Cognitive Psychology - Exam 1

elements of mind

sensations, images, feelings

Plato (ca. 447-327 BC)

"Reality does not reside in concrete objects but in abstract forms represented in our mind."

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

"Reality lies only in the concrete world of objects accessed through the senses."

Gestalt Psychology

- more than 100 years ago listed a number of principles that organized perception for recognition -proposed object recognition as an inherent human mental tendency to organize stimulus elements into recognizable patterns rather than random arrangements, by using say the principle of closure

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

-18th century German philosopher -addressed the issue of rationalism and empiricism -said both approaches (empiricism and rationalism) must be used to decipher truth and about reality of mind

William James (1842-1910)

-Father of functionalism -not impressed by Wundt or Ebbinghaus -focused on pragmatic ways of studying various cognitive phenomena, like perception, attention, memory, etc.

Willhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

-Father of structuralism -first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany (1879) -introspection

Brain Lesions

-Human brain damage changed behaviors in gladiators noted by Hippocrates. Similar observations had been made in wars victims in the 19-20th century. World War II led to documentation of disorders caused by brain damage. -Greater understanding of brain function comes from ______ ______ studies in animals. However, Lashley, (1932) suggested that cognitive functions can remain elusive because of recovery of function.

Parallel distributed processing (PDP)

-McClelland and Rummelhart (1986) proposed that -cognitive processes must be understood in terms of networks that process information in parallel

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

-Philosopher who agreed with Plato -emphasized reflective methods (rationalism) over observation to study mind

John Locke (1632-1704)

-Philosopher who favored Aristotle -emphasized observation as a method (empiricism) to study mental processes

CT Scan

-another X-ray method that images the brain and makes use of multiple X-ray photos taken with a moving X-ray device -finally reconstructing a 3D picture of the brain -cannot determine structure-function relationships

Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967)

-believed in Gestalt psychology -opposed behaviorism and structuralism

September 11, 1956

-birth date of cognitive psychology -Neisser, MIller, and Simon read seminal papers at a symposium at MIT

Ebbinghaus (late 19th and early 20th century)

-conducted memory studies -promoted quantitative study of memory using nonsense material

Bartlett

-conducted memory studies -used qualitative methody

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

-detects changes in blood flow to particular areas of the brain when areas are active -provides both anatomical and a functional view of the brain -Not invasive like PET scans and provides a better spatial and temporal resolution

Alan Turing (1912-1954)

-developed a test for a computer to think like a human

Hebb

-early beginnings of cognitive psychology -Lashley's student -proposed stimulation (learning) led to forming strong connections among neurons called cell assemblies

Lashley

-early beginnings of cognitive psychology -showed that extent of the brain damage was proportional behavioral deficit (learning)

Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)

-early memory research -used systematic experimental procedures -used non-sense syllables rather than words to study memory -empirically showed repetition improved memory

Calkin

-early memory research with Ebbinghaus -discovered recency effect in memory -became first woman president of APA

Structuralism

-first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany (1879) -to analyze the structure of the mind, through the method of introspection -using introspection subjects reported their reactions to say a musical chord -elements of mind: sensation, feeling, and images

Why do we study cognitive psychology?

-holds a major domain in human psychology -studies the mind and how it works -has widespread influence on other areas of psychology

Single-Cell Recordings

-in non-human subjects provide a wealth of information on the functioning of a single or multiple neurons -ex: Hubel and Wiesel (1960) showed responses of a single neuron in the primary visual cortex detecting an edge (feature)

AI

-involves making programs or devices that are efficient, flexible, and learn through experience -may or may not mimic human consciousness

bottom-up or data driven processing

-is due to stimulus or object as it is recognized -Gibson (1966) adds, object recognition is based on invariant properties of the object, nothing else is needed -top down, on the other hand recognized objects using stored concepts, expectations, and other memories

top-down processing

-isolated objects are recognized seldom, most of the time context and previous knowledge aids recognition - ex: when memory is used to recognize objects like coffee in cup because cup is on the bar of a coffee shop

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

-machines or programs using intelligence to solve complex problems, the way humans solve problems -application will include computers doing medical diagnoses, flying jet planes, being the senses of the disabled

Event-related Potential

-measures the brain's electrical activity (potentials) as it corresponds to impinging stimuli (events) -excellent temporal resolution (faster response) compared to PET or fMRI -minimally invasive

