Cognitive Psychology Exam 2

What are the features of a "cognitive budget"? What effects demonstrate finite task-specific resources? How about task-general resources?

A cognitive budget refers to the limited capacity of the brain to allocate attentional resources across multiple tasks or stimuli. Finite task-specific resources are demonstrated by performance decrements or interference when two tasks compete for the same processing resources, while task-general resources refer to the ability to allocate attention flexibly across different tasks. The effects of limited resources can be seen in phenomena such as attentional blink, dual-task interference, and selective attention deficits in clinical populations.

What is Feature Integration Theory?

A cognitive psychological theory that seeks to explain how the brain integrates individual features of stimuli to form coherent perceptual experiences. According to the theory, the brain first processes individual features of a stimulus, such as color, shape, etc. in separate modules. These features are then combined in a second stage of processing to create a more complex representation of the stimulus. Two Stages: Preatentive Stage (efficient, can take in many inputs at once) and Focused attention stage (more narrow, slower, sequential, uses expectation-based priming)

How does a feature net promote recovery from confusion?

A feature net helps us recover from confusion by looking at the features of words and comparing them to find the right one. Ex: Hearing the word "cat" but we think it sounds like "bat" so we think about the features and how what we heard had a "K" sound that means a furry animal rather than a "b" sound that talks about a flying animal. When the feature net compares the features of the two words, it will be able to tell that "cat" is the right word because it has more of features that match the sound and meaning we heard.

Describe a feature and give an example

A feature refers to a distinctive attribute or characteristic of a stimulus that can be used to differentiate it from other stimuli. Features can be visual, auditory, or other sensory attributes that are processed by the brain to create a mental representation of the world around us. Ex: In visual perception, a feature might be the color, shape, or orientation of an object

What is a feature net?

A model that explains how the brain processes information by breaking down stimuli (such as words or images) into their component features. These features are then compared to a set of stored representations of known stimuli to identify the stimulus that best matches the incoming information.

What is change blindness? What experiments demonstrate it?

A person fails to notice significant changes in a visual scene. People fail to detect changes in visual information when those changes are not accompanied by a salient cue or attention-grabbing event. An experiment would be

Describe the spotlight model of attention, including how it can be adjusted, and its relationship with eye movements. Describe also a scientific finding that cannot be explained by the spotlight model.

A spotlight that we shine on different things around us. Helps us pay attention to things that are important and ignore things that are not. We can adjust the size of the spotlight of our attention. We can make it bigger to pay attention to more things around us or smaller to focus on more things in particular. Our eye movements are connected to the spotlight of our attention. When we move our eyes, the spotlight of our attention moves with it. However, there are some things that the spotlight model of attention can't explain. For example, sometimes we can still pay attention to things even if they are not in our spotlight of attention. This is called "covert attention."

Describe a dichotic listening task and the basic results of dichotic listening experiments.

A type of experiment that researchers use to study how people process auditory information from multiple sources. Different sounds are placed in each ear. People tend to pay more attention to one ear than the other and they process the information in that ear more deeply. This is the "attended channel"." Information in the unattended channel is not processed as deeply and may not be remembered as well. People are often not aware of the information presented in the unattended channel, even if it is important or meaningful. This is known as inattentional deafness or inattentional blindness.

CQ: Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the McClelland-Rumelhart Model? Within layer activity Feedback activity Inhibitory connections Absence of a bigram layer Neuromodulatory connections

Absence of a bigram layer

What is agnosia? Define two types of agnosias

Agnosia is a neurological condition that impairs a persons ability to recognize and identify sensory stimuli, such as objects, faces, or sounds, even though the sensory information itself is intract Visual Agnosia: Affects a person's ability to recognize and identify visual stimuli such as objects, faces, or colors. In some cases, a person with visual agnosia may be able to see and describe features of an object or face, but they are unable to identify what it is. Auditory Agnosia: Affects a person's ability to recognize and identify sounds, such as spoken words and environmental noises. In some cases, a person with auditory agnosia may be able to hear sounds and describe their features but can't identify what the sound is

Which of the following systems is responsible for achieving and maintaining an alert state in the brain? orienting alerting executive vigilant

Alerting

Define the three control systems for attention.

Alerting Maintain alert state in the brain Orienting Disengage attention from one target -> shift attention to a new target -> engage attention on the new target Executive Controls voluntary actions, for example, impulse control, conscious focus, etc.

How does the McClelland and Rumelhart model differ from basic feature nets?

Also known as the interactive activation model, an extension of the basic feature net model. Main difference is that the McClelland model incorporates both bottom-up and top-down processing. Also has both excitatory and inhibitory connections (EX: two exclusive letters, once we known its one letter we can shut down the other letters). This essentially eliminates the need for a bigram layer.

What is automaticity? What experiments demonstrate it? What are the costs and benefits of it?

Automaticity refers to the ability to perform a task with little conscious effort or attention, often due to repeated practice or learning. Experiments such as Stroop task, flanker task, and the implicit association test demonstrate automaticity by showing how automatic processes can interfere with intentional control. The benefits of automaticity include freeing up cognitive resources for other tasks and increasing efficiency, while the costs may include inflexibility and susceptibility to interference.

