Chapter 1: Introduction to Cognition

What was the experimental evidence for the primary-secondary memory distinction?

- Analysis of the Brown-Peterson task - since James' distinction between primary and secondary memory was based on introspective evidence, it isn't usually treated as definitive. However, subjective reports like this are used in conjunction w/ more objective evidence to provide a more definitive result -> ie., the brown peterson task

What conclusions can be drawn about the PreCog case study, with the info we have now after this chapter?

- Big q was whether cognition was veridical -> can the PreCog's vision be taken as an accurate reflection of something that was actually going to occur? - cognition seems to always involve some level of uncertainty - researchers recognized that there was a connection between amount of info conveyed by any given event and the probability of that event: less likely the event, more info it relays - since people are limited in the amount of info they can process at any one moment, a lot of info is lost - no single reality for any of us - what we see, attend to, think about and remember is a combo of the situation we receive the info in, and teh actions we perform based on that info, and those actions reflect who we are - so, my cognition in a situation will be different from everyone else's, so the PreCrime Unit could have easily made an error

Summarize the classic models of info processing?

- Broadbent's Filter Model - info processing restricted by capacity of channel, the NS - filtering device chooses among signals on basis of common physical characteristics Norman and Waugh's Model - primary vs secondary memory - primary memories created in present moment and tend to be quickly forgotten unless rehearsed or repeated Gibson's ecological approach to info processing - information pickup theory - focused on wealth of info available through he stimulus, not the processing to make stim meaningful - learning is more about becoming attuned to what the environment affords us, not the processing of info

Describe how Neisser's perceptual cycle works?

- Halper notices building in Manhattan with balconies that appear to tilt upwards - in terms of perceptual cycle: 1. schema is cognitive model of environment, constructed over time through our interactions with the environment. It provides us with a set of general expectations and assumptions regarding that environment, although we might not be aware of them - one such expectations is that balconies will be either square or rectangular - we impose expectation on buildings, and as a consequence we perceive the buildings in the foreground of that picture to be tilting upward, as they would have to be if they were rectangular - when we explore building from different angle, our expectations may lead us to perceive balconies as tilted down - if we explored the situation further, we see that the balconies are parallelogram that are perpendicular to the building - so, our schema is modified to include possibilities that some balconies are built at angles that are not right angles

Summarize the Hicks and Hymen experiments?

- Hick and Hyman = visual stimuli experiments = evidence to support that people respond more slowly to less likely signals - slow reaction suggests there are limits to the amount of info the NS can handle, whether the signal is visual or auditory - to prevent overload, we select some of the available signal info to process, respond to, and remember - we are active selectors of info about our perceptual world, not passive receivers of info!

Describe the case study asking "what is cognition?"

- Imagine a world where there are "pre-cog" police, police who are equipped with pre-cognitive abilities that can look into the future - perhaps you are awoken out of sleep to them putting you in handcuffs, because they looked into the future and saw you committing a gruesome murder later that morning - precog vision has allowed the PreCrime unit to arrest "killers" before they have a chance to kill - and in the movie the Minority Report, Washington DC has been homicide free for six years because of this kind of vision This scenario raises two big ideas: - the free-will vs determinism debate -> do we have the freedom to choose what we will do, or are we programmed to carry out certain actions? - whether cognition actually is truthful -> is any one person's perception (even an ordinary human's perception of the present or the past) can be accepted as truthful and accurate reflection of the world The vocab: Pre-Cog - Cog/cognitive/cognition is understood by the New Oxford American Dictionary as "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses" - cognition is the "mental" action of knowing

Define perceptual cycle

- Neisser - process whereby our schemas guide out exploration of the world and in turn are shaped by what we find there - perceptual cycle lets us become increasingly sophisticated in our dealings with the environment

What is the difference between Waughn and Norman's/Broadbent's and J.J Gibson's information processing models?

- Waugh and Norman/Broadbent -- focused on the processing required to make a stimulus meaningful -- does not say much about the info available in the stimulus itself JJ Gibson - focus on the information provided by environment that people find themselves - argued that stim used by info-processing psychologists in experiments were impoverished in comparison w/ the info that is in the real world - theory focuses on information pickup, where learning means becoming more attuned to what the environment affords us

Describe the experimental paradigms using auditory messages and their conclusions about the limitation of info processing?

