent learning and on your making it meaningful for deep processing

Module 32 - Storing and Retrieving Memories

Memory Storage

• The point to remember: Despite the brain’s vast storage capacity, we do not store information as libraries store their books, in single, precise locations. Instead, brain networks encode, store, and retrieve the information that forms our complex memories

• Semantic memory: Explicit memory of facts and general knowledge; one of our two conscious memory systems (the other is episodic memory)

• Episodic memory: Explicit memory of personally experienced events; one of our two conscious memory systems (the other is semantic memory)

• Hippocampus: A neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit (conscious) memories—of facts and events—for storage

  • With left-hippocampus damage, people have trouble remembering verbal information, but they have no trouble recalling visual designs and locations. With right-hippocampus damage, the problem is reversed

• Memory consolidation: The neural storage of a long term memory. Sleep supports it

• The cerebellum plays a key role in forming implicit memories

• Basal ganglia: Deep brain structures involved in motor movement, facilitate formation of our procedural memories for skills

• Our emotions trigger stress hormones that influence memory formation

• Flashbulb memories: A clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant movement or event

• Long-term (LTP): An increase in a cellś firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory

Memory Retrieval

• Memories are held in storage by a web of associations. Each piece of information is interconnected with others. When you encode into memory, a target piece of information, you associate with it other bits of information about your surroundings, mood, seating position, & so on

• Priming: The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory

• Priming is considered an ¨memoryless memory¨. It is an implicit, invisible memory, without your conscious awareness

• Encoding specificity principle: The ideas that cues & contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it

• Our memories are context-dependent. Familiar context could activate memories even in 3 month olds

• State-dependent memory: When we learn in one state - be it drunk or sober - may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state

• Mood congruent memory: The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood

• Mood effects on retrieval explain why moods persist. When happy, we recall happy events & therefore see the world as a happy place, which helps prolong our good mood. Vice versa when depressed

• Serial position effect: Our tendency to recall best the last & first items on a list

• Recency effect: You recall things that are recent more quickly; still in working memory

• Primacy effect: After delay when attention was elsewhere, recall is best for the first items

• Interleaving: A retrieval practice strategy that involved mixing the study of different topics. Boosts long-term retention and protects against overconfidence

Module 33 - Forgetting Memory Construction & Improving Memory

Forgetting

• Forgetting is actually a good thing at times. If you don't forget, you are prone to let your mind get absorbed by information that, once it enters memory storage, never leaves

• Anterograde Amnesia: An inability to form new memories

• Retrograde Amnesia: An inability to retrieve information from ones past

• Age can affect encoding efficiency. The brain area that jump into immediate action when young adults encode new information are less responsive in other adults. This lower encoding helps explain age+related memory dysfunction

• Proactive interference: The forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information

• Retroactive interference: Backward-acting disruptive effect if new learning on the recall of older information

• A good time to commit information to memory is before an hour of sleep

• Memory is an ¨unrealistic, self-serving historian¨. Freud argues that we repress painful or unacceptable memories to protect our self-concept and to minimize anxiety

• Repression: The base defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety = arousing thoughts, feeling and memories

Memory Construction Errors

• When we replay a memory, we often replace the original with a slightly modified version

• Reconsolidation: A process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again

• Elizabeth Loftus demonstration???????

• Misinformation effect: Occurs when misleading info has distorted one’s memory of an event

• Repeatedly imagining nonexistent actions and event can create false memories. EX: University students were asked to recall 2 events from the past. One happened, the other didn’t. Initially none remembered the faulty events but after repeated interviewing, 70% of the students reported remembering the false memory

• Imagination inflation EX: Altered photos of a family album to show members. It resulted in them having false memories and indicated a high confidence in them

• Source amnesia: Faulty memory for how, when or where info was learned or imagined. (Also called source misattribution) Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories

• Deja vu: That eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.” Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience

• It is very hard to separate false memories from real ones because the misinformation effect and source amnesia happen outside our awareness (Memory is reconstruction as well as reproduction)

• Ceci and Brock’s studies of children’s’ memories show and prove the effect of suggestive interviewing techniques

• 7 suggestions for improving memory:

  • Rehearse repeatedly (spacing effect and distributed/spaced practice)

  • Make material meaningful

  • Activate retrieval cues (Context-dependent & state-dependent memory)

  • Use mnemonic devices (Chunking, vivid images)