What are some benefits and drawbacks of feature nets?

Benefits: They are efficient, and they allow recovery from confusion (can resolve ambiguous inputs) Cons: They can autocorrect you to the wrong answer and cause recognition errors

What are bigrams, and the evidence suggesting they are important?

Bigrams are pairs of words that are next to each other in a sentence or a piece of writing. For example, in the sentence "The cat sat on the mat" the bigrams are "The cat", "cat sat" etc. Bigrams can help us understand how words are used together in a sentence and what kind of words might come next.

Describe the differences between early and late selection models of attention (give examples of both)

Both explain how the human brain selectively processes sensory information Early selection models of attention propose that sensory information is filtered out at an early stage of processing before it reaches conscious awareness. This filter is based on physical characteristics such as the location, intensity, and frequency of the stimulus. Early selection models suggest that only the most relevant information is processed further, while irrelevant or distracting information is filtered out. Ex: Broadbent Filter Model Late selection models: propose that all incoming sensory information is processed to some extent before being selected for conscious awareness. Attentional selection occurs after the sensory information has been fully processed and is based on more complex factors such as the content and meaning of the stimulus. Ex: Duetsch and Duetrch

Which statement about visual attention is most accurate? Stimuli that are entirely unexpected are very likely to catch our attention. By pointing our eyes to an area, we automatically point our attention there. By priming our detectors, we make expected stimuli more likely to be noticed and remembered. Attention can be directed toward specific areas of space but not specific objects.

By priming our detectors, we make expected stimuli more likely to be noticed and remembered.

What is the biased competition theory?

Different sensory inputs compete for processing resources within the brain. Attentional selection biases this competition towards the most relevant input. This allows relevant information to be processed more efficiently and with higher priority, while irrelevant information is inhibited or suppressed.

Properties of feature net detectors

Each detector has an activation level With input, this activation level increases Detectors "fire" when their response threshold is reached Detectors are (probably) complex assemblies of neural tissue, not individual neurons or groups of neurons

What is executive control, what is its function, and what part of the brain is responsible?

Executive control refers to the cognitive processes that enable flexible, goal-directed behavior by regulating attention, working memory, and decision-making. Its function is to plan and execute complex actions and suppress habitual responses. The prefrontal cortex of the brain, particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is responsible for executive control.

Describe exogenous vs. endogenous attention and give examples of each.

Exogenous attention is driven by external stimuli in the environment and is often reflexive and automatic. It involves rapid, bottom-up processing or salient. For example, if a loud noise suddenly occurs in a quiet room, people shift their attention toward the source of the sound. Endogenous: voluntary movement of attention. Slower, more deliberate processing based on the individual's unique goals. An example would be searching for a specific object of their choosing in a crowded environment.

Is face perception learned or innate? How do we know?

Face perception is both learned and innate. Innate evidence is shown when newborn babies display a preferance for faces over non-face stimuli and can distinguish different facial expressions. However, some studies show that infants acn learn to recognize and prefer faces of individuals from their own ethnicity.

In what sense is face processing "special"? How do we know? Describe the inversion and composite effects, and what they tell us.

Face processing is considered special because humans appear to have a dedicated neural system for recognizing faces which is distinct from other object recognition mechanisms. The inversion effect refers to the difficulty people have in recognizing faces when they are presented upside down compared to right side up. This doesn't occur with other objects. This tells us that we process faces differently than we process objects and that face processing involves the integration of multiple facial features into a holistic representation.

What do infants tend to preferentially look at?

Faces and facial expressions.

CQ: A participant reads a list of words in which the word "platypus" appears several times. Later, the participant views another list of words, and needs to rapidly judge whether each stimulus is a real word or nonsense word. When the word "platypus" appears in the second list, the participant's response rate will be __________ than for other words not found on the previous list. This effect is called _________. faster; repetition priming slower; repetition priming faster; the word superiority effect slower; the word superiority effect

Faster, repetition priming

Explain feedback and feedforward. Use these terms to describe the relationship between primary visual cortex and the thalamus. Give an example.

Feedback and feedforward are two ways that information is processed and sent through the brain. Feedforward refers to the flow of information in a forward direction, from the input stage to the output stage. Feedback on the other hand refers to the flow of information in the backward direction, from the output stage back to earlier processing stages. In the case of the primary visual cortex and the thalamus, there is a feedforward and a feedback relationship. The thalamus receives information from the eyes and sends it to the primary visual cortex for processing. The primary visual cortex then sends information back to the thalamus for further processing and interpretation. Ex: Imagine you're looking at a picture of a cat. The light from the iamge enters your eyes and is sent to the thalamus for processing. The thalamus then sends the information to your primary visual cortex for further processing, and the cortex sends feedback back to the thalamus to help refine the interpretation of the image. This feedback loop allows your brain to quickly and accurately recognize the image of the cat.

Describe the differences between feature search and conjunction search. How does detection time change with the number of distractors?

