MIDTERM 1 Flashcards
(165 cards)
1
Q
What are the different levels that psychological phenomenon can be explained at?
A
Biology
Mental states
Social/cultural factors
2
Q
What the scope that psychological research can be applied to?
A
ALL human beings -> certain groups (ex: depressed individuals), individual people, specific actions by a specific individual
3
Q
What is Plato the founder of
A
Rationalism
4
Q
What is rationalism
A
Understanding the world purely by rational analysis without empirical observation
belief that we are born with knowledge
Ex: math predicts world before observation
5
Q
What is Aristotle the founder of
A
Empiricism
6
Q
What is empiricism
A
Needing to OBSERVE the physical world to understand it (experience)
Ex:
Belief that we are born as a blank state
7
Q
Cognitive psychology arose partly from the limitations of what previous research traditions?
A
Introspection
Behaviorism
8
Q
Who are 2 famous structuralists
A
Wundt + Titchner
9
Q
What was the main belief of introspection as a tradition
A
That psychology should focus on studying conscious mental events
Structuralists = mind as a series of discrete units of processing
10
Q
What is the limits of introspection?
A
1) only you yourself can directly observe someones’s thoughts
2) some thoughts are unconscious
3) it is impossible to test claims made through introspection (can’t measure)
11
Q
What advances did structuralists (introspection) make for psychology?
A
Quantified psychology by treating it as a science
Used Reaction Time (RT) to quantify mental processes
= now the most frequently used variable in cognitive research
12
Q
Who is the main face of behaviorism?
A
BF Skinner
13
Q
What did behaviorists focus on
A
Observable behaviors and stimuli, rather than mental events (deemed irrelevant because cannot be scientifically studied)
14
Q
What phenomenons demonstrated the limits of behaviorism?
A
1) language appears spontaneously without obvious associative learning
2) stimulus response accounts are often not enough to explain behavior
Ex: different ways to ask for salt all lead to getting salt
15
Q
What were the intellectual foundations of the cognitive revolution (after introspection and behaviorism)?
A
introspective methods for studying mental events are not scientific
We need to study mental events to understand behavior
16
Q
What is the transcendental method
A
Reasoning backwards from observations to determine cause
“Inference to best explanation”
17
Q
How do cognitive psychologists study mental events indirectly?
A
measure observable stimuli and responses
Develop hypotheses about mental events
Design new experiments to test these hypotheses
18
Q
How did a rat maze disprove behaviorism
A
Rats wandered through a maze for 10 days -> day 11: food added to a location -> day 12: rats ran to where food had been before
= learning can occur w/o apparent changes in behavior, rats made a “cognitive map” of their locations without changes in behavior
19
Q
What role did gestalt psychology have in the cognitive revolution
A
Gestalt psychology = the “whole”
Belief that perceives shape their own experience
20
Q
What was Bartlett’s effect in the cognitive revolution?
A
That people use schemas to interpret experiences and aid memory
21
Q
How did computers affect the cognitive revolution?
A
Began considering human mind might process like a computer
Information-processing approach
22
Q
What are examples of methodologies in cognitive psychology?
A
1) performance/accuracy measures
2) RT measures
3) neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, EEG, etc)
23
Q
What other fields contributed to research in cognitive psychology?
A
Cognitive neuroscience
= study of brain to understand mental functioning
Clinical neuropsychology (ex: HM) = study of brain function based on damaged brain structures
24
Q
What is the all of none law?
A
an action potential is always of the same magnitude
25
What do glia do?
Guide development of nervous system
Repair damage in the nervous system
Central nutrient flow to neurons, including oxygen
Electrical insulation (myelination)
26
What does the hindbrain consist of + its functions?
Brainstem = key life functions (medulla + pons)
Cerebellum = movement coordination, balance
27
What are the functions of the midbrain?
Coordinating precise eye movement
Replaying auditory info from ears to forebrain
Regulating pain experiences
28
What does the forebrain consist of?
The cerebral cortex, four lobes, subcortical structures
Surrounds the midbrain + most of the hindbrain
29
What are the subcortical structures + their functions?
thalamus = sensory relay station
hypothalamus = hormone control
limbic system (amygdala + hippocampus) = emotional process + learning/memory
30
The ____ visual hemifield goes to the ____ hemisphere
Left
Right
31
The right hand is controlled by the ____ hemisphere
left
32
What is the largest commissure called
The corpus callosum
33
What hemisphere mostly controls for language
left
34
What methods are used to study the brain and nervous system?
Neuropsychology
Neuroimaging
Electrical recordings
Manipulations of the brain function
35
How does neuropsychology offer evidence about the brain?
