120A FINAL

language in the brain

- Broca's and Wernicke's area most important - highly connected by arcuate fasciculus which are major pathways of white matter and fiber bundles and allows structures of speech production and comprehension to communicate - broca's and wernicke's aphasic show that language is a double dissociation

discrete infinity

- a finite set of elements can generate a potentially infinite set of meanings - we start with something and just keep building and building - only limit is the capacity of working memory that we can't model all the different models and subjects - keeping track of teller and listener

mental set

- a frame of mind involving a certain representation of a problem, its context or a procedure for solving it - may cause you to adopt an ineffective strategy and prevents problem- solving - you may make wrong assumptions without realizing it - you may find it hard to approach the problem in a new way - some problems require a change in mental set EX: re- representing a problem EX: 15% of people in Topeka have unlisted numbers. you select 200 names at random from the Topeka phone book. how many of these people will have unlisted numbers? did you say 30? the correct answer is 0 because someone who is unlisted won't be in the phonebook EX: candle, matches and some task. how can you fix the candle to the wall? - most people will approach this problem by trying to tack the candle to the wall or by using melted wax to glue it (something that will always fail) - solution lies in tacking empty matchbox to wall to serve as a candle holder

category

- a set of items or concepts that are grouped together on the basis of something - allowing you to apply your general knowledge to new cases and if you learn something the thing then you're likely to assume the same is true for other things - draw broad conclusions from specific experiences kinds of categories: NATURAL vs. ARTIFACT - natural = groupings that occur naturally (birds, trees) - artifact = designed/ invented (computers, sports cars) STABLE vs. AD-HOC - stable = natural/ artifact (EX: people generally agree on what goes into them, and what are the criteria of inclusion) - ad hoc = unstable categories defined for a special purpose or within a specific context (EX: "things to write on")

why do some subjects need hints?

- analogies depend on similarities in structure --> people tend to focus on surface features, which can be superficial in solving the problem - analogy use depends on expertise within the relevant domain --> experts think of problems in terms of deep structure; understanding the structure of a problem is far more effective for solving future problems than simply memorizing the solution

memory palaces

- based on method of loci - invented by simonides of ceos in 5th century B.C - discovered that if visual images of things to be memorized were places in sequence along imaginary journeys, or "memory palaces" they could easily be recalled later - pneumonic! visual a place and imagine walking through that place allows you to remember things better - placing an item in a place in your mind --> remember a shopping list

the atmosphere effect

- being influences by the global impression or 'feel' of the premises - using system #1 to go with your gut saying that all P and M are the saying --> going with atmosphere instead of reducing it to two separate things

whorfian question

- benjamin lee whorf (1897-1941) - questioned whether the language you know influences your thinking and limits what you're capable of thinking about SAPIR-WHORK HYPOTHESIS: strong interpretation (linguistic determinism): - thoughts and behavior are determined by language - the language you speak determines the concept and categories that you use and as a result, shapes what you can think about --> no solid evidence that certain languages forbid a speaker from thinking about certain concepts which leads to milder interpretation milder interpretation (linguistic relativity) - thought and behavior are influences by language - language influences what we pay attention to, and this shapes experience, which influences how we think

broca's aphasia

- damage in left inferior frontal - patient unable to speak more than a few simple utterances - limited speech production but comprehension intact - can tell patient to do something and they could understand and comprehend pretty well - halting speech - tendency to repeat phrases or words (perseveration) - disordered syntax - disordered grammar - disordered structure of individual words - comprehension intact

chess expertise

- during early 20th century, playing simultaneous games of blindfolded chess against multiple opponents became a fetishized skill in the chess world - in 1947, an argentinian grand master named miguel najdorf set a record by playing 45 simultaneous games in his mind - took him 23.5 hours and he finished with a record of 39 wins, 4 losses and 2 draws - keep all boards straight in your head relied on long term working memory and used a mnemonic technique to memorize each game - unable to fall asleep for next 3 days Chase & Simon (1973) - conducted an experiment examining people's visuospatial memory for chess pieces - experts vs beginners - task = view chess board for 5 secs and then reconstruct from memory - chess experts are better able to remember real chess positions/ real games --> actually worse at remembering random positions; beginners just memorize it but experts are trying to use their knowledge but it doesn't help - estimated that chess experts spend up to 50,000 hours learning to play chess - experts can recognize between 10,000 and 100,000 distinct patterns of chess pieces on a chessboard - pieces within a single chunk are bound by relations of mutual defense, proximity, attack over small distances and common color and type - a huge "vocal" of chess configurations enables the expert to grasp the layout of a chessboard almost immediately - fMRI shows that FFA may not be exclusively used for face perception, but may also be important for other forms of expert pattern recognition!! - FFA was higher in expert chess players reviewing board

grammatical gender whorf example

- english = does not assign a grammatical gender to most words - spanish (as well as many other languages) = marks gender with morphological info carried by pronouns, determiners, nouns and adjectives lera boroditsky's 2003 experiment: - do people include gender in their conceptual representations of objects? - are people's ideas about the genders of objects influenced by grammatical genders assigned in their native languages? - taught spanish and german speakers object-name pairs (EX: apple-Patrick) - name was either consistent or inconsistent with grammatical gender of the object in their native language - spanish = inconsistent gender because apple is feminine - german = consistent because apple is masculine - measure memory for the pairs; all testing in english - both spanish and german speakers remembered object-name pairs better when the gender of the proper name given to an object was consistent with the grammatical gender of the object name in their native language - germans = better memory for apple-patrick because has always associated apple with masculine

eskimo snow

- example #1 that whorf latched onto - whorf examined languages in other cultures like eskimos - eskimos have many different words for "snow" - 5 different languages associated with eskimos - whorf's claim = "we have the same word for falling snow, snow on the ground, snow packed hard like ice, slushy snow, wind driven flying snow - whatever the situation may be" "to an eskimo, this all inclusive world would be almost unthinkable; he would say that falling snow, slushy snow, and so on are sensuously and operationally different. different things to contend with; he uses different words for them and for other kinds of snow" - believed that when eskimos look out and see snow their perception of snow and understanding of whats happening is enriched by this incredible vocabulary - HOWEVER issue is that english actually does have lots of terms for snow - WRONG!!!!

the timeless hopi

- example #2 that whorf latched onto to develop idea of linguistic determinism - "hopi may be called a timeless language... it does not distinguish [with grammatical structures] between present, past and future of the event itself" - because their language didn't distinguish difference between past, present and future that they existed in timelessness and ancestors were still present - HOWEVER hopi may not have grammatical markers for time, they do express time in other ways

color terms according to whorf

- example #3 of whorf - most languages seem to take their basic color terms form a set of 11 color names - when only some of the color names are used, naming falls into a hierarchy of 5 levels berlin and kay (1969): color hierarchy - in 2 color term languages the terms correspond to black and white EX: Dani tribe of New Gaines use only 2 color names of dark and light - in 3 color term languages they correspond to black, white and red -langauges with additional terms items are added as follows: yellow, green, blue THEN brown, THEN purple, pink, orange and gray - commonalities across cultures/ languages suggest that there must be some universal properties that underlie our interpretations of colors - does having fewer color words change how you see color? - assessing color perception with maunsell color chips - comparing how members from Berinmo tribe vs english divide colors, came up with 2 hypothesis: - #1 = if categorical effects are restricted to linguistic boundaries, these groups should show different responses across the two category boundaries (green-blue and nol-wor) - #2 = if categorical effects are determined by the universal properties of the visual system, then both populations should show the same response patterns - subjects were given a specific maunsell color chip to remember - after 30 second delay, they were given 2 target chips (old and new) and had to recognize the original chip - berinmo speaker do better when tested with wor-nol than nol-nol - both english and berinmo speakers showed better performance when the 2 test colors were associated with different color words in their respective languages: berinmo speakers do best on wor nol trials english speakers do best on blue-green trials

what is an expert?