In feature search, the target object can be identified based on a single distinctive feature such as color, shape, or orientation. For example, if the target object is red circle among green circles, participants can quickly and accurately locate the target because they can easily distinguish it based on its color feature alone. Feature searches are generally fast and easy as target objects "pop out" from the background. With more distractors its generally the same amount of time to find the target object. However, conjunction search makes it so the target object cannot be identified based on a single feature, but rather requires the integration of multiple features, such as color and shape. With more distractors its harder to find the target object.

Describe unilateral neglect syndrome

Inability to attend, respond, or orient to stimuli in their environment that is located on one side of the body, typically the left side

Which of the following statements applies to expectation-based priming but not to stimulus-based priming? It has an immediate effect on attention. It has a cost attached. It leads to faster recognition of subsequent related stimuli. It is bottom-up.

It has a cost attached

Which of the following is true of ADHD? It is more severe than unilateral neglect syndrome. It involves multiple attentional systems, including "alerting," "orienting," and "executive" systems. It is a simple disorder that is highly localized in the brain. It only happens in children.

It involves multiple attentional systems, including "alerting," "orienting," and "executive" systems.

What is the purpose of using a mask in word recognition tasks? It serves to stop participants from continuing to process the stimulus. It allows experimenters to change subjects' responses. It disguises the words so that a person cannot recognize them. It disrupts the word-superiority effect.

It serves to stop participants from continuing to process the stimulus.

What prediction could you make on the basis of the recognition via multiple views approach to object recognition? Words that resemble each other visually will be difficult to discriminate. It will be harder to recognize an object from some vantage points than from others. It will be possible to see the Necker cube in both possible orientations at once. Representations will most likely be supported by tissue in the "where" pathway.

It will be harder to recognize an object from some vantage points than from others.

What and where is the fusiform face area? What things, other than faces, does it respond to?

It's part of the brain that helps us recognize faces. Located in the fusiform gyrus at the bottom of the brain. It helps us recognize faces. It also plays a role in processing objects of visual expertise and not just faces.

What kind of errors do bigrams lead to?

May not capture the full meaning of a sentence since only a pair of words, can not handle rare or uncommon words, and can cause confusion for differently structured sentences.

Which of the following is a problem with the recognition by components model? A "p" cannot be distinguished from a "q." Occluded objects cannot be distinguished. Memory for upside-down houses is a bit worse than memory for upright houses. Participants are faster to identify a fire hydrant in a picture of a firehouse than in a picture of a kitchen.

Memory for upside-down houses is a bit worse than memory for upright houses.

In one experiment, participants were repeatedly shown two lines and asked to judge which line was longer. Meanwhile, black dots appeared randomly on the other parts of the screen during each trial. For some trials, the dots moved to create "fins," as shown in Figure 5.5 in the textbook. Which of the following results were found? Participants noticed immediately when the dots formed a coherent pattern. When told after the "fins" trials that the dot configuration had formed a pattern and asked to select the pattern out of four choices, most participants were able to select the correct configuration change. Most of the participants reported the top line as longer, even though the lines are equal in length. Only participants who were able to correctly select the pattern they had just seen reported the top line as longer.

Most of the participants reported the top line as longer, even though the lines are equal in length.

Motion parallax

Nearby moving objects appear to move more than distant ones

How do we know there is attention to objects in Normal subjects vs Individuals with neglect?

Normal Subject: Identify a target object that differs from distractors and report reaction time Neglect: Bisection- individuals tend to bisect lines to the right of the center. These findings suggest that attentional deficits in neglect patients can cause impairments in object perception and awareness, particularly for objects presented in the neglected side of space

Contrast overt and covert attention and give an example of each

Overt attention: intentionally shifting our attention to a specific location or object in our visual field Ex: Driving a car and check your rearview mirror- you move your eyes Covert attention: the ability to pay attention to a location or object without moving our eyes Ex: Being at a party and only listening to the person you are talking

Which condition would produce the most accurate response? Participants are asked whether they were shown a "d" or "b" when presented with the word "LARD." Participants are asked whether they were shown a "d" or "b" when presented with these letters only. Participants are asked whether they were shown a "d" or "b" when presented with a word in another language. Participants are asked whether they were shown a "d" or "b" when presented with the letter string "LRSPD."

Participants are asked whether they were shown a "d" or "b" when presented with the word "LARD."

Which of the following statements is true regarding the perception of briefly presented words?

Participants are better at recognizing words that were recently seen.

In one experiment, participants were shown a stimulus preceded by a neutral cue, a correct prime, or a misleading prime. For some participants, the primes were usually correct (high validity), and for others they were usually misleading (low validity). Which of the following was NOT a result of this experiment? Participants in the high-validity condition showed no difference between neutral and mislead trials, demonstrating that there is no cost of priming. Participants responded faster in the primed low-validity condition than in the neutral condition, demonstrating repetition priming. Participants responded faster in the primed high-validity condition than in the primed low-validity condition, demonstrating that expectation influences priming. Performance in the misled condition differed between high- and low-validity conditions, demonstrating that the expectation-based priming, but not repetition priming, has a cost.

Participants in the high-validity condition showed no difference between neutral and mislead trials, demonstrating that there is no cost of priming.

