Chapter 1 [Cognitive]

Memory

Process of maintaining information over time

Recency Effect

Refers to the observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli. In addition, Calkins emphasized that psychologists should study how real people use their cognitive processes in the real world, as opposed to the psychology laboratory. - Ebbinghaus, Calkins, and other pioneers inspired hundreds of researchers to examine how selected variables influenced memory. Some of their findings are still considered relevant in contemporary cognitive psychology.

Operational Definition

A precise definition that specifies exactly how a concept is to be measured

Cognitive Approach

A theoretical orientation that emphasizes people's thought processes and their knowledge.

Additional Areas that Contribute to Cognitive Psychology

Artificial intelligence and the broad field of cognitive science.

The Information Processing Approach

Beginning in the 1960s, psychologists created a new theoretical approach to human memory. This approach argued that (a) our mental processes are similar to the operations of a computer, and (b) information progresses through our cognitive system in a series of stages, one step at a time. - Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968) developed an information- processing model that became quite popular. The Atkinson-Shiffrin model proposed that memory involves a sequence of separate steps; in each step, information is transferred from one storage area to another.

Cognitive Psychology

Has two meanings; - 1. Sometimes is a synonym for cognition - 2. Sometimes it refers to the theoretical approach to psychology

Parellel Processing

Numerous processes handled at the same time

Gestalt

Overall quality that transcends the individual elements, in this case, the oval and the two horizontal lines

Theme 1: The cognitive processes are active, rather than passive.

The behaviorists viewed humans as passive organisms, who wait until a stimulus arrives from the environment before they respond. In contrast, the cognitive approach proposes that people seek out information. In addition, memory is a lively process that requires you to continually synthesize and transform information. When you read, you actively draw inferences that were never directly stated. In summary, your mind is not a sponge that passively absorbs information leaking out from the environment. Instead, you continually search and synthesize.

Frederic Bartlett

- A British psychologist named Frederic Bartlett (1886-1969) conducted his research on human memory. His important book Remembering: An Experimental and Social Study (Bartlett, 1932) is considered one of the most influential books in the history of cognitive psychology (Benjamin, 2009). - He used meaningful materials, such as lengthy stories.Bartlett discovered that people made systematic errors when trying to recall these stories. He proposed that human memory is an active, constructive process, in which we interpret and transform the information we encounter. We search for meaning, trying to integrate this new information so that it is more consistent with our own personal experiences. -Bartlett's work was largely ignored in the United States during the 1930s, because most U.S. research psychologists were committed to behaviorism. However, about half a century later, U.S. cognitive psychologists discovered Bartlett's work and admired his use of naturalistic material, in contrast to Ebbinghaus's artificial nonsense syllables.

Hermann Ebbinghaus

- Demonstrated that higher mental processes could actually be studied using experimentation, which was in opposition to the popularly held thought of the time. - Learning Curve / Forgetting Curve / Spacing Curve

Information Processing Approach to Memory

- External stimuli from the environment first enter sensory memory. Sensory memory is a storage system that records information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy - The model proposed that information is stored in sensory memory for 2 seconds or less, and then most of it is forgotten. - Atkinson and Shiffrin's model proposed that some material from sensory memory then passes on to short-term memory. Short-term memory—which is now typically called working memory—holds only the small amount of information that you are actively using. Memories in short-term memory are fragile—though not as fragile as those in sensory memory. These memories can be lost within about 30 seconds, unless they are somehow repeated. - According to the model, only a fraction of the information in short-term memory passes on to long-term memory (Leahey, 2003). Long-term memory has an enormous capacity because it contains memories that are decades old, in addition to memories of events that occurred several minutes ago. Atkinson and Shiffrin's model proposed that information stored in long-term memory is relatively permanent, compared to the information stored in working memory.

Why study Cognitive Psychology?

- Major portion of human ppsychology - Has widespread influence on other areas of psychology - Personal Reasons / Better understand yourself

William Wundt

- Many believe should be known as the founder of psychology - Proposed that psychology should be studied through introspection

Pure Artificial Intelligence

-An approach that designs a program to accomplish a cognitive task as efficiently as possible, even if the computer's processes are completely different from the processes used by humans. -For example, the most high-powered computer programs for chess will evaluate as many potential moves as possible in as little time as possible. Consider a computer chess program named ''Hydra.'' The top chess players in the world make a slight error about every ten moves. Hydra can identify this error—even though chess experts cannot—and it therefore wins the game. -Researchers have designed pure AI systems that can play chess, speak English, or diagnose an illness. However, as one researcher points out, ''I wouldn't want a chessplaying program speculating as to the cause of my chest pain''

