Cognitive EXAM 1

V1 cells

-Cells reside in different areas to specialize in a particular kind of analysis: specialization -Site on occipital lobe where axons from the LGN first reach the cortex -Example: they fire horizontals in a certain position versus verticals in a different position -V1 are doing more info processing Coding for whether edge is vertical, horizontal, sideways, etc -Responds differently on how its angled/represented -Not simply an image, now we are extracting info about orientation of edges

Who came up with empiricism

Aristotle

cones:

Color vision High acuity/low sensitivity High detail, reading something, but need more energy and more light for the cone system to function. Cones are right at fixation

What are the core assumptions of the field of Cognitive Psychology that emerged from the process?

Core assumptions: Internal mental states are real These states can be indirectly measured Changes in behavior reflect changes in mental state If we see changes in behavior it signifies a change in mental states Changes in mental state occur through mental processes Challenge AGAINST structuralism Active processes (structure, actions)

use Capgras syndrome as an example.

Damage to frontal lobes= have damage to amygdala Disconnection w/ emotion and rationality The emotional processing is disrupted leading to an intellectual identification without a familiarity response Damage to amygdala: emotional evaluator People with this syndrome won't experience warm sense of safety and familiarity when looking at a loved one's face Damage to frontal lobe: rationality Patients may be less able to keep track of what is real or not

damage to temporal cortex

Damage to temporal cortex DF could not match (identify) orientation, but could interact with it in a way that demonstrated that it was still represented and could be used to control her actions she had no idea how to say how to fit the wood block into slot Interacting with it she could do it -Difficulty in reaching and motion

ventral processing stream damage

Damage: An inability to recognize visually presented objects, such common things as a cup or a pencil

Method of functionalism

Did not embrace introspection but James cited data from physiology and speculated about the mind. Stimulus response. Physical response incites an emotional response

Functionalism

Function of mind, psychology should be about the empiric study of mental function (what it is doing) not structure

Given a measure of the theoretical construct of attention, what kinds of questions can be asked about it?

How can we measure it What is the basis of selection (e.g. location, color, salience) What is the consequence of selection (clearer? Better remembered? Responded to more quickly? What aspect is changing in relative enhancement? What is the cost of selecting (multi-tasking)? Why selection? What is the limit of on processing? Can we identify those limitations

Rationalism: Plato

Humans are born with all the knowledge that they will ever have Innate Knowledge is revealed Idea: the senses distort things, can't know world directly, through logical analysis (it gets revealed to us) only have what was with when born. All knowledge is built on intuitive, logical principles E.g. math principles don't need experience "I think therefore I am" Only trust what we think, don't trust our senses

Empiricism: Aristotle

Humans are born with faculties but no knowledge Blank state "blank tablet of wax": blank slate Knowledge is built through experience All knowledge comes from experience Ability to learn whatever you come to know is through senses and experience

Discuss some of the things that make object recognition such as a challenging information processing task

Identical features can be recognizes as different objects TAE CAT: we assume it says THE CAT even though the middle H looks more like an A Different features can be recognized as the same object Different points of view of a chair, we believe it's the same chair

what solution did Behaviorists offer for Structuralism

Offered that we cannot study what we cannot see/hear/touch: we can only study behaviors Introspection is not objective- so it is unreliable

invalid bias:

asking people to name a bunch of new england counties on basis of iq intelligence is biased towards those who live there

oFunctionalism: Method:

did not embrace introspection wholeheartedly, but James cited data from physiology and speculated Stimulus response idea: a stimulus causes a physical response which causes an emotional response Or Stimulus goes to physical response and emotional response at the same time

lightness constancy

discounting changes in illumination Think about a white piece of paper We see that it is bright white in sunlight, darker white in dim room, and regular white in regular room We do not assume that it is changing its matter, we know it is the same piece of paper, it is simply our photoreceptors responding to more light

oFunctionalism:

function of mind, psychology should be about the empirical study of mental function (what it is doing) not STRUCTURE

how do receptive fields for cells in V1 (first cortical processing area in the occipital cortex) differ from ganglion cells (last layer of cells in the retina)

ganglion cells: receptive fields (center-surround functional structure) -spread uniformly across retina, axons conform to form the optic nerve V1 cells: reside in certain areas to specialize in a particular kind of analysis. specialization coding !!