Participants are asked to report the shape of a visual stimulus that appears on the left side of a screen. Simultaneous with the presentation of this target stimulus, a second visual stimulus is flashed on the screen. Based on our understanding of inattentional blindness, which of the following is NOT sufficient to make the participants notice the second stimulus? Participants are told beforehand where, but not when, the second stimulus will appear. Participants are told beforehand only that something else might appear. Participants' attention is directed to the place where the second stimulus will appear. Participants' eyes are oriented toward the place where the second stimulus will appear

Participants' eyes are oriented toward the place where the second stimulus will appear.

What is Word superiority effect? Give an example

People are faster and more accurate at recognizing letters when they are presented within the context of a word, compared to when they are presented in isolation or in a non-word context. Ex: If someone is shown the letter "t" and tasked to identify it as quickly as possible, they will likely be slower and less accurate than if they were shown the letter "t" within the context of the word "table". This is because the presence of the surrounding letters in the word "table" provides additional information and context that facilitates letter recognition.

The existence of bigram detectors (detectors of letter pairs) helps to explain which of the following? People are more likely to recognize the letters "TICE" when they are briefly presented than the letters "EITC." The fast presentation of a crossbar stimulus leads to the activation of the "A," "E," and "F" detectors. The network cannot distinguish between "false alarms" and true recognition. The network's knowledge is locally represented in the brain.

People are more likely to recognize the letters "TICE" when they are briefly presented than the letters "EITC."

What do patients suffering from unilateral neglect syndrome demonstrate about visual attention? People have both space-based and object-based attention. If the brain is damaged a certain way, the focus of attention cannot move into a previously ignored visual space. We primarily pay attention to objects and are only loosely guided by location in space. The brain damage in unilateral-neglect patients makes them noncomparable to people with healthy brains.

People have both space-based and object-based attention.

What is Word frequency effect? Give an example

People tend to recognize and process words that are more commonly used in language more quickly and accurately than words that are used less frequently Ex: Easier to recognize "dog" than "pagilion"

How does practice influence attention?

Practice can improve attention by strengthening and automating attentional processes, reducing the need for conscious effort and increasing processing speed. With practice, attention can become more efficient, selective, and adaptable to different situations.

How does the activation of the various detectors relate to repetition priming?

Priming facilitates the activation of relevant detectors and makes it easier for feature nets to process and recognize stimuli based on their distinctive features.

Consistent with the feature integration theory, how might expectation-based priming help to solve the binding problem during a visual search for a target with two defining features (e.g., a red triangle in a field of different shapes in various colors)? Priming detectors move the attention "spotlight" to the target item with less effort. As you aim your attention in the search field more narrowly, activation of both primed detectors within that narrow spotlight indicates that the features are coming from the same input. As you aim your attention in the search field more broadly, activation of both primed detectors tells you where the target item is, and that directed attention binds the features together. Priming one of the feature detectors with an expectation reduces the cognitive load by devoting more attentional resources to finding the other feature and then binding the two features together.

Priming one of the feature detectors with an expectation reduces the cognitive load by devoting more attentional resources to finding the other feature and then binding the two features together.

What is repetition priming? Give an example

Prior exposure to a stimulus can improve processing and recognition of that stimulus when encountered again. This primes their brain to process it more efficiently. Ex: Seeing the word cat a minute before seeing it again makes you faster at recognizing it the second time

What is prosopagnosia?

Problem that some people have with recognizing faces. Can recognize a face is a face but cannot recognize whose face it is.

The text discusses studies by Posner and colleagues that provide evidence for expectation-based priming. Describe the procedure and results of these studies. What do the results tell us about the role that expectation based priming plays in attention? What are the costs and benefits of such priming? Give an example

Shown a symbol or an arrow indicating where a target stimulus would appear. The cue correctly predicted where the target would appear while in others it did not. Faster at responding to the target when the cue predicted the location of the target. The cue had primed the participants attention to the correct location. Expectation-based priming plays an important role in attention by allowing us to proces information that match our expectations. Ex: If your friend always hides behind a tree during hide and seek you will catch them right away. However, if they move one time to somewhere unexpected it will take you way longer than if you had no prior knowledge on where they typically hide.

What is the main reason why both late and early selection models can be true? It has to do with visuospatial helper systems. It involves neglect-like behavior in unimpaired adults. The cocktail party effect no longer appears in modern life. Some tasks require lots of resources, while other tasks require fewer.

Some tasks require lots of resources, while other tasks require fewer

What is the main reason why both late and early selection models can be true? Some tasks require lots of resources, while other tasks require fewer. It involves neglect-like behavior in unimpaired adults. It has to do with visuospatial helper systems. The cocktail party effect no longer appears in modern life.

Some tasks require lots of resources, while other tasks require fewer.

What is spatial neglect? Damage to what part of the brain induces neglect? How might a spatial neglect patient perform a visual search task? What are some other features of spatial neglect?

Spatial neglect is a neurological condition in which individuals have difficulty attending to and processing information from one side of their visual field, typically the left side. Damage to the right parietal lobe of hte brain is a common cause of neglect. A spatial neglect patient may have difficulty searching for objects or identifying stimuli on the neglected side of space. Other features of spatial neglect include a tendency to neglect the left side of the body, difficulty with spatial orientation, and poor awareness of the affected side.

