Test 1 Flashcards
1
Q
Problems with behaviorism
A
- Applicability to real world
- Presented challenge to conditioning: applicability to world
- Ex: How do we reduce plane crashes? Conditioning doesn’t explain something this complicated.
- Verbal learning research
- talked about stimulus and response
- eased way for cognitive revolution to come
- Linguistics
- idea: Skinner wanted to explain language with conditioning (ex: you coo, and mom looks you in eye, smiles, and that reinforces you)
- Chomsky: reviewed Skinner and pointed out they were not even using the proper definition anymore
2
Q
Assumptions of cognitive psychology
A
- Mental processes exist
- They’re subject to objective measurement (can’t see your memory, but can give you a test)
- Animals are active information processors
3
Q
Information processing framework
A
- Analogy for information processing; looking at mind as a computer
1. Receive input – stages are one at a time (earlier version)
2. Transform input into symbolic form (humans: neural transmission… computers: 0s and 1s)
3. Recode it
4. Decide (if… then)
5. Make new expression (ex: change up info – reword)
6. Save – remembering
7. Output - Save and Output are like “save and print”
- Early models
- Serial and Parallel processing
- Updated models
- Modal model
4
Q
Early models
A
- Stages are fixed
- Stages do not overlap = serial processing
5
Q
Serial vs. parallel processing
Serial:
A
- Stages do not overlap
- Serial = When things are harder
- Ex: Modal Model
- Parallel:
- Stages can overlap
- Parallel = when things are easier
- Ex: constantly taking in info and short-term is working on its own thing
- Ex: Pandemonium
6
Q
Updated models
A
- Parallel Processing: stages can overlap
- Ex: constantly taking in info and short-term is working on its own thing
- Some processing is serial and other is parallel (serial = when things are harder; parallel = when things are easier)
- Use brain structure and function in theoretical development
- When looking at how things work, we take into account the brain-
7
Q
Modal model
A
- The Modal Model (most common model) (“mode” is statistical term)
1. Environmental input
- Sensory registers
- (visual, auditory… haptic) (all of different senses) - Short-term store; Temporary working memory
- control processes: rehearsal, coding, decisions, and retrieval strategies
- consciousness and a few seconds ago
- can do response output OR 4. - Long-term store; Permanent memory store
- can choose to retrieve something from here
- EARLY information processing model
- stages are fixed
- stages do not overlap = serial processing
8
Q
Study methods
A
- Experiments
- Quasi-Experiments
- Individual Differences/Correlational
9
Q
Experiments
A
- An IV was manipulated
- Random assignment
- High control
- Manipulate a variable
- Pros:
- high control
- isolate cause and effect
- Cons:
- ecological validity (has to do with how much experiment is like real world)
- Ex: Research question: Do people study better with or without a TV on in background?
- IV: background noise (silence or TV)
- DV: reading comprehension
10
Q
Quasi-Experiments
A
- An IV was manipulated, but they also used a quasi-IV (grouping variable)
- Medium control
- 1 or more IVs
- 1 or more variables that can’t be manipulated (quasi IV or grouping variable)
- Pros:
- individual differences (things we’re interested in that we can’t necessarily manipulate)
- high control for the manipulated variable
- Cons:
- less control overall
- ecological validity still possible
- Ex: Is the effect of background TV noise the same for introverts and extroverts?
- IV: background noise (silence, TV)
- Quasi IV: trait
- DV: reading comprehension
11
Q
Individual Differences/Correlational
A
- Asks: Is there a relationship between the variables?
- You haven’t manipulated anything
- Pros:
- examine complicated relationships between variables
- Cons:
- no control → no cause (only observing, so you can’t make causal declines)
- Ex: What’s the relationship between age and memory?