- experts are not just smart - expert know about a particular domain - "any individual who can consistently and reliably demonstrate superior performance on tasks designed to capture essential aspects of skill in the domain under investigation" - experts = outliers - if youre performing 2 or more standard deviation about the population mean, you are likely an expert >97.5% percentile - requires practice!!!!! --> development of perceptual, motor, and cognitive skills - learning what you do and do not know --> expertise takes at least 10 years to develop (Gardner), 10000+ hours of deliberate practice is needed (Ericcson) - however there is also a genetic component!! 30% of great musician is due to number of hours spent practicing and 70% is other component

metcalfe & wiebe (1987)

- gave subjects the Bronze Coin problem and complex algebra problems - subjects made "feeling of warmth" ratings (how close to the solution) every 15 sec before the arrived at the solution - 7 = warm, you have solution - 1 = not close to solution - in both algebra and insight problems they said 7 because they solved it - as people were thinking about it, going back in time from point of solution, you can see from algebra the warmth rating ramps up gradually and progressively but in insight problem there isn't a gradual warmth but it starts with no change and then all of a sudden they get the solution, all comes to you at once - for insight problems, there is no linear ramp up of "feelings of warmth" - no subjective sense that one is getting closer to solving the problem - feelings of warmth do not predict accuracy of solution - aha! moment may only mean that you've discovered a new approach to the problem not necessarily the solution - period of "incubation" can often help --> walk away from the problem for a while --> solution may come in a flash - is increased feeling of warmth associated with increased accuracy? NO, warmth rating actually higher before giving an incorrect answer than giving a correct answer

hill climbing strategy

- heuristic to choose an option that moves you in the direction of the goal - find some measure of the distance between your present state and the end state - take a step in the direction that most reduces that distance - a potential local maximum problem --> closer to solution however they get stuck because there is a local maximum and walking down there actually gets them further from the solution - however, many problems require you to move away from the goal and sacrifice that in order to eventually reach the goal EX: walking two blocks east to a bus stop, in order to catch a westbound bus

functional fixedness

- inability to realize that something that has a certain use might also be used for performing other funtions - participants fixate no the box as having only one function: keep matches - when match box was shown empty, with matches on the table, subjects were more likely to solve the problem EX: room where 2 strings hanging form ceiling and pair of pliers is lying on a table. task is to tie two strings together but they're positioned far enough so that you can't grab one string and hold on to it while reaching for other. how do you tie them together? - tie pliers to string so it can swing back and forth like a pendulum so you can reach it because can't grab both strings at once - Maier (1931) found it was possible to facilitate insight by 'accidentally' brushing against one of the strings so it swung a little bit - those who solved it rarely reported noticing this but it helps them think of it a different way - unconscious cues can lead to problem restructuring and then to insight

mnemonic techniques

- mental tricks that help people think about material in ways that improve memory - connecting cards with a person, narrative structure where things are connected to a story - way of building up associations and making things that are not memorable and turning them into something memorable - memorizing numbers --> can turn them into syllables aka The Major System = convert numbers to letter, interspersing vowels as needed

global aphasic

- nearly complete loss of comprehension and production of speech - some single stereotyped words might still be retained

insight

- occurs when solution to a problem seems to come suddenly - first identified by wolfgang kohler in study of chimps kohler (1929) = insight - bananas hanging from top of cage out of reach of chimps - some empty boxes were present in corner of the cage - after sitting quietly for few mins, they suddenly produced a solution (stacked boxes on top of one another to reach bananas) the bronze coin problem: - a stranger approached a museum curator and offered him an ancient bronze coin. the coin had an authentic appearance and was marked with the dat 544 BC. the curator had happily made acquisitions from suspicious sources before, but this time he promptly called the police and had the stranger arrested. why? - curator suspicious because BC is before jesus and theres no way someone would've dated a coin in advance thinking that a person would be born 544 years later so no coins are dated in BC

what is the format of human thought?

- plato, kant and watson = believed that thinking and speaking are the same its just to ourselves - however people can have thoughts that are difficult to express - if people thought entirely in words, words expressing new concepts could never be coined because there would be no way of imagining their meanings - infants and nonhuman primates are capable of relatively sophisticated forms of thinking, even in the absence of language - there have been a few adults who are up without language, but surely these people had thoughts - thus there must be aspects of thought that are independent of language - but can one's language nonetheless influence the way one perceives, understand, and thinks about the world?

conduction aphasia

- preserved comprehension - spontaneous speech has proper syntax and semantics - impaired repetition and paraphasic error (phonemes and syllables will be dropped or misplaced --> switching around phonemes lelophone for telephone) - damaged arcuate fasciculus --> disrupt connection between broca's and wernicke's - fluent speech and reasonable comprehension but have difficult with repetition so can't repeat things back because you have to translate the auditory phonological codes into a speech production/ articulatory code - important to transmit signals perceived through comprehension to frontal lobe to do articulation - motor area is by broca's area so it plans the syllables that you want to produce and if you can't get to that are you can't produce the speech you want to make

russian blues

- russian speakers divide what the english language regard as blue into 2 separate colors, called goluboy (light blue) and siniy (dark blue) - looking at 3 blue squares you must determine which of the bottom squares is same to top --> color matching - russian speakers performed the task more quickly when the 2 shades straddled their boundary between goluboy and init than when all shades fell into one camp - english speakers showed no such distinction - a verbal interference task (rehearsing an 8 digit number) abolished between- category advantage in russians, highlighting the role of language in color perception - articulatory rehearsal loop so you cant do much thinking in language when youre rehearsing an 8 digit number —> abolished advantage in russians!!!! - so not that russians are better perceptually at this distinction its that when they have the ability to use their language to think and bring word up that does give them an advantage - language can help you when mental labelling of colors is available to you but if you prevent that then its basically same as english speakers —> doesn't change the way they see the world but having a language changes features that they are attending to that are important for distinction

wernicke's aphasia

- showed opposite problem of Broca's - posterior, superior temporal lobe area; near junction of parietal cortex - inability to comprehend speech but could produce fluent speech - fluent speech - little spontaneous repetition - syntax afequate - grammar adequate - contrived or inappropriate words - comprehension not intact

grammatical gender another boroditsky experiment

- spanish and german speakers asked to write down first 3 adjective that came to mind to describe various objects - more masculine properties produced for masculine objects (defined by native language) and more feminine properties produced for feminine objects EX: key - masculine in german and feminine in spanish - german; hard, heavy, jagged, metal, serrated - spanish: golden, intricate, little lovely, shiny - grammatical gender focuses speakers of different languages on different aspects of objects - speakers of different languages may be obliged to think about the world differently

decision making

- the goal of most decision making is to get the most/ best stuff as often as possible - this involves two kinds of info: 1. how important is each outcome? --> utility 2. how likely is each outcome? --> probability

neural correlates of insight

- there is no question that problems requiring some insight involve a distinctive set of brain processes - when someone figures out problem solution either for a problem requiring some insight or from problem not requiring a special insight --> there is a different in gamma power with insight = a lot more gamma power and no insight = not much gamma power - gamma power = derived from EEG procedures and it represents the square of the voltage measured in brain waves; EEG electrodes placed all around the head

how do speakers of different languages talk about time differently

- whorf may be onto something - in english we most commonly use words referring to front vs back to talk about future vs past EX: talk about good times ahead of us and bad time behind us, we look forward to meeting a friend for lunch tomorrow - speakers of mandarin use up vs down metaphors to talk about the temporal order of events EX: earlier events are said to be shling or 'up' and later events are xi'a or 'down' boroditsky (2001): - examined whether speakers of english and speakers of mandarin think about time in different ways - english speakers were faster to correctly answer questions such as "does march come before april?" after seeing a row of items organized horizontally - mandarin speakers were faster at correctly answering same questions after seeing a column of items organized vertically

The Tumor Problem

- you are a doctor faced with a patient with a malignant tumor. it is impossible operate, but unless the tumor is destroyed the patient will die. there is a kind of ray that can be used to destroy the tumor. if the rays reach the tumor all at once at a sufficiently high intensity, the tumor will be destroyed. unfortunately at this intensity the healthy tissue that the rays pass through on the way to the tumor will also be destroyed. at lower intensities the rays are harmless to health tissue but they will not affect the tumor, either. what type of procedure might be used to destroy the tumor with the rays and at the same time avoid destroying the healthy tissue? - 10% solved it - some subjects were given other stories to read; one included the story of a general attacking a fortress - having a range of low powered rays that converge onto the tumor so that each one is so low powered that it won't damage the tissue but when they all come together to this focal point, this concentrated power of rays will kill tumor. if you give them the analogous problem but no suggestion that it will help it primes them to think about this approach to attacking and gaining strength through small converged army --> much more successful when solving problems by analogy

approaches to categorization

1. classical theory: concepts have definitions (necessary and sufficient conditions) 2. prototype theory: theres a summary representation for each category 3. exemplar theory: no summary representation- a concept is a collections of individual instances 4. theory based categorization: categories include causal explanations

levels of language representation

1. phoneme level 2. morpheme level 3. word level 4. syntactic level 5. discourse level

properties of language

1. symbolic = make us of arbitrary relation between sounds and meaning 2. discrete infinity = a finite set of elements can generate a (potentially) infinite set of 'meanings' 3. structure dependence = meaning is conferred through a specific arrangement of symbols 4. displacement = language allows referring to ideas/ elements that are not "there" 5. organized at multiple levels = sounds, words, sentences, paragraphs and text

how are categories stored in memory?

