Unit 2 Flashcards
(24 cards)
What is mental chronometry?
The scientific study of the timing of cognitive processes, primarily through the measurement of reaction times (RT)
It infers the duration and sequencing of mental operations.
Who introduced the concept of the ‘personal equation’?
Friedrich Bessel
He observed timing discrepancies among observers in astronomy.
What did Hermann von Helmholtz measure in the mid-19th century?
The speed of nerve conduction
He established that neural processes occur over measurable time intervals.
What method did Franciscus Donders introduce in 1868?
The subtraction method
It measures the duration of mental processes by comparing reaction times across different tasks.
What experimental approach did Wilhelm Wundt use?
Reaction time experiments
He studied the structure of consciousness using these experiments.
What is a simple reaction time task?
Participants respond to a single stimulus with a specific action
Example: pressing a button when a light appears.
What do choice reaction time tasks involve?
Multiple stimuli and responses
Participants select the appropriate response based on the presented stimulus.
What is the purpose of Go/No-Go tasks?
To evaluate impulse control and attention
Participants respond to certain stimuli while withholding responses to others.
What do mental rotation tasks assess?
The time taken to mentally rotate objects
Developed by Shepard and Metzler.
Who introduced memory scanning tasks?
Saul Sternberg
These tasks measure the time required to scan and retrieve information from short-term memory.
How does mental chronometry integrate with neuroimaging?
It correlates behavioral data with neural activity
Techniques like fMRI and EEG are used.
What is one clinical application of reaction time measurements?
Diagnosing and monitoring neurological disorders
Such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
What is the significance of Donders’ work?
It marked the beginning of experimental psychology and mental chronometry
Aimed to measure the time for mental processes.
Define reaction time (RT).
Time between the presentation of a stimulus and the initiation of a response
Donders measured RT to assess cognitive task durations.
What is the subtractive method?
Used to determine the duration of a specific cognitive process
It compares RTs between tasks differing by one mental operation.
List the stages of mental processes identified by Donders.
- Sensory encoding
- Cognitive decision
- Motor response
These stages illustrate the components of cognitive processing.
What was the estimated decision-making time found by Donders?
Around 0.06 seconds
This reflects the duration of cognitive operations.
What did Sternberg aim to understand in his study?
How people retrieve information from short-term memory
Specifically, the process of deciding if a test item was part of a memorized list.
What is the main finding from Sternberg’s experiments?
Linear increase in reaction time with set size
Reaction time increased as more items were held in memory.
What is exhaustive scanning in memory retrieval?
Scanning through all items even if a match is found early
This was shown by the same slopes for positive and negative responses in Sternberg’s findings.
What was the scan rate found in Sternberg’s study?
25–30 items per second
This indicates that scanning is a rapid internal mental operation.
What did Sternberg’s study contribute to cognitive psychology?
Clear behavioral evidence of internal processes
It supported the idea of serial, exhaustive scanning in short-term memory.
True or False: Not all cognitive processes are optimized for speed.
True
Exhaustive scanning may seem inefficient but reflects limits in processing information.
