Introduction to Cognition

Question 1

Information Processing System

Answer 1

Stages that detail the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in the brain

Question 2

Input

Answer 2

Things in your environment (anything from your sensations)

Question 3

Sensory Store

Answer 3

Brief stage where information is registered in the system

Question 4

Filter

Answer 4

Where the non important stuff is filtered out. We only register a couple stimuli, bc our cognitive system is easy to overwhelm

Question 5

Pattern Recognition

Answer 5

See how these stimuli form patterns/are similar

Question 6

Selection

Answer 6

Choosing to pay attention to certain stimuli. Different from the filter in that we have control over what we process

Question 7

Short Term Memory (STM)

Answer 7

• Memory that is VERY limited in capacity
• ~20-30 seconds long.
• Manages our responses as we pull from LTM or choose what STM to put into LTM

Question 8

Long Term Memory (LTM)

Answer 8

• The majority of our memory
• Considered unlimited in capacity and where any important information that is not being actively rehearsed is “stored”

Question 9

Bottom-up Processing

Answer 9

Taking individual pieces of your sensory experiences and putting them together to create something
Ex). Think of puzzle pieces to create something new
Sensory Store –> LTM

Question 10

Top-Down Processing

Answer 10

Pulling from LTM to understand what’s going on in our environment. Anytime you’re tapping into your memory to make sense of surroundings.
Ex: Looking at the image on the puzzle box to see how they consist of the pieces
LTM –> Filter

Question 11

Early History of Cognitive Psychology

Answer 11

One book that had a major negative impact on cognitive psychology was Watson’s Behaviorism

Question 12

How did Behaviorism destroy the credibility of cognitive psychology?

Answer 12

Behaviorism focused on measurable behaviors. Wanted things to be more scientifically based and tested.
However, asking people about their memory wasn’t seen as very scientifically

Question 13

Broadbent (1958)

Answer 13

• One of the first models based on information-process analysis
• Dichotic listening tasks –> participants are asked to listen to 2 different messages at the same time

Question 14

Results of Broadbent (1958)

Answer 14

• Participants find this very difficult to do!
• We would only pay attention to one message/ear, more likely to the appealing ones

Question 15

Implications of Broadbent (1958)

Answer 15

• Broadbent proposed that many sensory inputs can simultaneously enter the sensory store, but only a single input can enter the pattern recognition stage

Question 16

Filter Model Associated with Broadbent

Answer 16

• The filter model proposes that the listener can attend to only one message at a time; attention is controlled by the filter

Question 17

Sperling (1960)

Answer 17

• Observers viewed a very brief exposure of an array of letters and were required to report all the letters in one of the rows of the display
• Wanted to see whether perception or memory limited the number of recalled letters

Question 18

Results of Sperling (1960)

Answer 18

• Whole Report (4.5/12)
• Partial Report (3.3/4)
• Findings proposed that participants have access to all the letters in the sensory store, but they have difficulty in reporting them before they decay away

Question 19

Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 19

Examines where cognitive operations occur in the brain

Question 20

Prosopagnosia

Answer 20

Face Blindness
- We can’t recognize/distinguish the pattern of someone’s face since recognition is screwed up