Cognitive Psych Final Short and Long Answer Questions

Give me a 3 word list that is likely to produce proactive interference. Then give me a fourth word that would release you from such interference.

1) apple 2) banana 3) orange 4) professor

Describe the structuralist perspective and the gestalt perspective. Name one thing that differs between the two.

Structuralists believe that perception is made up of a combination of "simple sensations" (the object is shiny and flat). Gestalts believe that perception is more about the object as a whole. A difference between them is that structuralists think everyone's list of sensations about a particular object should be basically the same, but Gestalts think people are an active agent in perception, and each person's experience could be unique.

You have been hired by the center for academic success. Your job is to create a short flyer telling students three simple strategies that they might employ to improve their memory for new information (improve their study skills). Name three strategies that you would choose, provide a brief description and an example for each one.

3 strategies for learning new information are the various types of elaborate rehearsal that activate deep processing. Unlike shallow processing for actions such as repeating words to memorize (maintenance rehearsal) or memorizing information based on physical appearance; elaborate rehearsal and deep processing deal with memorization based on the content and meaning of the information. 3 examples are as follows: the self reference effect, the generation effect, and the paired association effect. The self reference effect is a relation of information to your personal life experiences. This is the best memorization technique of the 3 examples. An example would be remembering different locations of countries of the world because I traveled there and want to remember the experience and go their again. The generation effect is a way to improve memory by generating the information yourself, like in a fill in the blank question. An example of this would be presenting a list of words such as lion, tiger, bear. Then removing that list, and presenting another list such as li__, Ti___, b_a_, and filling in the missing letters. The paired association effect is a type of visual imaging technique for memorization. If words are paired and presented together and then only one of the paired words is presented, one must visualize the missing word. For example, if the words spider-monkey and cat-dog were presented, then only spider and cat, you would use paired association to visualize the missing words.

What is a morpheme? Define and give an example

A morpheme is the smallest unit of language that has meaning. An example is the suffix -ed. Another example with two morphemes in one word is sunrise. Sun is one morpheme, and rise is another.

Give an example of a script that you know and experience in your own life. Name one advantage that scripts provide.

A script is a memory representation for how a sequence of events should occur in a particular situation. An example of one in my own memory is for my experience at the dentist office. Usually I check in at a receptionist desk, wait in the waiting room, get called by a hygenist, wait for the dentist, then get examined by the main dentist to get my teeth cleaned. Having a script gives the advantage of knowing what events will occur next, so I know what to expect at each point in a situation.

Describe Broadbent's model of selective attention. Why is it called an early selection model? Describe the dear aunt jane experiments. What were the stimuli? how were they presented? What did the participant have to do? What were the results? Are these results consistent with broadbent's model?

Boradbent's filter model of attention explained how it is possible to focus on one message and why information isn't taken in from the other message. He proposed that information passes through the different selective stages. First, the message is turned into sensory memory, which holds all of the incoming information for a fraction of a second and then transfers all of it to the filter. The filter identifies the message that is being attended based on it's physical characteristics and lets only the attended message pass to the detector. The detector processes information from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as meaning. The output of the detector is sent to short-term memory, which holds information for 10-15 seconds and transfers information to long term memory. It is called an early selection model because the filter eliminates the unattended information right at the beginning of the flow of information. In the dear aunt jane experiment, it was showed that information presented to the unattended ear is processed enough to provide the listener with some awareness of its meaning. Subjects were asked to shadow the message presented to one ear, which was Dear 7 Jane. The unattended ear was presented with the message 9 aunt 6. Rather than reporting the Dear 7 Jane message, subjects reported that the attended ear was presented with Dear Aunt Jane. These results are not consistent with broadbent because the subjects switched to the unattended channel because they were taking the meaning of the words into account. This was further developed into Treisman's attenuation model of selection attention.

Explain broca's and wernicke's aphasia. What aspects of language are preserved and what aspects are impaired in each of these conditions? Where is the brain damage associated with each of these conditions? Use evidence of double dissociation to support these distinctions.

Broca's aphasia is characterized by a patient with broken speech. Speech that is slow, labored, ungrammatical. It is caused by damage to Broca's area, an area in the frontal lobe of the brain. Researchers link broca's area to syntax. A patient with Broca's aphasia is able to understand meaning of some types of sentences, but have difficulty forming complete sentences with correct structure and grammar. Wernicke's aphasia is characterized by patients with damage to Wernicke's area, located in the temporal lobe, and produce speech that was fluent and grammatically correct but made no sense and was incoherent. Research proved that damage to this part of the brain is associated with semantics. Patients with Wernicke's aphasia have proper syntax, but not semantics. The double dissociation between the two types of aphasia deals with the location of the damage, and the preservation of different parts of speech. In broca's aphasia, the frontal lobe is damaged, semantics is preserved, but syntax is lost. In wernicke's aphasia, the temporal lobe is damaged, syntax is preserved, but understanding of meaning is lost (semantics).

Describe the concept of double dissociation. Then use this approach to assess the independence of language and cognitive processing systems. What do you need to demonstrate to show the double dissociation? Provide one piece of evidence for each concept of the double dissociation.

Double Dissociation is when two related mental processes are shown to function independently of each other. A classic example of Double Dissociation is speech and language comprehension. Although both processes pertain to use of language, the brain structures that control them work independently. To demonstrate double dissociation, you need to find two pathways that affect different functions of some type of cognitive process. For example, take Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia. One of the impairments is distinguished by language comprehension but a lack of ability to produce speech. This is associated with damage to an area in the frontal lobe called Broca's area. The other impairment is distingushed by an ability to produce fluent and grammatical speech but an inability to understand and comprehend language. This is associated with damage to an area in the dominant temporal lobe called wernicke's area.

