Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
(233 cards)
Approaches of cognitive psychology
Experimental cognitive psychology - behavioural
Cognitive neuropsychology - brain damage
Computational cognitive science - computer modelling
cognitive neuroscience - brain imaging
Sensation
registering stimuli of senses
Perception
processing and interpreting sensory information
Cognition
using perceived information to learn, classify, comprehend
Bottom-up processing
perception via stimuli from the environment
Top-down processing
perception via understanding of stimuli from past experience and knowledge
(top down = searching for the best interpretation of the available data - Gregory 1966)
Single cell recording for sensation and perception research
action potentials of neurons recorded with microelectrode inserted close to cell, single neurons can be selective for a stimulus (can be very specific eg. a particular person)
Lesion studies: animal lesioning
Animal lesioning - knife cutting axons, neurotoxins (destroys nerve cells)
- Disadvantages - ethical issues, studying a faulty system brain changes in response to damage
Lesion studies: Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology - damage to brain - stroke, trauma ect.
- Disadvantages - damage may not be specfic, individual variation in damage eg. Phineas Gage
Eye parts and roles
Pupil - light enters eye
Iris - adjustable aperture, constricts in bright light to make pupil smaller
Cornea and lens - focuses light on retina
Ciliary muscles - change shape of lens to bring different distanced objects into focus
Types of retinal ganglion cells
Midget (parvocellular system, small, small receptive field)
Parasol (magnocellular system, large, large receptive field and connect to more of retina)
- On-centre, off-surround retina ganglion, or off-centre, on-surround
Retinal ganglion cell roles
Parvocellular cells - colour and detail (red-green) (midget cells)
magnocellular cells - movement and flicker (parasol cells)
Konicellular cells - blue-yellow
retinal ganglion cell cone types
Parvocellular = L/(L+M) (cherry-teal)
Koniocellular = S/(L+M) (violet-lime)
Magnocellular = luminance (black-white)
Retionotopy (property of V1/primary visual cortex/striate cortex)
contains a retiontropic map - have cells that respond to all of visual field - connect to fovea’s photoreceptors and adjacent parts
- V1 tuning for orientation
Visual cortex research
Hubel and Wiesel - detailed investigation of visual cortex - cells respond to orientated line but not dots - there exists cells to code for orientations
Blakemore and Cooper
Ohki et al - Colours represent cells coding for different orientations (colours for orientations)
Streams of processing
dorsal (where) and ventral (what) (eg. colour (ventral) and motion (dorsal))
Cone photoreceptors
human trichromacy - 3 cone types, maximally sensitive at short (S), middle (M) and long (L) wavelengths
Trichromacy evolution
- related to foraging for ripe fruit/berries - (L) split to (M) and (L)
- Can see through skin when blood is oxygenated or dexoygenated - health indicator - (Changizi, Zhang & Shimojo (2006)) (furies animals don’t need to see skin - monochromatic or dichomatic)
Monochromatic
only rods or one cone
Dichromatic (and types)
2 cones
- Protanopia - lack L cone (i.e. long-wavelength)
- Deuteranopia – lack M cone (i.e. medium-wavelength)
- Tritanopia - lack S cone (i.e. short-wavelength)
Anomolous trichromats
- Deuteranomoly (M cone shifted towards L)
- Protanomoly (L cone shifted to M)
- men more likely - can be acquired (aging/druga/hormones)
Human Tetrachromacy
(some women have 4 cone types), usually 3 cone types, does an extra colour mean more colours seen?, still need cortical processing of extra signal
anomaloscope
used to test colour vision
Cone opponency
output from 3 cones combined and contrasted to give 3 cone-opponent channels