PYB204 study guide

Question 1

williams syndrome

Answer 1

Patients with Williams syndrome have difficulty processing visuospatial information. However, they can learn repeated routes better than age-matched healthy individuals

Question 2

early philosophy of cognitive psychology

Answer 2

nativism: knowledge is innate.
empiricism: knowledge s acquired through experience (aristotle, bacon, berkely, locke, hume, and mill)

Question 3

Cognitive revolution

Answer 3

During world war 2, research on human performance was intensively conducted.

Question 4

Information processing approach

Answer 4

theorises that humans actively process the information they receive from their senses, like a computer does.

input —> mind (where process of info occurs) —> output

Question 5

two key principles of vision

Answer 5

1. Perception is dynamic – we perceive change
2. We perceive constancies in a changing environment

Question 6

Fovea

Answer 6

at the back of the eye, focuses the light that we are directly looking at.

Question 7

Saccades

Answer 7

spazzing wobbling to keep the eye moving. if the retina stabalises on an image, it will disappear as the photons stop firing and the brain fills the missing space.

Question 8

ciliary muscles

Answer 8

they control the shape of the lens to accomodate for near or far targets. the ciliary muscles relax to focus near, and tighten to focus far. they sit on the top and bottom of the lens to stretch or relax the shape.

Question 9

cones

Answer 9

High acuity, low dark sensitivity, fast dark adaptation

Question 10

rods

Answer 10

Rods have low acuity, slow dark adaptation, high dark sensitivity

Question 11

Vergende and stereopsis

Answer 11

the two eyes converge to produce two different, but aligned images of the same target.

Question 12

duplex retina theory

Answer 12

Schultze proposed that rods and cones form two separate visual systems:
1. Photopic = bright light vision via cones
2. Scotopic = dim light vision via rods

Question 13

ganglion cells

Answer 13

Act like a lens, capturing an image over an area of the retina (called the receptive field). This effect is due to a process of lateral inhibition between adjacent receptors using microelectrode recording

Question 14

receptive fields

Answer 14

Ganglion cells have both excitatory and inhibitory connections within their receptive field. Some ganglion cells can be excited by light inside the receptive field.

Question 15

the tectopulvinar system

Answer 15

purpose is to be the basic relay systems through the brain to respond to seeing things and acting on them. Van essen 1985, ungerleid and mishkin 1982 found several functions;
localisation of objects in space
guidance of eye movements
gross pattern perception.
some optic tract fibres project to the superior colliculi and then on the pulvinar and lateral posterior nuclei

Question 16

where is the tectopulvinar system located

Answer 16

these structures are located in the thalamic region called the tectum. receiving back projections from the cortex.

Question 17

blindsight

Answer 17

weiskrantz 1977, 1992 found that some people with damage to the focal system can still react to visual stimuli although they claim that they can not see them.

Question 18

sensation

Answer 18

how our sensory organs (eyes, ears, etc) convert physical information into signals that our nervous system understands

Question 19

perception

Answer 19

how we process environmental information to form internal representations of the environment

Question 20

cognition

Answer 20

how we use internal representations to do more complex things

Question 21

types of thresholds

Answer 21

difference thresholds: the smallest change in a stimuli can be detected. Weber’s law.
absolute thresholds: the minimum intensity of a stimuli that can be detected. Fechner’s law

Question 22

absolute threshold

Answer 22

the minimum intensity of a stimulus that can be detected

Question 23

the outer ear

Answer 23

pinna –> increases the sound amplitude. External canal provides protection and increases amplitude
ear drum –> tympanic membrane vibrating in response to sound waves, moves bones in middle ear.

Question 24

the middle ear

Answer 24

ossicles –> the smallest bones in the body, transmit vibrations from the ear drum to the cochlea. provides protection from high amplitudes.
ossicles are made up of malleus, incus, and staples

Question 25

inner ear

Answer 25

cochlear --> contains auditory sensory receptors the inner ear contains the cochlear, with three canals: vestibular canal, tympanic canal, and cochlear duct

Question 26

central auditory pathways

Answer 26

nerve fibres from each cochlea synapse in a number of sites on the way to the primary auditory cortex The cochlear nucleus The superior olivary nucleus The inferior colliculus The medial geniculate nucleus The signal arriving at the cochlear nucleus splits and goes to each of the superior olivary nuclei. Beyond this point, input from both ears is present in both hemispheres.

Question 27

frequency coding

Answer 27

sounds are made up of a mixture of sine wave components, the auditory system isolates and identifies the frequencies of these components. This is known as fourier analysis. The basilar membrane is about 30mm long and varies in stiffness and width alone its length. Travelling waves move along the basilar membrane and peak at a different point depending on the frequency of the sound.