CLASSICAL THEORY: - rules - a categorizing is definite in terms of necessary ad sufficient features - necessary = has to be there - sufficient = all that you need - these features define the category - this representation is abstract --> it does not store any info about specific exemplars PROBABILISTIC THEORIES: - failure of classical theory led to proposal that category representation may be probabilistic rather than deterministic (rule based) 2 approaches: (both based on idea of similarity) - prototype theory = prototypes - exemplar theory = individual instances

types of phrase structure rules

DESCRIPTIVE RULES: - characterize the language as it is ordinarily used by fluent speakers - linguistics aims to provide a descriptive grammar of language PRESCRIPTIVE RULES: - standards for how language "ought" to be used EX: don't start a sentence w/ and or because. don't end sentence with a preposition - we should keep a health dose of skepticism about prescriptive rules EX: "this type of english i just can't put up with" --> something that we might say and seems reasonable but if we wanted to adhere to prescriptive rules we'd have to say "up with this type of english i just cannot put" which does not work

hippocampus and memory

ENCODING: - the hippocampus plays a critical role in the formation of new declarative memory (both episodic and semantic) - facilitates binding of many different types of event details into a coherent episodic memory - damage results in anterograde amnesia - but, non declarative (implicit) knowledge can still be acquired RETRIEVAL: - by indexing the interrelationship between event elements, the hippocampus can contribute the recollection of episodic memories (not typically involved in semantic memory retrieval) - as time passes, episodic memories become gradually consolidated in cortex and depend less on hippocampal indexing - damage results in temporally graded retrograde amnesia --> not being able to retrieve old me

power of deliberate practice

Ericsson and Chase (1982) - believed that experts are made, not born --> genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration -subject S.F increased his digit span from 7 to 80 digits over 2 years (approx. 230 hours of extensive practice - SF was a long distance runner with extensive knowledge of running times - learned to encode number sequences as running times EX: 3492= 3 min 49.2 sec - could store approx 22 chunks in memory - expertise did NOT transfer EX: normal letter span - ericsson coined the term "long term working memory" to refer to the system that allows people to temporarily store far more than 7 plus or minus 2 chunks EX: london taxi drivers - knowledge of all the london streets test - structural brain changes occurred associating with years of taxi driving - years of experience taxi driving increased = increase in grey matter/ cortical thickness volume in posterior hippocampus while the anterior hippocampus was negatively associated - tradeoff! because the whole hippocampus doesn't get bigger! - only those who passed the test had an increase in great matter intensity in posterior hippocampus

types of problems

WELL DEFINED PROBLEMS: - all four aspects of the problem are clearly specified EX: water jug problem, hobbits and orcs problem, gifting out how to get from LA to NY, solving a maze ILL DEFINED PROBLEMS: - one or more of the aspects of the problem are not well specified EX: achieving world peace --> goal is no more war, but what else is required to realize this goal? how will disputes be settled? resources allocated? EX: having a great time on vacation; writing a perfect grad school admissions essay - harder to outline all the starting elements and constraints; there are a lot of unknowns that come along

means- end heuristic

best known problem solving method: (2 major parts) 1. divide the problem into smaller subproblems 2. solve each of the smaller subproblems EX: how should you get from UCLA to Empire State building - fly from LA to NY --> takes care of biggest difference - that creates new sub problems: getting from UCLA to airport, getting from NY airport to empire state building - each of these new sub problems needs to be solved EX: tower of hanoi task EX: lily pads problem - 1st day of summer there was 1 water lily. the double every 24 hours. on 90th day of summer the lake was entirely covered. on what day was the lake half covered? --> DAY 89 because 2^90 = 100% --------------- = 2^89 = 50% 2 - sometimes helps to use the goal as the starting point and work backwards (means end analysis in reverse)

problem solving

four components: 1. initial state = resources that you have at the outset 2. goal state = the desired end product 3. operators = a set of operations or actions that can be taken to reach the goal state 4. path constraints = rules that cannot be violated EX: die hard - 4 gallon solution - only have a 3 gallon jug and a 5 gallon jug --> fill up 3 G pour it in 5 G so now it has 3, fill up 3 G and fill up 5 G so theres only 1 in 3G, pour out 5 G and then 1 in 3G into the 5G, fill up 3G and then pour into 5G so now you have 4 gallons in the 5G jug EX: orcs and hobbits - 5 orcs and 5 hobbits on east bank of muddy river - they need to cross to west bank and have located a boat. in each crossing at least one creature must be in boat, but no more than 3 creatures will fit in boat. if orcs ever outnumber hobbits on either side of river they will eat hobbits. there in designing the crossing we must make certain that hobbits are never outnumber either on east or west bank of river. how can creatures get across without any hobbits being eaten? - problem space = entire set of possible paths you can take from initial to goal state - shortest path requires 11 moves

nature vs. nurture debate

francis galton (late 1800s) - analyzed genealogical record of scholars, artists, musicians and other professionals and found that greatness tends to run in families EX: counted more than 20 eminent musicians in Bach family - concluded that experts are "born" john watson (early 1900s) - countered that experts are "made" - said that he could take any infant at random and "train him to become any type of specific [he] might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant chief and yes, even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents"

is there anything special about the brains or intellectual abilities of world memory champions?

maguire et al (2003) - compared world memory champions and age matched control subjects on a variety of cognitive tests - no difference in verbal or non verbal IQ measures - no difference in visual memory abilities EX: figure copy - however when subject underwent fMRI scanning during memorization tasks, the memory champions showed increased activity (relative to control subjects) in hippocampus and brain regions involved in spatial/ contextual processing and imagery - R posterior hippocampus and bilateral retrosplenial cortex had more activation

critical distinction between syntax and semantics

- "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" (noam chomsky) which is semantically meaningless but grammatically correct!!! so it has proper syntax BUT meaningless semantics --> compare with "furiously sleep idea green colorless" which is not allowed - we can determine syntactic correctness of a sentence independently of its semantic meaning - "twas brillig and the shlithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wake" illustrates that sentences can be syntactically correct, even when meaningless - there is syntactic ambiguity: you can't tell from sentence which is right interpretation; needs something else like context to help you process it EX: the girl looked at the boy with the telescope

what aids sentence parsing?

- BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE EX: the evidence examined by the reporter revealed the truth about the robbery --> background knowledge tells us that "examined" can't be main verb because evidence is not capable of examining anything EXTRALINGUISTIC CONTEXT INFORMATION = refers to factors outside of language itself EX: the sentence "put the apple on the towel into the box" is a garden path sentence, unless the sentence is uttered with the appropriate visual context - put apple on towel and then into box - PROSODY = refers to the patterns of pauses and pitch changes that characterize speech production - used to: - emphasize elements of a sentence - highlight sentence's intended structure - signal the difference between a question and an assertion EX: "No. Dogs are here." vs "No dogs are here."

what is a game?

- Ludwig wittgenstein's (1953) famous critique - family resemblances - what is the necessary feature of the concept of a game? - competitions between people or groups? EX: solitaire - has a winner? EX: jumping rope - provides amusement or diversion EX: are professional athletes amused or diverted - for many categories there are no clear defining features - various members share various features, but there is no single feature that is necessary exceptions to classical definition games: - played by kids --> gambling - engaged in for fun --> professional sports - has rules --> playing with legos - involves multiple people --> solitaire - competitive --> tea party - is played during leisure --> flying simulators

retrograde amnesia

- MTL damage impairs not only new learning, but also disrupts memories acquired before the injury - experiences this simultaneously with anterograde amnesia when hippocampus is removed because it is a gradient!!! impairment is not all or none. has more trouble remembering what happened last week than years before because the memory is more securely stored because sleep has had more time to memory consolidate it --> memory consolidation takes time - things happening right before surgery is not yet consolidated but things happening years ago is more consolidated through sleep

miller & cohen

- PFC and cognitive control example - when to answer/ not answer phone - prepotent response = answer ringing phone --> to override this PFC needs to send signals and make you behave differently - context is added which adds nodes that represent ensembles of neurons that code for different aspects of environment which feeds into PFC - PFC will relate these things together and make a decision - theres also reward signals that play a role here; every time picked up phone when it rang as a child gave a feedback that that was the right thing to do --> ventral segmental area (VTA) is sending projections to PFC which provides inputs that give DA and strengthening the connections/ actions - experience allows us to learn which action is appropriate in different context