Event-Related Potential Technique

-Records the very brief fluctuations in the brain's electrical activity, in response to a stimulus such as an auditory tone -To use the event-related potential technique, researchers place electrodes on a person's scalp. Each electrode records the electrical activity generated by a group of neurons located directly underneath the skull. The ERP technique cannot identify the response of a single neuron. However, it can identify electrical changes over a very brief period in a specific region of the brain -Example --> Study conducted / Participants were instructed to watch 1 second video of person either closing or opening their mouth. --> Brain responds more dramatically when you watch a mouth open than when you watch a mouth close. Why? Puce and Perrett propose that a mouth-opening movement is more important, because it signals that a person is about to say something. You therefore need to be attentive, and this exaggerated ERP reflects this attentiveness. In contrast, it's less important to notice that someone has finished talking.

Section Summary 2

1. The area of cognitive neuroscience combines the research techniques of cognitive psychology with a variety of methods for assessing the brain's structure and function. 2.A brain lesion refers to an area of the brain that has been destroyed by strokes and other forms of damage; it is often difficult to interpret the relationship between brain lesions and cognitive deficits. 3. In the positron emission tomography or PET-scan technique, researchers inject a small dose of radioactive chemical to see what parts of the brain are activated when a person is working on a cognitive task. 4. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tracks oxygen-rich blood to see what parts of the brain are active when a person is working on a cognitive task. 5. The event-related potential technique uses electrodes to track the very brief changes in the brain's electrical activity, in response to specific stimuli.

Section Summary

1. The term cognition refers to the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge; cognitive psychology is sometimes used as a synonym for cognition, and sometimes it refers to a theoretical approach to psychology. 2. It's useful to study cognitive psychology because (a) cognitive activities are a major part of human psychology, (b) the cognitive approach influences other important areas of psychology, and (c) you can learn how to use your cognitive processes more effectively. 3.Many historians maintain that Wilhelm Wundt is responsible for creating the discipline of psychology; Wundt also developed the introspection technique. 4.Hermann Ebbinghaus and Mary Whiton Calkins conducted early research on human memory. 5. William James examined numerous everyday psychological processes, and he emphasized the active nature of the human mind. 6. Beginning in the early 20th century, behaviorists such as John B. Watson rejected the study of mental processes; the behaviorists helped to develop the research methods used by current cognitive psychologists. 7. Gestalt psychology emphasized that people use organization to perceive patterns, and they often solve problems by using insight. 8. Frederick C.Bartlet conducted memory research using long stories and other meaningful material. 9. Cognitive psychology began to emerge in the mid-1950s. This new approach was stimulated by disenchantment with behaviorism, as well as a growing interest in linguistics, human memory, developmental psychology, and the information-processing approach. 10. According to the information-processing approach, mental processes operate like a computer, with information flowing through a series of storage areas. 11. The best-known example of the information-processing approach is the Atkinson-Shiffrin (1968) model, which proposes three different memory- storage systems. Enthusiasm has declined for both this model and for the general information-processing approach, because cognitive psychologists now realize that human thinking requires more complex models. 12.Cognitive psychology has had a major influence on the field of psychology. In the current era, cognitive psychologists are more concerned about ecological validity than in previous decades.

Section Summary 3

1. Theorists who are interested in artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to cognition typically try to design computer models that accomplish the same cognitive tasks that humans do. 2. According to the computer metaphor, human cognitive processes work like a computer that can process information quickly and accurately. 3.The approach called ''pure artificial intelligence' 'attempts to design programs that can accomplish cognitive tasks as efficiently as possible. 4. The approach called ''computer simulation'' attempts to design programs that accomplish cognitive tasks the way that humans do. 5. According to the connectionist approach, cognitive processes can be represented in terms of networks of neurons; furthermore, many operations can proceed at the same time, in parallel, rather than one step at a time. 6. Cognitive science examines questions about the mind; it includes disciplines such as cognitive psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and economics.

Artificial Intelligence

A branch of computer science; it seeks to explore human cognitive processes by creating computer models that show ''intelligent behavior'' and also accomplish the same tasks that humans do. Let's consider several important topics that are related to artificial intelligence: (1) the computer metaphor, (2) pure AI, (3) computer simulation, and (4) the connectionist approach.