Neuropsychology = the study of the brain’s structures + their relation to function
Lesions
36
What are the qualities of CT scans
Fast, inexpensive
37
What are the qualities of MRI scans
Finer detail, but more expensive
38
What are functional neuroimaging techniques?
PET scans - use radioactive substances to trace in brain (ex: oxygen)
fFMRI scans = trace flow of oxygenated blood w/o radioactive substances
39
What kind of findings can be seen with an fMRI?
Fusiform face area activated when perceiving a face
Parahippocampal place activated when perceiving a place
40
What kind of neural communication is chemical
connection between neurons
Neurotransmitters
41
What kind of neural connection is electrical
connection within neurons
Action potentials
42
What are structural neuroimaging techniques?
CT scans, MRI scans
43
What are functional neuroimaging techniques?
PET scans, fMRI scans
44
How does a PET scan work
use radioactive substances to trace them in the brain, including oxygen
45
How does an fMRI scan work
Trace flow of oxygenated blood without radioactive substances
46
What are examples of areas that get activated visible through fMRIs?
Fusiform face area = activated when perceiving a face
Parahippocampal place area = activated when perceiving a place
47
Communication between neurons is via ____ which is ______
Neurotransmitters, chemical
48
Communication between neurons is via ____ which is ______
Action potentials, electrical
49
How is info represented (or coded) by neurons
Specific neurons can represent specific stimuli
“Pattern coding” = distributed representation
50
What are EEGs used to study
Broad rhythms (ex: sleep stages)
Event-related potentials = a brief response to any sensory or motor events
51
How can brain function be studied through techniques that manipulate functions?
Chemical effects on neurotransmitters
Electrical stimulation
Gene manipulation
52
What are the strengths and weakness of EEG
Strength: temporally locating neural activity
Weakness: spatially locating neural activity
53
What are the strengths and weakness of fMRI scans
Strength: spatially locating neural activity
Weakness: temporally locating neural activity
54
What are the strengths and weakness of MRI scans
Strength: detects brain structure
Weakness: doesn’t detect activity
55
How can researchers overcome limitations of specific types of scans
Combining techniques
56
What is the problem with neuroimaging techniques
They provide only correlational data
57
What are sources of causal data in neuroimaging techniques
Brain lesions
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) = magnetic pulses activate neurons + produces temporary lesions
58
What is localization of function
Effort to determine the function of specific brain structures
59
What is the largest portion of the human brain in volume
The cerebral cortex
60
What is the cerebral cortex
The thin layer of tissue covering the cerebrum (= forebrain)
Regions = motor, sensory, association areas
61
What is apraxia
Problems with the initiation or organization of voluntary action
62
What is agnosia
Problems identifying familiar objects, typically in one modality
63
What is unilateral neglect syndrome
Problems in which one visual hemifield is ignored
64
What is aphasia
Problems producing or understanding language
65
What are contributors to perception
1) sensory processes
2) context/action
3) experience/knowledge
66
What is the dominant sense in humans
Vision
67
What are the two properties of seeing
Sensitivity = reflects the dimmest light you can detect (light, movement)
Acuity = smallest spatial detail that can be resolved (sharpness of vision)
68
What is light?
A form of electromagnetic radiation
Wave = when light moves around the world
Stream of photons = 1 photon particle = 1 unit of light energy when light is absorbed
69
How is light perceived in the eye
Light -> cornea -> lens -> retina
70
What kind of photoreceptors does the retina contain
Rods and cones
71
What is the role of the cornea and lens
Focuses light on the retina
72
What is wavelength
The spatial distance between two consecutive positive (or negative) peaks
73
The lower the frequency the ____ the wavelength
Longer
74
The higher the frequency the ____ the wavelength
Shorter
75
What is visual coding
The relationship between activity in the nervous system and the stimulus that is somehow represented by this activity
76
The less similar a stimulus is to the cell’s preferred stimulus, the ____ often the cell fires a spike
Less
77
The more similar a stimulus is to the cell’s preferred stimulus, the ____ often the cell fires a spike
More
78
What are the advantages of parallel processing
1) speed + efficiency
2) mutual influence among multiple systems -> resolve contradictory demands
79
What is the “what” system
The ventral pathway
80
What is the “where” system,
The dorsal pathway
81
What does the ventral pathway do
Pathway connecting the occipital lobe and inferotemporal cortex
Aids in identification of visual objects = “what”
82
What does damage of the ventral pathway lead to
Visual agnosia
83
What does damage of the dorsal pathway lead to
Difficulty in reaching for objects
84
What does the dorsal pathway do
The pathway connecting the occipital lobe and posterior parietal cortex
Aids in perception of an object’s location = “where”
85
What is the binding problem
The task of reuniting elements of a stimulus that were addressed by different systems in different brain regions
Ex: how are the ventral and dorsal systems integrated together
86
What are the elements that help solve the binding problem?