  • Minimize proactive and retroactive interference (Study before sleep)

  • Sleep more (Brain reorganizes and consolidates info for LTM)

  • Test knowledge, both to rehearse it & to find out what you don’t yet know (testing effect, recognition)

Module 35 - Solving Problems & Making Decisions

Problem Solving: Strategies & Obstacles

• Algorithms: A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasting with the usually speedy - but also more error-prone use of heuristics

• Heuristics: A simple, thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedy but also more error-prone than an algorithm

• Insight: A sudden realization of a problem’s solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions

• Confirmation bias: A tendency to search for info that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradicting evidence

• Peter Wason said, “Ordinary people evade facts, become inconsistent, or systematically defend themselves against the threat of new info relevant to the issue”

• When we deal with fixation, in cognition the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving

• Mental set: A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

Forming Good (& Bad) Decisions & Judgements

• Intuition: An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning

• Representative heuristic: Estimating the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototype; may lead us to ignore other relevant info

• Availability heuristic: Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances can readily come to mind (perhaps bc of their vividness) We presume such events are common

• Overconfidence: The tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgements

  • People who err on the side of overconfidence are more happy. Make tough decisions easier and seem more credible (Has adaptive value)

• We can ‘rein in’ belief perseverance by considering the opposite

• Framing: The way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgements

• Nudge: Framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions

• 3 Powers of intuition:

  • Intuition is recognition born of experience (implicit, unconscious knowledge)

  • Usually adaptive, enabling quick reactions

  • Intuition is huge

• Bottom line regarding our decision making process: Our 2-track mind makes sweet harmony as smart, critical thinking listens to the creative whispers of our vase unseen mind and then evaluate evidence, tests conclusions, & plans for the future

Module 47 - Infancy & Childhood: Cognitive Development

• Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget studied children’s cognition

  • Believed a child’s mind develops through a series of stages

  • Core idea: Our intellectual progression reflects an unceasing struggle to make sense of our experiences. To this end, the maturing brain builds schemas, concepts or mental molds into which we pour our experiences

• Cognition: All mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

• Schema: A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

• First, we assimilate new experiences-we interpret them in terms of our current understandings (schemas), but as we interact with the world, we also adjust, or accommodate, our schemas to incorporate info provided by new experiences

• Assimilation: Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

• Accommodation: Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

• Cognitive development consists of 4 major stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, & formal operational

• Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 yrs): In Piaget’s theory, the stage during which infants know the world in mostly terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities (through their senses & actions-through looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping, they learn to make things happen)

  • Young infants lack object permanence: The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

  • Young children think like little scientists. They test ideas, make causal inferences, and learn from statistical patterns

• Preoperational stage (2 to 6/7 yrs): Able to represent things with words and images but too young to perform mental operations (such as imagining an action and mentally reversing it). (pretend play)

  • Children lack the concept of conservation: the principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape

  • Preschool children are egocentric: They have difficulty perceiving things from another’s POV

  • Develop theory of mind: People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states-about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict (Child with High % of this are more well-liked/helpful)

• Concrete operational stage (Age 7-11): Gain mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

  • Begin to grasp operations such as conservation. Understanding that change in form does not mean change in quantity.

  • Able to comprehend mathematical transformations. (7*8 & 8*7)

• Formal operational (Age 12): Encompasses abstract thinking (involving imagined realities & symbols). As children approach adolescence they can ponder hypothetical propositions and deduce consequences (philosophical questions). Potential for mature moral reasoning

An Alternate Viewpoint: Lev Vygotsky & the Social Child

• Vygotsky emphasized how the child’s mind grows through interaction with the social environment

• By giving children new words and mentoring them, parents and teachers provide what we now call a temporary scaffold

  • Scaffold: A framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking

• Effective mentoring occurs when children are developmentally ready to learn new skills. For Vygotsky, a child’s zone of proximal development is the zone between what a child can and can’t do - it’s what a child can do with help

• Language, an important ingredient of social mentoring, provides the building blocks for thinking

• By age 7, children increasingly think in words and use words to solve problems. They do this by internalizing their culture’s language and relying on inner speech

• Kids talking to themselves helps them control their emotions, behavior and master new skills

Autism Spectrum disorder

• ASD: A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixates interests and repetitive behaviors

• People with ASD have an impaired theory of mind. They have difficulty inferring and remembering others’ thoughts and feelings, appreciating that playmates and parents might view things differently, and understanding that their teachers know more than they do

• ASD is more common in boys/men because they are often systemizers. They tend to understand things according to rules or laws, as in mathematical and mechanical systems. Girls are naturally predisposed to be empathizers. They tend to excel at reading facial expressions and gestures

• They have under-connectivity; less of the whole brain synchrony that integrates visual and emotional info. Don’t mirror others’ actions

Module 54: Adulthood: Physical, Cognitive, and Social Development

• Physical Development in Adulthood

  • Emerging Adulthood (18-25 years)

  • Transition period between adolescence and full independence.