The Computer Metaphor

According to the computer metaphor, our cognitive processes work like a computer, that is, a complex, multipurpose machine that processes information quickly and accurately. - Both the human and the computer may operate according to similar general principles. For example, both humans and computers can compare symbols and can make choices according to the results of the comparison. Furthermore, computers have a processing mechanism with a limited capacity. Humans also have a limited attention capacity. Humans cannot pay attention to numerous tasks at the same time. -Computer models need to describe both the structures and the processes that operate on these structures. Thagard (2005) suggests that a computer model resembles a recipe in cooking. A recipe has two parts: (1) the ingredients, which are somewhat like the structures; and (2) the cooking instructions for working with those ingredients, which are somewhat like the processes.

Cognitive Science

An interdisciplinary field that tries to answer questions about the mind. Cognitive science includes three disciplines we've discussed so far—cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. It also includes philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and economics. This field emerged when researchers began to notice connections among a variety of disciplines -According to cognitive scientists, thinking requires us to manipulate our internal representations of the external world. Cognitive scientists focus on these internal representations. In contrast, you'll recall, the behaviorists focused only on observable stimuli and responses in the external world.

The Connectionist Approach

Argues that cognitive processes can be understood in terms of networks that link together neuron-like units; in addition, many operations can proceed simultaneously—rather than one step at a time. In other words, human cognition is often parallel, not strictly linear (Barrett, 2009; Gazzaniga et al., 2009). Two other names that are often used interchangeably with connectionism are the parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach and the neural-network approach. -The connectionist approach is useful for explaining why we can perform some cognitive tasks very quickly and accurately. This approach grew out of developments in both neuroscience and artificial intelligence—the two topics we have just discussed. - Neural activity for that item seems to be distributed throughout a section of the brain. For example, researchers cannot pinpoint one small portion of your brain that stores the name of your cognitive psychology professor. Instead, that information is probably distributed throughout numerous neurons in a region of your cerebral cortex. Notice that the term ''parallel distributed processing'' captures the distributed characteristic of the neurons in your brain. -Keep in mind that the connectionist approach uses the human brain—rather than the serial-computer—as the basic model (Woll, 2002). This more sophisticated design allows the connectionist approach to achieve greater complexity, flexibility, and accuracy as it attempts to account for human cognitive processes.

Computer Simulation / Computer Modeling

As we have seen, pure AI tries to achieve the best possible performance. In contrast, computer simulation or computer modeling attempts to take human limitations into account. -The goal of computer simulation is to program a computer to perform a specific cognitive task in the same way that humans actually perform this task. A computer simulation must produce the same number of errors—as well as correct responses—that a human produces

Atkinson and Shiffrin Problems

Atkinson and Shiffrin's (1968) information-processing model dominated memory research for many years. However, its influence is now diminished. For instance, most cognitive psychologists now consider sensory memory to be the very brief storage process that is part of perception, rather than an actual memory. Many researchers also question Atkinson and Shiffrin's (1968) clear-cut distinction between short-term memory and long-term memory. In this textbook, the topic of memory is divided into two parts, more for the sake of convenience than a conviction that we have two entirely different kinds of memory. Chapter 4 examines short-term memory, although I use the current, more descriptive term ''working memory'' as the chapter title. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 examine various components of long-term memory.

Consciousness

Awareness of the external world, as well as your thoughts and emotions about your internal world. An important characteristic of consciousness is that we sometimes have trouble avoiding thoughts about an unpleasant topic.

Theme 5: Many cognitive processes rely on both bottom-up and top-down processing.

Bottom-up processing emphasizes the importance of information from the stimuli registered on your sensory receptors. Bottom-up processing uses only a low-level sensory analysis of the stimulus. In contrast, top-down processing emphasizes how our concepts, expectations, and memory influence our cognitive processes. This top-down processing requires higher-level cognition, for example, the kind of processes we will emphasize in Chapters 5 and 8 of this textbook. Both bottom-up and top-down processing work simultaneously to ensure that our cognitive processes are typically fast and accurate. Consider pattern recognition. You recognize your aunt partly because of the specific information from the stimulus—information about your aunt's face, height, shape, and so forth. This bottom-up processing is important. At the same time, top-down processing would operate if you went to her house, and you were expecting to see her in this location.

Cognitive Neuroscience Techniques

Cognitive neuroscience combines the research techniques of cognitive psychology with various methods for assessing the structure and function of the brain

Behaviourism

During the first half of the 20th century [1901 --> 1950], this perspective was the most prominent theoretical perspective in the United States. - Psychology must focus on objective, observable reactions to stimuli in the environment, rather than introspection -The most prominent early behaviorist was the U.S. psychologist John B. Watson (1913), who lived from 1878-1958. - Typically studied animals - Argued that researchers could not objectively study mental representations, such as an image, idea, or thought - Emphasized the importance of the operational definition

Gestalt Psychology

Emphasizes that we humans have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see; furthermore, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - Strongly objected to Wundt's introspective technique of analyzing experiences into separate components - Criticized the behaviorists' emphasis on breaking behavior into observable stimulus-response units and ignoring the context of behavior - Emphasized the importance of insight in problem solving

Theme 2: The cognitive processes are remarkably efficient and accurate.