1) spatial position
2) neural synchrony
3) attention
87
How does neural synchrony assist in the binding problem
Attributes are registered as belonging to the same object if the neurons detecting these attributes fire in synchrony
88
How does attention assist in the binding problem
With insufficient attention, conjunction errors are common
89
Reversible or ambiguous figures such as the Necker cube and neutral figure/ground organization reveal that
Perception of stimuli go beyond the info given
90
What is perceptual constancy
We perceive constant object properties (size, shape, etc) even though sensory info about these attributions changes when viewing circumstances change
91
What are examples of perceptual constancy
Brightness constancy
Size constancy
Shape constancy
92
What cues also contribute to constancy unconsciously
1) relationships within the retinal image = (relationship between objects in the visual field stay the same regardless of distance)
2) distance cues: as object size doubles, image size decreases by half
93
What helps illustrate the role of interpretation in perception
Optical illusions
94
Perception of distance is dependent of what cues
Binocular disparity
Monocular cues
Motion cues
95
What is binocular disparity
The difference between each eye’s view of a stimulus
= can lead to perception of depth even in absence of other cues
96
What are monocular cues
Depth cues that depend what each eye sees by itself
Ex: lens adjustment, interposition, linear perspective, texture gradients
97
What are motion cues that help judge distance and depth
1) motion parallax = closer objects seem to move faster
2) optic flow = relative direction (ex: driving: close objects seem to move backwards faster)
98
What is an example of how different cues become or or less important under different circumstances
Ex: binocular disparity is only informative when objects are relatively close to the viewer
99
What is apperceptive agnosia
Can perceive an objects features but not the object in its entirety
100
What is associative agnosia
Cannot link visual input to visual knowledge
But can draw well from memory
101
What is the process of object recognition complicated by
Variations in “stimulus input”
Contextual influences
102
What is bottom up processing
Processes that are directly shaped by the stimulus
= data driven
103
What is top-down processing
processes shaped by knowledge
= concept-driven
Ex: context effects
104
How does recognition begin
Identifying visual features in the input pattern
Ex: dots, vertical lines, curves, diagonals, etc
105
What are visual search tasks
Tasks in which participants examine a display and judge whether a particular target is present
106
What are the differences in reaction time for visual search tasks and what does it reveal
Efficient when a target is defined by a simple feature
Slow when target is defined by a combination of features
Feature analysis is a separate step from the one in which detecting features are combined
= simple features are detected first, followed by complex features
107
What does object recognition begin with
Feature detection
108
What is a tachistoscope
Used to present stimuli for precise amounts of time
109
What is the repetition priming effect
Words that were seen recently are better recognized
110
Words that are more frequent in the language are ____ recognized
Better
111
What is the word superiority effect
Easier to perceive and recognize letters-in-context (entire words) than letters in isolation
112
What is well formedness
How closely a letter sequence conforms to the typical patterns of spelling in the language
Ex: HZYQ vs FIKE
113
DPUM being likely to be misread as DRUM is due to
wellformedness
114
TPUM being likely to be misread as TRUMPET is due to
wellformedness
115
Starting activation levels of a feature net depend on
Recency and frequency
116
Feature nets can account for
Well formedness effect in word recognition
Readily recognizing ambiguous inputs
BUT ALSO recognition errors
117
True or false: a weak signal will likely be enough to trigger only a well-primed detector
True
118
Priming will depend on
frequency and recency
119
True or false: knowledge is locally represented
False
120
True or false: in perception, perfect accuracy is sacrificed for efficiency
True
Ex: same mechanisms that enable the network to resolve ambiguous inputs and recover from errors can also result in recognition errors
121
What is the McClelland + Remelhart model
Emphasizes the role of inhibitory connections among detectors
Info flows bottom-up, top-down, and within the same level
Includes excitatory connections and inhibitory connections
122
What is prosopagnosia
An inability to recognize individual faces (including their own) despite otherwise normal vision
123
____ show a powerful inversion effect
Faces
124
True or false: a bird watcher who developed prospagnosia lost the ability to distinguish faces and types of warblers
True
125
What is holistic perception
perception of the overall configuration rather than an assemblage of parts
126
How is the composite effect evidence for holistic perception
it’s easier to recognize combined faces when the two halves are misaligned
127
What are the limits of feature nets
1) some target objects depend on configurations, not individual features
2) knowledge that is external to object recognition may still influence recognition
128
What is an example of a top-down effect that can be explained by feature nets
the word-superiority effect
129
What are top-down effects that cannot be explained just by feature nets
