Cognitive Psychology

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Cognitive Psychology

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Studying the processes by which sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored,recovered, and used

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Nativism (Nature)

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Some cognitive functions are innate (e.g. short term memory)

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Empiricism (Nurture)

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We acquire the ability to understand the world

Cognitive functions are gained through experience

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Elementalism

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We perceive the world through its individual elements

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Holism

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We perceive the world as a whole

Cognition should be understood as a whole process that is greater than the sum of its constituents

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Structuralism

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What are the fundamental structures of the mind?

Introspected about what consciousness was

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Functionalism

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Why does the mind work the way it does?

Looked at others to determine what the function of the mind is rather than introspection.

The mind is not static.

There is no one part of the mind that determines consciousness. Instead, consciousness is the functioning of the brain.

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Behaviorism

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Uses solely behavior to understand and define psychology

Mental states that cannot be measured are not psychology

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Gestalt psychology

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Psychological experience cannot be reduced to its elements; it must be studied as a whole

E.g. in a stop motion movie, the sum of the parts are not equal to the whole because with the whole,you get motion

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Genetic epistemology

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Developmental theory of knowledge

Universal intellectual structures explain cognitive experience

Schemas adapt to environmental experiences in stages

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Views of Cognition:

Information processing

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Information passes through a mental system in stages (serial processing)

strong computer metaphor

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Views of Cognition:

Connectionist

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Parallel processing,rather than serial

Ideas are created from multiple parts of the brain interacting

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Views of Cognition:

Ecological

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Environmental perception – the mind must be understood in context

Cognition situated in the world

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Ecological validity

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The extent to which the findings of a research study are able to be generalized to real-life situations

Basically generalizability

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Cognitive linguistics and anthropology

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Cognition is both embodied and situated

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Cognitive science

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Artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind

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Cognitive neuroscience

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How mental states are caused by brain states (nervous system)

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Localization

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Certain functions are localized to certain areas of the brain

Doing more than one thing at a time is not necessarily the sum of the parts of the brain

E.g. The regions of the brains responsible for vision and hearing is not the sum of the regions responsible for vision and the regions responsible for hearing

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Modularity

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The brain is made up of separate structures (modules) with distinct functions (cognitive processes)

E.g. Language acquisition device, facial recognition

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Double dissociation

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When two related mental processes are shown to function independently of each other

Evidence of modularity

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Domain-generality

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Multiple parts of the brain are interdependent and involved in a function

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Research Methods

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Postmortem case studies

Animal studies

Electrical measurements

Brain imaging

Brain stimulation

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Animal studies:

Single-cell recording

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Measures changes in voltage in a single neuron

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Animal studies:

Ablation

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Remove part of the brain and see the effects to determine the function

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Animal studies:

Stimulation

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Stimulate part of the brain and see the effects to determine the function

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Brian imaging:

Static

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Useful for figuring out structure

E.g. CAT scan, MRI

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Metabolic

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Useful for figuring out function

E.g. PET, fMRI

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Brain stimulation

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Used on humans

Research and therapeutic applications

E.g. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS)

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Hemispheric asymmetry

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Cerebral hemispheres seem to specialize in different kinds of processing

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Regional specialization

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Different regions of the brain seem to specialize in different kinds of processing

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Perception

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Transformation, reduction, and elaboration of sensory input

Process of object or pattern recognition

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Distal stimulus

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What external object is being perceived

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Proximal stimulus

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What is received at sense organs

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Pattern recognition:

Data driven

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Information from perceptual world structures our perception of it

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Pattern recognition:

Concept driven

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Stimulus is impoverished. One needs prior knowledge or expectation.

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Compromise

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Perceptual cycle. Both top down and bottom up. Out expectation affect our perception and then when our expectations do not match reality, our expectations change.

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Segmentation view of perception

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Analyze into features to account for pattern perceptions

The way I know the pattern is the one I'm looking for is by its parts

The way we perceive something is by perceiving its parts

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Holist view of perception

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Elements interact so that we perceive a whole

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Gestalt Principles

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Ways in which we organize our perceptions into individual objects and groups

-Proximity

-Similarity

-Good continuation

-Closure

-Common fate: same movement

-Pragnanz: Significance

-E.g. Subjective contours: we fill in the missing contours.

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Holistic approach:

Template

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Exact holistic match to stored pattern

Problem: need to normalize for orientation and scale

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Holistic approach:

Prototype

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Problems:

-Number of templates needed is huge

-Unclear process of acquiring necessary templates

-Beyond orientation and size, patterns can cary in shape, spacing, clarity, etc.

-Prototypes especially useful to account for face perception

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Feature analysis:

Pandemonium

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Hierarchy of analysis:

image -> feature -> cognition -> decision

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Feature analysis:

Evidence

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Visual feature detectors in cats, monkeys

Consonant feature detectors - confusion

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Categorical perception

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Our categories affect our perceptions

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Categorical perception:

Identification affects discrimination

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identification: continuum of acoustic changes -> sharp boundaries

Discrimination: compare contrasts -> good between; poor within categories

We pay attention to certain areas of the spectrum based on our language.

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Feature analysis:

Visual search task

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harder to find target when it shares many features with foils

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Feature analysis:

Limitations

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No clear definition of what features are - what aspects of stimulus count as distinctive

For this, perhaps prototypes might be better

Arrangement and context of features also important:

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Featural analysis:

Context effects

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Word superiority - better recognition of letters when they are in a word context

- E.g. Identifying the letter k is easier when you see it in the word work than in owrk

In different context we get new interpretations

- E.g. SO versus 4O. O is the same but it is seen as an o in one and a zero in the other.

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Attention

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The taking possession by the mind of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects

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Cocktail party phenomenon

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Some voices catch our attention out of a crowd of voices. A certain noise really sticks out to us because it has significance to us.

E.g. hearing your name

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Dichotic listening

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psychological test commonly used to investigate selective attention

Different message in each ear

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Attention as selection:

Broadbent’s (1958) Filter Model

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bottleneck before perceptual processing

Selective filter based on sensory aspects—pitch, location, timbre, loudness

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Attention as selection:

Evidence and problems

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uEvidence for filter:uL ear: 7 4 1uR ear: 3 2 5uSwitching back & forth between channels moreeffortful à poorer recalluLimited capacity of sensory bufferuAnd switch time adds to response timeu

uProblems with filter:uSensory filter really can’t hold it so longuSperling (1960)u“Name effect” in unattended earà 30% recall of infouMoray (1959)uShift of attention Dear 8 6 Aunt Jane 2Gray & Wedderburn (1960)

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Attention as selection:

Models of attention

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Evidence for later selection:

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A DOCTOR PHYSICIAN

B DOCTOR TREE

“Physician” interferes with processing “doctor”

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Attention as capacity

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Limited but variable capacity

- Arousal

- Demands

Allocation of limited resources

- Enduring disposition

- Momentary intentions

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Controlled versus automatic processing

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1.Requires use of limited capacity mechanism

2.Limit on simultaneous tasks without interference

3.Seems to require sequential processes

4.Effortful, but 2 kinds: a.Accessible: affected by instructions, easily reported, “conscious” b.Veiled: unaffected by instructions, hard to report, “unconscious”

5.Changes in LTM structure

1.Bypasses limited capacity mechanism

2.No interference with other tasks

3.May occur in parallel

4.Little effort, but little control (once initiated, hard to call back)

5.No effect on LTM structure