- Webster and Thompson - airport control tower operators listened to voice transmissions simulating reports from pilots - communication consisted of aircraft's call signal and sequence of three unrelated words (Tower, this is BA427, Pencil, Beard, Camera, over) - the call signals were drawn from a set of 10 possible signals - word messages were drawn from a set of 1152 possibilities - ina. technical sense, the amount of info conveyed by each call signal was much less than what the word message conveyed, because the traffic controllers had a good idea of what the call signal would be, but not what the word message would be - although they could ID the call signals from two airplanes arriving at the same time (less info), they could not ID more than one of two simultaneous word messages (more info, slower to process) WHY WE CARE: - this finding suggests there are limits to the NS's capacity for info processing - if two messages come at the same time, the amount of interference between them depends on how much info they convey - the limit is one of info, not stimulation -> people respond faster to an expected stimulus than an unexpected one

define ecological approach?

- a form of psychological inquiry reflecting conditions in the real world

stimulus (Definition)

- an entity in the external environment that can be perceived by an observer

Define schema?

- an expectation concerning what we are likely to find as we explore the world - schema is cognitive model of environment, constructed over time through our interactions with the environment

What was JJ Gibson's position on information processing?

- argued for development of an ecological approach to perception, describing environmental stimulation at the appropriate level - believed meaning of objects and events can be perceived through 'affordances" (ie., ice affords the possibility of skating) - knowledge of affordances must be learned and is not innate - have to learn what can/can't be done with items - theory focuses on information pickup, where learning means becoming more attuned to what the environment affords us

What were the big conclusions of the memory experiments?

- cognitive processes vary - cognitive processes are affected by what is happening elsewhere in the cognitive system, and therefore depend critically on the specific situational context the subject is in - the fact that cognitive processes are fluid, adapting to the situation and goals of each individual, means that many of our psychological theories may either be flawed, or wrong - also, the justification of lab research, where we say that we can isolate and test the same mental process in different environments, might also not hold, and we may need to broaden the ways we do our work

Describe Neisser's theory of information processing

- cyclical model of cognition - perceiver possesses a schema, representing what they expect to find in environment, and that directs their exploration of environment - through the exploration, the perceiver encounters both expected and unexpected information - unexpected information will modify the schema to increase its accuracy when representing the environment

How did Broadbent interpret the data of the simultaneous number digits?

- difference in recall between listing the order from each ear vs the pairs in sequence was interpreted to mean the ears function as separate channels for info input - the diff physical locations for the two messages are entered and preserved in the short term sensory buffer - selective attention (repped by filter) operates to determine which channel is recalled first - switching attention between ears needs time, so performance is worse for recall by presentation order bc more attentional shifting is necessary - as attention is switching between the ears, the info in the sensory buffer decays, and is less available - in condition I, participants recalled all items from one ear and all items from other ear had only one switch of attention - in second condition, where participants had to recall presentation order, three switches of attention were needed

Describe Broadbent's Filter Model of Information Processing

- first complete theory of attention used to focus on our limitations of capacity to process information, and selective processes we use to deal with these limits (ie., how much control we have over the info we select and reject, as well as the cost and benefits of expecting one particular type of info) - Big idea: information processing is restricted by channel capacity (first proposed by Shannon/Shannon & Weaver) How it works - whole NS can be thought of as a single channel with limits to the rate it can transmit stimulus info - to prevent overloading of this channel, a selective device or filter allows only some of the available incoming info to enter the system - before this filter, there is a capacity free sensory buffer/temporary store - when multiple signals occur simultaneously, they enter the sensory buffer together - the buffer extracts simple stim characteristics like colour (vision), voice (hearing), or location in space - filter operates by selecting messages that share some basic physical characteristic (spacial location) and passing them along to the limited capacity system that analyzes higher order stim attributes like form and meaning - any messages not selected are held in parallel (at the same time) in the sensory buffer, where they decay over time

Describe William James?

- highly eminent psychologist - born in NYC to a liberal, wealthy family, he studied medicine at Harvard and taught there - The Principles of Psychology demonstrated his holistic thinking, including psych, physiology, philosophy, and personal observation, introspection, and opinion - ie., infant's perception of the world as a "great blooming, buzzing confusion" - introduced the idea of the stream of consciousness - pointed out importance of habit in human life - warned about the "psychologist's fallacy," where researchers too often allow their own personal experience to intrude on their understanding of the phenomena they are researching

Describe the range of cognitive psychology

- human experimental psychology, which looks at memory, attention, problem solving, language - computer analogies information processing approach: AI, computer simulation - cognitive neuroscience: brain imaging, brain damage and effect on cognition

What is the foundation of cognitive psychology?