Tower of Hanoi task

- aka "tower of london" - problem solving puzzle task where you have to go from initial position to goal position of colored rings and can only move one piece at a time - patients with frontal lobe lesions are impaired at solving the problem - frontal lobe is active when normal subjects solve the tower of hanoi - this task requires representing what your goal is and coming up with sub goals or intermediate behaviors that will help you get to your goal goal = getting all disks from first to last peg rules = must move disc from top of pile, peg moving to must be empty or have bigger disc on it - means end heuristic --> many subgoals EX: getting largest disk to far per first, to solve must be willing to temporarily move away from goal

Greene et al (2001) fMRI study

- an fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgement - studied people as they made decisions like the trolley examples - scenarios where people have to make moral judgment of killing 1 to save many lives - scanned people while they made these judgments 3 scenarios: 1. moral- personal = pushing fat guy off bridge 2. moral impersonal = pulling lever 3. non moral = control condition that doesn't involved morality - found that areas associated with working memory = high activity for moral impersonal and non moral decisions; uses rational cost/ benefit analysis to come up with decision to maximize the greater good - found that areas associated with emotion = high activity for moral personal decisions (amygdala also involved); emotion is high jacking decision making and can't bring yourself to do it even though rationally you would save more lives doing it EX: someones bleeding --> ruin car leather to save person because more personal vs. give money to help someone overseas - you're removed from the situation so less personal so will be less likely to help

the mason 4 card selection task

- another test of deductive reasoning - each card has a number on one side and a letter on the other - proposed rule: "if there is a G on one side of the card, then there is a 3 on the other side" - G, 3, P, 7 - NOT the card with the 3 but the card with the 7 --> if there was a G on the other side you would learn that the rule isn't true. you want to look for examples that prove your hypothesis is wrong. if G on other side of 3 then the rule would be right EX: if someone drinks beer, then s'he must be 21 or over - each card has age on one side and drink on the other - Beer, Diet Coke, 23, 19 - 19!!!! because you want to know if the underaged person is drinking beer to prove the rule wrong! if the 19 year was drinking beer on the other side then it proves it wrong! doesn't matter what the 23 year old is drinking because its legal for them. anyone can drink diet coke

figure copy task

- assessment for people with brain damage and assessing different kinds of functions - goal neglect = a pattern of behavior in which one fails to keep one's goal in mind, so that (for example) one relies on habitual responses even if those responses will not move the person toward the goal - patient fails to come up with a good plan on how to draw the whole image --> missing coherence and planning and taking things piece by piece instead of as a whole and drawing big pieces and then focusing in

problems with prototype theory

- assumes that info about individual instances is not stored, or at least is not used to guide categorization - however, people do seem to store info about individuals exemplars, and can sometimes be influenced by these specific exemplars - also, prototype theory doesn't have a way of taking into account the variance of a given category

problems with exemplar theory

- assumes that many individual exemplars are stored in memory without "blending" EX: we've seen thousands of dogs but we don't have all those memories --> we've extracted a few general memories and allow for some forgetting and you build up from all your experience some sort of blended sense that this is a dog instead of recalling every memory we've ever seen - has trouble accounting for people's ability to extract general properties of categories so as to allow classification of new instances

Deese- Roediger- McDermott (DRM) Experiment Results

- because of the theme uniting the list, participants can remember almost 90% of the worshippers they encountered however they're just as likely to recall the list's theme word - even though it was to presented EX: list of words that relate to chairs however chair is not actually in the list of words --> recall 90% of words and just as likely to have a false memory that the theme word was also present - people will mistakenly recall a related word EX: when remembering objects from a graduate student office - present = chair, desk, skull, floor mat - not present = books - 30% of subjects falsely remember books - people often rely on schemas when reconstructing memories

testing as learning

- being tested for info serves to boost memory - retrieval is form of learning - learning effective mental routes to recover the info - strengthening the memory trace - weave new contextual details into the memory - testing effect = deep processing needed to take a test helps create longer lasting memories of the material - rohrer & pashier (2010) showed that study-test works much better for recall of material than study-study after 2 days and 1 week; however after 5 mins the study-study group did perform a little better than study-test

problems with both prototype and exemplar views

- both rely heavily on idea of similarity which can lead us astray - whats wrong with similarity? - take a blackbird, remove all of its feathers and clothe it in a suit of bat skin --> is it more similar to a bat or blackbird? would you categorize it as a bat or a blackbird? - similarity is always relative --> there are an infinite number of ways in which two things can be similar; we require some way of knowing what features are being compared

phoneme segmentation

- breaking a word into separate sounds and counting them - major challenge for speech recognition - 15 phonemes per sec is a lot of information and biggest challenge is trying to make sense of incoming stream and map auditory stream and - map auditory stream and frequency and amplitude of words onto a map; the word after modifies the frequency of the word before --> when we speak we create this blending effect of words so "you can't handle" is different "you can't stomach" - coarticulation = the pronunciation of a phoneme is changed by following phoneme EX: the sentences "this guy is falling" and "the sky is falling" are basically the same bc underlying sounds structures are the same --> shows that its not all about the words but also about context

categorical perception of phonemes

- categorical perception = our categorization of phonemes shows abrupt boundaries, even when there is no corresponding abrupt change in the stimuli themselves - there is no blending or ambiguity of what we are hearing - idea that when we hear a phoneme we need to map, we hear the sound and if its ambiguous were gonna map it onto one phoneme or another - actual phonemes can be a great example of a p or great example of a b --> discrete = actual perception - or it can be continuous = actual sounds --> you can have good example that are a b/ p and then ones that are more ambiguous - voice onset time (VOT) = allows us for some phonemes to determine what is being said; time between beginning of pronunciation of word and onset of vibration of vocal chords EX: "ba" your vocal chords vibrate right from the start EX: "pa" your vocal chords do not vibrate until after a short delay LIIBERMAN ET AL. (1957): - manipulated the VOT, in systematic increments; frequency and pronunciation of different syllables; BA --> DA --> GA - ability to know difference BA, DA and GA is dependent on your ability to detect very small changes in VOT - transitions are very discreet so if we didn't have categorical perception, as we manipulated VOT we would have this gradual transition

neuroscientific data on categorization

- certain kinds of categories are represented in different brain areas - we know that areas in the brain that are associated with different types of semantic knowledge from lesion data on patients - tend to have deficits that disproportionately impair one type of category over the other - damage to temporal lobes = important for semantic processing/ knowledge - anterior part of temporal lobe = impairment at identifying people; representing people and their identity (not prosopagnosia) —> who is that person? - different parts of the brain are representing features of the world that are tied to our understanding of different kinds of knowledge — knowledge about peoples identities, info about the people, info about animals and tools - semantic space represented across the cortical surface --> words are grouped by meaning in different parts of the brain EX: students did fMRI scans to see what parts of brain is activated when listening to stories/ words and make brain map

prefrontal cortex (PFC)

- cognitive control is thought to be controlled by PFC - over course of evolution theres been an increase in size of the prefrontal cortex - one of the last areas to mature in brain ventromedial PFC (VMPFC) = selection and inhibition in social/ emotional contexts; includes orbitofrontal cortex region dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) = regulation of non social cognitive functions; executive control of working memory - phineas gage (1848) - rod went through skull and lands 25' away - gage is dazed but does not loose consciousness - taken to Dr. John Harlow who shaved head and removed bone fragments and treated wound - had most of abilities intact, only blind in 1 eye however his personality was completely changed - could not plan for future, set goals, bitter, acted inappropriately - damage to ventromedial PFC

schemas and memory

- cohen (1981) presented participants video of a woman having dinner with her husband - told she was a librarian or waitress; those who were told that she was a librarian were more likely to remember that she wore glasses, whereas those who were told she was a waitress were more likely to remember her drinking beer --> EXAMPLE OF CONFIRMATION BIAS - example of false memories that are induced by our schemas - labeling her as a librarian makes activates schema of what librarians look like --> glasses and same with waitress

inductions and confirmation bias

- confirmation bias = near ubiquitous phenomenon: we tend, preferentially to find evidence of what we already believe. someone who believes that the crime rate increases when the moos is full will notice news reports of crimes committed then, but be less attentive to crime stories at other times - more responsive to evidence that confirms one's beliefs - essentially we ignore disconfirming data - can lead to perpetuation of unfounded stereotypes: "all [insert group of people here] are bad drivers" - superstitions: "if i velcro, un velcro and re velcro my batting gloves, I'm more likely to get a hit" - or conspiracy theories: "the 9/11 attacks were an inside job" - notice examples that fit this pattern more readily (biased attention) - will recall examples that fit the pattern more readily (biased memory)

context and memory

- context helps retrieval - may be many different things: other words on list, environmental cues (EX. visual, auditory or olfactory), internal mental state at the time of encoding (tired, hungry, sad) --> anytime we learn something it is happening in the backdrop of this context - the more similar the retrieval situation is to the encoding situation, the better retrieval