What are "detectors"? Sketch all the layers of a basic feature net and the relationships between these layers. Give an example

Specialized processing units that are responsible for detecting specific features or characteristics of a stimulus. In a feature net, incoming sensory information is analyzed by a set of detectors, each of which is tuned to a particular feature or property of the stimulus. Ex: There could be detectors for specific colors or frequencies. When a visual stimulus is presented, the different detectors in the feature net work together to detect and analyze the various features of the stimulus.

Specific vs. general attentional resources

Specific attentional resources: selective focus on specific features General: overall processing and filtering of incoming information

What is the Stroop task? What does it demonstrate?

The Stroop task is a classic psychological test that involves naming the color of the ink in which a word is printed, while ignoring the word's meaning. The task is difficult when the word's meaning conflicts with the ink color, leading to slower and less accurate responses. This demonstrates the interference between automatic and controlled cognitive processes, and the need for executive control to overcome interference.

Optic flow definition

The apparent "expansion: of the visual scene as you move toward oncoming objects

What is "feature binding"?

The brain combines different sensory features of an object into unified information from different neurons that are specialized in processing specific features of the object to form a representation of the whole object.

Individuals with a lesion to the parietal lobe perform normally when asked to search for an item with a single feature (e.g., "find the round shape") but have trouble when asked to search for an item with multiple features (e.g., "find the blue, round shape" among other shapes that are blue but not round or round but not blue). What conclusion do these findings support? The detection of features is separate from the association of those features . If you cannot detect a complex object, you cannot detect its constituent parts. Shapes are more difficult for the system to detect than colors. Object identification takes place in the parietal lobe.

The detection of features is separate from the association of those features

Which statement about feature nets is FALSE? Network knowledge is represented in a distributed manner. Recognition based on geons is viewpoint independent. A network of detectors can interpret ambiguous inputs, recover from its own errors, and make inferences about barely viewed stimuli. The input layer is particularly sensitive to the overall configuration of a pattern.

The input layer is particularly sensitive to the overall configuration of a pattern.

In a word recognition study, participants were briefly shown words that differed in frequency and familiarity. After each word was shown, participants were asked to report aloud what word they had seen. Their accuracy recognizing these words is represented in the graph. Which of the following is the best interpretation of the data? The words that are naturally easy to recognize are used more frequently . Low-frequency words are recognized about half the time, near the level that would be expected by chance. People only have difficulty recognizing primed, high-frequency words. The results demonstrate both a priming effect and an effect of frequency.

The results demonstrate both a priming effect and an effect of frequency.

Which of the following statements on how people direct the "beam" of attention is FALSE? People are more likely to attend to new and interesting information than they are to attend to old and familiar information. There are cultural differences in how people direct attention, such that East Asians spend more time looking at individual people than Americans do. Events or items that are especially rare are unlikely to be noticed (for example, motorcycles in traffic are especially likely to be missed in areas where there are few motorcycles). There are some gender differences in how people attend to information.

There are cultural differences in how people direct attention, such that East Asians spend more time looking at individual people than Americans do.

Which of the following offers the most support for the idea that object recognition is viewpoint-dependent? Object recognition seems to involve a hierarchy of detectors, from feature detectors to whole object detectors. When pieces of an object are missing, it is still fairly easy to recognize the object as long as the geons are still identifiable. There are neurons in the "what" pathway that respond most to a certain type of object in a certain position relative to the eyes. Detection of objects employs both bottom-up and top-down processes.

There are neurons in the "what" pathway that respond most to a certain type of object in a certain position relative to the eyes.

In a study of spatial attention, participants were given a neutral, correct, or misleading cue about where on the screen a stimulus would appear. What is the best explanation for what happened on trials with misleading cues? There were no costs because spatial attention is not a limited-capacity system. There were no costs because, although spatial attention is limited, the resources required for the task did not exceed its limits. There were costs because the spotlight of attention had moved to the misled location and had to move back. There were costs because the eyes had moved to the misled location and had to move back.

There were costs because the spotlight of attention had moved to the misled location and had to move back.

How does a tachiscopic experiment work?

They involve flashing words or pictures of a short time and you have to remember what you saw. These are used to learn how our brains process visual information.

Which of the following statements is FALSE about automatic tasks? They do not require many attentional resources. They require executive control. They can usually be combined with other tasks. They can act as mental reflexes.

They require executive control.

Describe the characteristics of the recognition by components and recognition by multiple views models. What are geons and what qualities do they have? Give an example

Three-dimensional shapes that serve as building blocks for recognizing and categorizing objects. Geons were proposed by Irving Biederman. 3D cubes, cones, and cylinders that can be put together in different ways to make the things we see. They are easy to recognize and tell apart from each other. Even if we only see part of an object, our brain can still recognize the geons and use them to figure out what the whole thing looks like. Ex: A cup might be made up of a cylinder for the body and a cone for the handle.

