Test 2 cognitive psychology

Attenuator

In Treisman's model of selective attention, the attenuator analyzes the incoming message in terms of physical characteristics, language, and meaning. Attended messages pass through the attenuator at full strength, and unattended messages pass though with reduced strength.

Mental walk task

A task used in imagery experiments in which participants are asked to form a mental image of an object and to imagine that they are walking toward this mental image.

Imagery neuron

A type of category-specific neuron that is activated by imagery.

Fixation

In perception and attention, a pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene.

Suppose you are in your kitchen writing a grocery list, while your roommate is watching TV in the next room. A commercial for spaghetti sauce comes on TV. Although you are not paying attention to the TV, you "suddenly" remember that you need to pick up spaghetti sauce and add it to the list. Your behavior is best predicted by which of the following models of attention?

Late selection

principle of Good continuation

Law of perceptual organization stating that points that, when connected, result in straight or smoothly curving lines are seen as belonging together. In addition, lines tend to be seen as following the smoothest path

Law Of Pragnanz,

Law of perceptual organization that states that every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible. Also called the law of good figure and the law of simplicity.

Principal of Similarity

Law of perceptual organization that states that similar things appear to be grouped together.

Saliency map

Map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the scene.

Kosslyn (1973)

Memorize picture, create an image of it -In image, move from one part of the picture to another •It took longer for participants to mentally move long distances than shorter distances -Like perception, imagery is spatial

Shepard and Meltzer (1971

Mental chronometry -Participants mentally rotated one object to see if it matched another object

Early selection model

Model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering out of the unattended message. In Broadbent's early selection model, the filtering step occurs before the message is analyzed to determine its meaning.

Filter model of attention

Model of attention that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli.

Which of the following statements is most consistent with recognition-by-components theory?

Humans can identify an object if sufficient information is available to enable us to identify an object's basic features.

Likelihood

In Bayesian inference, the extent to which the available evidence is consistent with the outcome.

Overt attention

Shifting of attention by moving the eyes. Contrasts with Covert attention.

In the text's "animal lurking behind a tree / two oddly shaped tree stumps" example, which Gestalt law did NOT contribute to the incorrect perception?

Simplicity

Which of the following is an example of an effect of top-down processing?

Speech segmentation.

Paired-associated learning

Subjects are presented with pairs of words like boat-hat or car-house during a study period. The task is to recall the word that was paired with it during the study period.

Inverse projection problem

Task of determining the object that caused a particular image on the retina.

Selective attention

The ability to focus on one message and ignore all others.

Cocktail party effect

The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli, especially at a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations.

Divided attention

The ability to pay attention to, or carry out, two or more different tasks simultaneously.

Viewpoint invariance

The ability to recognize an object seen from different viewpoints.

Processing capacity

The amount of information input that a person can handle. This sets a limit on the person's ability to process information.

Light-from-above assumption

The assumption that light is coming from above. This is a heuristic that can influence how we perceive three-dimensional objects that are illuminated.

Imagery debate

The debate about whether imagery is based on spatial mechanisms, such as those involved in perception, or on propositional mechanisms that are related to language.

Imageless thought debate

The debate about whether thought is possible in the absence of images.

Oblique effect

The finding that vertical and horizontal orientations can be perceived more easily than other (slanted) orientations.

Preattentive stage

The first stage of Treisman's feature integration theory, in which an object is analyzed into its features.

Bayesian inference

The idea that our estimate of the probability of an outcome is determined by the prior probability (our initial belief) and the likelihood (the extent to which the available evidence is consistent with the outcome).

Binding problem

The problem of explaining how an object's individual features become bound together.

Dichotic listening

The procedure of presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear.

Shadowing

The procedure of repeating a message out loud as it is heard. Shadowing is commonly used in conjunction with studies of selective attention that use the dichotic listening procedure.

Speech segmentation

The process of perceiving individual words within the continuous flow of the speech signal.

Focused attention stage

The second stage of Treisman's feature integration theory. According to the theory, attention causes the combination of features into perception of an object.

Which of the following has been used as an argument AGAINST the idea that imagery is spatial in nature?

The tacit-knowledge explanation

Transduction

conversion of this energy to neural signals

Rensink's flicker paradigm

which an original image is followed by a blank image and is then followed by a changed image. This is usually referred to as the "flicker" condition, because the images sometimes appear to be flickering.

The theory of unconscious inference includes the:

likelihood principle.

Brain ablation

A procedure in which a specific area is removed from an animal's brain. It is usually done to determine the function of this area by assessing the effect on the animal's behavior.