Godden and Baddeley (1975)

- contextual effects on memory - changed environment can hurt recall - study on land = tests better on land - study underwater = tests better underwater - context during retrieval so closely matches the learning and facilitates it!!!! - info you seek in memory is tied to retrieval cue given but its possible that the info you seek receives insufficient activation from this source - however the info you seek can also be tied in memory to thoughts that had been triggered by the learning context --> if you're back in that context a the time of recall, the target nodes can receive a double input (activation from two different sources) and this can help activate target nodes - grant et al (1998) also showed that a changed environment hurst recall by showing studying with noise and without noise - with noise = tests better with noise - in quiet = tests better in quiet

levels of processing (LOP) - craik & lockhart (1972)

- craik and lockhart proposed a processing framework for memory - highly influential view of "levels of processing" - wrote a paper that briefly reviews the evidence for multistory theories of memory and points out some difficulties with the approach - an alternative framework for human memory research is then outlined in terms of depth or levels of processing

double dissociation of declarative & procedural memory

- damaged hippocampus = deficit declarative memory; no deficit procedural memory - damaged cerebellum = no deficit declarative memory; deficit procedural memory - two kids of memory that depends on different neural systems

criticisms of classical theory

- defining features often can't be found - you can often remove any particular feature and some object will still be a category member - non necessary features affect categorization EX: which of these shapes is a parallelogram? our mental representation is the second image however they are all parallelograms; humans don't always adhere to classical theory because our instinct is to go with the classic view of what a parallelogram looks like due to the exemplars given and installed in school EX: what is a bird? - birds are defined by following features of wings, flies, has feathers, sings, builds nests in trees, eats worms/ insect - HOWEVER penguins are birds and have flippers, does not fly or build nests in trees or eat worms/ insect - shows that violation of any one defining feature doesn't seem to affect our categorization of penguin = bird

wason task and evolutionary psychology

- do we have a cheater detection module? --> - wanna have mechanism for knowing when social contracts are violated - leda cosmides and john tooby have argued that people are good at reasoning in particular situations that have been present in evolution - evolution has selected for the ability to reason in social situations, such as detecting cheaters - if has not selected for the ability to solve abstract logic problems - in many cases we cannot rely upon deductive inferences --> instead we rely upon induction - induction does not guarantee a correct answer! however, some inferences are more likely to be right than others

The Memory Doctor (2010)

- doctored photographs of Bush relaxing at his Crawford ranch with roger clemens during hurricane katrina & obama shaking hands with iranian president - both never happened however subjects believe it happened and commented on it - liberals were more likely than conservatives to incorrectly remember Bush on vacation during Katrina hurricane and conservatives were more likely than liberals to falsely remember seeing Obama shaking hands with the president of Iran

mirror tracing task

- done on patient HM - trace star and you have to start at one point and keep pencil in bt lines; out of line is an error - however he is looking in a mirror so you have traverse your motions because you're getting reverse feedback - errors from day 1,2 and 3 shows improvement --> HM has learned how to do a task even without hippocampus - kind of learning here is not dependent on hippocampus - doesn't have memory of task/ experimenters but still knows how to do it --> no episodic memory but has procedural memory - patients with damage to cerebellum are impaired at mirror tracing but perform normally on declarative memory tasks--> DOUBLE DISSOCIATION

evidence for levels of processing - craik & tulving (1975)

- encoding of info into memory is a dynamic process - what we remember is a function of how we process info level of processing - shallow ----------------> deep physical-->acoustic--> semantic EX of each: - physical word = TABLE is the word written in capital letters? - acoustic word = CAT does the word rhyme w/ "MAT" - semantic = DAFFODIL does the word fit in this sentence?: "I know it is springtime when the first _________ in my garden blooms" - RESULTS OF STUDY: PHYSICAL = made uppercase or lowercase judgments they only recalled about 10% of the words ACOUSTIC = if they encoded a list of words and made judgments of does it rhyme with blank, they remembered around 15% SEMANTIC = if they decided does it fit in this sentence where they are semantically processing it they remember 20% - participants forget a lot of the words but with free recall at end of the list participants do 2X better when they have to semantically process it into a sentence than superficial judgment - similar study done by Hyde & Jenkins (1969) that was under appreciated that showed similar results --> better recall comes from deep processing!!!!

availability heuristic

- estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common - may lead us to believe that we always do the housework ourselves - judged probability of an event is related to how easily that event can be brought to mind - judgment are clearly influenced by how often each factor appears in media - while homicide and fire are often reported, stomach cancer doesn't get much press

the life span retrieval curve

- even with normal persons with no hippocampal damage theres variance with what one is more likely to remember - represented by a graph of the likelihood of someone being able to recall events experienced at various ages during the life span - contains 4 different parts: 1. childhood amnesia = from birth to 5 2. childhood memories = 5 to 10 3. reminiscence bump = 10 to 30; critical period of life of teenage years, early and mid twenties; lots of really important things happen in this stage 4. period of recency = end of reminiscence bump to present time

kahnesman & tversky (1973)

- example of representativeness heuristic - showed subjects personality descriptions allegedly sampled at random from a group of 100 professionals (lawyers&engineers) - subjects told 70% lawyers, 30% engineers (BASE RATE) - description of individual: dick is a 30 year old married man with no children. a man of high ability and high motivation, he promises to be quite successful in his field. he is well liked by his colleagues - majority say lawyer due to stereotypes --> they ignored the base rate 1983 experiment: - "linda is 31 yrs old; she's single, outspoken and very bright. she majored in philosophy. as a student she was deeply consumed with issues of discrimination and social justice and participated in anti nuclear demonstrations" - results: participants tended to estimate "linda is a bank teller who is active in the feminist movement" as more likely than "linda is a bank teller" - conjunction fallacy = description represents one's stereotype of a feminist - people ignore basic probability principles --> 2 events in combo cannot be more likely than just 1 of the constituent events - very unlikely for someone to be both bank teller and feminist - failed to use system #2 which should have told us that it can't be more likely

state dependent recall

- goodwin et al (1969) - sober at learning = better performance sober at recall - drunk at learning = better performance drunk at recall - eich et al (1975) - version of experiment where subjects either smoked normal or weed cigs during study and/ or test - learned w/ regular cigs = better performance when tested with regular cig by a little - learned with weed = better performance by a lot when tested with weed - performance of learn w/ regular cig & test w/ regular cig = performance of learn weed & test w/ weed - kenealy (1997) - effects of mood - easier to remember happy memories in a happy state and sad memories in a sad state --> mood primers certain memory contents

cueing sleep- dependent consolidation experiment

- had participants do a concentration memory game - got cards and participants had to flip them and make matches by learning location of the cards - when they were in deep sleep an odor was presented to them (not conscious of this) - and then had them do a retrieval; sometimes the odor was present during learning and during sleep they presented sometimes same odor - found that when smell was presented MRI showed that smell triggered memory in hippocampus and behaviorally they are showing huge facilitations - when odor was presented during learning and SWS they had a huge advantage --> 95% word recall - even though not consciously aware of smell, the smell reactivates that context and during sleep many things can be consolidating and the odor causes hippocampus to prioritize the reactivation and replay of memories associated with that odorant consolidation and in this case it was learning object location pairs - if odor presented only during SWS there is no effect because it must also be presented during learning! - gives possibility of targeted memory reactivation during sleep!

