Cognitive Psych Exam #4

What are the stages of language production?

- gist - general structure - word choice - articulating stages can overlap

Leaving a footprint in the wet sand - with a deep indentation for the heel, a rise for the arch, and each toe clearly identified - is similar to which concept?

Topographic map

How do we make decisions?

with either algorithms or heuristics

What's the difference between losses and gains for us?

worse to lose $10 than to gain $10, so we work harder to not lose something than to win something - risk aversion when gain involved - risk seeking when losses involved *presentation of the info changes the person's decision*

What are the critical properties of language?

- communicative (between individuals) - arbitrary (relationship of things and their meanings) ex: miniscule - structured (pattern: grammar, syntax) - generative (built together: limitless sentences) - dynamic (new words & rules: evolving) ex: slang

What's an example of something that would violate the maxims?

"Where are you going?" "Out"

How do PDP Modelers think that we deal with ambiguity?

*context* constrains the meaning right from the beginning

What is the advantage of ambiguity in language?

*plausible deniability* - "do you like coffee?" ambiguity gives us opportunities in social situations because we can say that's not what I meant

Pylyshyn vs Kosslyn: who won?

- Kosslyn (depictive) got close with the boat study where diff parts take longer to "get to" when you imagine them depending on how "far away" they are - Pylyshyn (propositional) says people look for a mental image because you say "look for" or scan" - but people do it even without these leading words - neither won because we couldn't rule out motives for the participants

What questions were asked in the first part of the mental imagery debate?

- are images functional or epiphenomenal? - do images rely on depictive representation? - lasted for 10 years

What is the difference between language and communication?

- body language, expressions = communication

Actions that take the problem from one state to another are known as:

Operators

What are the general heuristics of problem solving?

1) subgoals - aim for subgoal, go on to next one 2) schemas - abstract schemas (ex: bowtie and shoestring) 3) diagrams - helps represent solutions 4) form a matrix - use when dealing with numerical info

When is the verbal protocol useful?

- easily verbalizable info - consciously available during the problem - use it to generate ideas of testing in *other* ways

What are the stages of writing?

- idea generation - better with a list of ideas and not perfected the first time around (ideas not organized) - outlines - do it naturally, like spoken language, write it then expand it - revision - should be very time consuming, make it perfect and make sure you reached your goals - proofreading - have someone read it so you don't miss the small mistakes due to context

Why do we engage in risky behavior?

- if the negative thing hasn't happened to us before, we underestimate its probability - bad consequences are deflated in our minds - we overestimate good outcomes - expected positive value is inflated - we aren't good at accurate estimation

Image vs propositional representation?

- image: Bob is 5'6" and Fred is 6'2" - proposition: Fred is taller than Bob - heights aren't specified

How do we recognize phonemes (sound units)?

- linearity - prob = McGurk effect (hear one thing, see another, interpret a third) - invariance - prob = rate of speech, accents - separability - prob = we don't actually have breaks between parts like we do in writing

What are the Gestalt problem solving steps?

- preparation = recognize problem, initial attempt to solve - incubation = put problem aside, unconscious work - illumination = insight brings answer to consciousness - verification = confirm insight as correct

What are the components of a problem?

- problem space: your rep of the problem/ideal rep - domain: situation, initial goal - strategies: algorithm or heuristic?

What are the Gricean maxims?

- quantity, quality, relation, manner - be informative, tell the truth, be relevant, be clear

What was the first objective data supporting mental imagery?

- rotating the shapes to see if they're the same objects - psychophysics - more visually similar, longer it takes to make a judgement (angles) - Paivio study: internal psychophysics - clock hands and angles

What are the similarities of language across cultures?

- same progression: - babbling - 1st words - multiword utterances - also usage of nouns and verbs - also negativity and positivity - also asking questions

What was Pylyshyn's issue with mental imagery and what did he say it is?

- who's doing the looking at your mental image? - says it's *propositional* (b/c you can't read real words on a book page that you're imagining)

What are the two heuristics of stage 2 (odds)?

1) availability - "it was nice all the other times I came here" 2) anchoring - you form an initial belief and hold onto it even when you're presented with contradictory info

What is the 3 stage model of decision making?

1) cues (perceive info) - salient cues capture attention even if not relevant 2) odds (situation understanding) 3) utility (choice of action)

What are the stages of problem solving?