cones: low or high acute/sensitivity color or black and white? works in dim light or bright light? more or less activation? detail or no detail?

high acuity/low sensitivity color vision high detail, need more energy and more light high activation

gestalt

human mind organizes elements into what we experience -The whole is different from the sum of its parts -The human mind organizes what it processes -Evidence of principles of mental operations -The mind acts on (elements) of sensory experience So describing the elements is insufficient Proximity, similarity, continuity, connectedness

Structuralism: Method

introspection: looking inwards

what kinds of questioning can brain imaging answer

lights up what part of brain works during a cognitive task

rods: low or high acute/sensitivity color or black and white? works in dim light or bright light? more or less activation? detail or no detail?

low acuity/high sensitivity no color vision works in dim light, doesn't need a lot of energy to start sensing more activation not a lot of detail

how do we organize visual information

Similarity: group these dots into columns rather than rows, grouping dots of similar colors Proximity: we tend perceive groups, linking dots that are close together Good continuation: we tend to see continuous green bar rather than two smaller rectangles Closure (perceive an intact triangle even though there are gaps) Simplicity: tend to interpret form in the simplest way possible

Rationalism:

reason (alone) is the source of knowledge...because senses distort reality

ganglion cells

receptive fields (center-surround functional structure) Rods and cones stimulate cells which excite the ganglion cells These are spread uniformly across retina, but their axons conform to form the optic nerve -Carries info to various sites in the brain -Center-surround cells: light presented to central region of the receptive field has one influence while light presented to surrounding ring has opposite influence -Dot detectors Some cells respond strongly to horizontal or vertical lines, movement detectors, etc

invalid unrelated

saying you can measure intelligence by hairs on a thunmb

what is neuropsychology

study of behavior following brain damage

Epistomology

study of knowledge

Structuralism: Assumption:

the mind consists of a complex structure of basic (sensory) elements

oFunctionalism: Assumption:

the mind is embodied (materialism) emphasized physiology, and adaptation

what does it mean that a stimulus can be bi-stable? use bi stable stimuli to explain the statement that perception involves not just encoding stimuli but interpreting them

-People perceive it first one way and then another -It isn't an illusion because neither of them are wrong and the drawing itself is fully compatible with either interpretation -perception goes beyond the information given in the drawing by specifying an arrangement in depth -PERCEPTION DEPENDS NOT JUST ON STIMULUS BUT ON THE INTERPRETATION -organization is first

rotated tables: "illusions"

-The tables are exactly the same shape and length -It is showing us the retinal image, the cues we are looking at are from a different point of view making it seem as though they are different, but our visual system is simply representing what size the object is from the retinal images we see

dorsal processing stream parietal pathway

-The where stream -Extracting info about where things are in the world spatial layout, how it is related or not, and how we can control our actions

rules of figure ground

-when something is brighter you tend to look at it -familiar is assigned as figure -upright

how we overcome challenge of mental states not being able to be directly measured

Behavior (and neural activity) can! We use behavior (and neural activity) to infer mental states Input and output Stimuli and responses We can talk about how behavioral measures lead to mental processes Indirect measures: research is only as good as what you claim you're studying

how do we overcome that measures can be "bad" for a variety of reasons

Bias, no association, or unreliability can all cause bad measures Must take into account how to strive from being biased, make sure there is an association with what you are studying, and do not assume a loose association

how is vision like photography

Camera lens Pupil gets bigger and smaller like the camera apertures (opens wider or smaller to focus light from world thin lens on to camera) Pupil= camera aperture Lens on eye= focus/aperture camera Light hits our retina instead of film piece of film is uniform We have rods and cones

what kinds of questions can't brain imaging answer

Can't help with reading because it just lights up what parts of brain work during task

Prosopagnosia

Cannot recognize faces, in particular can recognize objects Specific loss of recognition She couldn't recognize the faces holistically, only in parts/features They can find out through context clues and through conversations

how do EEG and fMRi differ in their temporal resolution and what do they measure

EEG: reflect when neurons are firing vs when they are not Measures pattern of brain waves/what is active at the time Difficult to pinpoint location temporal fMRI: shows which part of brain lights up Localizing where activity comes from Poor temporal We don't know when it responds just where, can't know how quickly have to make inferences

organization rules

Edge assignment Group of discontinuous regions Completion of invisible surfaces Figure-ground assignment Have to group regions of a stimulus Context plays a role Upright is recognized as main figure versus the upside down

Aristotle

Empiricism:

Define epistemology using Rationalism and Empiricism as contrasting positions within knowledge.