Loftus et al (1978)

- had participants study a car accident, then gave some of them misinformation on the subsequent test (e.g., if they saw the car stop at a stop sign, the experimenters lied and used the word "yield" sign); after that test, participants had to select which slides they had seen from the experiment; the basic pattern was that people were influenced by the misinformation and many would select the inappropriate slide during the final test - immediately after viewing these slides, subjects filled out a questionnaire of 20 Qs - for half of the subjects, Q17 was: "did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the stop sign?"; for other hand, the same question was asked with the words "stop sign" replaced with "yield sign" - some time later, shown 15 pairs of slides and asked to judge which image in each pair was the one they originally had seen - critical trial was the one where these two images appeared - subjects given misleading info after encoding had false memories for the details of the visual scene

conditional statement

- had the format "if X, then Y" - the first part (antecedent) provides a condition under which the second part (consequent) is guaranteed to be true modus ponens: - premise: if P, then Q --> P - conclusion: therefore Q VALID affirmation of the consequent: - premise: If P, then Q --> Q - conclusion: therefore P INVALID modus tollens: - premise: if it is raining, then Alicia gets wet (if R then W). Alicia does not get wet (not W) - conclusion: it is not raining (not R) VALID denial of the antecedent: - premise: if it is raining, then Alicia gets wet; it is not raining - conclusion: therefore, alicia does not get wet INVALID

framing effects

- half empty or half full? - way in which you frame the problem really influences peoples results - people tend to interpret a choice in terms of the given frame of reference - this combines with the asymmetry of the utility function to cause behavior that differs depending on the description - risk aversion when framed in terms of potential gains - risk seeking when framed in terms of potential losses - flattens out more quickly for gains and more steeper for losses EX: opt in or opt out of organ donor - US = opt in - other countries = opt out --> more people are organ donors EX: trolley dilemma - trolley is approaching 5 people who are tied to the tracks. there is a switch that can cause the trolley to change to a different track, where only 1 person is tied. would you flip the switch? --> most say YES flip the switch - train is approaching 5 people tied on the tracks, you are on a bridge over the tracks. if you push one fat guy off the bridge onto the tracks the train will stop before it hits the 5 people. would you push the person off? --> most say NO because - lives saved to lives lost is the exact same in both situations; only difference is whether its a lever or a push; push is more personal whereas lever is much more removed and more things you can use to justify your actions

alter & oppenheimer 2008

- how much can we buy? - get different responses based on familiar (dollar) and unfamiliar condition (dollar coin) - when unfamiliar example of money they underestimate how much they can buy with it --> confusing their disfluency even if its unconscious - shows that often times we are not aware that fluency guides judgment - people undermine things that are disfluent

language acquisition

- humans pass through several stages while learning language: 1. cooing stage = begin to utter a wide range of sounds 2. babbling stage = utter a smaller set of phonemic sounds 3. one word stage = speaks out words and morphemes 4. two word stage = production of two- word sentences

other techniques for planting false memories

- imagination - dream interpretation - hypnosis = therapist suggests things and these suggestions then feel real to them - exposure to other people's memories = people who read stories or books and it blends in with your own memories and lose track of where you heard that info and mistake for own - false info - doctored photographs = cut and pasted real photos to fake ones EX: hot air balloon cut and paste made people think it actually happened

evidence for levels of processing

- incidental learning = deep processing leads to learning, even in absence of an intention to learn - intentional learning = usually ensures deep processing will occur; not necessarily any better than incidental learning with deep processing - memory is a byproduct of processing

Patient HM - Henry Molaison and the amnesic syndrome

- intractable epilepsy; had first major seizure at 16 and did not go away - bilateral medial temporal lobe resection (hippocampus and nearby structures removed --> had pervasive and profound amnesia (could not remember any new info beyond what was in working memory) - can retrieve things from experiences before surgery - anterograde amnesia = inability to remember events you experiences (episodic memory) and facts you encounter (semantic memory) after the brain injury - could learn new skills (procedural memory intact)

"all dogs are animals. some animals are pets. some dogs are pets."

- invalid!!!!! - better illustrated with all sharks are animals. some animals are pets. some sharks are pets - switching out sharks with dogs shows that this is actually invalid because pets and sharks do not overlap!!!!! this is due to belief bias = tendency to accept invalid conclusions if they are believable, reject valid conclusions when they are unbelievable

what is a drunk from classical categorization vs theory based categorization

- its mates at night, you're walking home when you see someone jump into pool full clothed --> you think "that guy must be drunk!" why do you think that? classical categorization = - stinky breath - wobbling walk - impaired speech - maybe one entry is "jumps in pools at night"? theory based categorization = - concept of drunk involves a theory of impaired judgment which explains the man's behavior, so you induce he must be drunk - knowledge based causal theory

prospect theory

- kahneman & tversky 1979 - shows that the relationship between gains and losses is asymmetrical in terms of decision making - graph shows how much of an impact a given win or loss would have for you - a bigger impact of losses than of gains - in general, we are more loss adverse... - losing $50 compared to winning $50 —> psychological impact of gaining $50 is the green bar on R but losing $50 puts you further down so its more negative subjectively to lose $50 —> asymmetrical!!! losses is more negative whereas gains is much more better!!! to get the decisions to be equal you'd have to change loss amount so if you wanted to get decision where people didn't care you'd have to do gain $50 or lose $20/ $30 - with more options, people opt to wait!!! - people are powerfully motivated to avoid decisions they might regret later. turn outs that when decision work out badly, people generally experience far less regret over their choice than they'd anticipated EX: medical decisions - drug A or surgery --> many doctors thought drug treatment might help - drug A, drug B or surgery --> with 2 drug options and difficulty justifying one drug over another, surgery option was chosen more often (avoiding the need to make a drug choice

knowledge network

- knowledge is represented via a vast network of connection and associations between all of the info you know - other evidence for the knowledge representation in a network comes from the sentence verification task --> easy judgment of whether a statement is true or false and see reaction time - reaction times go up for longer associative paths - increases in reaction time is evidence that this hierarchical representation might be how people make these judgments --> in order to extract the knowledge you want about the individual entity you have to traverse the semantic knowledge network EX: more time to think "a canary has skin" bc you must first think a canary can sing, a canary can fly, a canary has skin participants must quickly decide whether sentences like the following are true: - robins are birds - robins are animals - cats have hearts - cats are birds

displacement

- language allows us to think of and communicate about "things" beyond what is immediate sensed - "on tuesday we will have out next in class quiz"

basic level of categorization

- level of categorization hypothesized as the "natural" and most informative level, neither too specific nor too general. People tend to use basic-level terms (such as "chair," rather than the more general "furniture" or the more specific "armchair") in their ordinary conversation and in their reasoning - eleanor rosch EX: superordinate = aircraft basic = airplane subordinate = cirrus SR22 G3

Fox (2006) experiment

- list 2 ways in which the course could be improved (easy task!) OR list 10 ways (relatively more difficult) - then ask for an overall rating of the class - higher ratings = when asked to list 10 ways because its harder to list 10 ways so you assume class was better

family resemblance

- ludwig Wittgenstein - proposed that members of a category have a family resemblance to each other - dark hair, glasses, a mustache and a big nose are typical for this family but do not define the family

how do we learn?

- maintenance rehearsal (aka item specific rehearsal) = simply focus on the to-be-remembered items themselves - elaborative rehearsal = thinking about what the to-be-remembered items mean and/ or how they're related to each other and to other things you know --> better because it could provide more sensory details and meaning to allow for better remembering

symbolic

- make us of arbitrary relation between sounds and meaning - a referent is the actual object, action or event in the world that a word refers to - linguistic symbols are different in every language however they all refer to same thing EX: referent is the concept of the word dog which is different in a bunch of languages - we even use different words to refer to the same thing within the English language (dialects) EX: soda = CA pop = midwest

other ways to improve memory: spaced vs. massed encoding

- massed encoding: table table table apple apple apple fair fair fair - spaced encoding: table... apple... fair... table... apple... fair... etc - spaced practice is better than massed practice!!!!! - cramming for exams is bad unless you have no desire to remember the info after test - spacing of study sessions leads to better long term retention of material - in massed practice the context at encoding is similar for all repititions - in spaced practice, the context will differ on each repetition - some of this context is likely to match what is encountered at retrieval time (EX: more potential "retrieval paths")

structure dependence

- meaning is conferred through a specific arrangement of symbols - language is governed by rules that impart meaning and define which combinations of elements are acceptable and which are not EX: john kissed mary --> can't say kissed john mary - part of what it means to know a word is knowing how to use a word EX: word like "place" demands an object, so that sentence 1 (she can place the books on the table - with an object) sounds fine but she can place on the table is anomalous so wrong!

misinformation effects

- misleading info can affect memory for the actual event --> people very confident for things that actually didn't happen that way - Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has studied this - loftus & palmer (1974) - subjects watch film on traffic safety that contained accident - subjects later answer questions about accident - on 1 question, subjects asked: "about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" while other subjects given same question, but with "hit" replaced by: contacted or smashed - results when asked how fast cars were going when: "hit" = 34 mph "smashed" = 20% higher estimates - when all participants were later asked whether they'd seen broken glass in the scene, participants who'd been asked the "smashed" question were more likely to say "yes" although there was no broken glass showing that leading questions do have an impact on memory - rate of false memory was impacted huge by the one word

how can false memories affect behavior?