Question 28

cochlear implants

Answer 28

can do the maths of frequency coding for the ear and stimulate the cochlear based on the frequency of sounds

Question 29

the auditory neurons

Answer 29

are arranged in an orderly manner in the primary and secondary auditory cortex.

Question 30

central auditory pathways

Answer 30

the cochlear nucleus the superior olivary nucleus the inferior colliculus the medial geniculate

Question 31

agnosia

Answer 31

the impairment of object recognistion. they can identify elements of the object but not the object as a whole

Question 32

two cortical pathways for processing visual information

Answer 32

ventral pathway: ocipital lobe to the temporal lobe, processing information about identity and appearance dorsal lobe: ocipital lobe to parietal lobe, processing information about objects, important for guiding action.

Question 33

optic ataxia

Answer 33

intact object recognition but inability to use visual information to guide action (impairment to the dorsal stream)

Question 34

theories of pattern recognition - gestalt principals

Answer 34

similarity, closure, good continuation, and proximity

Question 35

theories of pattern recognition - template matching

Answer 35

comparing a shape/pattern to something we already know. matching the pattern to a template. this does not always work at we do not have every template

Question 36

theories of pattern analysis - feature analysis

Answer 36

a visual pattern is perceived as a combination of elemental features. Known as Selfridge's pandemonium model. This is a hierarchy of elements that recognise things. Initially the pattern is broken down to simple elements that are perceived first, then this becomes more complex and the brain reconstructs them to recognise the pattern.

Question 37

theories of pattern analysis - recognising by component theory

Answer 37

An object is first segmented into a set of basic sub-objects (called geons) and then recognised in the brain by a composition of geons.

Question 38

neural mechanisms of pattern recognition

Answer 38

neurons in higher-order visual areas respond to increasingly complex patterns. ight detection neurons firing information at the neuron in the primary visual cortex. The combination of this information allows the visual cortex to identify patterns. All this information is combined to recognise an object, reconstructing information in the brain. this process is bi-directional as we solve problems the more we look and reconsider it.

Question 39

grandmother cell hypothesis

Answer 39

that the neural pathways are so specific that there is a specific cell that recognises a specific object/light pattern. lacking evidence but seen in the jennifer aniston neuron that fires when we look at her.

Question 40

word superiority effect

Answer 40

superior recognition of letters in a word context rather than letters alone. Indicates top-down influence on pattern recognition. We can identify the letter D easier when presented in a word rather than alone when presented for a short period of time.

Question 41

visual vs verbal representation of information

Answer 41

inability to notice salient changes in a visual scene. standing 1973 study finding that participants will recognise a zoomed out image of a scene as the exact same image they were shown prior.

Question 42

early selection theories of attention - the filter theory

Answer 42

sensory information has to pass through some bottleneck. Only some of the sensor information is selected for further processing. seen in the dichotic listening task

Question 43

early selection theories of attention - the attenuation theory

Answer 43

salience of unattended stimuli is reduced, but they are not filtered out entirely.

Question 44

late selection theories of attention

Answer 44

the filter blocking unecesary stimuli happens after the perceptual stimuli has undergone analysis for its semantic content

Question 45

voluntary attention

Answer 45

top-down and goal directed. Focus of attention is usually the same as the focus of the eyes. But not always, this is known as posner's cueing paradigm. Similar processing enhancement is observed when reflexive cues are used. An arrow or a flash on the screen will draw your attention to the stimulus that it is pointing to or flashing over.

Question 46

reflective attention

Answer 46

bottom-up and stimulus-driven. When more time passes between a reflexive cue and a target, response to the target becomes slower. The reflexive attention system has build in mechanisms to prevent reflexivity directed attention from being stuck at a location for too long (inhibition of return).

Question 47

feature integration theory

Answer 47

people must focus attention on a stimulus before they can synthesise its features into a pattern, in essence, attention works as glue with which various features are combined into an object. We scan each letter, one at a time until we find the letter, but this will be harder in some environments where the surrounding patterns are similar

Question 48

dual task performance

Answer 48

attention deficit in dual tasks can be seen in Stroop effect. this is reporting the colour of the word you are reading, when the words read the names of colorus but are coloured in a different colour, there is a difficulty.

Question 49

sensory memory

Answer 49

less than one second memory, this is iconic (visual), or echoic (auditory). can hold 3-6 items

Question 50

short-term / working memory

Answer 50

1-10 second of memory, this can be central executive, visiospacial sketchpad, phonological loop, or episodic buffer. can hold 7 (+or- 2) items

Question 51

long term memory

Answer 51

longer than 10 seconds, declarative explicitly memories or non-declarative implicit memory

Question 52

types of long-term memory

Answer 52

declarative memory: memories for facts and events, you can explicitly remember non-declaritive memory: implicit memory (motor skills), you can not explicitly remember

Question 53

memory encoding

Answer 53

the way information is processed affects how well it is encoded in long-term memory. Depth (levels) of processing and information is processed in a deeper and more meaningful manner will be better encoded.