Pre-cueing

A procedure in which participants are given a cue that will usually help them carry out a subsequent task.

Mental scanning

A process of mental imagery in which a person scans a mental image in his or her mind.

Attentional capture

A rapid shifting of attention, usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement.

Spatial representation

A representation in which different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space.

Propositional representation

A representation in which relationships are represented by symbols, as when the words of a language represent objects and the relationships between objects.

In the flanker compatibility procedure, flanker stimuli and target stimuli must necessarily differ in terms of

location.

Illusory conjunctions

A situation, demonstrated in experiments by Anne Treisman, in which features from different objects are inappropriately combined.

Epiphenomenon

A phenomenon that accompanies a mechanism but is not actually part of the mechanism. An example of an epiphenomenon is lights that flash on a mainframe computer as it operates.

Low-load task

A task that uses few resources, leaving some capacity to handle other tasks.

Placebo

A pill or procedure that patients believe delivers active ingredients (usually pain killers), but which contains no active ingredient.

Unilateral neglect

A problem caused by brain damage, usually to the right parietal lobe, in which the patient ignores objects in the left half of his or her visual field.

Object discrimination problem

A problem in which the task is to remember an object based on its shape and choose it when presented with another object after a delay. Associated with research on the what processing stream.

Paivio

-Memory for words that evoke mental images is better than those that do not -Conceptual-peg hypothesis

LeBihan et al. (1993)

-Overlap in brain activation -Visual cortex

A circular plate rests at the center of a small square table. Around the table are a total of four chairs, one along each side of the square table. A person with unilateral neglect sits down in one of the chairs and eats from the plate. After he is "finished," he moves to the next chair on his right and continues to eat from the plate. Assuming he never moves the plate and he continues with this procedure (moving one chair to the right and eating) how many chairs will he have to sit in to eat all the food on the plate?

3

Geons-how many

36

Dictionary unit

A component of Treisman's attenuation model of attention. This processing unit contains stored words and thresholds for activating the words. The dictionary unit helps explain why we can sometimes hear a familiar word, such as our name, in an unattended message. See also Attenuation model of attention.

Balint's syndrome

A condition caused by brain damage in which a person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects.

Gestalt psychologists

A group of psychologists who proposed principles governing perception, such as laws of organization, and a perceptual approach to problem solving involving restructuring.

Conceptual peg hypothesis

A hypothesis, associated with Paivio's dual coding theory, that states that concrete nouns create images that other words can hang onto, which enhances memory for these words.

Experience-dependent plasticity

A mechanism that causes an organism's neurons to develop so they respond best to the type of stimulation to which the organism has been exposed.

Pegword technique

A method for remembering things in which the things to be remembered are associated with concrete words. See also Method of loci.

Method of loci

A method for remembering things in which the things to be remembered are placed at different locations in a mental image of a spatial layout. See also Pegword technique.

Late selection model of attention

A model of selective attention that proposes that selection of stimuli for final processing does not occur until after the information in the message has been analyzed for meaning.

Prior

A person's initial belief about the probability of an outcome.

Scene schema

A person's knowledge about what is likely to be contained in a particular scene. This knowledge can help guide attention to different areas of the scene. For example, knowledge of what is usually in an office may cause a person to look toward the desk to see the computer.

High-load task

A task that uses most or all of a person's resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks.

Stroop effect

An effect originally studied by J. R. Stroop, using a task in which a person is instructed to respond to one aspect of a stimulus, such as the color of ink that a word is printed in, and ignore another aspect, such as the color that the word names. The Stroop effect refers to the fact that people find this task difficult when, for example, the word RED is printed in blue ink.

Tacit knowledge explanation

An explanation proposed that some some participants unconsciously use knowledge about the world in making their judgments.

Apparent movement

An illusion of movement perception that occurs when stimuli in different locations are flashed one after another with the proper timing.

Food craving

An intense desire to eat a specific food.

Attenuation model of attention

Anne Treisman's model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages. In the first stage, an attenuator analyzes the incoming message and lets through the attended message--and also the unattended message, but at a lower (attenuated) strength.

Intermediate-selection mode

Attended message can be separated from unattended message early in the information-processing system -Selection can also occur later

Stimulus salience

Bottom-up factors that determine attention to elements of a scene.

Flanker-Compatibility Task

Can participants focus their attention on detecting the target so that the identity of the distractor will not affect their performance? Low-load condition= one potential target.Reaction time is longer for incompatible distractors. Participant still had resources available to process additional information. High-load condition: type of distractor does not affect reaction time. Participants use all resources .No resources to process the distracto

Failing to detect that an object has changed has been

Change Blindness

Semantic regularities

Characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes.