- one study participants were led to believe that as children they had gotten ill after eating egg salad. this "memory" then changed the participants' eating habits - over the next four months, they ended up eating less egg salad - can even lead to confessions to a crime one didn't commit - recently, using the parental informant paradigm, it was demonstrated that young adults with no criminal history could be led to falsely recall and confess to committing a theft, an assault an assault with a weapon or even extreme violence and ultimately being arrested by the police - other participants were led to generate false memories for non criminal but painful (like being injured in an accident, being attacked by an animal or losing a large amount of money - 70% of sample came to recall and confess to crimes that had never occurred, a similar percentage to the number of false, non criminal memories - considering the level of detail and sensory components, the false crime memories were strikingly similar to the true memories

sequences of phonemes

- only some are acceptable in a language EX: sequence [tl] is not acceptable in english - adjustments for certain phoneme sequences EX: [s] sound becomes a [z] in words like bags

stroop effect

- overrides competition from automatically retrieved info - explains the decreased speed of naming the color of ink used to print words when the color of ink and the word itself are of different colors - different nodes for different colors and it will activate and info will move through to help us process what we are suppose to say (color of text rather than what the word says) --> requires cognitive control - top down effect - anterior cingulate cortex = activated in tasks like this; conflict monitoring, whenever theres competing options and you have to decide which one to do/say the ACC activates more and send signals to PFC to increase degree of cognitive control - nature of activation in ACC and L. DLPFC are different: ACC = role is conflict monitoring LPFC = tells us that this is gonna be a context that you're gonna need more control and prepares brain to implement that control

misconceptions of chance

- people expect that a sequence of events generated by a random process will be representative of a longer random sequence - in flipping a coin, people think HTHTTH is more likely than HHHTTT (which seems nonrandom) or HHHHHH (which seems like an unfair coin) - gambler's fallacy = after a long run of red on the roulette wheel, people think that black is now "due to happen" --> since it hasn't happened for a while it must be; if theres a few things in a row then randomness is due to correct it - casinos often post lat 20 numbers that occurred --> people try to use this info to make bets bc they expect that a number is "due" to come up but there are no patterns in roulette

representativeness heuristic

- people judge probabilities based on the degree that the situation is similar to, or representative of, their stereotypes or knowledge - they do this even when there is other information that a rational person would use to make the best possible decision - base rate neglect: tendency to ignore the "prior probability" of an event - people make incorrect judgments even when they are explicitly informed about the base rates - may lead us to believe that smoking must be ok for health based on one example (anecdotal evidence or "man who" stories) - we often assume that what is true of one instance of the category must by true of the category as a whole

attribute substitution

- phenomenon observed when individuals must make judgements that are complex but instead substitute a simpler solution or perception - you want to judge frequency of occurrence in the world --> instead you rely on availability in memory: how easily can you think of cases? this usually works because events that are frequent in the world are likely to be more available in memory --> but this strategy can leas to error because many factors other than frequency in the world can influence availability from memory!

cognitive control/ executive function

- processes that flexibly shape and constrain our thoughts, memories and actions to allow us to accomplish our behavioral goals - about holding goals in mind, regulating behavior, inhibiting distraction so you're using your attention in a controlled way but there are other aspects like... putative cognitive control functions include: 1. inhibition of prepotent responses (automatic response) 2. selection of target responses 3. retrieval of info from long term memory 4. shifting of attention/ task switching 5. coordination & monitoring of working memory

utility theory

- rational person should try to calculate the expected utility (or "expected value") of each option and choose the option that maximizes this - expected value = (probability of a particular outcome) x (value of the outcome) EX: if you are playing roulette and there is a 1/20 chance of winning $100, the expected value of the gamble is $5 - do our preferences for particular outcomes map directly onto their expected value? EX: A) a certain $50 B) a 50/50 chance to win $100 or nothing - both options have same expected value of $50 - however most chose A - this is because people are "risk averse" when it comes to gains - when something is framed in terms of winning/ gains they tend to be averse to taking on risks --> rather have certain 50 than taking on risk EX: A) certain loss of $50 B) 50/50 chance of a $100 loss or no loss - both option have the same expected loss ($50) - however, most chose B - people are risk seeking when it comes to losses --> particular loss looms larger than the equivalent size gain

the self-reference effect

- rogers, kuiper & kirker (1977) - encoding info with respect to oneself increases memory - another form of deep processing - particular benefit that you get when you try to connect an item and make it meaningful in relation to yourself EX: so if youre encoding a list of words youre asked whether this word describes you, you're thinking about each word in connection to you which leads to deep processing --> doubles the benefit of memory

The wide range of availability effects

- schwarz et al (1991) - asked subjects to recall examples from their lives in which they had acted in an assertive fashion - half of the subjects asked to recall 6 examples; half asked to recall 12 examples - then participants were asked some more general questions, including how assertive they thought they were - which subject group rated themselves as more assertive? A) the group that had been asked to generate 6 examples - easier to come up with 6 examples than 12 examples --> the difficulty that it took to generate those makes them underestimate their assertiveness as a trait

critical period for language development

- seems to be a critical period during which language develops readily and after which language acquisition is more difficult and less successful - studying effects of damage to language areas in the brain (children recover more readily than adults proves that there is a critical period for language development - studying ages at which second language is acquired also proves this EX: cases of Victor, the Wild Child of Aveyron (France, 1800) (grew up in the wild) and Genie (US, 1970) (parents abused her) both did not grow up with language seem to support critical period hypothesis - tried to teach them language but brain has very hard time learning structure of language if you haven't been exposed to it in that early period - reason why its hard to learn languages later

hippocampus

- situated in medial part of temporal lobe - info from all different regions of the brain funnels in and converges at hippocampus and receives info about visual, auditory, olfactory, emotional as well as thoughts, semantics and episodic memories - much of brain/ regions/ nodes will be active during experience and event encoding, processing different details - memory formation (event encoding) hippocampus during learning is its receiving info from all these different regions and the signals are activating different neurons that are receiving different inputs that are representing different features of the experience --> hippocampus can bind info together - event retrieval: reconstructing past neural patterns: and then going back to reno, it feeds back to hippocampus and during retrieval it facilitates pattern completion process. these different nodes that are bound together is an index of the experience. one node can activate this, bind together with other nodes and reconstruct details in memory and send details back out to cortex which allows me to relive/ reconstruct the past event - allows for reactivation of other associations - hippocampus teaches cortex during sleep to create these associations; a bunch of areas develop memory consolidation - over time memory becomes more consolidated so hippocampus can be used to learn other things

the generation effect

- slamecka & graf (1978) - subjects study word pairs EX: rapid-fast, lamp-light - either read them OR generate the second item in the pair (so they've never seen the second word): rapid-f_ _ _ , lamp- l_ _ _ _ - RESULTS: given a cued recall test, and people do MUCH better with generation than mere reading--> this is because you have to retrieve/ search your semantic memory and doesn't just involve bottom up! instead uses top down because our search is constrained with generation and the active effortful semantic search makes it faster!! making associations and coming up with something that you retrieved makes it a lot more sticky in memory - HINT: how to study for exams? active retrieval and testing is very beneficial to strengthen memory

morpheme

- smallest unit of meaning within a language - can be divides into root words and affixes (EX: prefix, suffix) - "dog" single morpheme (dog) - "dogs" 2 morphemes (dog & -s [number]) - "studied" 2 morphemes (study & -ed [tense]) - restudied 3 morphemes

phonemes

- smallest unit of speech that can be used to distinguish an utterances from another (in a given language) - in english phonemes are made of a consonant or vowel (44 total) - different languages employ different sets of phonemes (an different types such as clicks) - children appear to be sensitive to any set of phonemes at birth --> brain latches onto a set of phonemes that are available in your language and detect them; can be learned but more challenging as you grow - produced by modulating flow of air from lungs to mouth and nose - can be classified according to specific features - normal speaking rate = 150 words per min --> ~15 phonemes per sec - major challenge for speech recognition is phoneme segmentation 3 factors affecting phonemes: 1. voicing 2. manner of production 3. place of articulation

how to make up for not being in the same context?