- Variable 1: age
- Variable 2: memory
- No IV or DV
12
Q
Brain imaging
A
- fMRI
- ERP
13
Q
fMRI
A
- Functional magnetic residence imaging
- Getting images of brain function through blood flow
- When brain is active, it recruits oxygenated blood (tells you where brain is active)
- Cannot get causal explanation, only correlation
- Benefit: good at spatial localization (where things are happening)
- Limitations:
- temporal (bad at timing) - blood shows up 2 seconds after
- correlational (feedback loop)
- involved regions - shows only what is involved in a task, not what is critical for it (ex: hippocampus critical for memory, but when fMRI, you’ll see frontal lobe and parietal lobe and hippocampus have blood flow, but parietal and frontal lobe are NOT critical)
14
Q
ERP
A
- Event-related potential
- Takes electrical output activity
- Quick with timing
- Looks at electrical signals
- Benefit: good at time
- Limitations:
- coarse spatial localization (bad at showing exactly where)
- involved regions (can only tell us what’s involved, not what’s critical)
15
Q
Neuropsychology
A
- Prosopagnosia: face recognition deficit; face blindness; can’t really perceive face
- Agnosia: deficit to perceive visual images – not eye problem; it’s a brain problem; inability to perceive something; visual impairments that aren’t blindness
- Hemineglect:Failure of attention to left visual field due to damage to right parietal lobe; attention to left visual field is sometimes possible if nothing is in the right visual field; sometimes associated with denial of disorder (anosognosia)
- Amnesia
- Aphasia: language disorder; sound normal, but what they’re saying doesn’t make sense
16
Q
Brain basics
A
- Neurons
- Dendrites - take in info
- Soma - regulate cell function (biological stuff)
- Axon - delivers info
- Axon terminals - delivers info
- Myelin sheath - speed up processes
- Long-term potentiation (LTP)
- Strengthening connections between neurons
17
Q
Neurons and LTP
A
Neurons:
- Dendrites - take in info
- Soma - regulate cell function (biological stuff)
- Axon - delivers info
- Axon terminals - delivers info
- Myelin sheath - speed up processes
LTP
- Long-term potentiation
- Strengthening connections between two neurons
- How we build memories
- Likes neurotransmitter, so creates growth, and then it’s easier to accept info
- Ex: Glutamate taken in by receptors, it likes the glutamate, so it creates more receptors
- Brain plasticity - changing all the time
18
Q
Cortical lobes and subcortical structures
A
- about 3 mm thick; 2.5 sq. ft. if stretched; most higher mental functions; white matter (more myelinated; grey matter: not as myelinated, darker stuff (cortex))
- Frontal Lobe
- Broca’s Area
- Motor Cortex
- Somatosensory Cortex
- Parietal Lobe
- Occipital Lobe
- Primary Visual Cortex
- Wernicke’s Area
- Temporal Lobe
19
Q
Connectionism
A
- Corpus Callosum - connects two halves
- Connectionist models (parallel distributed processing PDP models) refer to a computer-based technique for modeling complex systems that is inspired by the structure of the nervous system
- Fundamental principle is that simple nodes or units that make up the system are interconnected
20
Q
Sensation vs. perception
Sensation
A
- Reception of stimulation from the environment and encoding in nervous system
- Contact between organism and environment
- Ex: How much light is needed before you detect it?
- Retina: rods and cones, fovea
Perception
- Interpreting and understanding sensory information; organizing and interpreting sensation
- Discontinuous information, but continuous sensory experience
- Ex: What is it? How far away is it?
21
Q
Proximal/distal stimulus
A
- Distal Stimulus: thing out there in the world
- Proximal Stimulus: pattern of energy that is contacting our sensory system; upside down; 2-D
22
Q
Blind spot
A
-Big gap at back of retina
23
Q
Saccades
A
- Quick movement from one fixation to another
- Variable in speed (250175 ms)
- About 200 ms to “plan” a saccade
- Vision is suppressed during saccades
- 3-4 fixation-saccade cycles a second
- Input to our visual system is not continuous (but that’s how we experience it)
- Saccades → Change blindness (vs. inattention blindness)
Change blindness and inattention blindness
24
Q
Depth Perception
A
-We get 2-D information, not three
- Two kinds of depth cues:
- Binocular:
- Monocular:
25
Iconic memory
- A buffer that holds visual information for brief periods of time
- Allows visual system to integrate information into a continuous experience
- It’s a memory system, but it’s dedicated to perception
- Properties:
- Size: large capacity
- Duration: very brief (about one second)
26
Echoic memory
-Sensory register that’s for auditory, rather than imagery (visual?)