For example, the amount of material in your memory is astonishing. Language development is similarly impressive. For instance, preschoolers can master thousands of new words, in addition to the complex structure of language. Naturally, humans make mistakes. However, these mistakes often occur when people use a strategy that is usually appropriate. For instance, people frequently base their decisions on how easily they can recall relevant examples. This strategy often leads to a correct decision, but it can occasionally produce an error. Furthermore, many of the limitations in human information processing may actually be helpful. You may wish that your memory could be more accurate. However, if you retained all information forever, your memory would be hopelessly cluttered with facts that are no longer useful.

Schemas

Generalized kinds of information about situations. For example, you have a schema for the typical sequence of events that happen during the first day of a new course. -Schemas can be useful because they allow us to take shortcuts in interpreting the vast amount of information that is available in our environment. -However, these mental frameworks also cause us to exclude pertinent information to focus instead only on things that confirm our pre-existing beliefs and ideas. Schemas can contribute to stereotypes and make it difficult to retain new information that does not conform to our established ideas about the world.

fMRI Issues

However, even the fMRI technique is not precise enough to study the sequence of events in the cognitive tasks that we perform very quickly. In addition, neither PET scans nor fMRIs can tell us precisely what a person is thinking. For instance, some news commentators have suggested using brain scans to identify terrorists. The current technology for this precise kind of identification is clearly inadequate. -PET scans and the fMRI technique are too slow to provide precise information about the timing of brain activity. (Solution? ERP Technique) - It's important to point out that neuroscientists have not developed a detailed explanation for any human cognitive process, despite the claims in the popular media

The Current Status of Cognitive Psychology

Many cognitive psychologists still favor the computer metaphor. However, they now acknowledge that we need more complex models to account for human thinking - Cognitive psychology has had an enormous influence on the discipline of psychology. For example, almost all psychologists now recognize the importance of mental representations, a term that behaviorists would have rejected in the 1950s. - In contrast, examples of ''pure behaviorism'' are now difficult to locate. For instance, the Association of Behavioral Therapy is now known as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Recent articles in their journal, Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, have focused on using cognitive behavioral therapy for a variety of clients, including people with eating disorders, elderly adults with post-traumatic stress disorder, and severely depressed adolescents.

Positron Emission Tomography

One of the several neuroscience techniques that provide particularly useful information for cognitive psychologists: -Researchers measure blood flow in the brain by injecting the participant with a low dose of a radioactive chemical just before this person works on a cognitive task. This chemical travels through the bloodstream to the parts of the brain that are activated during the tasks. While the person works on the task, a special camera makes an image of the accumulated radioactive chemical in various regions of the brain. - Can be used to study such cognitive processes as attention, memory, and language.

Brain Lesions

One of the several neuroscience techniques that provide particularly useful information for cognitive psychologists: - Refers to the destruction of an area in the brain, most often by strokes, tumors, blows to the head, and accidents. -The formal research on lesions began in the 1860s, but major advances came after World War II when researchers examined the relationship between damaged regions of the brain and cognitive deficits A brain lesion is not limited to just one specific area. As a result, researchers typically cannot associate a cognitive deficit with a specific brain structure

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

One of the several neuroscience techniques that provide particularly useful information for cognitive psychologists: -PET scans and functional magnetic resonance imaging are both based on comparing brain images during cognitive activity. However, fMRIs do not use radioactive material - Based on the principle that oxygen-rich blood is an index of brain activity - The research participant reclines with his or her head surrounded by a large, doughnut-shaped magnet. This magnetic field produces changes in the oxygen atoms. A scanning device takes a ''photo'' of these oxygen atoms while the participant performs a cognitive task. - This technique was developed during the 1990s, based on the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is used in medical settings. In general, an fMRI is preferable to a PET scan because it is less invasive, with no injections and no radioactive material (Gazzaniga et al., 2009). In addition, an fMRI can measure brain activity that occurs fairly quickly—in about 1 second - The fMRI technique is more precise than a PET scan in identifying the exact time sequence of cognitive tasks. The fMRI technique can also detect subtle differences in the way that the brain processes language.

