Cognitive Psychology: Exam 1 Yandell

Wundt's procedure in which trained participants describe their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli presented under controlled conditions is known as

analytic introspection.

Action potentials occur in the

axon

The first experiments in cognitive psychology were based on the idea that mental responses can be

inferred from the participant's behavior.

Viewpoint ________ is the ability to recognize the same object even if it is seen from different perspectives.

invariance

The task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on one's retina is called the

inverse projection problem.

The theory of unconscious inference includes the

likelihood principle

Groups of interconnected neurons are referred to as

neural circuits

What is the gap between the end of a neuron's axon and the dendrites or cell body of another neuron known as?

synapse

Which of the following is a basic principle of Gestalt psychology?

The whole is different from the sum of its parts.

The study of the physiological basis of cognition is known as

cognitive neuroscience

The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind is called

cognitive psychology

Your text describes the occurrence of a "cognitive revolution" during which dramatic changes took place in the way psychology was studied. This so-called revolution occurred parallel to (and, in part, because of) the introduction of

computers

Which of the following adjectives has the LEAST connection to perception?

conscious

In Donders's research on human decision making, he found that it took ____________ to decide which of two buttons to push in response to a stimulus.

less than one second

Describe analytic introspection. Give an experimental example. Also, describe two limitations to this method

(Wundt) A procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli. Limitations it produced extremely variable results from person to person, and these results were difficult to verify because they were interpreted in terms of invisible inner mental processes.

Discuss and give examples of three specific principles noted in your text that make it very difficult to design a computer or other machine that would show perception that is equivalent to or better than that of a human being

1.)the stimulus on the receptors is ambiguous, as demonstrated by the inverse projection problem; (2)objects in a scene can be hidden or blurred; (3)objects look different from different viewpoints; and (4)scenes contain high-level information.

As a result of gaps in the behaviorist paradigm, the new cognitive paradigm began to emerge in which decade?

1950s

In which year was positron emission tomography (PET) introduced and made it possible to see which areas of the human brain are activated during cognitive activity?

1976

Donald Broadbent was the first person to develop which of the following?

A flow diagram depicting the mind as processing information in a sequence of stages

Explain how the object discrimination problem and the landmark discrimination problem help show what pathways in the brain are responsible for different cognitive abilities. How does damage to different lobes of the brain make these tasks more difficult, and what pathways are involved?

After removing the temporal lobe , it was difficult for monkeys to perform the object discrimination task but they could perform the landmark task(what or perception pathway was obstructed). Monkeys who had their parietal lobe removed could not perform the landmark discrimination task but could perform the object discrimination task(where or action pathway was obstructed).

Describe three physiological techniques for investigating human cognition. What can each technique tell us about the brain and human cognition? Also, give at least one limitation of each of the three techniques.

Answer: fMRI is a non-invasive technique where that pictures active structures of the brain in a high resolution. Participant must lie in a tube and remain still. Disadvantage: it can create claustrophobia for the patient. Answer: MRI is another non-invasive technique where the machine uses magnetic fields to create two or three dimensional images of the nervous system structures. MRI is expensive, hard to maintain, and operate. This machine also has the chance of creating claustrophobia for the patient.

Define automatic processing. Describe the research by Shiffrin and Schneider, which showed how practice can affect our ability to do multiple tasks simultaneously. In your description, clearly distinguish between consistent and varied mapping, both in terms of procedure and results.

Automatic processing is unintentional and uses little cognitive resources. Shriffin & Schnieder's experiment participants had to remember the target stimuli while trying to determine is the target was present among the distractors. This became easier with more trials.

Who proposed that children's language development was caused by imitation and reinforcement?

B. F. Skinner

When does bottom-up processing start?

When environmental energy stimulates the receptors

Define flow diagram. Describe its importance to the information processing approach. Draw Broadbent's filter model of memory as a flow diagram.

Based from Computers, flow diagrams illustrate the information processing system, an approach that traces sequences of mental operations involved in cognition.

Discuss how the process of binding is essential in your ability to watch a movie or television program.

Binding is the combination of features of an object so that we perceive the object as a whole rather than its separate parts. This is useful when we watch TV because it allows us to perceive the entire scene rather than perceiving parts of the scene separately. For example, when viewing two people in a show having a conversation, we bind their physical features (hair, clothes, face, body) to form the perception of a person making it is easier to perceive a scene.