Regularities in the environment

Characteristics of the environment that occur frequently. For example, blue is associated with open sky, landscapes are often green and smooth, and verticals and horizontals are often associated with buildings.

Perception

Conscious experience that results from stimulation of the senses.

Depictive representation

Corresponds to spatial representation. So called because a spatial representation can be depicted by a picture.

C.K.

Could not draw pictures of objects that were in front of him, but could draw greatly detailed ones from memory.

R.M.

Damage to occipital and parietal lobes. Could draw accurate pictures of objects in front of him.Could not draw accurate pictures of objects from memory.

Theory of natural selection

Darwin's theory that characteristics that enhance an animal's ability to survive and reproduce will be passed on to future generations.

Placebo effect

Decrease in pain from a procedure or substance that delivers no active ingredient.

Mental chronometry

Determining the amount of time needed to carry out a cognitive task.

Change blindness

Difficulty in detecting changes in similar, but slightly different, scenes that are presented one after another. The changes are often easy to see once attention is directed to them but are usually undetected in the absence of appropriate attention.

Topographic map

Each point on a visual stimulus causes activity at a specific location on a brain structure, such as the visual cortex, and points next to each other on the stimulus cause activity at points next to each other on the structure.

Mental imagery

Experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input.

Saccadic eye movements

Eye movements from one fixation point to another.

Early-selection model

Filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning

Attention

Focusing on specific features, objects, or locations or on certain thoughts or activities.

Unconscious inference

Helmholtz's idea that some of our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions that we make about the environment. See also Likelihood principle.

Effect of Load on Selective Attention

High-load experiments support early selection •Low-load experiments support late selection

Bottleneck model

Model of attention that proposes that incoming information is restricted at some point in processing, so only a portion of the information gets through to consciousness. Broadbent's model of attention is an example of a bottleneck model.

Direct pathway model

Model of pain perception that proposes that pain signals are sent directly from receptors to the brain.

Lea (1975)

More distractions when scanning longer distances may have increased reaction time

Visual scanning

Movement of the eyes from one location or object to another.

Where pathway

Neural pathway, extending from the occipital lobe to the parietal lobe, that is associated with neural processing that occurs when people locate objects in space. Roughly corresponds to the action pathway.

Action pathway

Neural pathway, extending from the occipital lobe to the parietal lobe, that is associated with neural processing that occurs when people take action. Corresponds to the where pathway.

Perception pathway

Neural pathway, extending from the occipital lobe to the temporal lobe, that is associated with perceiving or recognizing objects. Corresponds to the what pathway.

Inattentional blindness

Not noticing something even though it is in clear view, usually caused by failure to pay attention to the object or the place where the object is located. See also Change blindness.

Visual search

Occurs when a person is looking for one stimulus or object among a number of other stimuli or objects.

Covert attention

Occurs when attention is shifted without moving the eyes, commonly referred to as seeing something "out of the corner of one's eye." Contrasts with Overt attention.

Distraction

Occurs when one stimulus interferes with attention to or the processing of another stimulus.

Same-object advantage

Occurs when the enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object, so that attention to one place on an object results in a facilitation of processing at other places on the object.

Likelihood principle

Part of Helmholtz's theory of unconscious inference that states that we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we have received.

Top-down processing

Perception may start with the brain - Person's knowledge, experience, expectations

Bottom-up processing

Perception may start with the senses - Incoming raw data - Energy registering on receptors

Landmark discrimination problem

Problem in which the task is to remember an object's location and to choose that location after a delay. Associated with research on the where processing stream.

Binding

Process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create perception of a coherent object.

Top-down processing

Processing that involves a person's knowledge or expectations. This type of processing has also been called knowledge-based processing.

Automatic processing

Processing that occurs automatically, without the person's intending to do it, and that also uses few cognitive resources. Automatic processing is associated with easy or well-practiced tasks.

Bottom-up processing

Processing that starts with information received by the receptors. This type of processing is also called data-based processing.

Load theory of attention

Proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out. High-load tasks result in less distraction.

Physical regularities

Regularly occurring physical properties of the environment. For example, there are more vertical and horizontal orientations in the environment than oblique (angled) orientations.

Perceptual load

Related to the difficulty of a task. Low-load tasks use only a small amount of a person's processing capacity. High-load tasks use more of the processing capacity.

principles of Perceptual organization,

Rules proposed by the Gestalt psychologists to explain how small elements of a scene or a display become perceptually grouped to form larger units.

Feature search

Searching among distractors for a target item that involves detecting one feature, such as "horizontal."