Issues with PET scans

PET scans require several seconds to produce data, so this method is not very precise. If the activity in a specific brain region increases and then decreases within this brief period, the PET scan will record an average of this activity level (Hernandez- Garc ́ıa et al., 2002). For example, you can scan an entire room in 2 or 3 seconds, so an average activity level for this entire scene would not be meaningful. Furthermore, in the current era, PET scans are used less often than some other imaging techniques, because they are expensive and they expose people to radioactive chemicals (Kalat, 2009).

Semantic Memory

Semantic memory includes things that are common knowledge, such as the names of colors, the sounds of letters, the capitals of countries and other basic facts acquired over a lifetime.

Main Themes in this Text

The cognitive processes are active, rather than passive. The cognitive processes are remarkably efficient and accurate. The cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information. The cognitive processes are interrelated with one another; they do not operate in isolation. Many cognitive processes rely on both bottom-up and top-down processing.

Introspection

The examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. Relies exclusively on observation of one's mental state [Mostly viewed as subjective by todays standards]

Imagery

The mental representation of things that are not physically present. One important controversy in the research on imagery is whether your mental images truly resemble perceptual images. Another important topic concerns the mental images we have for physical settings. For example, the cognitive map you have developed for your college campus may show several buildings lined up in a straight row, even though their actual positions are much more random.

Metacognition

Thinking about our own thought processes

Theme 4: The cognitive processes are interrelated with one another; they do not operate in isolation.

This textbook discusses each cognitive process in one or more separate chapters. However, this organizational plan does not imply that every process can function by itself, without input from other processes. For example, decision making typically requires perception, memory, general knowledge, and language. In fact, all higher mental processes require careful integration of our more basic cognitive processes. Consequently, such tasks as problem solving, logical reasoning, and decision making are impressively complex.

Theme 3: The cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information.

We understand sentences better if they are worded in the affirmative—for example, ''Mary is honest,'' rather than the negative wording, ''Mary is not dishonest.'' In addition, we have trouble noticing when something is missing, as illustrated in Demonstration 1.4 (Hearst, 1991). (See page 31 for the answer to this demonstration, as well as for the credit for this quotation.) We also tend to perform better on a variety of different tasks if the information is emotionally positive (that is, pleasant), rather than emotionally negative (unpleasant). In short, our cognitive processes are designed to handle what is, rather than what is not (Hearst,1991; Matlin, 2004).

Cognition

"Mental Activity" --> Describes the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge

Empirical Evidence

"scientific evidence" obtained by careful observation and experimentation.

The Emergence of Modern Cognitive Psychology

- Birth of cognitive psychology can be listed as 1956 - It was difficult to explain complex human behavior using only behaviorist concepts such as observable stimuli, responses, and reinforcement - Psychologists were becoming increasingly disappointed with the behaviorist outlook that had dominated U.S. psychology in previous decades. Many researchers interested in memory had shifted from animal learning to human memory - The behaviorist approach tells us nothing about numerous psychologically interesting processes, such as the thoughts and strategies that people use when they try to solve a problem - We have seen that the growth of the cognitive approach was encouraged by research in linguistics, memory, and developmental psychology. By the mid-1970s, the cognitive approach had replaced the behavioral approach as the dominant theory in psychological research. Let's now consider an additional factor contributing to that growth, which was the enthusiasm about the information- processing approach.

Mary Calkins

- Conducted similar research to Hermann in the US - Reported a memory phenomenon called the Recency Effect - First female president of the APA - Developed guidelines for intro psych courses

William James

- Not impressed with Wundt's introspection technique or Ebbinghaus's research with nonsense syllables. - Preferred to theorize about our everyday psychological experiences - Best known for his textbook Principles of Psychology -tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Social Cognitive Neuroscience

- Psychologists now use neuroscience techniques to explore the kind of cognitive processes that we use in our interactions with other people; - For example, researchers have identified a variety of brain structures that are active when people look at a photograph of a face and judge whether the person is trustworthy

COgnitive Psychology Critics

-One common complaint concerns the issue of ecological validity. Studies are high in ecological validity if the conditions in which the research is conducted are similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied. -In contrast, consider an experiment in which participants must memorize a list of unrelated English words, presented at 5-second intervals on a white screen in a barren laboratory room. Half of the people are instructed to create a vivid mental image of each word; the other half receive no instructions. The experiment is carefully controlled. -The results of this experiment would tell us something about the way memory operates. However, this task is probably low in ecological validity, because it cannot be applied to the way people learn in the real world. How often do you try to memorize a list of unrelated words in this fashion, when you study for an upcoming psychology exam?