Describe the problem of equivalence and the problem of underdetermination in visual perception. Provide an example of one of them from your own experience.

Equivalence is the concept that an object can give more than one pattern of simulation. Underdetermination is the concept that an object can be perceived in more than one way. An example of underdetermination is when you're driving on the interstate and see a blob on the side of the road and can't tell if it is road kill, a wet box, or a piece of tire.

What is implicit memory? Give an example

Implicit memory is unconscious memory: procedural, priming, and conditioning are all types of implicit memory. An example is knowing how to speak with correct grammar because we don't have to consciously think about it

What is the difference between lexical and syntactic ambiguity?

Lexical ambiguity means that a word may have many different meanings whereas syntactic ambiguity means that sentences may be interpreted in more than one way due to ambiguous sentence structure.

Choose one visual imagery technique to improve memory (peg word or method of loci) and define the technique and give an example.

Method of loci is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualizations with the use of spatial memory, familiar information about one's environment, to quickly and efficiently recall information.In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject 'walks' through these loci in their imagination and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items. An example would be mentally walking through my living room and associating the fact that my favorite show comes on at a certain time tonight by pegging that information to my tv, and pegging that my dog needs to be fed by associating it with the dog bowl.

Give me an example of how long term memory can affect short term memory performance

Proactive interference is an example of how long term memory can affect short term memory performance. Proactive interference is when previously learned information gets in the way of learning new material. For example, when learning a new language, such as latin, my previous knowledge of spanish can alter my ability to learn latin by confusing the different languages.

Describe Procedural Knowledge and Event-based knowledge and provide an example of one of them from your own knowledge.

Procedural knowledge deals with tasks and things that you learn as a sequence of little events tied together to form one fluid motion. Event-based is knowledge that has a specific time and place and impact on memory. An example of procedural knowledge is learning how to kick a ball by breaking down the individual motions and eventually combining them to one fluid motion. An example of Event based knowledge would be knowing exactly what I was doing and where I was when 9/11 occurred.

Describe the misinformation effect. Explain the experiment by Loftus and colleagues in which people saw a car hit a pedestrian. What was the task for participants in this study? What was manipulated? What were the results? How does this information demonstrate the misinformation effect? Describe one implication this work has for eyewitness testimony.

The misinformation effect occurs when information presented immediately after a memory causes false recall of the original memory. The information presented after the memory is called MPI, or misleading post-event information. IN a study by Loftus & colleagues, the misinformation effect was demonstrated. Subjects watched a video in which a car ignored a yield sign and hit a pedestrian. The subject's task was where manipulation came into play. The task was to determine whether the driver ignored a stop sign or a yield sign. So, what was manipulated was whether or not the subjects were exposed to an MPI, being asked about a stop sign, or not. The results were that more subjects reported that they saw a stop sign rather than a yield sign when presented with the MPI. This demonstrates the misinformation effect because it shows how information after a memory can cause subjects to report inaccurate recollection of the original memory. This study has shown useful in the world of eyewitness testimony. In particular, when victims have chosen their offender from a lineup, they can have a false level of confidence after choosing because of suggestive information.

Humans are predisposed to learn language. Give three pieces of evidence to support this claim. At least two should be examples from infant development.

The need to communicate language has been called universal because it occurs wherever there are people. For example, people's need to communicate is so powerful that when deaf children find themselves in an environment where nobody speaks or uses sign language, they invent their own signs. Language development is similar across cultures. No matter what the culture or the language, children generally begin babbling by 7 months, a few meaningful words by their first birthday, and multiword utterances around age 2. According to Chomsky, human language is coded in genes. He concluded that despite the wide variations that exist across languages, the underlying basis of all language is similar. He argued that as children learn language, they produce sentences that they have never heard and have never been reinforced.

Describe the functional distinction between the parietal and temporal processing streams in the visual system. Describe the Landmark Discrimination Task and the Object Discrimination Task, and explain how they were used to demonstrate the existence of these two functionally distinct processing pathways.

The parietal pathway is often called the where/how pathway. It corresponds with understanding location and movement. The temporal pathway is often called the what pathway and corresponds with things like color/shape/texture. The Landmark Discrimination Task was when monkeys were shown 2 wells, one of which would contain a banana chip. They would learn to associate one object, like a red cube, with the well that had the banana chip. If they found it, they got to eat it. If the researchers went in an did an ablation of the parietal pathway, the food well they chose would be random and unassociated with the location of the object, proving the function of the pathway. The Object Discrimination Task is when the monkeys would learn the location of the chip by associating it with a particular object. They would initially just be shown the red cube and associate it with the food, but then would be introduced to a completely different object, like a green ball. They would have to understand the difference between the 2 objects to know which one the food was associated with. If the researchers went in and severed the temporal pathway, the food well they chose would be random and unassociated with the correct object, proving the function of that pathway.

What is the propaganda effect? Give me an example from the real world.

The propaganda effect is the assumption of validity based on priming and presentation. It's when you see something on, say TV, and you assume it to be true, even if you're told prior that it isn't true. Example: If someone told me Jennifer Anniston is not pregnant but I read online that she was, I would believe that she was pregnant and have to research myself the validity of the statement.

Cognitive psychologists have made the argument that Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory are independent memory systems. Describe cognitive neuroscience evidence demonstrating a double dissociation between the two systems.

There is evidence that some patients have functioning STM but can't form new memories, and there are patients that are able to form new memories but cannot form STM. This shows that the STM and LTM function separately. The book/movie The Vow is based on a real patient who experienced a head injury that erased her memory of her husband but was able to create new memories.