Psy 322 Exam 1

Front 1

Define Cognitive Psy

Back 1

the branch of psy concerned with the scientific study of cognition
how animals make sense of information an duse it to survive

Front 2

what arguments were made against introspection by behaviorists?

Back 2

frame of mind can’t be measured
can’t be consistent across multiple people
thus, it’s unscientific
it’s subjective
but you’re still the best judge of how you feel

Front 3

Behavior Approach to research

Back 3

measuring relationship between stimuli and behavior

Front 4

physiological approach

Back 4

measuring relationship between physiology and behavior

Front 5

Name main parts of the neuron

Back 5

cell body
nucleus
dendrite
axon
presynaptic terminals

Front 6

relationship of stimulus to action potential intensity

Back 6

it’s the same!
difference registers in frequency of firing, rather than intensity

Front 7

how does an action potential work?

Back 7

charged fluids inside and outside of the axon
-70 millivolts charge inside axon
stimulation causes cell membrane to open
allowing positive charged sodium ions to flow in
shift in electrical charge flows along neuron

Front 8

all or none law

Back 8

a neuron fires at full intensity, with all of its chemicals and charge

Front 9

types of neurotransmitters

Back 9

excitatory
inhibitory

Front 10

excitatory v. inhibitory neurotransmitters

Back 10

affect the electrical signal of the receiving neuron

Front 11

threshold (neurons)

Back 11

an action potential results only when the amount of arriving signal crosses a threshold amount

Front 12

localization of function

Back 12

specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain

Front 13

brain area responsible for most cognitive functions

Back 13

cerebral cortex

Front 14

doodad between brain hemispheres

Back 14

Corpus Callosum

Front 15

how do brain imaging techniques work?

Back 15

by measuring bloodflow (radioactive dye)
by measuring magnetic properties of blood
measuring electrical activity through scalp and skull

Front 16

part that forms memories

Back 16

hippocampus

Front 17

part that forms emotions and emotional memories

Back 17

amygdala

Front 18

part that processing sensory info

Back 18

thalamus

Front 19

part that receives visual info

Back 19

occipital lobe

Front 20

part that receives touch, temperature, pain

Back 20

parietal lobe

Front 21

part that receives hearing, taste, smell

Back 21

temporal lobe

Front 22

part that coordinates information from all senses

Back 22

frontal lobe

Front 23

part that responds to faces

Back 23

fusiform face area (FFA)
in temporal lobe
damage causes prosopagnosia

Front 24

part that responds to places

Back 24

parahippocampal place area (PPA)
in temporal lobe

Front 25

Part that responses to pictures of bodies and parts of bodies

Back 25

extrastriate body area (EBA)

Front 26

Broca v. Wernicke

Back 26

Broca handles language production
wernicke handles language comprehension

Front 27

handles language prodcution

Back 27

Broca’s area

Front 28

handles language comprehension

Back 28

Wernicke’s area

Front 29

PET Scan

Back 29

Positron Emission Tomography
radioactive tracer injected into blood
measure blood flow

Front 30

Subtraction technique

Back 30

measuring brain activity before and during stimulation
difference between activation determines what areas are active during activity

Front 31

fMRI

Back 31

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
subtraction technique
measures blood through the magnetic properties of blood

Front 32

ERP

Back 32

Event related potential
measuring electrical activity
continuous and rapid
but not very precise

Front 33

specificity v. distributed coding

Back 33

specificity:
representation of a specific stimulus by firing special neurons that respond specifically to that stimulus
distributed:
representation by a pattern of firing across a number of neurons

Front 34

left and right brain control areas
per “Spheres of Influence”

Back 34

left brain interprets and does problem solving tasks
right brain experiences emotions and keeps a record of events (thought does little to interpret them)

Front 35

define perception

Back 35

process of recognizing, organizing, and interpreting sensory information
is based on past experiences and expectations
susceptible to corrupting (but handy!) influence of schemas

Front 36

What does the retina do?