Empiricism: experience is the epistemology Rationalism source of knowledge. The senses are critical to the process Empiricism contrasting and can be trusted

Aspects as to why object recognition can be hard: what we need in order to recognize the objects

Encoding of visual features/edges Organization of visual information Shape perception Association of shape to meaning Invariance Ability to recognize the object regardless of view point Ability to recognize objects across change (faces) Ability to recognize objects by function

Empiricism

Experience is the source of knowledge. Senses are critical to the process and can be trusted. Humans are born with no knowledge; blank slate. Ability to learn through senses and experience.

Method of structuralism

Introspection looking inwards

"Radical behaviorism", associated most with B.F. Skinner, was more extreme than the general behaviorist approach to psychology in what way

It was more extreme as he stated that were literally NO mental processes; everything we do was stimulus response relations All behavior (even language) is classical or instrumental conditioning Said mental processes WERE NOT REAL

What role might depth perception be playing in it?

Line could be moving forwards or backwards or side to side and it may give off the perception that it is larger/smaller when in reality it's the same size we are just looking at it differently

What are different sources of information about the external world that sensory systems use to establish an internal representation of the world (i.e., what are the stimuli?)

Mechanical forces: carry information about mass, spatial extent, texture, etc (touch), as well as pressure changes (hearing) Chemical content: carries information about substance, edibility, mateability, toxicity, etc.

what does the limbic system do

Memory formation and storage Regulating emotion Processing smells Sexual arousal Hippocampus: important w/ memory

Assumption of functionalism

Mind is embodied (materialized) emphasized physiology and adaptation.

Structuralism assumptin

Mknd consists of. Complex structure of basic sensory elements.

what does the parietal lobe

Navigate within environment Encoded signals to process Visuospatial processing Spatial attention and mapping

rods

No color vision Low acuity/high sensitivity Which works in relatively dim light, doesn't need a lot of energy to start sensing, but it doesn't always have a lot of detail If it's dark out, you can get information but it doesn't have fine detail Rods are across retina, more for peripheral

Apperceptive Agnosia

No organized objects that could be submitted to identification processes They see jumbles of features of objects but can't see what it is Memory can help him He was getting visual information but couldn't see the whole object Unable to assemble various aspects of an input into an organized whole

what does brain imaging tell us about PPA and FFA

PPA: Places processing Area that is selectively activated by images of places Responds less when showed a face FFA Responds less when shown a place Area that is selectively activated by images of faces Face processing

What is a receptive field?

Part of visual field that a sensory neuron responds when stimulated Property of neural cell that corresponds to a part of visual cell to which that cell is sensitive -Window on world for that particular cell -Each cell is responsible for a part of the world/encoding that

what does the frontal lobe

Planning Executive control Complex reasoning Language production Motor control

What is invariance (as it pertains to object recognition)?

Point of view doesn't effect the object Able to recognize the object regardless of viewpoint

Behavioralism

Psychology must be limited to that which is observable: stimuli (input) and responses (output) We do not need to think about mental states at all; they are secondary: look at input and output reactions More extreme version: there is no such thing as mental states: no memory, experience, emotions

Structuralism

Psychology should be about the (empirical) study of mental structure, not knowledge

Structuralism

Psychology should be about the empirical study of mental structure not knowledge. Assumption: mind consists of a complex structure of basic (sensory) elements.