Larger priming effects are evident for words viewed in a sentence rather than in isolation
Context and expectations influence perception
130
True or false: patients who suffer from unilateral neglect syndrome are unable to attend to inputs ()
coming from one side of the body = contralateral neglect
Typically from damage to the right parietal cortex
131
What is selective attention
The skill through which we focus on one input or one task while ignoring other stimuli
132
What are dichotic listening tasks and how did they use it in an experiment
Different audio inputs presented to each ear via headphones
Participants were instructed to pay attention to one input, ignore the other
Shadowing = repeating info from the attended chanel to check for listening
Participantwere clueless about the semantic content of the unattended channel BUT knew the physical attributes (ex: speaker’s gender) and personally important semantic content (ex: your name)
133
How can we explain general insensitivity but access to some info in the unattended channel in the dichotic listening tasks
We block unattended inputs with a filter
- Blocks potential distractors
- attended inputs are not filtered out
134
Theories of attention need to explain how we
Inhibit new/unexpected distractors
Promote the processing of desired stimuli
135
What is inattentional blindness
The failure to see a prominent stimulus, even if one is staring right at it because you don’t expect that stimulus or you’re focused on something else
136
Which neurological mechanism is involved with inattentional deafness, likely due to a lack of expectation for a stimulus
the auditory corollary
137
Which neurological mechanism is involved with inattentional numbness, likely due to a lack of expectation for a stimulus
the haptic corollary
138
What is change blindness
the inability to detect changes in a scene despite looking at it directly, possibly even while looking for change
139
Inattentional blindness and change blindness could result from
a failure to perceive the stimulus = perception limit
Failure to remember the stimulus = memory limit
140
What is the early selection hypothesis
Filtering happens before deep processing (based on simple sensory cues)
Unattended info is not perceived/analyzed
Ex: cocktail party effect
141
What is the late selection hypothesis
All inputs are analyzed
Selection occurs after analysis
Selection may occur before consciousness or later
= unattended info may be perceived but is then forgotten
Ex: hearing someone say your name while you’re doing something else
142
What is evidence for the late selection hypothesis
Stimuli that are not attended to (don’t reach consciousness) can nevertheless affect perception
143
What is evidence for the early selection hypothesis
Electrical brain activity for unattended unplugs differ from activity for unattended inputs within 80 ms
144
Selection may be a consequence of priming based on ______
expectations
145
How may selection be a consequence of priming based on expectations
Perceiver anticipates the attended channel
Detectors that are needed for the (now expected) input are primed
= primed detectors fire more rapidly
146
What is biased competition theory
Attention creates a temporary bias in neurons sensitivity
147
What is repetition priming
Priming produced by a prior encounter with the stimulus
= stimulus driven, requiring no effort or cognitive resources
148
What is expectation driven priming
detectors for inputs you think are upcoming are deliberately primed
= effortful, not done for unexpected inputs or inputs of no interest
149
True or false: repetition priming is more effortful
false
Expectation driven priming is
150
What is spatial attention
Our ability to focus attention on a specific location in space
151
True or false: expectation based priming has a cost
Participants perform worse in trials when they are misled than when they have no expectations
Requires mental resources
152
Repetiton priming does not have a cost but expectation priming may cause ppl to perform worse in trials when they are misled compared to when they have no expectations. This is an example of ____ system
a limited capacity system
153
In class, what was used as an analogy for spatial attention
a spotlight beam
- can be widened or focused
- area outside is not completely dark
154
How long do eye movements take
180 ms
155
How long does it take to detect shifts in attention to primed stimuli
150 ms
156
What is endogenous control of attention
goal directed
Ex: searching for your phone
157
What is exogenous control of attention
Stimulus driven priming detectors
Ex: ambulance sirens
158
What two stages are involved in feature integration theory
1) preattentive stage
= parallel processing of the stimulus, efficient
2) focused attention stage
= expectation-based priming creates processing advantages for the stimulus
159
What is divided attention
the skill of performing multiple tasks simultaneously
160
Damage to the ____ can impair executive control
PFC
161
What is preservation error
Tendency to produce the same response over and over when the task clearly requires a change in response
162
Practice leads to a ____ in interference between tasks
decrease
163
____ describes tasks that are well practiced and require little to no executive control
automaticity
164
What effect is an example of automaticity
Stroop interference
= difficult of saying the color of a word if it says another color
165
What happens when two tasks make demands upon the same resources
Interference
