Cognitive Psychology Ch. 4 and 5

Working memory differs from STM

-STM holds information for a brief period of time -WM is concerned with the processing and manipulation of information that occurs during complex cognition

Late selection models

-Selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after information has been analyzed for meaning

Strayer and Johnston (2001)

-Simulated driving task -Participants on cell phone missed twice as many red lights and took longer to apply the brakes •Same result using "hands-free" cell phone

Short-Term Memory

-Stores small amounts of information for a brief duration -Includes both new information received from the sensory stores and information recalled from long-term memory

Binding

-The process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object

Ericsson et al. (1980)

-Trained a college student with average memory ability to use chunking (S.F. had an initial digit span of 7) -After 230 one-hour training sessions, S.F. could remember up to 79 digits by chunking them into meaningful units

Alvarez and Cavanaugh (2004)

-Used colored squares as well as complex objects -Discovered that the more complex an item was, the fewer examples could be kept in memory

Ability to focus on one message and ignore all others

-We do not attend to a large portion of the information in the environment -We filter out some information and promote other information for further processing

Treisman's Attenuation theory

-attended message can be separated from unattended message early in the information processing system -Selection can also occur later

Stroop effect

-name of the word interferes with the ability to name the ink color -Cannot avoid paying attention to the meanings of the words ex:the word blue is written is red letters

Covert attention

-precueing- directing attention without moving the eyes -participants respond faster to stimulus at an expected location then at an unexpected location -even when eyes are kept fixed

Detector

-processes all information to determine higher level characteristics of the message

Working memory

Similar concept to short-term memory •Baddeley and Hitch (1974) •Working memory: limited capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning -WM is set up to process different types of information simultaneously •WM has trouble when similar types of information are presented at the same time -e.g., verbal/language, visual/spatial, etc.

Attention

The ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations in our environment

Visuospatial Sketch Pad Visual imagery is

The creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus -Shepard and Metzler (1971) -Mental rotation task -Tasks that called for greater rotations took longer

Sensory Memory

The retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation. -Information decays very quickly

Results of Dichotic Listening

The unattended ear does get processed at same level -Cocktail party effect -Change in gender is noticed -Change to a tone is noticed

Modal Model of Memory •Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Three different types of memory: 1.Sensory Memory - Initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second 2.Short-term Memory - Holds five to seven items for about 15 to 20 seconds. 3.Long-term Memory - Can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades

Overt attention

Top down determinants of eye movements

Attention Processing Distributed Across the Cortex

Using fMRI to detect cortical activity during a search task •Attention to an expected direction of motion caused brain activity to increase in a number of brain areas.

In the filter model of attention the stages of information processing occur in which order?

sensory store, filter, detector, short term memory

Processing capacity

- how much information a person can handle at any given moment

Perceptual load

- the difficulty of a given task -High-load (difficult) tasks use higher amounts of processing capacity -Low-load (easy) tasks use lower amounts of processing capacity

Mindreading & Test Prep Neural mind reading is

- the use of a neural response to determine what a person is perceiving or thinking -Participants view patterns on a screen -The computer is given a "decoder" based on the first trial -The decoder is used to identify the thought/perception -Accuracy of 75-100% for a binary task One issue that can arise during test-taking is a lack of working memory •WM resources might be used up by anxiety (i.e., worrisome thoughts) •Researchers found that writing about one's feelings about a test, even when under high pressure, decreased errors on the test

Short-term memory

-Receives output of detector -Holds information for 10-15 seconds and may transfer it to long-term memory

Measuring the capacity and duration of sensory memory (Sperling, 1960)

-Array of letters flashed quickly on a screen -Participants asked to report as many as possible

Focused attention stage

-Attention plays key role -Features are combined

Preattentive stage

-Automatic -No effort or attention -Unaware of process -Object analyzed into features

Dictionary unit

-Contains words, each of which have thresholds for being activated

Capacity of short-term memory •Duration of short-term memory

-Digit span: how many digits a person can remember •Typical result: 5-9 items -When rehearsal is prevented, is about 15-20 seconds

Measuring the duration of short-term memory

-Read three letters, then a number -Begin counting backwards by threes -After a set time, recall three letters

Schneider and Shiffrin (1977)

-Divide attention between remembering target and monitoring rapidly presented stimuli •Memory set: 1-4 target characters •Test frames: could contain random dot patterns, a target, distractors

McKay (1973)

-In attending ear, participants heard ambiguous sentences •"They were throwing stones at the bank." -In unattended ear, participants heard either •"river" •"money"

Articulatory suppression

-Prevents one from rehearsing items to be remembered •Reduces memory span •Eliminates word-length effect •Reduces phonological similarity effect for reading words

sensory memory

Holds large amount of information for a short period of time -Collects information -Holds information for initial processing -"Fills in the blank"

Have you ever tried to think of the words and hum the melody of one song while the radio is playing a different song? People have often noted that this is very difficult to do. This difficulty can be understood as A:articulatory suppression. B:an overload of sensory memory. C:an LTM recency effect. D:rehearsal interference.