Top-down vs bottom-up processing

Top-down processing refers to the use of our prior knowledge and context to interpret sensory information, while bottom-up processing refers to the processing of sensory information form the outside world to form a perception

Which of the following findings does NOT support the existence of task-specific mental resources? It is more difficult to combine two verbal tasks than one verbal task and one spatial task. Listening to spoken words and having a quick motor response to visual input are easy to do simultaneously because they do not rely on the same resources. Listening to two sets of words simultaneously is harder than listening to one set while reading another. Two simple tasks are easy to do simultaneously, while two hard tasks are not.

Two simple tasks are easy to do simultaneously, while two hard tasks are not.

Which of the following findings does NOT support the existence of task-specific mental resources? Listening to spoken words and having a quick motor response to visual input are easy to do simultaneously because they do not rely on the same resources. Two simple tasks are easy to do simultaneously, while two hard tasks are not. Listening to two sets of words simultaneously is harder than listening to one set while reading another. It is more difficult to combine two verbal tasks than one verbal task and one spatial task.

Two simple tasks are easy to do simultaneously, while two hard tasks are not.

Describe "well-formedness" and how it influences errors. What is "overregularization"?

Well-formedness: The degree to which a sentence or phrase conforms to the rules and conventions of a particular language. A well-formed sentence or phrase is one that is grammatically correct and follows the syntactic rules and conventions of the language. How can it produce errors? Ex: "DPUM" is misread as "DRUM" Overregularization Example: A child might say "goed" instead of "went"

Neutral trial

When the central fixation mark appeared, it put you in a state of readiness to detect the target. This is the "alerting" system

Describe inattentional blindness in the real world and give an example experiment.

When you are so focused on something that you don't notice other things around you. Your brain is so busy paying attention to one thing that it doesn't notice other things happening around you. Ex: Passing ball gorilla task

Which of the following is a failure of selective attention? You are in the basement ironing and you hear the phone unexpectedly ringing upstairs. You are able to talk on the cell phone while driving. While you are working on your problem set in the living room, you are thrown off track when your sister changes the TV channel. While upstairs talking to your best friend, you pretend not to hear your mother calling you to dinner.

While you are working on your problem set in the living room, you are thrown off track when your sister changes the TV channel.

Which of the following is NOT a reason why performance might improve with practice? Practice allows us to find the best choice among competing responses. As each aspect of a response is automatized, more resources become available for the next aspect. With practice, individual elements of a task draw more on our resources. Memorization is facilitated by repeated exposure.

With practice, individual elements of a task draw more on our resources.

Which of the following is NOT a reason why performance might improve with practice? Practice allows us to find the best choice among competing responses. With practice, individual elements of a task draw more on our resources. Memorization is facilitated by repeated exposure. As each aspect of a response is automatized, more resources become available for the next aspect.

With practice, individual elements of a task draw more on our resources.

How do bigrams allow for the interpretation of ambiguous inputs? Give an example

Words can have two meanings so the bigrams associated help us understand which one is being used in its context Ex: Lets say we have the bigram "river bank." This bigram can tell us that the word "bank" refers to the side of the river, and not the place where we keep our money. This is because the word "river" is often used with "bank" to refer to the side of the river. By looking at the bigram, we can understand the intended meaning of the word.

Does each object detector have to have its own set of feature inputs, yes or no?

Yes

Are geons easily identifiable from any angle?

Yes, thus the object model can be activated and the object can be recognized

Evidence for early selection hypothesis

You can see EEG differences VERY QUICKLY (80 ms) after the presentation of attended vs unattended stimuli. This is too fast for much processing to have occurred

Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the existing data on face recognition? a. The recognition of faces is heavily dependent on orientation. b. The ability to recognize faces is closely tied to other forms of general visual recognition, such that loss in one ability is linked with loss in the other. c. Face recognition uses a feature-net system similar to the one used for word recognition. d. The fusiform face area (FFA) is devoted entirely to recognizing faces.

a. The recognition of faces is heavily dependent on orientation FEEDBACK: Face recognition is highly viewpoint-dependent.

Which of the following is most accurate with respect to our knowledge about the fusiform face area (FFA)? There is a general consensus that the FFA underlies many kinds of expertise. There is an ongoing debate about the specificity of the FFA to processing faces. There is a general consensus that the FFA is exclusively dedicated to processing faces. There is an ongoing debate about the role of the FFA in identifying general categories of faces and objects.

a. There is an ongoing debate about the specificity of the FFA to processing faces FEEDBACK: There is scientific debate surrounding the role of the FFA and whether it is dedicated to identifying individual faces, or whether it plays a more general role in identifying specific individuals within a broader category.

The Rumelhart and McClelland model is different from the simple feature model in all the following ways EXCEPT that it includes inhibition as well as excitation. bidirectional activation. activation from the feature level to the letter level. top-down processing.

activation from the feature level to the letter level.

