Cognitive Psych Exam 2

Be prepared to discuss the differences in brain regions involved in the components of WM (as well as the difference in damage among people with STM and LTM difficulties.

Executive control: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex STM damage is in the VSS & PL which are in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex LTM damage is typically ???

What is exogenous/input attention? What are some basic characteristics of input attention?

Exogeneous: alertness or arousal. Orienting reflex/response. Cannot be ignored because its automatic

What is agnosia? Does it differ from memory loss, language loss, or general cognitive decline? Explain.

Visual agnosia: deficit in object recognition. This is a disorder of visual perception, not memory loss, language, or general intellectual decline. The eyes are fine, but brain damages affects the perceptual regions of the brain. Specific in not being able to recognize objects.

Describe the template and feature detection approaches to pattern recognition (visual and auditory), the problems with each, and the role of context.

Visual template approach: stored models of all categorical patterns. difficulty handling variability of patterns. Problem? Extremely large number of templates required. Visual Feature detection: very simple pattern, a fragment or component can appear in combination with other features across stimulus patterns. Context effects? shows influence of environmental info and knowledge which sort of disproves the feature theory. We're actively using context to seek out patterns. Auditory template approach: problem of invariance. Sounds of speech vary. Auditory Feature detection: context matters just as much as when comes to visual perception.

Explain the basic differences (outlined in class) between what cognitive psychologists mean by working memory and short-term memory?

WM is umbrella term for all conscious process. Part of your conscious process includes the STM. Further, the WM emphasizes storage and processing (attentional control). The STM emphasizes storage and capacity & recall process

What is the typical capacity of short-term memory? How can this capacity be increased?

about 7 items -+ 2. This can be increased by utilizing chunking or recoding.

You should also be able to answer MC or short answer questions about reflection materials (and know what concepts that were discussed in the review article mean)

Actigraphy: watch that measure movements & heart rate and can detect how peaceful your sleep is. polysomonography: hook up to an EEG and measure brainwaves sleep architecture: stages of sleep/cycle of sleep

Attention can be defined in a couple different ways, explain these definitions.

Attention as a mental process: mental process of concentrating effort on a stimulus or a mental event. "Attend to..." Attention as a limited mental resource: limited mental energy or resource that powers the mental system. "Devoting our attention.."

Name and diagram the three components to Baddeley's (1974) working memory model. Describe how each component functions, and at least one study that supports the existence of the three components.

Central executive:initiates control and design processes and directs attention and mental resources. Coordinates info with sub-systems & LTM. They proposed the CE is a purely attentional system. Phonological loop: maintains speech based info. Baddies (1992): under taxing conditions the phonological store serves as a backup system for comprehension. Visual spatial sketch pad: maintains spatial and visual info. Stores info about visual form and color.

Describe the differences in perceptual processing through the ventral and dorsal streams.

Dorsal: visual perception for actions. IT happens quickly. the "where" stream (gives spatial info) Ventral: visual interpretation that happens slowly. The "what" stream (gives info about the object itself like its shape and color)

Describe change blindness, and why it may occur.

Failure to notice(most times obvious) changes in visual stimuli. The subject fails to notice difference between 2 scenes. Changes occur during a saccade (eye movements)

Describe the three different types of agnosia mentioned in class, the differences between people with these types of agnosia, and the brain regions involved. Be prepared to answer questions related to the quiz supplement as well.

Form/apperceptive Agnosia: difficulty perceiving patterns, discriminating between shapes, seeing image as a whole. Happens when there's damage throughout the occipital lobes. integrative/associative agnosia: Doesn't perceive form of the object. Damage is in connections between occipital and temporal lobes. Inability to associate patterns and meaning (bilateral occipital- temporal border damage). Thus, they can copy an object but they can't tell you what an object is. They can't link recognition of what an object should be/what we should use it for. Problem is in perceiving meaning. Prosopagnosia: cannot recognize faces. Unconscious recognition. Occipital-temporal border on right side of the brain is damaged. They cannot even distinguish between objects in classes according to some.

Be familiar with the method and conclusions of the following studies if discussed in class: Warren & Warren (1970), and Hubel & Weisel (1962).

Hubel & Weisel: found evidence for visual feature detection, but this theory doesn't tell the whole story either because of context effects. Warren and Warren: subject didnt detect missing sound, interpreted word based on context of sentence. This is the phoneme restoration effect. (auditory feature detection)

What is ADHD (what are the two types)? Is it most likely representing an 'attention deficit?' Describe a study that suggested otherwise. Is it a sleep disorder? Why might people think it is?

Hyperactivity-impulsivity disorder and inattention. It represents an attention deficit but a study by Sandra Kooij reflects that it may be a sleep disorder because... People with ADHD typically deal with disturbance in their circadian rhythm. People with ADHD have melatonin levels that rise later in the night. But is insomnia a reflection of medicines not ADHD?

Do we need to be alert and aroused to process information? Describe one study that demonstrates that we might not.

No, we can process low level without being consciously aware according to Bombakker's study which found that people processed words implicitly and could complete the words they hear while under general anesthesia when just given the word stem.

Be prepared to describe the methods of examining a person's working memory, and why they are testing working memory, not just STM.

O-span task: sentence span task, utilizes both math and word problems. It requires simultaneous mental processing and storage of info in the WM. Testing it because they want to see individual differences and see how people use attention to maintain or suppress info

Describe several areas in which people with LWM span perform differently than those with HWM (or be prepared to discuss an area provided). Explain why these differences exist between LWM and HWM people.