1) encoding 2) planning 3) solving 4) responding each associated with separate areas of the brain - demands of problem can tweak the time spent of each stage depending on its complexity

What are the weak methods of problem solving?

1) hill climbing - progress to goal, keep going up 2) simulated annealing - try a diff, random place each time 3) means-end analysis - find the step that'll make the *biggest* reduction (flat care, don't walk, fix car b/c it makes the biggest reduction) 4) planning by abstraction - remove trivial details 5) constraint satisfaction - impose series of simple restraints (where to eat for dinner ex)

What are the two types of problems?

1) ill defined: no one correct answer (how to succeed at life) 2) well defined: has a correct answer (what we usually study)

What is the dual coding hypothesis?

1) mental images 2) verbal representation

What else biases our decisions?

1) overconfidence 2) effort (parole board) 3) practice does not lead to improved decision making because learning requires immediate feedback, which doctors don't usually get after a diagnosis

What are the 7 tips for solving problems?

1) understand the problem (answer the q) 2) remember the problem (central issue) 3) identify alt hypothesis (don't fixate) 4) acquire coping strategies 5) evaluate the final hypothesis 6) explain the problem to someone 7) incubation (particularly sleeping)

Which property below is NOT one of the characteristics that makes human language unique?

Communication

Suppose we asked people to form simultaneous images of two or more animals such as a rabbit alongside an elephant. Then, we ask them basic questions about the animals. For example, we might ask if the rabbit has whiskers. Given our knowledge of imagery research, we would expect the fastest response to this question when the rabbit is imagined alongside:

A bumblebee

Monique is an interior design student. As part of her internship, she is redesigning a small kitchen for a client. She would like to expand the kitchen and add a dining area. Before creating sketches for the client, she imagines the new layout in her mind, most likely using:

A depictive representation

What is a problem with language?

Ambiguity

Imagery neurons respond to:

An actual visual image as well as imagining that same image

The ability to shift experience from one problem-solving situation to a similar problem is known as:

Analogical transfer

How do we know humans have a need to communicate?

Because deaf children learn to communicate without being taught to

Why isn't the information processing approach widely accepted?

Because verbalizing can change/distract from how you'd *actually* solve the problem

Which of the following is the best example of a garden path sentence?

Before the police stopped, the Toyota disappeared into the night.

In Kaplan and Simon's experiment, they presented different versions of the mutilated checkerboard problem. Participants in the _________________ group had the fastest response time.

Bread and butter

Imagine you are interpreting a pair of sentences such as "The sidewalk was covered with ice" and "Ramona fell down." The kind of inference we use to link these sentences together would most likely be a(n) ____________________ inference.

Causal

Why can we hear nine better than lender?

Don't need context to recognize nine, need it for lender because words in isolation are recognized less

Mental imagery involves:

Experiencing a sensory impression in the absence of sensory input

Paivo (1963) proposed the conceptual peg hypothesis. His work suggests which of the following would be the most difficult to remember?

Freedom

Phoenix Decorating Company is responsible for designing and building many of the floral floats seen in the Tournament of Roses Parade every New Year's Day. Phoenix's designers start preparing the floats for the next year's parade soon after the first of the year. For each corporate sponsor, Phoenix gets their best advertising team members, and they sit in a room for several hours throwing out every idea they can come up with, no matter how good or bad it is. After a substantial list has been cre

Group brainstorming

What is Meno's Paradox?

How do you recognize an answer if you don't know it already?

"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 (they focused on "thought is impossible without an image")

A researcher records a brainstorming session in an industrial research and development department rather than in an artificial laboratory setting. Later, she analyzes the recorded discussions, identifying certain problem-solving techniques. This research is an example of_________________ research.

In vivo problem solving

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

Who won?

Kosslyn because of cog neuro - finds that we use the occipital area of the brain even with our eyes closed, almost as much as actually seeing the object - so Pylyshyn says "why do we need it then?"

The analogical paradox refers to problem-solving differences between:

Laboratory and real-world settings

Lilo can't wait for school to start. This year is the first time she gets to take a foreign language class, and she is taking Japanese. Dr. Nabuto is a professor interested in studying how people learn additional languages later in life, and he is including Lilo's class in his research. Dr. Nabuto is most likely studying:

Language acquisition

The scanning task used by Kosslyn involves:

Mental images

Your text describes imagery performance of a patient with unilateral neglect. This patient was asked to imagine himself standing at one end of a familiar plaza and to report the objects he saw. His behavior shows:

Neglect always occurred on the left side of the image, with "left side" being determined by the direction in which the patient imagined he was positioned

What is the information processing approach to problem solving?