• Middle Adulthood (40-65 years)

  • Physical decline becomes more noticeable.

  • Women experience menopause (~50 years).

  • Men may experience reduced testosterone and fertility.

• Late Adulthood (65+ years)

  • Sensory abilities decline (vision, hearing, smell).

  • Immune system weakens, but antibodies from experience can fight short-term illnesses.

  • Neural processing slows; brain regions linked to memory may atrophy.

• Cognitive Development in Adulthood

  • Memory and Learning

    • Recall declines with age, but recognition memory remains stable.

    • Time-based and habitual tasks become harder.

  • Intelligence

    • Crystallized Intelligence: Accumulated knowledge (e.g., vocabulary, facts) increases with age.

    • Fluid Intelligence: Ability to reason quickly and abstractly declines with age.

    • Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies provide different perspectives on age-related cognitive changes.

• Social Development in Adulthood

  • Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages for Adulthood

  • Young Adulthood: Intimacy vs. Isolation – Focus on forming close relationships.

  • Middle Adulthood: Generality vs. Stagnation – Focus on contributing to the world through work, family, etc.

  • Late Adulthood: Integrity vs. Despair – Reflection on life’s meaning and fulfillment.

• Social Transitions

  • Love and Marriage

    • Most satisfying marriages share values and support.

    • Cohabitation before marriage linked to higher divorce rates.

• Parenthood

  • Transition to parenthood can be challenging but rewarding.

• Well-Being Across the Lifespan

  • Positive feelings tend to grow, and negative emotions decline.

  • Life satisfaction is relatively stable across ages despite life events.

• Death and Dying

  • Grief

    • Responses to death vary by individual and culture.

    • Terminally ill and bereaved people often show resilience.

    • Cultural Perspectives

    • Attitudes toward death shaped by cultural norms and personal beliefs.

    • Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief (not universally experienced)

      • Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

Module 60 - Introduction to Intelligence

• Intelligence: The ability to learn from experience, solve problems or use knowledge to adapt to new situations

Is Intelligence One General Ability?

• General intelligence according to Charles Spearman is a single, underlying mental ability that influences performance across all cognitive tasks

• Factor analysis: A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score

• Fluid Intelligence: Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age. Especially during late childhood

• Crystallized Intelligence: Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age

• Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory: Theory that our intelligence is based on g as well as specific abilities

• Theory of L.L Thurstone: It states that intelligence is made up of multiple mental abilities, or primary mental abilities, that work together to produce a person's overall intelligence:

  • Word fluency

  • Verbal comprehension

  • Spatial visualization

  • Number facility

  • Associative memory

  • Reasoning

  • Perceptual speed

Theories of Multiple Intelligences

• Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences:

  • Linguistic

  • Logical-Mathematical

  • Musical

  • Spatial

  • Bodily-Kinesthetic

  • Interpersonal

  • Intrapersonal

  • Naturalistic

• Sternberg’’s Intelligences:

  • Analytical (academic-problem solving)

  • Creative

  • Practical

• Grit: Passion & perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals

• Anders Ericsson’s 10-year rule: A common ingredient of expert performance in chess, dance, sports, computer programming, music, & medicine is “about 10 yrs of intense, daily practice”

• Emotional intelligence: The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions

• Components of emotional intelligence:

  • Perceiving emotions (recognizing them in faces, music, & stories, identifying one’s own emotions)

  • Understanding emotions (predicting them & how they may change & blend

  • Managing emotions (knowing how to express them in varied situations, and how to manage others’ emotions

  • Using emotions to facilitate adaption or creative thinking

Module 61 - Assessing Intelligence

• An intelligence test assess an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores

• Achievement test: A test designed to assess what a person has learned

• Aptitude test: A test designed to predict a person’s future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn

Early and Modern Tests of Mental Abilities

• Francis Galton hoped to measure human traits, “natural ability”

• Modern intelligence-testing movement began in 20th century in France, were a new law required all children to attend officials know some children would struggle to meet school work

• Mental age: The level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age

• Alfred Binet measure mental age by administering a series of tasks to children of different ages, and determining the age level at which a child could successfully complete most tasks

• Intelligence quotient (IQ): Defined originally as ratio of mental age to original age X by 100. On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is a assigned test score of a 100

• Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS): Created what is now the most widely used individual intelligence test, together with aversion for school-age children and another for preschool children

Principles of Test Construction

• Standardization: Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of pre-tested group

• Normal curve: The bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attribution. Most scores fall near the average, & fewer & fewer scores lie near extremes

• Flynn Effect: The rise in average. IQ score over time, likely due to improved education and environments

  • Causes: better nutrition, advanced technology, and enriched environments

• Reliability: The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on 2 halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test or an retesting

• Validity: The extent to which a test measures or predicts what its supposed to

• Content validity: The extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest

• Predictive ability: The success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores & the criterion

• Aptitude test scores do predict school grades; but the predictive power of aptitude tests peaks in the early school years and weakens later

• Predictive power of aptitude scores diminish as students move up the educational ladder because as they reach higher levels, the range of aptitude scores within a student population narrows

Module 62 - The Dynamics of Intelligence

Stability or Change

• Cohort: A group of people sharing a common characteristic, such as from a given time period

• Cross-sectional study: Research/comparison of peoples at different ages at one point in time

• Longitudinal study: Research that follows and retest the same people over time

Module 63 - Studying Genetic & Environmental Influences on Intelligence

Twin & Adoption Studies

• Findings in regards to genetic contribution to intelligence:

  • Identical twins reared together have the most similar IQs, sharing strong genetic influence

  • Fraternal twins and siblings have moderately similar IQs, highlighting partial genetic contribution

  • Adapted children’s IQs become closer to their biological parents over time, emphasizing heredity

• Environment affects intelligence. Children adopted into wealthier families with more educated parents have IQ scores 4.4 pts higher than their not-adapted biological siblings

Early Environmental Influences

• According to J. McVicker Hunt, poor environmental conditions can lead to the depression of cognitive development. Extreme conditions -sensory deprivation, social isolation, poverty, can slow down normal brain development

• Schooling is an intervention that pays intelligence scores dividends

• Project head start: U.S gov. -funded preschool program that saved more than 30 million children, most of who came from poverty-level families

• Carol Dweck’s growth mindset: She reports that believing intelligence is changeable, not fixed, fosters a growth mindset, a focus on learning and growing

• Fixed mindset: The view that intelligence, abilities, and talents are unchangeable, even with effort

Module 64 - Group Differences & the Question of Bias

Group Differences in Intelligence Test Scores

• The intelligence differences between men and women are minimal

  • Females do better in: Verbal memory, emotional detection, and sensory sensitivity

  • Males do better in: Spatial ability and complex math problem-solving

• Racial and ethnic groups differ in their average intelligence test scores

• High-scoring people (& groups) are more likely to attain high levels of education and income

• Arguments that the racial gap in intelligence might be environmental:

  • Socioeconomic status

  • Educational opportunities

  • Cultural bias

  • Health & Nutrition

  • Early Childhood Environment

The Question of Bias

• Scientific meaning of bias is the systematic error that skews results of measurements

• We can also consider a test biased if it consistently over or underestimates the performance of certain groups

• Self-fulfilling stereotype threat: The fear of confirming negative stereotypes about one;s group, which can impair performance

  • EX: An African American students doing poorly in school

• Aptitude test predict performance equally but may show cultural bias in context

• Point to remember: There are many ways of being successful; one difference are variations of human adaptability. Life’s great achievements result not only from “can do” abilities (& fair opportunity) but also from “will do” motivation. Competence + Diligence = Accomplishment

New Content

• Sunk cost fallacy: The tendency of a decision maker to continue on an endeavor after some type of investment such as money or time, has been made and is not recoverable. It can lead us to continue with something even when it is clearly time to quit

• Structural encoding: Relatively shallow processing that emphasizes the physical structure of the stimuli

• Phonemic encoding: Emphasizes what words sound like, involves naming or saying the words

• Working memory: Episodic buffer - temporarily stores information from the other components and maintains a sense of time, so that events occur in a continuing sequence