People with high working memory tend to perform better on span tasks and it correlates positively with aptitude and achievement tests, following directions, note taking, math ability, etc. These differences exist because people with HWM are Abe to use attention to avoid distraction and are thus better able to filter out unneeded info.

What is the typical explanation given for the primacy effect? The recency effect? Describe a study that demonstrated what happens to each when a distractor task is placed between list presentation and recall.

Primacy effect: slight advantage for words presented first Latency effect: advantage for words presented last. Glazer & Cunitz (1966) found That when they manipulated distractor time after list the primacy and recently effect could be seen.

What is the Brown-Peterson task? What does it demonstrate about short-term memory? What conclusions did Peterson & Peterson make about why STM performance declines as a result of the Brown-Peterson task? Describe a study that demonstrated problems with the Petersons' explanation of this STM decline.

Recall 3 letters, the count backwards by 3. This is a distractor task and they believed the STM performance declines because of decay. Waugh and Norman believed interference was to blame because they did not find any difference in function of time (whether the list of numbers were read slow or fast). If it was decay, we would expect more decay/forgetting when the list is presented slower but we didn't see any differences. Therefore, this supports the interference theory of forgetting.

What are the conditions required for recoding information?

Recode or transform info to another code (add meaning). Grouping items together based off past knowledge. Conditions for it? Sufficient time/mental resources. Well learned scheme or strategy.

Describe the difference between the two types of interference outlined in class. Provide an example of each one at work in your life.

Retroactive: new info interferes with old info Proactive: old info interferes with new info

What formula did Engle postulate to describe working memory? Explain.

STM + controlled attention

Make sure you could answer basic questions about what synesthesia or blindsight are (or more detailed questions about these topics as m/c questions).

Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses (Can "taste" colors is an example) Blindsight: able to see but unaware they've seen it

Describe the Stroop task. What did it demonstrate about automaticity? Can practice lead to automaticity?

The Stroop phenomenon demonstrates that it is difficult to name the ink color of a color word if there is a mismatch between ink color and word. For example, the word GREEN printed in red ink this shows that seeing a written word activates a response automatically. Therefore, the practice of reading can lead to automaticity

Describe the dichotic listening task. What does it mean to shadow a message? Describe the Cherry studies and the results that were found. What did this demonstrate about our attentional system? What did this suggest about when selection occurs?

The dual task procedure (dichotic listening task) is used to examine selective attention. The task plays something in both ears (different messages in each ear though) but you're supposed to only pay attention to the sound in one specific ear. You then engage in the shadowing task which is where you repeat message aloud while listening to the message without delay. The Cherry studies involved shadowing task and ignore the unattended messages. The results showed that the attended messages were shadowed but for the unattended messages the participants had limited memory. suggested a early bottleneck/early selection of sensory input. Further, suggests selection occurs at earliest phases of perception.

Describe the dual-task procedure. Discuss a study that addressed how capable we are of dividing our attention between two different tasks. What do neuroimaging data suggest about what is happening in the brain when we split our attention between visual and auditory tasks?

The dual-task procedure involves giving 2 tasks presented simultaneously to investigate the attentional demands ????

What is endogenous/controlled attention?

deliberately, voluntary allocation of mental effort or concentration.Preparation of response in a way to environment (selective attention). Serial processing. Conceptually driven.

What is hemineglect? When does it typically happen? Isi t rare? Which side is normally affected? Is it purely a visual problem? Explain.

disruption or decreased ability to look at something in a field of vision.. So they're unable to direct attention voluntarily to one side of space. It typically and common for it to happen to those who have strokes (those with damage in the right hemisphere neglect things on left side and this usually doesnt go away and is long term, but those who are left hemisphere hemineglect may get better). It is not a visual problem but a disruption of the processes of shifting attention. It is an inability to disengage attention from a stimulus on the non-neglected side.

Two types of recall tasks were discussed, explain them both, and some differences you might expect to find in performance using each.

free recall: recall items in any order (grocery list) serial recall: recall items in exact order of presentation ( phone number)

What is the difference between implicit and explicit processing?

implicit: conscious awareness not necessary to process info. Explicit: memory you can consciously recall so it requires conscious awareness.

Describe several factors that determine when LBFS accidents seem to occur.

inattentional blindness. The failure to detect an unexpected stimulus in full display because attention is directed elsewhere. Conspicuity (sensory and attention) -add things from textbook-

What is a PRP? Describe one study that demonstrated this effect.

psychological refractory period. This is the time delay between the response to 2 overlapping signals that reflects the time required for the first response to be organized before the response to the second signal can be organized. A study that demonstrates this is Peterson brown???????

What is a saccade? How long does it last? How well do we see during a saccade? What is a fixation? What are some basic differences in how we process information during each?

saccade: rapid eye movements, lasts between 25 to 100 mil. secs. Processes almost no visual info at this point. Suppression of normal vision process. Fixation: pauses between saccades. Visual info is processed during fixations.

What is the difference between selective and divided attention?

selective attention: ability to attend to 1 source of info while ignoring other sources of info. So being able to filter (which is the mental process of eliminating unwanted messages or distractions) Divided attention: divide attentional processes equally/don't focus on one source of info. Requires attention devoted to 2+ stimuli simultaneously.

What did Moray's and Treisman's studies demonstrate that was problematic for this selection theory, and why?

utilized the dichotic listening task and found that when they inserted a participants name in the unattended message, they were able to switch their attention and get more info. This suggested that the early selection model that the Cherry studies identified may be incorrect.