Which of the following drivers is most likely to get into an accident? a novice driver engaged in an important phone interview an experienced driver talking on a cell phone with a good friend a novice driver talking on a cell phone with a good friend an experienced driver on a cell phone who is engaged in an important phone interview

an experienced driver on a cell phone who is engaged in an important phone interview

What was the crucial innovation that defined the recognition by components (RBC) model? an intermediate level of detectors sensitive to geons (geometric ions) a hierarchy of detectors the use of inhibitory connections recognition of only fully visible objects

an intermediate level of detectors sensitive to geons (geometric ions)

Reading simple words is an example of a(n) __________ task, and saying the color of the ink in which that word is printed is an example of a(n) __________ task. automatic; controlled automatic; interference controlled; automatic controlled; interference

automatic; controlled

Reading simple words is an example of a(n) __________ task, and saying the color of the ink in which that word is printed is an example of a(n) __________ task. controlled; automatic automatic; controlled automatic; interference controlled; interference

automatic; controlled

Donovan looks in a mirror and perceives his own face, but he thinks he is seeing a stranger. Donovan most likely has associative agnosia. change blindness. prosopagnosia. Capgras syndrome.

b. prosopagnosia FEEDBACK: Prosopagnosia is a disorder in which faces can be perceived but not recognized as belonging to a particular individual, even oneself.

The evidence both from unilateral neglect patients and from patients with normal attentional abilities suggests that attention is space-based, not object-based. attention is object-based, not space-based. both space- and object-based attention are important in attention. attention becomes space-based only in cases of brain damage.

both space- and object-based attention are important in attention.

CQ1: In dichotic listening tasks, most participants are able to tell if the unattended channel contained a coherent message or just random words. identify physical attributes of the message on the unattended channel. concentrate effectively on the attended channel, so they end up detecting nothing on the unattended channel. maintain their focus on the attended channel only with considerable difficulty and frequent slips.

concentrate effectively on the attended channel, so they end up detecting nothing on the unattended channel.

A "well-formed" letter string is one that is clearly and legibly written. contains all the feature information necessary for perception. does not share perceptual similarities with other letter strings. conforms to the usual spelling patterns of English.

conforms to the usual spelling patterns of English.

Which of the following statements is FALSE? a. Super-recognizers have an extraordinary ability to recognize faces. b. Some people seem to have prosopagnosia specifically for faces of a different race than their own. c. People with prosopagnosia can perceive faces but cannot recognize them. d. People with prosopagnosia cannot perceive faces. d. People with prosopagnosia cannot perceive faces. FEEDBACK: Prosopagnosia is a condition in which an individual has normal vision, and can therefore perceive faces, but is unable to recognize individual faces, sometimes including his or her own face.

d. People with prosopagnosia cannot perceive faces. FEEDBACK: Prosopagnosia is a condition in which an individual has normal vision, and can therefore perceive faces, but is unable to recognize individual faces, sometimes including his or her own face.

Which of the following statements about speed reading is FALSE? a. Speed reading involves reading fewer printed words b. speed reading relies on making more inferences about a text c. Speed reading is not a good strategy for reading technical material d. Speed reading is a good choice if you want to appreciate an author's style

d. Speed reading is a good choice if you want to appreciate an author's style FEEDBACK: Speed reading involves actually reading fewer printed words and instead relying more on inferences about the material based on surrounding words. For that reason, it is a poor choice for technical material or when the goal is to appreciate nuances of an author's writing strategy.

What is the best example of top-down processing? a. We begin processing a face at the hairline and move downward to the chin. b. When we perceive objects, we first detect basic features and then combine them into larger units. c. Our processing often depends on our stimulus history, that is, what stimuli we have seen recently. d. We recognize the word "aardvark" more quickly if we were expecting to see an animal word. d. We recognize the word "aardvark" more quickly if we were expecting to see an animal word. FEEDBACK: Activating a single example of a larger category means that knowledge is influencing how fast decisions are being made.

d. We recognize the word "aardvark" more quickly if we were expecting to see an animal word. FEEDBACK: Activating a single example of a larger category means that knowledge is influencing how fast decisions are being made.

Which of the following would be LEAST likely to serve as an effective prime for the word "bread"? a. butter b. whole wheat c. thread d. pie

d. pie FEEDBACK: Bread and pie are not associated with or part of the same category

If the word "trum" is presented, people are most likely to recognize it as truck. murt. drum. trun.

drum.

The textbook describes the process of automaticity. A result of automaticity is that a practiced behavioral procedure becomes harder to perform but easier to control. easier to both perform and control. easier to perform but harder to control. automatically initiated in a variety of contexts.

easier to perform but harder to control.

Fire alarms are designed to control attention __________, but outside such demanding stimuli, one can often control his or her own attention __________. exogenously; endogenously endogenously; exogenously exogenously; externally endogenously; internally

exogenously; endogenously

Talking on the phone while driving is dangerous because even items directly in view can go unnoticed. This is an example of inattentional blindness. spatial neglect. late selection. object-centered neglect.

inattentional blindness.

John has apperceptive agnosia. This means that he cannot perceive the shapes, colors, or positions of objects. perceive faces. recognize faces. integrate perceptual information to perceive intact objects.

integrate perceptual information to perceive intact objects.

When listening intently to one message, you are likely to detect your name if it is spoken in a different message. This is likely to be because your name conforms to common English phoneme patterns. is a stimulus for which you are well primed. is not "filtered" in any way by attention. is said loudly enough to be clearly perceived.

is a stimulus for which you are well primed.