27
Pattern Recognition
- The assignment of meaning to a stimulus (an instance of X)
- Gestalt Grouping Principles
- Template Model
- Feature Detection Model
28
Gestalt grouping principles
- Heuristics by which we organize parts (of an image) into wholes (a whole image)
- Heuristic is cognitive shortcut
- They help us resolve ambiguities (in the image)
- Inferences -- a lot of own view is made up of inferences
- 1. Figure ground relations (idea that in image something is selected as foreground, and other thing will be background; ex. Of vase vs. faces)
- 2. Similarity (we group things based off of similarity)
- 3. Proximity (we group things based off of how far apart they are from each other)
- 4. Closure (we’re able to close gap in mind)
- 5. Good continuation (we like to see things as nice, smooth lines)
- 6. Common fate (things that move together tend to stay together)
29
Template model
- Stored models of all categorizable patterns
| - Problem: Non-canonical views and forms
30
Feature detection models
-RIGHT MODEL
- Feature: a simple fragment of a whole pattern
- Starting from individual features and build up from this
- Pandemonium: a feature detection model
- Object recognition (recognition by components)
31
Pandemonium
- A feature detection model
- 1. Data or image “demons” - encode pattern; get data into system
- 2. Computational demons - match the simple features
- 3. Cognitive demons - match whole letter patterns; put those features together
- 4. Decision demon - decides which letter it is
- Bottom-up processing model (data driven model)
32
Object recognition (recognition by components)
- Recognition by Components (geons)
- Think about images of mug and suitcase
- Only difference between feature and objects is objects are 3-D
33
Problem with feature detection
- Assume the 1st step is feature/geon detection
| - Problem: knowledge and context may matter as much or more than features
34
Top-down vs. bottom-up processing
- Bottom-up:
- Data-driven processing
- Processing that is driven by feature detection
- Ex: Putting a puzzle together without knowing what the picture is (Pandemonium and geon models)
- Top-down:
- Processing that’s driven by knowledge and context
- Ex: Putting a puzzle together knowing what the picture is
- Helps solve perception problems
- Helps us interpret ambiguous stimuli
- Knowledge and context (this is what helps us here)
- Influence of whole pattern on the perception of the part of the pattern
- Think of word superiority effect (letters better identified in the context of known words; harder to identify because you no longer have your knowledge to help you)
- Ex: of hearing green needle vs. hearing brain stem
35
Agnosias
-1. Prosopagnosia: face recognition deficit; face blindness; can’t really perceive face
- 2. Apperceptive agnosia: deficit in perceiving whole patterns (feature combination)
- Like bottom half of Pandemonium Model
- 3. Associative agnosia: deficit in associating a pattern with meaning
- Can see pattern, but can’t put it together with its meaning
- Ex: See a table, but can’t recognize and name it that
Agnosias indicate:
-Sensation and feature detection: different processes and brain regions
- Combining features is critical
- Getting features alone doesn’t get you far
- Naming the object: different processes and brain regions
- Associative agnosia: can see pattern, just can’t recognize
36
Approaches to attention
| Purposes?
- 1. To alert/prepare you → orienting
- 2. To focus on some things while ignoring others → selective attention
- 3. To coordinate multiple tasks or goals → mental resource/capacity
- 4. To override habits → control and automaticity
37
Orienting attention
- Orienting reflex
- Reflexive redirection and capture of attention
- Triggered by abrupt changes
- Ex: lightning, thunder, books falling
38
Selective Attention
-Selection of one source of info despite competition from others
- (arrow pointing down to this) How do we do that?
- What happens to the info we ignore?