Define change blindness. Explain two sets of experimental data that illustrate this phenomenon.

Change blindness is difficulty in detecting changes in similar, but slightly different, scenes that are presented one after another. The changes are often easy to see once attention is directed to them but are usually undetected in the absence of appropriate attention. Ronald Rensink and coworkers (1997) did an experiment in which they presented one picture, followed by a blank field, followed by the same picture but with an item missing, followed by a blank field. This sequence was repeated until observers were able to determine what was different about the two pictures. Rensink found that the sequence had to be repeated a number of times before the difference was detected. Levin & Simmons (1997) showed a video of two women talking. In every frame, something in the scene was different however only 1/10 participants could detect a change.

Which organ is unique in that it appears to be static tissue?

brain

Which term best reflects what we do with an image projected onto our retina?

we interpret it.

The main point of the Donders's reaction time experiments was to

measure the amount of time it takes to make a decision.

Groups of neurons or structures that are connected within the nervous system are called __________.

neural networks

Which substance is released when signals reach the synapse at the end of the axon?

neurotransmitters

The perception pathway corresponds to the _____ pathway, while the action pathway corresponds to the _____ pathway.

what; where

Who introduced the flow diagram to represent what is happening in the mind?

Donald Broadbent

Explain how Donders' and Ebbinghaus's pioneering methods, though very different from each other, allowed for behavior to determine a property of the mind.

Donder's Experiment was the reaction time task. His method is important because it illustrated that Mental processes cannot be directly measured, but they are inferred from behavior. Ebbinghaus used himself to experiment with what he called savings. Basically this was to determine how much he could recall and determine how long it takes to actually learn something.

Using the laws of perceptual organization, explain why humans are better equipped at dealing with the complexities of object perception than computers.

Essentially we are better at dealing with the complexities of object perception because we have so much more environmental information and are able to use top-down processing to figure out what is happening in a scene and connect 'dots' so to speak that a computer would not consider.

Which of the following is a criticism of analytic introspection?

It produces variable results from person to person.

Define both localization of function and distributed representation. Discuss whether these are opposing or complementary concepts.

Localization of function: determining which brain areas were activated when people observed pictures of different objects. Distributed representation: the idea that specific cognitive functions activate many areas of the brain. Complement each other because while a number of areas in the brain participate in the perception of the face, other areas also respond to various reactions to a face. (when you some someone, neuron activate in FFA, but neurons also activate in response to the face's form, such as is the person looking at you, how attractive are they, and emotions the face may elicit)

Describe how neurons communicate. Mention the key components of the neurons that are involved. Explain the process whereby the electrical signal (the information) is transferred from one neuron to another.

Neurons are nerve cells and the human brain contains about one billion neurons. A neuron is a cell that is specific for conducting and generating electrical impulses to transmit information "from one part of the brain to another" (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017). Because of their branch-like processes, neurons join to form a large system of "wires" that are spread all over the body. And by transmitting messages through this network, various parts of the body can work together and communicate with one another (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017). Neurons transmit information by electrochemical processing. Sensory receptors work together with stimuli (i.e. light, sound, pain) that is changed to a code and relayed to the brain by a series of neurons. The brain then decodes the information it received. The information is moved alongside axons and dendrites due to the variations that occur in the electrical properties. This is called action potential and it is started "when a messenger" connects to a receptor. Once that happens, "an electrical signal" (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017) is activated so it can be produced "through the neuron" (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017). When the signal is at the end of the axon, a neurotransmitter is discharged and the process repeats itself (How Neurons communicate in Brain, 2017).

What is a key difference between dendrites and axons?

One sends information and the other receives information.

Describe Moray's "words in the unattended ear" experiment. Why does this research pose a problem for Broadbent's filter model? Specifically, what does this research say about its classification as an early selection model?

Participants heard a different message in each ear and were told to shadow(repeat) one message while ignoring the other. They were able to filter out the ignored message but responded when they heard their name. Broadbent theorized that only one message would get through, however Moray's experiment showed that we process the unattended message and can analyze it's meaning allowing us to hear our name.

Distinguish between structural models and process models in cognitive psychology. Provide an example of each type of model.