- idea that the world contains info that is available for all of us humans to process - humans are not passive receivers and transformers of signal information (hello sens/perc), but as active selectors of info from the environment - only some info is selected for processing, because we cannot handle all of it at once, and only some of that info is responded too because our head, eyes, hands etc. cannot be in two places at once

Summarize the main points of the information processing approach?

- info provided by a particular message is not determined just by the message itself, but a whole array of possible messages in which this particular one is just one instance - less likely it is that a particular signal will occur, the more info it will convey and process

What is information theory (not definition)

- information reduces uncertainty in the mind of the receiver - the amount of information provided by a given message is proportional to the probability that the particular message will occur - For example: Hey! How are you? Absolutely terrible, I am in a pandemic and #suffering is much more informative than "I'm fine" because the former reply is way less probable - *information provided by a particular message is not determined solely by its content, but rather by the whole array of possible messages of which this particular message is just one of* - or: the amount of info a message conveys is an increasing function of the number of possible messages from which that message could have been selected

Why is studying cognitive psychology important?

- it provides tools for the analysis of many problems - the study of social and emotional, as well as concrete, practical applications are influenced by cognitive psyc - cognitive psyc is integral to most other forms of psyc, and we should be aware of how it is applied, in psyc and in life generally

define metacognition?

- knowledge about the way that cognitive processes work; understanding our own cognitive processes - "knowledge about knowledge"

Define cognitive ethology

- may resolve dispute of the virtues of lab-based and ecological approaches to cognitive research - a new research approach that links real world observations with lab-based studies - suggests ways to carry out studies in the real world to complement lab research

Describe the Brown-Peterson task, and how it served as evidence for the primary-secondary memory distinctions?

- one of the most widely used experimental tasks in memory research - participants given set of items to remember, and then a number from which they immediately begin counting backwards by threes - after a specific interval (6 , 8, 12, 15, 18 sec) the participant is asked to recall the specified listed items - since the participant has to count, they are prevented from rehearsing the letters, and unable to retain them in their primary memory - unfilled interval = allowing participant to rehearse items and keep them in primary memory - showed that participants' ability to recall letters declined as the number of interfering items increased - pointed out that primary memory makes it possible for us to immediately and accurately recall our most recent experiences

describe Strayer, Drews, and Johnston's two demonstrations of distracted driving and attentional shifts?

- participants were in a driving simulator - asked to complete a driving course, stay on pace w/ traffic, stay in own lane, brake for obstacles - conversing on cell phone led to sig poorer driving performance, with no difference between hands free and handheld devices! - eye tracker used to register where eyes were looking and for how long - drivers engaged in a phone convo were half as likely as the phone less control group to remember details from the course, even though their eyes had rested on those details for the same length of time - later studies also found detrimental affects of texting and using Siri like speech-to-text systems - in short, using a cell phone while driving can be deadly, even if you don't take your eyes off the road -> it will affect what you see

Define affordances?

- potential functions or use of stimuli (objects/events) in the real world

Define information pickup?

- process whereby we perceive info directly

Describe cognitive ethology?

- recognizes that the standard research approach (notice something interesting in the world, design and run lab based experiments with control, conclude a fundamental explanation of the mental processes causing the phenomena they are trying to understand), operates on a flawed assumption that cognitive processes always do the same job, regardless of the situation - it is clear (by the 70s), that most statements about cognition were true only if particular laboratory conditions were met, when those conditions were not met, the relationships between factors became unpredictable "If A then B" in the lab does not mean (necessarily) "If A then B" in the world

What is psychophysics?

- scientific investigation of the relationship between sensation and stimulus

What is a way that scientific knowledge develops?

- testing of hypotheses based on personal observation - our way of thinking may offer alternatives to theories that cognitive psychologists have already developed

Describe how cognitive psychology quantifies information?

- the amount of info provided by a given event is qualified by bits (binary digits) - imagine a coin toss -> a situation where both events are equally likely to occur - we won't know outcome until it occurs, but when it does we get one bit of information -> heads, or tails - every time the number of equally likely outcomes doubles, the # of bits you receive increases by one - Example: how to win at the old - what number am i thinking of guessing game - your best bet is to decrease the number of possibilities by half as you ask q's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 - ask if it is above 4 (the middle number) if yes: 5 6 7 8 - then ask if it is above six (new middle number) if yes: 7 8 - ask if it is above 7 boom, you have answer

Describe how attentional shifts affect distracted driving?

- there are overt attention shifts, like reading a text and physically moving your eyes away from the road - there are also covert attention shifts like conversation, because even if you eyes don't move, a conversation will direct your attention away from the road - any distraction can compromise your ability to use the info that your eyes take in: you can look, but not see

Describe Waugh and Norman's Model of Information processing?

