CH2

Question 1

information processing approach

Answer 1

focuses on the processes by which information in a
stimulus is translated to a response. It distinguishes three stages: perception, decision
making and response selection, and response programming and execution. It is often
assumed that the stages occur one after the other and that the results of one stage of
processing form the input to the next one. Specific theories differ in the proposed properties
of the stages of information processing, but they all rest on the basic idea that processing
can be described in separate activities.

Question 2

The amount of information is usually

expressed in

Answer 2

bits (binary units), and then there’s some complicated formula. Information can
be expressed in the operator’s responses: if the responses are perfectly correlated with the
stimuli, all of the stimulus information is said to be transmitted by the operator

Question 3

According to the Hick-Hyman law, RT in a task is

Answer 3

linearly related to the amount of information transmitted. RT will increase by a constant
amount each time the number of possible stimuli is doubled, with the slope of the line
reflecting the efficiency of information processing.

Question 4

An experiment by Posner and Mitchell found that

Answer 4

the difference in
saying that RR are the same or saying that Rr are the same is about 75 ms. This research
depends on the assumptions that the processing stages are distinct and independent, and
that the insertion of the additional process does not alter the basic task structure (called the
assumption of pure insertion). Posner and Mitchell’s experiment could be questioned
because the time to process the letters might be affected by the forms of the letters.

Question 5

additive factors method

Answer 5

developed by Sternberg, is a method for determining which
stages are involved in a particular information processing task. If two factors have additive
effects, they are assumed to affect different stages. If the factors interact, such that the effect
of one factor depends on the level of the other, the two facts are assumed to affect the same
stage of processing. Stage robustness is very important; stages are robust if a number of
experiments produce data consistent with the proposed stages, and if two factors show
additive effects, the addition of a third factor does not result in a higher-order interaction.

Question 6

Stage

robustness

Answer 6

robust if number of experiments produce data consistent with proposed stages, and when
two factors show additive effects and adding a third factor does not result in higher-order interaction

Question 7

arousal level

Answer 7

one’s general level of stimulation

Question 8

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Answer 8

the optimal arousal level is lower the more difficult the task.

Question 9

Easterbrook argued that

Answer 9

arousal level affects performance by determining the number of
sources of information (cues) that the organism can monitor. His cue-utilization theory says
that high arousal leads to greater selectivity and is thus beneficial only when relatively few
cues have to be monitored.

Question 10

Cue-utilization theory

Answer 10

high arousal leads to greater selectivity and is thus
beneficial only when relatively few cues have to be monitored. High arousal favors high selectivity.
For low arousal the other way around.

Question 11

vigilance

Answer 11

a state of readiness to
detect and respond to infrequent, randomly occurring events

Vigilance seems to be a
multidimensional construct, so it depends on more than just cortical arousal. Slower EEG
activity is associated with poorer performance on vigilance tasks and lower levels of arousal.

Question 12

Serial reaction time task

Answer 12

subjects respond to one of five lights by pressing a corresponding response key.

Question 13

Broadbent: two proposed types of

arousal.

Answer 13

Lower arousal: cortical arousal.

Upper arousal: facilitate controlled, strategic operations,
‘effort’. Depleted as time on a task increases.

Question 14

Anderson and Revelle:

Answer 14

different factors that affect
arousal can exacerbate or ameliorate the effects of other factors, optimal level of arousal depends on
task demands.

Question 15

Readiness to respond can result in…

Answer 15

faster RTs but at the expense of
accuracy. A reaction time distribution is skewed to the right and does not follow a normal
distribution.

Question 16

There are two types of

speed-accuracy trade-off:

Answer 16

macro-trade-off (setting on the speed-accuracy trade-off function within a particular condition or experiment) and micro-trade-off (relation between speed and
accuracy from one trial to the next). Macro-trade-off reflects the strategy adopted by the
subject.

Question 17

d’

Answer 17

the distance between the means of the two distributions. of signal and noise (signal detection methods)

Question 18

A common measure of the response bias is

Answer 18

beta, which is the ratio of the height of the signal distribution to the height of the noise
distribution at the location of the decision criterion.

Question 19

A common measure of response bias:

Answer 19

β, ratio of the height of the signal distribution to the height of the noise distribution at the location of the decision criterion.

Criticism: little correlation between observers’ perception of their decision strategies and actual
performance in signal detection tasks. Response criterion set by observers almost always unbiased.

Question 20

EEG

Answer 20

reflects all neural processing occurring within a given time interval and therefore is not very informative as to what specific processes are occurring.

Question 21

ERP

Answer 21

event-related potentials. Computed by averaging together many EEG’s of a particular event to eliminate noise. Advantage: it is measured throughout the time
intervening between the presentation of the stimulus and the making of a response,
allowing precise measurement of the time course of attentional processes.

Question 22

LRP

Answer 22

lateralized readiness potential. Seems to be a pure measure of motor
preparation, measured above the primary motor areas.

Question 23

In ERP, the earliest components (NP80, P1, N1, P2, N2, and P3) are assumed to

Answer 23

reflect
mainly bottom-up processing. Attention seems to enhance early perceptual processing, as
the N1 is greater for attended than for ignored stimuli.

Question 24

oddball paradigm

Answer 24

standard stimulus is repeated in a series.
Occasionally, a different stimulus (the oddball) is presented and the participant should either
make an overt response or covertly count the occurrences. The amplitude of P3 has been
interpreted as reflecting processes involved in memory updating because only when the
oddball appears does memory need to be updated. This paradigm has also been used to
examine the influence of changes in unattended auditory stimuli, like when the participant is
sleeping or reading.

Question 25

the mismatch

negativity

Answer 25

The difference between the ERPs elicited by the standard and deviant tones is largest over the fronto-central brain areas

This arises from the auditory cortex

Question 26

PET

Answer 26

positron emission tomography. A radioactive marker is inhaled or injected, can
measure brain metabolism, so they reveal where blood flows.

radioactive marker, move with regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), reveal where blood was
necessary to provide oxygen.

Question 27

fMRI:

Answer 27

functional magnetic resonance imaging. Depends on the blood oxygen level-
dependent (BOLD) response. The increase in blood oxygen is measured using the
specific magnetic properties of blood and the surrounding tissue. It doesn’t require
invasive measures and it’s getting p accurate.

blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response, increase in
blood oxygen using magnetic properties of blood and surrounding tissue.

Question 28

MEG

Answer 28

magnetoencephalography. Based on the electromagnetic characteristics of the
electric field produced by firing nerve cells. However, the spatial location is not
specific.

electromagnetic characteristics of electric field produced by firing nerve cells.

Question 29

TMS

Answer 29

transcranial magnetic stimulation. Uses brief electromagnetic pulses that are
applied over a given area of the skull either before or during a cognitive task by
means of a current-producing coil that interferes with the underlying neural tissue.

brief electromagnetic pulses, interferes with underlying neural tissue.