Newell and Simon had people verbalize as they solved problems - "the verbal protocol"

The pegword technique is particularly suitable for use when you need to remember items based on their:

Order

One of Chomsky's most persuasive arguments for refuting Skinner's theory of language acquisition was his observation that children:

Produce sentences they have never heard

"3x + 9 = 16" is a ________ representation?

Propositional

What else violates the etiquette?

Really long pauses

Coherence refers to the:

Representation of the text in a reader's mind so that information in one part of the text is related to information in another part of the text

Syntax is the:

Rules for combining words into sentences

In a study, participants listened to the following tape recording: Rumor had it that, for years, the government building had been plagued with problems. The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches, and other bugs in the corner of the room. As participants heard the word "bugs," they completed a lexical decision task to a test stimulus flashed on a screen. To which of the following words would you expect participants to take the longest to respond to?

SKY

The constraint-based approach to parsing states that:

Semantics is activated as a sentence is being read

Your text describes the case of M.G.S. who underwent brain surgery as treatment for severe epilepsy. Testing of M.G.S. pre- and post-surgery revealed that the right visual cortex is involved in the:

Size of the field of view

A mental rotation task is focused on the _________ aspect of imagery.

Spatial

What does the bus driver example show us?

That our limited attention and competing thoughts get in the way of problem solving

Illustrative of functional fixedness, people are more likely to solve the candle problem if:

The box is empty

Janet is alone in a room that contains a chair and a shelf with a book resting on top. She attempts to retrieve the book, but the shelf is a foot above her reach. How will Janet retrieve the book? Psychologists would NOT classify this scenario as a problem because:

The solution is immediately obvious

Which of the following is a nonverbal component of communication?

Theory of mind

Why do we use gestures?

They help us activate relevant information (sitting on hands example)

Why do so many people get the card problem wrong?

They use inductive logic instead of deductive logic (conclusions with certainty) - people do better when it's associated with a concrete task

Which statement below is most closely associated with the early history of the study of imagery?

Thought is always accompanied by imagery

How many words can we produce in a second?

Three with correct grammar

Which type of research employed a "train on perception, test on perception" method to demonstrate imagery/perception overlap?

Transcranial magnetic stimulation

Which problem provides an example of how functional fixedness can hinder solution of a problem?

Two-string problem

Which of the following provides the best example of functional fixedness?

Using a juice glass as a container for orange juice

Amedi and coworkers (2005) used fMRI to investigate the differences between brain activation for perception and imagery. Their findings showed that when participants were ___________, some areas associated with nonvisual sensation (such as hearing and touch) were ___________.

Using visual images; deactivated

Is there actually incubation?

Yes - when people incubate, they forget - selective forgetting lets you not get stuck on one part of the problem - incubation also reduces mental set (functional fixedness)

Why are we bad at judging probability?

because of the availability heuristic - "it can't happen to me" "it hasn't happened in a while, so it must happen soon" - shark and vending machine - info we have available clouds our judgement

How do we fight ambiguity?

bottom up and top down processing

Disadvantage of using heuristics here?

come with cognitive biases

What's the word inferiority effect?

only *certain* words enhance letters - we don't process individual letters - ex: first and last letter correct in gibberish means we can still read it - so *length, frequency, and context does matter* (though we couldn't do this with a chemistry lecture

What did Paivio say with paired associate learning?

paired concrete words with abstract and found that pairing concrete with concrete was way better for memory because people could *imagine* the words

What demonstrated the word superiority effect?

people given a word, asked which two letters they saw - people remember better in the context of a word compared to gibberish or even a single letter

What was the Gestalt take on problem solving?

restructuring leads to insight - "aha" moment (insight is sudden) use of previous experience can be bad because of functional fixedness (ex: matches out of box = quicker solution) "you need a different perspective"

What showed that the Gestalt theory of correct representation was true?

the mutilated checkerboard - bread and butter

What is the decision matrix of stage 3?

two hypotheses and two actions (good/bad weather and go on/turn back)

Why do we suck at decision making?

we make errors in estimating odds *and* the value of the gain

What is meant by cooperative communication?

we must all follow the rules in order to communicate