Back 36

collects light!
rods do low light and black and white and peripheral vision
cones do color and bright light vision, and are responsibel for visual acuity

Front 37

rods do?

Back 37

black and white, low light, peripheral vision

Front 38

cones do?

Back 38

color vision, daylight, sharpness

Front 39

Depth cues

Back 39

ways to perceive 3d space in a 2d visual field
convergence and accommodatoin

Front 40

convergence

Back 40

the intersecting point where each eye focuses on an object
nearer objects require the eyes to turn inward more

Front 41

accommodation

Back 41

the lens changes shape to focus on objects depending on distance
flatter for distant objects
rounder for nearer objects

Front 42

binocular disparity

Back 42

our eyes see slightly different things, which gives us cues about the depth relationship between objects

Front 43

depth detectors

Back 43

neurons in the visual cortex which work on retinal disparity

Front 44

monocular depth cues

Back 44

texture gradients
relative size
interposition
linear perspective
aerial perspecive
motion parallax

Front 45

describe aerial perspectiv

Back 45

more-distant objects have less contrast and are less brightly-colored

Front 46

bottom-up processing

Back 46

we look at stimuli and build perceptions from them
by combining features into more complex forms
then recognizing the stimulus

Front 47

top down processing

Back 47

formulate a hypothesis about the stimulus
examine features to check the hypothesis
then recognize the stimulus
make inferences based on context and experiences

Front 48

perceptual segregation

Back 48

breaking down a visual scene to group the elements appropriately

Front 49

primitive features

Back 49

geons!
we perceive objects by perceiving elementary features
remember the partial pictures thing

Front 50

gestalt laws of perceptual organization

Back 50

law of good continuation
law of good figure
law of similarity
law of familiarity
law of proximity
law of common fate

Front 51

law of good continuation

Back 51

like the celtic pattern

Front 52

law of good figure

Back 52

we like simplicity and see complex objects in terms of “obvious” component pieces

Front 53

law of similarity

Back 53

we group similar objects in our minds

Front 54

law of familiarity

Back 54

we perceive things that are familiar shapes to us
paradolia

Front 55

law of proximity

Back 55

we tend to group things according to how close they are together
(arrange dots into rows or columns, for example)

Front 56

law of common fate

Back 56

we tend to group things that are moving in the same way or same direction

Front 57

Helmholz did whaaat?

Back 57

unconscious inference
perceptions are often the result of unconscious assumptions about the environment

Front 58

unconscious inference

Back 58

Helmholz
our perceptions are often the result of our unconscious assumptions about the environment

Front 59

Broadbent’s Filter Model

Back 59

early selection
message is filtered before being analyzed for meaning
but doesn’t explain how some things get through

Front 60

Treisman’s Attenuation Theory

Back 60

early selection
we filter info, but some signals are sent through “weakly”
some info has a low threshold
including things that make the most sense

Front 61

Dear Aunt Jane Experiment

Back 61

showed that people can follow information even when it’s presented in their unattended ear

Front 62

problems with early selection models

Back 62

effects of practice
implicit if not exact memory for unattended channel
familiar or important info seems to get through

Front 63

MacKay’s experiment

Back 63

late selection model
showed that info in the unattended ear could influence the interpretation in the attended ear
(they were standing near the bank)

Front 64

bottleneck theories

Back 64

all information goes through sensory processing
then is filtered for attention at either the perceptual or response levels
and only selected information gets through

Front 65

task load and selective attention?

Back 65

higher task load “uses up” attention resources for other tasks

Front 66

what factors affect divided attention?

Back 66

practice
difficulty of task
type of task
but: can get better with practice

Front 67

when is divided attention difficult?

Back 67

when tasks are similar
or difficult
or when both tasks require conscious attention

Front 68

capacity theories

Back 68

attention theories saying that there’s a certain amount of attentive capacity that we can use

Front 69

visual neglect

Back 69

attention disorder
prevents patient from registering info on one side of their field of vision