- upon being stimulated, we may have an experience called a "primary memory": concept derived from William James - this is important, because James relied on introspection, which is an approach few cog psychologists would use today - primary memory consists of the immediately present moment, so aka immediate memory - from the primary memory, a rehearsal arrow loops back. Rehearsal refers to the fact that primary memories are quickly forgotten, unless they are repeated - from primary memory and rehearsal, we lead to secondary memory, where the information is remembered indefinitely and non-consciously

How is the study of cognitive psych metacognitive?

- we start w/ a common sense understanding of cognition - our goal is to develop this understanding further - may need to change beliefs about how cognition takes place, or give up old ideas altogether - may need to accept uncertainty regarding what we can assert about cognition at a particular point - cognitive psyc is still a growing area of inquiry, and it offers a series of hypotheses about the way the mind works, not definitive answers

What did memory experiments find as factors affecting what subjects remembered?

- what processing they performed on stimulus materials - what stimulus materials they expected to receive - what materials were actually presented - what they were doing before their memory was measured - how their memory was measured

Define primary memory?

- what we are aware of in the "immediately present moment" - also called immediate or short term memory

Draw Broadbent's filter model

->->-> Input channels-> -> ->Senses (ear, eye, mouth) -> -> -> short term memory store [FILTER -> selects based on physical characteristics oNLY] -> selected input to attend to

what are examples of everyday information processing?

-driving, walking down the street = taking in info about location, direction, traffic, weather, other people - counting change (ability to add and subtract, no matter how dismal lmfao) - learning new computer system and trying to understand and remember the procedures and commands to use later - to us, attending, comprehending, remembering etc. are all just "thinking" - psychologists thought, consider these things aspects of information processing - the subject of cognitive psyc

Describe the three stages of the study of human cognition?

1. Rapid Progression - 1950s - 1960s - rapid progression pushed forward by traditional psychophysics and experimental psyc 2. Bring on the Numbers - mid 1970s - fuelled by computational analysis and marked arrival of ~cognitive~ science 3. Bring in Nature's Creature's - mid 1980s - incorporated evidence from neuropsyc and animal neurophysio, and from imaging techniques that observed the brain in action

Describe the limitations on information processing capabilities?

1. The time it takes for info to flow through the nervous system - demonstrated by Hick and Hyman, where they show it takes time to translate a visual signal to either a key press or verbal response 2. Capacity limitation for the amount of info it can handle in a fixed period of time - ie., The amount of visual information a person can process at one time also has limits - more info a visual signal conveys, the longer it takes for the viewer to make an appropriate response

What is the cognitive ethology approach to research?

1. carefully observe and describe the behaviour as it occurs naturally 2. move this into the lab and simplify the relevant factors 3. test to find out whether lab findings predict, and explain, real world phenomena

Define folk psychology

An umbrella term for various assumptions and theories based on the everyday behaviour of ourselves and others

Describe the data in support of Broadbent's filter model of information processing

CONDITION I: - asked participants to listen to three pairs of digits - one digit of each pair arrived at one ear at the same time the other digit arrived at the other ear - the pairs were separated by a half second interval - participants asked to recall digits in whatever order they vibed with - able to recall 65% of the lists correctly - correct responses almost all had the same pattern: participants would recall all digits presented to one ear, and then the digits in the other ear (ie., for 73 - 42 - 15, they usually said 7 4 1- 325 or 325 - 741) SECOND CONDITION - asked to recall items in the sequence they were presented - since they heard the numbers at the same time, they could report either member of the pair first, but had to report both digits before continuing through the sequence (ie., 73-42- 15 or 37-24-51) - could only report 20% of the lists correctly

Channel capacity

The maximum amount of info that can be transmitted by an info processing device

Filter model

a theory based on the idea that information processing is restricted by channel capacity

Brown-Peterson task (vocab definition)

an experimental paradigm in which subjects are given a set of items and a number subjects immediately begin counting backward from threes from the number, and after a specific time interval, are asked to recall original items

Define secondary memory

knowledge acquired at an earlier time that is stored indefinitely and absent from awareness: aka long term memory

Define introspection

looking inward to observe one's own thoughts and feelings

bit (definition)

short for binary digit - the most basic unit of information - every event that occurs in a situation with two equally likely outcomes provides one "bit" of information.

Information theory (definition)

the theory that the info provided by a particular event is inversely related to the probability of its occurence ie. -> negative relationship - the less likely the event is, the more information it conveys