Cognition Psych 213 Intro,cognitive Neuroscience (Chapters 1,2)

Front 1

folk psychology; rationalism vs empiricism

Back 1

a set of assumptions and theories based on everyday behaviours (common-sense); rationalism= we can understand everything just by thinking about it and empiricism= observational

Front 2

cognition is...

Back 2

a faculty/ action of knowing, has to do with awareness, intelligence, intuition, personal acquaintance, recognition, skill, understanding

Front 3

Information- processing theory, what are the two subtypes?; information theory

Back 3

-all forms of communication can be broken down into a sequence of events with at least 3 major stages: communication, channel (this is what the model interested in), receiver.
- information reduces uncertainty in mind of receiver
- subtypes: perceptual cycle, filter model
- info theory is that the information provided by a particular event is inversely related to its probability of occurrence

Front 4

BIT

Back 4

binary digit- an event that occurs in a situation with two equally likely outcomes provides one bit of information. -The number of bits corresponds to the number of questions you would ask to get the right answer
-every time the number of equally likely scenarios doubles, the number of bits goes up by one

Front 5

what does info processing theory say about response time? (3)

Back 5

-that the more information a signal contributed the more time it takes a subject to produce the correct response.
-this is why people take longer to respond to an improbable stimulus (which contains more information than a probable one)
- this holds true whether signal information's varied by altering the number of probable alternatives, changing stimulus frequency or by introducing sequential dependencies.

Front 6

how do we handle two simultaneous information signals?

Back 6

-if we are completing a task which has a great number of possible signals, the other task will suffer, unless it is a smaller/more familiar task

Front 7

overloading a persons capacity to process info is dealt with how?

Back 7

- overloading a persons capacity to process info is dealt with by selecting only some of the available signal information to use

Front 8

Filter model (3)

Back 8

-filter model is based on the idea that processing is restricted by channel capacity, or the maximum amount of info that can be transmitted
- the filter operates by selecting messages that share some common physical characteristics like coming from the same place, and passes these on to the limited capacity processing system (selective attention)- other messages not sent on are left in parallel in the filter where they are subject to decay with the passage of time

Front 9

Waugh and Normans model of info processing

Back 9

stimulus---> primary memory--->rehearsal---> secondary memory
or
stimulus--->primary memory--->forgotten

primary memory is immediate present moment, secondary is the past

Front 10

brown- Peterson task. what did it tell us about recall?

Back 10

an experiment paradigm in which subjects are given a set of items and then a number. subjects immediately count backwards by threes from the number, and after a period of time are asked to recall the items

- they found that before 20 seconds we have good recall and after 30 seconds we see a decay
- at 18 seconds people start to lose content of STM if there is interference so it happens more rapidly

Front 11

Ecological approach; affordances

Back 11

a form of psychological inquiry that reflects conditions in the real world. the meaning of objects can be perceived by affordances, the potential uses of the stimuli in the real world

Front 12

info pickup

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the process whereby we perceive info directly from environment (ecological approach)

Front 13

Perceptual cycle

Back 13

the process by which our schema is not only guides our exploration of the world but also shapes what it finds there

Front 14

Cognitive ethology

Back 14

a new research that links real-world observations with lab-based investigations

Front 15

Metacognition

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the knowledge people have about the way cognitive processes work- how accurately you can assess your own cognitive processes

Front 16

localization of function

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the attempt to discover correspondences between specific cognitive functions an specific parts of the brain based in the assumption that there is a strict one to one correspondence between specific functions and specific parts of brain.

Front 17

law of mass action; law of equipotentiality

Back 17

learning and memory depend on the total mass of the brain remaining rather than than the properties of individual brain cells; even though some areas of the cortex may become specialized for certain tasks, within limits ant part of any area can do the job of another part of that area

Front 18

interactionism (3)

Back 18

- Descartes: mind and body are separate but they interact- dualism
- not prevalent in modern science
- split brain studies show that consciousness is an emergent property of brain (not reducible to or predictable from other features of brain)

Front 19

Epiphenomenalism (3)

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- mind is a byproduct of bodily functioning/brain
- mental states are caused by physical states
- mental states do not influence physical states

Front 20

Paralellism

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- mind and brain are two aspects of the same reality- one-to-one correspondence

Front 21

Isomorphism

Back 21

- cognitions and the brain share the same pattern rather than point-to-point correspondence
- Gestalt- flipping cube
- mental events and neural events share the same structure

Front 22

what are the four ways to think of the mind-body problem?

Back 22

epiphenomenalism, parallelism, isomorphism, interactionism

Front 23

Brocas vs wernikes

Back 23

cans produce vs can't understand

Front 24

interhemispheric transfer; split brain

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communication between the brains hemispheres - enabled by corpus callosum; condition created by severing corpus callosum

Front 25

emergent causation; supervenient

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once the mind emerges from the brain, it then has the power to influence lower level processes ; mental states nay influence neuronal events while being influences by them

Front 26

connectionism

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the theory that cognitive processes are regulated by complex systems consisting of a large number of interconnected elements. Two basic ideas are that: information can be broken down into elementary units and that there are connections between these that differ in strengths. the rural network learns by modifying the strength of connections

Front 27

Hebb rule

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a connection between two neurons takes place only if both are firing at the same time

Front 28

paralell vs serial processing

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many neural connections can be active at same time vs only one activity may take place at any time

Front 29

high level vs low-level processing

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low- senses high- decision making, behaviour, visuospatial memory

Front 30

what is structuralism vs functionalism? associationism ?

Back 30

structuralism is that we can understand the configuration of the elements of the mind by studying the components of percepts and it used introspection as a primary method.
Functionalism is that we should study processes, how the mind works and they used the idea that whatever is the most useful approach should be used (pragmatism)
-Assiciationism is the combination of the two- it is how events become associated with one another to rest in learning. Thorndike and Ebbinghaus.
Law of effect- a stimulus will produce a response if organism is rewarded

Front 31

behaviouralism vs cognitive psychology. What cant pure behaviourists explain?

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-Behaviorism is the focus on the study between stimulus and response. this is where we see a switch to animal research. says brain is passive
-Cognitive psych accepts existence of internal mental states, accepts the scientific method of inquiry, rejects introspection as its main method
Pure behaviourists cant explain- vicarious learning, language acquisition in children, whole being greater than sum of parts

Front 32

five methods of cognitive neuropsci

Back 32

neuroanatomy (postmortem);
Neurophysiology (invivo, invasive, measuring and manipulating neurons using electrodes- stimulate, record, micro, macro);
Lesions (neuropsychology- can have single vs double dissociations);
Functional Neuroimaging (Comperterixed Axial Tomography CAT, PET, MRI)
Behavioural Methods

Front 33

types of lesion studies(4)

Back 33

- animal irriversible technique: stereotactic surgery (atlas guided), aspiration with vacuum, neurochemical (selectively destroy), electrolytic (current), sham lesions (control)
-animal reversible: chemical or cooling of tissue.
- Human irreversible: brain injury from vascular disorders, degenerative disorders, tumours, head trauma
- Human reversible- TMS!

Front 34

Who did phrenology? mass action and equipotentiality? parallelism? isomorphism?

Back 34

frans Joseph Gail and Spruzhem; Karl Lashley; Fetchner; Gestalt