Structuralism and functionalism were twoe arly schools of psychology. How was psycholgoy different from philosophy? How did these two approaches differ from eachother

Rationalism vs empiricism in philosophy concerns the source and nature of knowledge. Philosphy was the nature of life qhere as psycholgoy was the nature of mind. Structuralism focused about the empirical study of mental structure of mind. Functionalism was the function of the mind

Plato

Rationalism:

what does the temporal lobe do

Recognition: memory Perception (hearing, vision, smell) Understanding language Learning and memory

Refer to figures showing feature nets (you won't have to reproduce them) and discuss how each of the phenomena that we discussed in lecture is explained using them (See features to words part of 9/17 lecture slides): recognition phenomena

Recognizing words: Objects (words) that are more frequent and/or primed are better recognized -Priming is especially helpful for low frequency words recalling -Detectors that are activated more often (Frequency) or recently (priming) are already partially activated and therefor require LESS to fully activate than other detectors Leads to faster and more accurate recognition

What is visible light and describe how light is a particularly useful source of information about the external world.

Rich source of information Carries info about external world Patterns of light across two dimensional array and how it changes carried information about where some objects start and end, and depth Wavelength/interacting with other objects/maternal substance of those objects will interact differently with different objects Depth, structure, substance Physical structure Available at distance: travels fast

give some examples of theoretical constructs

Selective process that causes relative enhancement It is a critical idea that we cannot directly measure Fear Working memory anxiety The subject of "paying attention" This is asserting that we have processes we can control and make ourselves pay attention

Wundt

Structuralism

Wundt

Structuralism:

figure ground organization?

The determination of what is the figure (the depicted object, displayed against a background) and what is the ground -our perception is not neutral about this point -specifies what you're looking at, you can't focus on both. -it's one or the other, figure or ground -our perception contains information about how the form is arranged in depth or about which part of the form is figure and which is ground THIS IS NOT CONTAINED WITHIN STIMULUS BUT IT IS INFORMATION WITHIN U

What is the Muller-Lyer illusion?

The line with arrows appears longer depending on whether the arrows are pointed outwards or inwards The line without wings is next to it which is being varied in length in which we compare it to the muller-lyer line

Structuralists depended on the method of introspection. What criticism of this approach did Behaviorism highlight

The problems with introspection: depends on senses to observe Difficult to EXTRACT yourself from subject Not everything is perceptible Trying to explain love: can't immediately name a sense from them Subjective not objective Separate individuals can feel different things: time of measurement

Are the senses important in empiricism

The senses are critical in understanding knowledge

Using the example of attention, describe how it can be measured in a spatial cueing experiment. Include a description of how stimuli (S) are manipulates, how the response ® is measured, and what pattern of results (differences in responses due to differences in stimulus conditions) is taken as a measure of selective attention

The spatial cueing The task was to: press a button as quickly as you can when the red square appears The cue/stimulus would show a left arrow (to look towards the left), + (either side), right arrow (to look towards right) It would show a stimulus on left or right depending on arrow or plus sign. Had to click as fast as you can Signified different response times, valid, neutral, invalid Valid: expecting- left arrow left stimulus Shortest/fastest amount of time Neutral: don't know where to expect Second fastest amount of time Invalid: not expecting- right arrow left stimulus Took the longest Quantitative measure of attention: different stimulus = different response times

Describe how we are able to measure whether yogurt or lemon tastes better to be a baby

The suggestion of tasting better or worse are internal perceptual states that can be operationalized by APPROACH versus AVOIDANT BEHAVIOR We are observing the response from a baby we gave the stimuli to We can operationalize "worse or better" by the response they give We infer the internal state Stimulus--> (inference) --> response! We can observe other minds indirectly based on objectively verifiable stimuli and responses We can ask questions by how much lemon or yogurt causes a reaction

ventral processing stream

The ventral processing stream is the temporal pathway How we identify objects What we are looking at The what stream

Associative Agnosia

They can see but not link what they see to their basic visual knowledge Example of man being asked what a glove is, he couldn't say what it was and said it could be change purse for coins of five sizes They know what it's for but can't name it: loss of the ability to recognize certain object

What challenge did gestalt Psychology present to structuralism?

They challenged that the whole is greater than some of the parts- we can understand more than base elements

In the 1950s or so there was a "cognitive revolution". What was the revolt against?