A:articulatory suppression.

Selective Attention

Ability to focus on one message and ignore all others

Attenuator

Analyzes incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning

The Central Executive

Attention controller -Focus, divide, switch attention •Controls suppression of irrelevant information •If the central executive is damaged: - Perseveration: repeatedly performing the same action or thought even if it is not achieving the desired goal

Compared to the whole-report technique, the partial-report procedure involves A:a shorter rehearsal period. B:a smaller response set. C:a smaller stimulus set. D:a smaller stimulus set and a smaller response set.

B:a smaller response set.

The word-length effect reveals that A:longer words are typically more distinctive and easier to retrieve from LTM than shorter words. B:the phonological loop of the working memory model has a limited capacity. C:STM digit span remains constant across native speakers of different languages. D:working memory's central executive processes verbal information differently than visual/image information.

B:the phonological loop of the working memory model has a limited capacity.

Echoic memory

Brief sensory memory of the things that we hear -Responsible for persistence of sound

Iconic memory

Brief sensory memory of the things that we see -Responsible for persistence of vision

If Pat Mahomes, a professional football player, wanted to remember his 16-digit credit card number, which of the following memory techniques would you recommend? A:He should picture each of the numbers in his head printed in a bright color. b:He should visualize the front of his credit card showing a picture of him dribbling a basketball. C:He should think of the numbers as a sequence of football statistics. D:He should first memorize a few other sequences of 16 digits to gain some practice.

C:He should think of the numbers as a sequence of football statistics.

Peterson and Peterson studied how well participants can remember groups of three letters (like BRT, QSD) after various delays. They found that participants remembered an average of 80 percent of the groups after 3 seconds but only 10 percent after 18 seconds. They hypothesized that this decrease in performance was due to _____, but later research showed that it was actually due to _____. A:priming; interference B:decay; lack of rehearsal C:decay; interference D:interference; decay

C:decay; interference

Research on monkeys has shown that the part of the brain most closely associated with working memory is the A: occipital cortex. B: hippocampus. C:prefrontal cortex. D:amygdala.

C:prefrontal cortex.

A person with a reduced digit span would most likely have a problem with ________ memory. A:sensory B:autobiographical C:short-term D:long-term

C:short-term

Which of the following scenarios is most likely to support the early selection approach to attention and performance?

Conversing on the phone while doing a crossword puzzle

Models designed to explain mental functioning are constantly refined and modified to explain new results. Which of the following exemplifies this concept based on the results presented in your text? A:Replacing the STM component of the modal model with iconic memory B:Replacing the sensory memory component of the modal model with the episodic buffer C:Replacing the STM component of the modal model with working memory D:Replacing the sensory memory component of the modal model with working memory

D:Replacing the sensory memory component of the modal model with working memory

According to the model of working memory, which of the following mental tasks should LEAST adversely affect people's driving performance while operating a car along an unfamiliar, winding road? A:Trying to imagine how many cabinets are in their kitchen B:Trying to remember a map of the area C:Trying to imagine a portrait from a recent museum exhibit D:Trying to remember the definition of a word they just learned

D:Trying to remember the definition of a word they just learned

Suppose you (a student) are asked by a teacher to learn a poem you will recite in front of your class. Soon after, both you and a classmate, J.P., are asked by another teacher to learn the lyrics to an unfamiliar song. When you and J.P. are later asked to remember the song lyrics, you have a much more difficult time recalling them than J.P. does. This impairment of your performance is most likely attributable to A:a release from proactive interference. B:a recency effect. C:your overloading the phonological loop. D:proactive interference.

D:proactive interference.