- smith (1979) - mental imagery can be sufficient to trigger context reinstatement - subjects learn words in a distinct room; tested in 1 of 3 conditions: 1. came context 2. different context 3. different context, but asked to imagine the encoding context - result: imagining the encoding context almost as good as being there

typicality effects

- some members of a category are more "typical" than others - they are verified more quickly (sentence verification task = reaction time to show typicality) - but these differences are related to non necessary features (EX: ability to fly) which are not included in the classical theory EX: Malt & Smith 1984 - had people rate typicality on different kinds of birds on a 7 point scale - bat = lowest score - also applies to reaction times in sentence verification tasks - typicality ratings may be based on total number of typical features EX: robin shares all typical features of birds whereas bats and penguins share the least amount of typical features with birds EX: production task - name examples of fruit in 30 secs - strong exemplars = apple, orange - weaker exemplars = kiwi tomato, olive, avocado - graded membership: some fruits are "fruitier" than others EX: what is an even number? - very clear rule for what is even/ odd - yet people rate certain numbers to be "better examples" of even or odds #s --> absurd - as numbers get higher the example becomes less good - 3 is more odd than 7 - 4 is more even than 18

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

- test of executive functions involving rule induction and rule use and PFC function - subject is given cards with shapes that vary on thee dimensions (color, shape and number of shapes) - subject sorts cards into two piles - experimenter provides feedback after each response - the sorting rule will occasionally change and subjects must adapt - subject needs to realize that the rule is changed and adjust behavior accordingly - cognitive processes engaged during WCST: 1. must internally maintain goal 2. selection demands are high 3. flexibility requires to shift current goal 4. need to inhibit previously relevant info - patents with PFC lesions are impaired at the WCST and exhibit perseveration, keep responding based on a previous rule despite evidence against this rule and may continue for as many as 100 trials

syntax

- the systematic way in which [categories of] words can be combined and sequenced to generate meaningful phrases and sentences - rules apply to grammatical categories (nouns, verbs, propositions, adjectives, adverbs) - one kind of syntactic rule is a phrase-structure rule, a constraint that governs the pattern of branching in a phrase structure tree - one such rule specifies that a sentence must contain a noun phrase (NP) and a ver phrase (VP)

inductive reasoning

- type of logic in which generalizations are based on a large number of specific observation - specific to general - to detect cheating we cannot rely upon deductive inferences --> rely upon induction - induction does not guarantee correct answer however, some inferences are more likely to be right than others EX: we would like to form universal generalizations about the world - all X's are Y - all swans are white - these are based on our previous experience - swan #1 was white... - swan #3265 was white - therefore, all swans are white problem with induction: - induction is only guaranteed if we have experienced all possible instances EX: there are black swans in australia

typicality and attractiveness

- typicality influences many judgments about category members, including attractiveness - more typical = more attractive - less typical = less attractive EX: fish EX: contestants for miss germany - 22 contestants of final round of contest - average all their faces together = more beautiful - did this for a bunch of different races, averaged all faces together of that race and people rated blending together most attractive --> typicality

ribot's law (1881)

- vulnerability of a given memory is inversely - older the memory the more stable it is - people w/ brain injuries show that more recall with stories of childhood rather than recent events

how does fluency guide judgments?

- we assume that if we encode/ process something quickly, we will remember it well - each of processing influences judgments of learning - but we often mistake our sense of fluency for a sense that we have learned something well - stock performance data from NY and american stock exchanges - alter & Oppenheimer (2006) showed that fluently names stocks (EX: KAR) outperformed disfluently named stocks (EX: RDO) - easy to read = good quality?? - evaluation of student essays, consumer products, and advertising materials influenced by: font, printer quality, use of long words

theory based categorization

- we know much more about categories than a lists of their features or their values in dimensional space categories provide explanations for how things work in the world: - the same way that theories provide explanations for scientific phenomena - they center on causal relations between entities in the world - theories guide perception by leading us to believe that particular features are interesting and others are not

how is memory a reconstructive process?

- we take whatever comes back to mind and filll in the gaps - retrieving a part event engages the same brain mechanisms as imagining a future event --> retrieving past and imagining future are almost indistinguishable processes - patients with hippocampal damage show an impaired ability to envision the future

how do we make judgments?

- we use heuristics --> rule of thumb or mental shortcut - often based on past experience - does a good job most of the time - save us time and energy - not guaranteed to be correct; errors tell us important things - amos tversky - daniel kahneman - judgments are also influenced by availability and how often each factor appear in media

different types of judgments:

- what is the RELATIONSHIP between X and Y? EX: which is further west: Florida or Chile? - probabilities (how often does an event occur?) EX: how often does UCLA beat USC in football? - accuracy is important... but uncertain EX: how often will you go to the hospital next year? what insurance plan should you choose?

garden path sentences

- when we perceive a sentence, we must parse the sentence's syntactic structure - a garden path sentence initially suggest one interpretation, which turns out to be wrong EX: the horse raced past the barn fell --> lead to believe barn fell but really the horse fell EX: the man whistling tunes pianos --> really means the man whistling also tunes pianos

two types of reasoning:

1. deductive reasoning - process of reasoning from one or more general statements (premises) to reach a logically certain conclusion - conclusions follow directly from premises using rules of logic - guaranteed to be correct (if you follow the rules!) - we use logic to make deductions - a syllogism consists of 2 premises followed by a conclusion EX: all P are M. all S are M. therefore, all A are P --> INVALID EX: All Plumbers are Mortal. All Serial kills are Mortal. Therefore, all Serial killers are Plumbers --> INVALID 2. inductive reasoning - reasoning that constructs or evaluates general propositions that are derived from specific examples - probable guesses made on the basis of prior evidence - not guaranteed to be correct - in many cases we cannot rely upon deductive inferences - instead we rely upon induction - induction does not guarantee a correct answer! - however, some inferences are more likely to be right than others - problem with induction: induction is only guaranteed if we have experiences all possible instances EX: there are black swans in australia

Studies of moment-by-moment brain activity indicate that: A. The brain regions needed for mental image visualizations are distinct from the brain regions needed for actual visual perception B. Mental image visualization involves the top down recruitment of the same brain areas that are engaged during visual perception C. Mental image visualization involves the suppression of primary sensory areas to prevent interference from incoming stimuli D. Different people employ different brain areas to support their visualizing

B - lots of data suggests that areas involved in visual perception (early visual cortex) when you're imagining something generic or specific visually , the brain activity patterns and areas that are involved in perceiving and recognizing letters show the same activity patterns during imagery. so much the same that we can train a classifier to decode whats different in our brain when were looking at an X or an O so that the classifier can guess what were looking at - mental imagery must be top down because theres no perception or stimulation --> everything you conjure up in minds eye is happening because of goals, intentions and beliefs and not from stimulation from external world - bottom up = info comes into senses and processed in a feed forward way - top down = you have some concept or idea and you're activating sort of perceptual representations in this goal directed way

how good/ precise is memory?

DVD analogy: - encoding of a memory = record on an electronic disk; taking something from world and storing it - maintenance = store the DVD in a drawer; not going away - retrieval = play the disk back on a DVD player - most people believe that memory records the events of our life much like a video camera - penny study and apple logo experiment shows that our memory is not very precise/ accurate --> even something ubiquitous we don't have the ability to reconstruct its features from memory - false memory effects shows that we often remember only the "gist" of what we experience rather than the veridical details --> don't have this video like memory!!!!!

planted memory study

Loftus & Pickrell (1995) - planted memory study: lost in a shopping mall - people would fill in the details and were lead to believe that they were even when it never actually happened Hyman, Husband & Billings (1995) - planted memory study: sullied punch at a family wedding - even though very unlikely people were lead to believe that it actually happened Porter et al. (1999) - planted memory study: viscous animal attack was described to them - 1/3 of people believed it! Heaps & Nash (2001) - planted memory study: nearly drowned and rescued Braun, Ellis & Loftus (2002) - planted memory study: met bugs bunny at disneyland which can't happen because bugs bunny is a warners brothers character

two systems of heuristics

SYSTEM #1: - intuitive - automatic - immediate - most heuristics are produced by this system - system #1 rapidly generates intuitive answers, which can be monitored/ evaluated by system #2, though this latter stage may be rare SYSTEM #2: - analytic - controlled - consciously monitor - rule- governed - serial - more cognitively demanding - flexible - we generally make little or no use of this system

Prototypes vs. Exemplars

TWO APPROACHES OF PROBABILISTIC THEORY: - prototype model = category judgments are made by comparing a new exemplar to the prototype - categories are represented by average of al members of the category EX: the concept "bird" is represented by a prototype that is very similar to a robin and different from an ostrich --> prototype need not exist in real world; mental averaging that was derived not encountered - the category representation is abstract --> does not store info about specific exemplars - exemplars model = category judgments are made by comping a new exemplar to all the old exemplars of a category or to the exemplar that most readily comes to mind - concepts are represented by all of the exemplars that have been experiences EX: category "bird" is represented by memories of all previous experiences of birds - when we categorize sometthing, we compare it one or more exemplars retrieved from memory and decide the category based on most similar exemplars - the category representation is concrete --> there is not necessarily a summary of the category

typicality and generalization

penguins can catch disease X --------------------------------- all birds can catch disease X robins can catch disease X ------------------------------ all birds can catch disease X - typicality also relates to other judgments in the world like decision making - penguins are not typical example of birds so if you are given the example that penguins can catch disease X and ask you to judge how likely that all birds can catch disease X, you will be less likely to endorse this logical inference due to less typical/ good example - when robins used for generalization you are more likely to believe that all birds can catch the same disease because robins = more typical