They were taking back the mental state Stated that we DO NOT have to observe mental states directly to study them We can have strong experimental methodology: same way physicists study physics Objective and mental states

what is the function of any sensory system

To establish internal representations of the external world in order to interact with it successfully Information about the surrounding environment RE-presented to the organism Beginning start to seeing world in order to interact with it We live long enough/understand with our senses long enough so that we can reproduce

difference between a valid and invalid measure of a theoretical construct

Valid measurement: Stimulus and response and assuming there is mental processing in between Inferences about mental processes based on observed responses to manipulated stimulus conditions Invalid measurement Invalid: not measuring what you're supposed to be measuring

what does the occipital lobe

Vision Initial visible processing systems

What are some of the challenges to the field of cognitive psychology?

We have to measure the unobservable Mental states can't be directly measured Measures can be "bad" for a variety of reasons

Man and woman: illusion

We perceive him small as we take image and put him in a part of context that makes you think he's closer than what he is It is the visual system's best guess (unconscious inference) about nature of the external world Not wrong just ill informed We see the hallway and assume depth, when they bring him forward he is much smaller Eye is not fooled, it is the brain

what are perceptual constancies

When a sensory system represents some (functionally important) aspect of the world as unchanging (invariant) across different conditions

what is a lateral inhibition

When cells with near-by receptive fields INHIBIT each other: mechanism that enhances the representation of edges It fires when it sees something in its receptive field but represses cells nearby not to fire to create edges Edge detection: enhancement of edges, where things within the visual stimulus change, start to finish

questions to ask about brain imaging

Which functions can be localized to specific brain regions? (mainly useful for setting up tools- neural substrate of cognition) Can markers of process X can be found during task Y --Can we find evidence of one unfolding while finding another How distinct are the representations of different stimuli --Helps identify how differently they are Do tasks X and Y engage common or distinct processing mechanisms?

Refer to figures showing feature nets (you won't have to reproduce them) and discuss how each of the phenomena that we discussed in lecture is explained using them (See features to words part of 9/17 lecture slides): word superiority

Word superiority effect Trying to recognize a letter Parts of objects (letters) are better recognized in CONTEXT than alone If a letter is within a word you can recall it quickly and accurately more so than if it was by itself

Imagine two researchers who both studied bilingualism (the ability to speak two languages). One researcher measured the process of word recognition using the amount of time it takes to decide whether a letter string is a word (e.g. "bark") or a non word (e.g. "ralb"). The other research measured the process of word recognition using the time at which a specific brain wave known to be associated with recognition occurred. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each measure?

behavioral measurer: Advantages: Changes in behavior reflect changes in mental states Disadvantages: Response time isn't as direct neuron measurement Advantages: Can measure neuroresponses One can measure neural responses that are assumed to reflect cognitive processes EEG: shows what part of brain is active at time. Good for temporal resolution MEG: also measures temporal region fMRI: measures where the activity comes from PET: also measures where the activity is from Disadvantages: Neural measures are not intrinsically better than behavioral measures, they must be appropriate

trade-off

cannot have high in both sensitivity and acuity, one has either more and the other has less. like rods and cones

unreliable vs reliable

not consistent and consistent

size constancy

perceptually discounting distance When someone is far away versus getting closer, they are not getting smaller or bigger, it is just depth

shape constancy

perceptually understanding it's the same object despite different points of view We understand the object may look different but we don't assume it's changing shape or morphing into different shapes

How do we overcome the challenges of the field of cognitive psychology: unmeasurable

unmeasurable: Science does this all the time! This is who we discovered the planets We used Newton's laws, assumed another planet which was causing a change in Behavior, this meant another planet was nearby. We measured indirectly and drew conclusions. Germs- bacteria and viruses Electrons and other subatomic structures...eventually became observable Dark matter, gravity, and evolution can't be observable Measures must be assessed and reassessed for validity and reliability We use our mind (e.g. perception) to study our mind!

Which cortical area does the ventral processing stream end in? which does the dorsal processing stream end in? how do the two processing streams differ in their function?

ventral processing stream is the temporal pathway: the what stream dorsal processing stream is the parietal pathway: the where stream

how do we select information: objects or spatial location

we select on basis of objects separate from spatial location