Conjunction search

Searching among distractors for a target that involves two or more features.

Recognition-by-components theory (RBC)

We perceive objects by perceiving elementary features Geons are three-dimensional volumes. Objects are recognized when enough information is available to identify object's geons

Striate Cortex to temporal lobe

What pathway identification of objects

Sensation

absorbing raw energy (e.g., light waves, sound waves) through our sensory organs

Mackay (Late selection model)

ambiguous sentences paired with biasing word in other ear.

In explaining the paradox that imagery and perception exhibit a double dissociation, Behrmann and coworkers suggested that perception necessarily involves ________ processing and imagery starts as a ________ process.

bottom-up; top-down

Illusory conjunctions are

combinations of features from different stimuli.

Attention

concentration of mental energy to process incoming information

Gauthier and coworkers' experiment on experience-dependent plasticity showed that after extensive "Greeble recognition" training sessions, FFA neurons had a(n) ________ response to faces and an ________ response to Greebles.

decreased; increased

Feature integration theory

developed by Anne Treisman, that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object.

Dichotic listening occurs when:

different messages are presented to the left and right ears.

What pathway

extending from the occipital lobe to the temporal lobe, that is associated with perceiving or recognizing objects. Corresponds to the perception pathway.

A difference between a heuristic and an algorithm is:

heuristics do not result in a correct solution every time as algorithms do.

Perky's experiment, in which participants were asked to "project" visual images of common objects onto a screen, showed that:

imagery and perception can interact with one another.

"Early" researchers of imagery (beginning with Aristotle until just prior to the dominance of behaviorism) proposed all of the following ideas EXCEPT:

imagery requires a special mechanism.

in Schneider and Shiffrin's experiment in which participants were asked to indicate whether a target stimulus was present in a series of rapidly presented "frames," divided attention was easier

in the consistent-mapping condition.

Ira and his sister are playing "Name that Tune," the object of which is to name the title of the song when given the song's first line. Ira suggests the line "Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?" His sister can't come up with the answer at first, but realizing that the title is often embedded in the lyrics, she tries to sing them silently to herself. She then bursts out "Ah! It's 'Winter Wonderland'!" It is most likely that Ira's sister used ________ in playing the game.

inner audition

Perceived size

is a function of both bottom-up and top-down processing

Suppose twin teenagers are vying for their mother's attention. The mother is trying to pay attention to one of her daughters, though both girls are talking (one about her boyfriend, one about a school project). According to the operating characteristics of Treisman's attenuator, it is most likely the attenuator is analyzing the incoming messages in terms of:

meaning.

Kosslyn's island experiment used the ________ procedure.

mental scanning

Some neurons respond when we watch someone else do something. These are known as:

mirror neurons.

Damage to the temporal lobe makes the ________ more difficult.

object discrimination problem

In Simons and Chabris's "change blindness" experiment, participants watch a film of people playing basketball. Many participants failed to report that that a woman carrying an umbrella walked through because the:

participants were counting the number of ball passes.

As described in your text, the pegword technique relies on all of the following EXCEPT:

propositions.

Perception

selecting, organizing, and interpreting these signals

The mental simulation approach for solving mechanical problems is analogous to the idea that visual imagery involves ________ representations.

spatial

Automatic processing occurs when

tasks are well-practiced.

Shepard and Metzler's "image rotation" experiment was so influential and important to the study of cognition because it demonstrated:

that imagery and perception may share the same mechanisms.

With the Stroop effect, you would expect to find longest response times when:

the color and the name differed.

The "indentations in the sand / bumps in the sand" example from your text illustrates:

the light-from-above heuristic.

Research on the use of cell phones while driving indicates that:

the main effect of cell phone use on driving safety can be attributed to the fact that attention is used up by the cognitive task of talking on the phone.

"Perceiving machines" are used by the U.S. Postal service to "read" the addresses on letters and sort them quickly to their correct destinations. Sometimes, these machines cannot read an address, because the writing on the envelope is not sufficiently clear for the machine to match the writing to an example it has stored in memory. Human postal workers are much more successful at reading unclear addresses, most likely because of:

top-down processing.

High-load:

uses almost all; no resources for other tasks

Low-load

uses few; resources for other tasks

Striate cortex to parietal lobe

where pathway location of objects

Overview: Sensation and Perception

• Energy contains information about the world (usually incomplete, full of noise, and distorted) • Accessory structure modifies energy • Receptor transduces energy into a neural response • Sensory nerve transmits the coded activity to the central nervous system • Thalamus processes and relays the neural response • Relayed to specialized areas of the cortex • Perception of the world is created