Question 54

incidental vs intentional learning and memory

Answer 54

Depth of processing not whether one intends to or not, can determine the amount of material remembered.

Question 55

theories of forgetting

Answer 55

decay theory: memory traces decay over time the inteferance theory: memory traces becomes less accessible due to interferance from competing memories

Question 56

memory storage / retrieval

Answer 56

We make inferences at the time of memory retrieval, sometimes we are not even aware that we are making inferences rather than remembering what was actually studied.

Question 57

false memory

Answer 57

sometimes we are required to clearly separate what we actually learned from our inferences. this is seen in inaccurate eye witness testimony

Question 58

deleting memories

Answer 58

when cues memories can undergo reconsolidation. This is a brief liable stage where the memory can be reinforced or altered. Opportunities for therapy can be seen in part of the basis of modern therapies for anxiety and trauma.

Question 59

conditioning and extinction of memory

Answer 59

repeated presentations of a conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus creates a competing memory trace that can supersede the conditioned memory. Called extinction learning. Basis for modern exposure therapies, such as PTSD and anxiety.

Question 60

problem space

Answer 60

is the term describing the various states of the problem

Question 61

problem state

Answer 61

is a representation of the problem in some degree of solution.

Question 62

three ways to acquire operators - problem solving

Answer 62

discovery, direct instruction, analogy/imitation

Question 63

three criteria for selecting operators - problem solving

Answer 63

backup avoidance, difference reduction, and means ends analysis

Question 64

difference reduction - problem solving

Answer 64

the tendency in problem solving to select operators that eliminate a difference between the current state and the goal state. it is a useful method but not always optimal. it only considers whether the next step is an improvement and not whether the larger plan will work

Question 65

means end analysis

Answer 65

creates a new subgoal to enable an operator to apply, an operator is not abandoned even if it cannot be applied immediately.

Question 66

incubation effects - problem solving

Answer 66

the phenomenon that sometimes solutions to a particular problem come easier after a period of time in which one has ignored trying to solve the problem.

Question 67

retina physiology

Answer 67

Receptor cells synapse with bipolar cells. Bipolar cells synapse with ganglion cells. Horizontal cells connect different receptor or different bipolar cells. Amacrine cells connect different bipolar or different ganglion cells. These connecting cells allow events at one location to influence events at another.

Question 68

hearing

Answer 68

Sound is caused by changes in air pressure. These pressure waves are characterised by amplitude, frequency, and phase. The human hearing range is between 20-20000 Hz

Question 69

pitch perception

Answer 69

Perception of a missing fundamental – when higher-order harmonics are present in the absence of the fundamentals, the missing fundamental is filled in. A missing fundamental is perceived even when harmonics are presented to different ears

Question 70

loudness perception

Answer 70

Generally, high-frequency sounds are perceived to be louder (up to about 5000 Hz) ---> Around 3000-5000 Hz, sounds are perceived to be loudest ---> as the amplitude goes up, the effect of frequency becomes smaller factors that affect loudness perception: - Sound duration (longer = louder) - Frequency

Question 71

auditory space perception

Answer 71

determination of a sound's horizontal and vertical direction as well as how far away a sound is

Question 72

interaural time difference

Answer 72

unless a sound is directly in front of or behind you, it reaches two ears at different times (onset difference) the onset difference can be detected by a simple ‘delay line’ mechanism in the brain the same sound will most likely be in different phases when it reaches each of the two ears (phase difference). But the phase difference is less useful for localising high-frequency sounds

Question 73

interaural intensity difference

Answer 73

the energy of a sound decreases as it travels farther. the head works as a barrier that reduces the intensity of the sounds (sound shadow) --> this effect is more pronounced for high-frequency sounds.

Question 74

visual capture (hearing)

Answer 74

when we visually perceive where a sound 'should be' coming from, it tends to override our auditory localisation. when we have some visual information about how a stimulus 'should' sound, it strongly affects how we hear the stimulus

Question 75

change blindness

Answer 75

the inability to notice salient changes in a visual scene

Question 76

the cocktail party effect

Answer 76

you can hear your name mentioned in a crowded bar, even when you are talking to someone else.

Question 77

early vs late selection

Answer 77

Treisman and Geffen's (1987) dichotic listening task: participants had to shadow one message from one ear. at the same time, they had to detect a target word, which was heard by either ear. Predictions: the attenuation theory: the target will be less frequently detected in an unshadowed ear late-selection theories: the target will be detected equally well in either ear Results (detection accuracy) - in the shadowed ear: 87% - in the unshadowed ear: 8%

Question 78

plausible retrieval

Answer 78

much of recall in real life involves plausible inference rather than exact recall