Studies looking at electrical activity in the brain suggest that the processing steps for attended stimuli and unattended stimuli are indistinguishable. distinguishable for only 1 ms after stimulus presentation. distinguishable as soon as 80 ms after stimulus presentation. not distinguishable until at least 150 ms after stimulus presentation.

not distinguishable until at least 150 ms after stimulus presentation.

Which of the following drivers is most likely to get into an accident? a novice driver talking on a cell phone with a good friend an experienced driver on a cell phone who is engaged in an important phone interview an experienced driver talking on a cell phone with a good friend a novice driver engaged in an important phone interview

novice driver engaged in an important phone interview

When Betty, an English speaker, is shown a nonsense string of letters tachistoscopically, she misreads it in a way that follows the rules of common English spelling. This is because

of a lifetime of strengthening of the bigram detectors for common English letter pairs.

CQ: With tachistoscopic presentation, people often make recognition errors. The errors are not random, however, but instead "overregularize" the input to make it follow the rules of spelling. This is because people consciously "adjust" their responses to make the responses more sensible. all humans are genetically predisposed toward the visual configurations evident in "regular" bigrams; this is why English uses them. of a lifetime of strengthening the bigram detectors for common English letter pairs. people are reluctant to give answers that they cannot easily pronounce.

of a lifetime of strengthening the bigram detectors for common English letter pairs.

Most participants in a dichotic listening task are unable to describe physical features like the pitch of the stimulus in the unattended channel. unable to report the semantic content of the stimulus in the attended channel. usually able to report most of the semantic content of the stimulus in the unattended channel. often able to notice personally relevant words like their names in the unattended channel.

often able to notice personally relevant words like their names in the unattended channel.

Expectation-based priming suggests that even when a misleading cue is ignored, it is costly. the perceptual system gives input to, but does not receive output from, higher brain areas. perception works within a limited-capacity system. visual perception works like a searchlight.

perception works within a limited-capacity system

Patients with unilateral neglect resulting from damage to the right hemisphere will fail to perceive anything in the right visual field. disengage from a visual stimulus as it moves from the left to right visual field. read only the right half of words shown to them. only complete half of everything they set out to do.

read only the right half of words shown to them.

The existence of task-general resources is indicated by the fact that similar tasks will not interfere with each other. if a task has been heavily practiced, it is more likely to cause interference with other tasks. some brain lesions disrupt all tasks requiring attention. interference between two tasks can sometimes be observed even if the two tasks have few elements in common.

some brain lesions disrupt all tasks requiring attention.

In the absence of attention, there is no perception. participants still consciously perceive stimuli if the stimuli are simple enough. participants can perceive most aspects of the world but are not influenced by what they perceive. stimuli may not be consciously perceived but can still have an influence on the perceiver.

stimuli may not be consciously perceived but can still have an influence on the perceiver.

A stimulus that is displayed for a very brief duration (perhaps 20 or 30 milliseconds) is said to be shown imperceptibly. subconsciously. tachistoscopically. via a feature net.

tachistoscopically.

Divided attention requires enough mental resources to attend to both tasks. These limited mental resources include all of the following EXCEPT task-general resources that act like a bank account. task-general tools like executive control. task-specific resources. task-general storage space like long-term memory.

task-general storage space like long-term memory.

Divided attention requires enough mental resources to attend to both tasks. These limited mental resources include all of the following EXCEPT task-specific resources. task-general resources that act like a bank account. task-general tools like executive control. task-general storage space like long-term memory.

task-general storage space like long-term memory.

Which effect can NOT be explained by feature nets? the word-superiority effect the well-formedness effect the ability to read letter strings like PIRT but not ITPR the effects of sentence context

the effects of sentence context

Suppose you are at a cocktail party conversing with a friend. In this situation, you are LEAST likely to hear whether the person behind you is speaking intelligently or foolishly. it is a man or a woman standing behind you who is talking. the couple beside you are talking about a movie you just saw and loved. there is music in the background.

the person behind you is speaking intelligently or foolishly.

CQ: The use of geons is associated with the recognition-by-components (RBC) model. the word superiority effect. visual masking. The McClelland-Rumelhart model

the recognition-by-components (RBC) model.

Evidence suggests that unattended stimuli are more fully processed if the attended input is particularly complex. unattended stimuli are more fully processed if the attended input is particularly simple. early brain activity in response to attended input is indistinguishable from brain activity for unattended input. unattended stimuli are processed fully and make it into consciousness, but they are not remembered.

unattended stimuli are more fully processed if the attended input is particularly simple.

Some resources are task-specific and others are task-general. Which of the following is a task-specific resource? memory an energy supply needed for mental tasks verbal resources for tasks involving words executive control to override habitual responses

verbal resources for tasks involving words

Some resources are task-specific and others are task-general. Which of the following is a task-specific resource? memory executive control to override habitual responses an energy supply needed for mental tasks verbal resources for tasks involving words

verbal resources for tasks involving words

Spatial attention

your ability to focus attention on a specific location in space