Structural models are illustrations of objects that can be touched or are real. The models can imitate how the item looks. The structures are also symbolized in the form of a diagram that will not look like the actual structure. An example of a structural model is a model car or model airplane. The models are designed to look like a real car or airplane (Goldstein, 2015). Process models show the work that is included in cognitive mechanisms. There are boxes that show particular processes and arrows that show the link between the processes. An example of process models is "Broadbent's filter model of attention" (Goldstein, The Roles of Models in Cognitive Psycholgy, 2015).

When a picture of an object is partially covered, humans can still easily identify the object. First, using the recognition-by-components approach, explain why humans can identify an object that is partially obscured. Second, name and explain how three Gestalt principles are at work when humans identify the obscured object.

The approaches of Helmholtz, regularities, and Bayes all have in common the idea that we use data about the environment, gathered through our past experiences in perceiving, to determine what is out there. Top-down processing is therefore an important part of these approaches.

Treisman's model has been called a "leaky filter" model. Describe her model, and explain why it is "leaky." How does Treisman's model explain the results of Moray's "words in the unattended ear" experiment?

The attended and unattended messages are transferred through the attentuator. The unattended message is weaker than the attended message but some of it still gets through, which is why it is referred to as a leaky filter. This model describes why participants can perceive their name in Moray's experiment because Treisman claims that important words such as our name have a lower threshold so it is easier for us to perceive it in the unattended message.

How is the term mind used in this statement: "When he talks about his encounter with aliens, it sounds like he is out of his mind"?

The mind as a healthy mind being associated with normal functioning, a nonfunctioning mind with abnormal functioning.

Explain how action potentials change in response to stimulus intensity. Use an example from one's visual system to illustrate this process.

The rate of firing increases with an increase in stimulus intensity. Looking at an intensely bright light will generate a higher frequency of firing than when looking at a dim light.

Describe operant conditioning. How did B.F. Skinner explain language development in terms of operant conditioning? What were Noam Chomsky's criticisms of Skinner's account?

Type of conditioning championed by B. F. Skinner, which focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection. In his book, Skinner argued that children learn language through operant conditioning. According to this idea, children imitate speech that they hear, and repeat correct speech because it is rewarded. Chomsky sees it as an inborn trait because Children say things that arent rewarded like "I hate mommy"

With which of the following sentences would the author disagree?

We can consider the mind extraordinary if it is used for extraordinary purposes.

What is the process of unconscious inference?

When our perceptions are the result of inferences that we make about the environment

Explain how BOTH bottom-up and top-down processing are involved in the "Crystal running on the beach" example.

When she is running on the beach she light is projected onto the retina and through many neurons communicating with one another she is able to tell there is something far away on the beach. This is bottom up processing. Top down processing makes her believe a blurry object in the distance is driftwood. She thinks this because the object is brown and shes near the ocean so using all of the environmental information her brain helps her jump to the driftwood conclusion.

Your author points out that studying the mind requires both __________ and __________ experiments.

behavioral; physiological

Which of the following could be considered as always taking a "working vacation"?

default mode network

Brain imaging has made it possible to

determine which areas of the brain are involved in different cognitive processes.

According to your textbook, perception goes beyond the simple receipt of sensory information. It is involved in many different cognitive skills. Which of the following is NOT one of those skills as noted by the chapter?

experiencing neuromodulation

Paul Broca's and Carl Wernicke's research provided early evidence for

localization of function

The process by which small objects become perceptually grouped to form larger objects is the principle of perceptual

organization

Behaviorists believe that the presentation of ____________ increases the frequency of behavior.

positive reinforcers

The notion that every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible is called the law of

pragnanz

The value that stays the same as long as there are no signals in the neuron is known as

resting potential

Entering a church service and seeing someone selling hot dogs and cotton candy from a cart near the altar would be perceived as a violation of

scene schema

The demonstration in your text that asks you to visualize scenes such as an office, a department store clothing section, a lion, and a microscope often results in more details in the scene of the office or department store than the scene with the lion or microscope. The latter two tend to have fewer details because most individuals from modern society have less knowledge of _____ in those scenes.

semantic regularities

If a Gestalt psychologist was baking a cake for an event, what would they be most focused on?

the cake

A synapse is

the gap that separates two different neurons.

Edgar Adrian studied the relationship between nerve firing and sensory experience by measuring how the firing of a neuron from a receptor in the skin changed as he applied more pressure to the skin. He found that

the rate of nerve firing increased as he increased the pressure.