WM and the Brain: Individual Differences •Vogel et al. (2005)

Determined participants' WM -High-capacity WM group -Low-capacity WM group •Shown either simple or complex stimuli •Measured ERP responses

Broadbent's filter model

Early-selection model -Filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning •Sensory memory •Filter -Identifies attended message based on physical characteristics -Only attended message is passed on to the next stage •Detector -Processes all information to determine higher- level characteristics of the message •Short-term memory -Receives output of detector -Holds information for 10-15 seconds and may transfer it to long-term memory

Eyes movements are determined by task

Eyes movements preceded motor actions by a fraction of a second

Filter

Identifies attended message based on physical characteristics

Feature Integration Theory (FIT) • Treisman and Schmidt (1982)

If told to focus on numbers: -Participants report combination of features from different stimuli -Illusory conjunctions occur because features are "free floating" If told to focus on objects : -Participants can correctly pair shapes and colors

Phonological Loop

Phonological similarity effect -Letters or words that sound similar are confused •Word-length effect -Memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words The cause? It takes longer to rehearse long words and to produce them during recall

Inattentional blindness

a stimulus that is not attended is not perceived, even though a person might be looking directly at it

Control processes is a

active processes that can be controlled by the person -Rehearsal -Strategies used to make a stimulus more memorable -Strategies of attention that help you focus on specific stimuli

MacKay showed that a biasing word on the unattended ear influenced processing of __________ when people were __________ of that word.

ambiguous sentences, unaware

Stimulus salience

areas that stand out and capture attention -Bottom-up process -Depends on characteristics of the stimulus -Color and motion are highly salient

Early selection model

filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning

Change blindness

if shown two versions of a picture, differences between them are not immediately apparent -Task to identify differences requires concentrated attention and search

Model of Memory

input- sensory memory-output input- sensory memory-short term memory-long term memory- short term-output

Scene schema is

knowledge about what is contained in a typical scene

Scene schema

knowledge about what is contained in typical scenes -Help guide fixations from one area of a scene to another

The Stroop effect demonstrates peoples inability to ignore the ________ of words.

meaning

Proactive interference

occurs when information learned previously interferes with learning new information -Example: Your native language may make it more difficult to learn and remember a new foreign language

Retroactive interference

occurs when new learning interferes with remembering old learning -Example: After you get a new telephone number and use it for a while, you may have difficulty remembering your old phone number

Automatic processing

occurs without intention and only uses some of a person's cognitive resources unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings

Dichotic Listening:One message is presented to the left ear and another to the right ear

participant shadows one message to ensure he/she is attending to that message

Whole report method

participants asked to report as many as could be seen -Average of 4.5 out of 12 letters (37.5%)

Partial report method

participants heard tone that told them which row of letters to report -Average of 3.3 out of 4 letters (82%)

Divided Attention

paying attention to more than one thing at a time

According to Treisman's feature integration theory, the first stage of perception is called the _________ stage.

preattentive

Delayed partial report method:

presentation of tone delayed for a fraction of a second after the letters were extinguished -Performance decreases rapidly

Memory

processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present -Active any time some past experience has an impact on how you think or behave now or in the future

- Perseveration

repeatedly performing the same action or thought even if it is not achieving the desired goal

Persistence of vision

retention of the perception of light -Sparkler's trail of light -Frames in film (debatable)

The notion that faster responding occurs when enhancement spreads within an object is called

same-object advantage

Chunking

small units can be combined into larger meaningful units -Chunk is a collection of elements strongly associated with one another but weakly associated with elements in other chunks -Examples include: phone numbers, SSN, DL#, StudentID, etc.

The experiment involving stimulated driving and the use of "hands-free" vs. "handheld" cell phones found that

talking on either kind of phone impairs driving performance significantly

Broadbent's model is called an early selection model because

the filter eliminates unattended information right at the beginning

Studies investigating attention as we carry out actions such as making a sandwich shows that a persons eye movements

were determined primarily by the task

Episodic Buffer

•A "Backup store" that communicates with LTM and WM components •Hold information longer and has greater capacity than phonological loop or visuospatial sketch pad

Physiology of Attention What does attention look like in the brain?

•Attention enhances neural responding (i.e., faster communication) •Attentional processing is distributed across a large number of areas in the brain

Divided Attention: Overt Attention

•Eye movements, attention, and perception -Saccades: rapid movements of the eyes from one place to another -Fixations: short pauses on points of interest -Studied using an eye tracker

Feature Integration Theory (FIT)

•Mostly bottom-up processing •Top-down processing influences processing when participants are told what they would see (see Figure 4.33) -Top-down processing combines with feature analysis to help one perceive things accurately

How can we "test" FIT?

•R.M.: Patient with Balint's syndrome -Inability to focus attention on individual objects -High number of illusory conjunctions reported