Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
42 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
cognitive psychology |
-studies how people acquire information about their environment, how they store that info, and how they use that info -naturalistic: fit things in the real world -empirical: use scientific methods |
|
|
bottom-up processing |
-determined by environmental stimuli, not individual's knowledge or expectations -very rare -ex: infants |
|
|
top-down processing |
-determined by expectations, memory, and knowledge; not directly by stimulus -using our existing knowledge -very limited -ex: reading -majority of situations we use both top down and bottom up |
|
|
introspection |
-careful examination & description of one's own inner mental thoughts and states |
|
|
"about how fast were the cars going when they bumped/smashed into each other?" (Loftus, 1985) |
-participants were not able to say why they gave the speed estimates that they did |
|
|
behaviorism |
-focus on observable behavior -classical & operant conditioning in learning -rigorous, experimental approach |
|
|
Tolman's rats |
-when changes were made to internal maze, but food was in same place, they weren't thrown off and still went the same way -they had the ability to know where in general they needed to go (mental representation) |
|
|
approaches in contemporary cognitive psychology (4) |
-experimental cognitive psychology -cognitive neuropsychology -cognitive neuroscience -computational cognitive science |
|
|
experimental cognitive psychology |
-experiments on healthy individuals under carefully controlled lab conditions -designed to gain insight into internal cognitive processes
|
|
|
cognitive neuropsychology |
-study of patients with brain lesions in order to understand how the healthy brain works -we can see functions of specific parts -no single part of brain can be isolated (can't be sure it didn't affect other regions) -ex: Phineas Gage |
|
|
Phineas Gage |
-American railroad construction worker who survived rock blasting accident -large rod was driven through his dead, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe -normal intelligence, memory, speech, sensation, movement; social behavior changed completely -changes in behavior led to discoveries on importance of VMPC |
|
|
patients with lesions in VMPC (ventro-medial prefrontal cortex) |
-have normal intelligence but: -severe impairments in judgment & decision-making (ex: bankrupts, violating norms & laws, loss of relationships) -abnormalities in emotion |
|
|
cognitive neuroscience |
-observation of healthy brain activity during performance of cognitive tasks -increased activation in a brain area during a task MAY indicate that its important to the performance of such tasks -brain imaging: track where blood is flowing -blood consumption is symptom of brain activity -EEG, TMS, fMRI, PET, and more |
|
|
EEG |
-recording of electrical activity along the scalp
|
|
|
PET |
-based on tracking positrons emitted by a radioactive substance |
|
|
fMRI |
-based on tracking the magnetic resonance from hydrogen particles that are carried by the blood to different brain regions |
|
|
perception |
-the acquisition & processing of sensory information in order to see, hear, taste, or feel objects in the world -guides our actions with respect to those objects -system organizes stimuli into meaningful objects -depends on: physical properties of stimulus, experience, prior knowledge, & context |
|
|
perceptual constancies |
-we are able to recognize objects in our natural world very accurately, even though they are hardly ever presented to us in the exact same way -what changes? angle, distance, background/surroundings, lighting |
|
|
moon illusion |
-moon looks larger when it's close to the horizon than when it's near the zenith -why? we can compare it to the ground when it's against the horizon |
|
|
size vs. distance |
-higher in the visual field means farther away -two dimensional stimuli are converted to three dimensional -if higher (=farther away) and still looks big, then it's probably big |
|
|
COG lab: visual search |
-normally, the reaction time will increase with the number of distractors -reaction time is longer for "absent" than "present" responses -reaction time increases with the number of distractors only in conjunction search (not feature search) |
|
|
feature vs. conjunction search |
-feature: only limit search to color; pop out effect; rapid response; # of distractors does not matter -conjunction: conjunction of shape and color; attention is required; reaction is slower; # of distractors matter |
|
|
pattern recognitions |
-pattern: set of specific features or attributes -an object that has all the attributes of a pattern will be identified as an instance of the pattern |
|
|
3 types of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) |
-simple cell -complex cells -hypercomplex cells |
|
|
simple cell |
-responds strongly to specific stimuli (straight bar, angle, edge, etc,) in a particular orientation in a particular location |
|
|
complex cells |
-respond to similar contours in larger receptive fields -some of them respond mostly to movement direction rather than location |
|
|
hypercomplex cells |
-like complex cells, but respond specifically to a stimuli's length and orientation |
|
|
single cell recording |
-recording of activation in a single VI neuron (# of action potentials) by the image projected on its receptive field -there is a peak response for one particular orientation, which becomes weaker for other orientations |
|
|
attention |
-allocation of processing resources -behavioral & cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment, while ignoring other things |
|
|
cocktail party problem/effect |
-focusing on one conversation, rather than surrounding voices -we attend to one line of conversation by using physical characteristics -shows that unattended information receives some processing |
|
|
bottleneck |
-point at which stimuli becomes important or loses its importance |
|
|
Broadbent's model |
-filter model -unattended message is completely blocked at selective filter stage -only info that fits physical cues are then sent to a higher level of processing |
|
|
Treisman's model |
-attenuation model -unattended messages are not entirely blocked -more flexible & probabilistic model -whether or not attenuated info gets process and to what degree depends on its threshold and context -physical properties aren't as definitive -received support |
|
|
Deutsch & Deutsch model |
-"late selection" model -everything gets processed in higher level analysis -what to focus on only comes after this stage -selection is done just before action |
|
|
2 mistakes in visual search |
-miss (fail to find it) -false alarm (say it's there, when it's not) |
|
|
target specialization |
-target identification improves when searching only for one type of target |
|
|
automaticity |
-the performance of tasks without any conscious attention, effort, or control -enables us to allocate attention resources to other tasks at the same time |
|
|
stroop effect |
-much easier for us to read word than identify the color of the font -reading is an automatized action -stroop task requires controlled, rather than automatic, performance -reaction time is longer when the font is incongruent to the word |
|
|
stroop effect in bilinguals |
-no significant difference between English monolinguals, Spanish monolinguals, and Spanish-English bilinguals in reaction time or number of errors -effect itself is robust and not language-dependent -if unbalanced, the best-spoken language shows better results in the stroop tasks (make less errors and faster reaction times when you speak the language better) -the better you are at reading, the better you are at suppressing it; you are better at suppressing reading in languages you are proficient in |
|
|
multitasking |
-attention resources are limited -automatic tasks can be performed simultaneously fairly well -when tasks require same resources/system or if they're both controlled, the tasks are impaired -one controlled task + one (or few) automatic tasks --> fairly easy |
|
|
dynamic decision making |
-prioritization of tasks based on the task, the performer, and the situation |
|
|
COG lab: stern berg search |
-Yes and No answers--> reaction time increases with the number of items -search is serial -there's no difference int exaction time between Yes and No answers -search is not self-terminating (once item is found, we act as if we finish reading the rest of the items) -search is always exhaustive |