- (arrow pointing down to this) Dichotic listening research
- Filter theories of selective attention
- Dichotic listening task
- Late filter theory
- Evidence in favor of or against the models
- Inhibition and negative priming
- Hemineglect
39
Dichotic listening task
- Headphones → different messages in each ear
- Attended channel: info they should be listening to
- Unattended channel: ignore
- Shadowing: repeating what they hear in the attended ear
- Physical characteristics:
- spatial location (ex: pretend to be listening to one, but actually listen to other)
- frequency (male vs. female voice)
- intensity (ex: volume (auditory); brightness (vision)
- *these allow people to focus on attended channel
40
Early filter theory
- Fundamental Points:
- selection is based on physical characteristics
- selection occurs BEFORE pattern recognition, before anything is recognized
- sensory store → selective filter (people choose something to focus on based on physical characteristics; ex: male and female voice) → pattern recognition meaning → ← memory
- Pattern recognition and memory influence each other
41
Late filter theory
- Fundamental Points:
- selection for attention is based on meaning
- All info is processes for meaning and “gets into” memory (to some degree)
- attention is limited in terms of HOW to respond
-Sensory store → pattern recognition meaning → selective filter → response selection
42
Evidence in favor of or against the models (Early and Late)
Testing Early Filter Model
- Morray (1959): Cocktail Party Phenomenon
- Capture of attention by info that’s presented in unattended channel
- Shouldn’t be able to hear name across room because you’re paying attention to person in front of you (problem with this model)
- Shadowing breaks down
- Triesman (1960)
- priming you for one thing, but supposed to hear another
Corteen and Wood (Late Filter)
-Shock associated words in unattended channel
-Glycemic skin response - anytime shocked, this response increases
43
Inhibition & negative priming
- Suppression of salient but irrelevant information that reduces its activation level
- Negative priming is one way to test idea of inhibition
- Naming red object:
- Unrelated: baseline RT
- Attended repeat: faster (faster because you just said/saw it)
- Unattended repeat: slower (slower because you have to name what you just suppressed)
44
Hemineglect
- Failure of attention to left visual field due to damage to right parietal lobe
- Attention to left visual field is sometimes possible if nothing is in the right visual field
- Sometimes associated with denial of disorder (anosognosia)
- There can be varying degrees of hemineglect
45
Attention as Mental Resource
- Cognitive fuel; limited; flexible coordination → coordinate multiple tasks or goals
- Capacity theory
- Multitasking
46
Capacity Theory
- Attention as mental resource (cognitive fuel)
- Limited
- Flexible coordination
- (arrow pointing down to this) Coordinate multiple tasks or goals
47
Multitasking
- Easier to combine tasks in different modalities → some small devoted fuel tanks
- Increasing difficulty to one makes others harder → general fuel tank
48
Automaticity Criteria
| Automaticity
- Occurs without intention
- Not open to introspection
- Few (if any) resources are used and does not interfere with other processes
- Tend to be fast
- Stroop Task
49
Control Criteria
- Occurs with intention
- Open to introspection
- Takes attentional resources
- Slower
- Ex: surgery
- Few “pure” situations; most a combination
- Act in concert → good performance (get home fast to study! Drive on “autopilot” while thinking of everything you have to do)
- Act in opposition → slow and error prone performance (ex: must go to store before going home)
50
Stroop task
- Related to automaticity
- Slow-downs and errors due to trying to ignore the word and name the color
- Difficult because reading is an automatic process
- 2 things competing to become the response
51
Action slips
- Downside to Automaticity
- Unintended automatic actions in appropriate for the situation
- Ex: you’re a passenger, and press brakes even though not driving
52
McCarley et al. (TSA screening). The topic and associated definitions. IVs. DVs. Procedure. Conclusions.
- IVs:
- target present (20%) or absent (Why? More realistic. Very rare to find threat in many bags)
- Knife set
- DVs:
- target recognition (sensitivity), given fixation (how often do they fixate and recognize the target)
- RT (how quick when knife is in there)
- Saccades (how many moves did eyes make before finding it)
- Probability of fixation
- False alarms
- Dwells
- Conclusions:
- Sensitivity got better (professor says “recognition” instead of “sensitivity”)
- Faster to fixate and recognize
- Efficiency vs. Effectiveness?
- Scanning was faster (efficiency)
- No more likely to fixate the target (effectiveness); probability of fixating on new target
-Participants: 16 young adults (mean age = 21; 12 female)
53
McCarley et al. (TSA screening). Visual search.
- Visual Search:
- Fewer saccades
- RT improved
- Recognition (sensitivity) improved
54
McCarley et al. (TSA screening). Effectiveness vs. efficiency
- Efficiency: Scanning was faster
| - Effectiveness: No more likely to fixate the target; probability of fixating on new target
55
McCarley et al. (TSA screening). Take home message
- Practice improved the ability to recognize camouflaged targets
- Problem solving
- Recommendations to TSA?
- Focus on ability to recognize (if going to fixate more often, then at least improve recognizing it when they do)
- Train on a wide array of objects
56
Sensory memory
- Part of modal model
- At the input end, environmental stimuli enter system, with each sense modality having its own sensory register or memory