Functionalism

-mind or consciousness cannot be divided into elements -introspection cannot yield measures about the mind -Mind or consciousness have adaptive value

Word superiority effect (top-down processing)

-much research on top-down processing is on examining context when alphabets are recognized -recognition of alphabets is superior in meaningful words ( ex: WORK) than in meaningless string of letters (ex: orwk)

Behaviorism

-no room for mind or consciousness -overt behavior needs to be the scientific domain of psychology -did not invest in cognitive psychology, but provided operational definitions to measure concepts (measuring observable behavior to document learning)

Empiricism

-observations of the external world are the only means to arrive at truth -acquired experiences through interaction with the environment -experimentation in psychology today

Gestalt Psychology

-opposed behaviorism and structuralism -elements of mind and behavior could not explain behavior or mind of an individual -to understand mind or behavior a holistic approach must be used -valued unity of psychological phenomena

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

-radio-labeled glucose is injected in the blood which goes to the brain -increased glucose activity is captured in the brain while subjects engage in different cognitive processes -brain-behavior relationship can be established with this technique -spatial resolution fair to good, however temporal resolution is not good -invasive procedure

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

-strong magnetic pulse moves molecules in the brain -motion of these molecules are picked up as radio frequencies and reconstructed into 3D images -has better resolution than CT -No structure function relationship

Rationalism

-understanding of mind (or knowledge) through logical analysis and introspection -innateness of mind or mental faculties -theory building in psychology today

Feature-Analysis Theory

-visual stimulus is composed of many features with distinctive forms; features of objects and patterns are extracted and matched to features in memory for recognition -to recognize the letter "A" it is first composed into 3 features ( / - \ ) or line segments and then matched to the features preserved in memory

Word-in-a-sentence effect (top-down processing)

-word recognized in sentence - subjects recongized the word "juice" faster in a sentence "Mary drank her orane juice" -Rueckl and Oden (1986) demonstrated that features of a stimulus and the nature of the context influences word recognition -manipulated features of letters "n" and "r" and three intermediaries, and the words "beans" and "bears" in a sentence -ex: The zookeeper raised bears/beans to supplement his income. (likely response is bears) -ex: The botanist raised bears/beans to supplements his income. (likely response is beans)

Ulric Neisser

-wrote the first book of cognitive psychology (1967) -defined how people learn, structure, store and use knowledge

Five Themes of Cognitive Psychology

1. The cognitive processes are ACTIVE rather than passive. 2. The cognitive processes are remarkably EFFICIENT AND ACCURATE. 3. The cognitive processes handle POSITIVE INFORMATION better than negative information. 4. The cognitive processes ARE INTERRELATED with one another; do not operate in isolation. 5. Many cognitive processes rely on both BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN PROCESSING.

Characteristics of PDP

1. many cognitive processes are based on parallel operations 2. neural activity for a cognitive process is spread out in the brain and is termed as a node 3. a node reaches a critical activation level to affect another node 4. when two nodes are activated the bond between them strengthens 5. multiple nodes and parallel processing, aids reconstructing information that is partial or inadequate to begin with

Cognitive Psychology

Deals with how people perceive, learn, remember and think about information (Sternberg, 2003) and use it (Matlin, 2002).

Who conducted early memory research?

Ebbinghaus and Calkin

Kanizsa's Triangle

Figure ground relationships can be perceived when there is no clear cut boundary or edge for the figure. _______ _________ is designed with illusory contours where an inverted triangle is perceived. Even the white color of this triangle seems whiter than the upright triangle.

object recognition

Gestalt psychologists proposed _______ ______ as an inherent human mental tendency to organize stimulus elements into recognizable patterns rather than random arrangements, by using say the principle of closure

Pandemonium Model

In a satirical way Selfridge (1959) in his __________ ________ proposed how features of a letter processes through stages to be recognized stimulus-image demon-feature demons-cognitive demons-decision demon

computer sciences

In the 40's and 50's, electronic engineering and __________ _________ started developing machines and programs that mimicked human learning and thinking

1960s

In the _______, a number of sciences and disciplines like psychobiology, linguistics, anthropology, computer sciences, and artificial intelligence started gathering data that developed the strong foundations for cognitive psychology.

fusiform gyrus

Mcneil and Warrington report that prosopagnosia is due to damage in the ______ ______ of the brain.

face recognition

Much of the neuroscientific understanding about ________ ______ comes from studies where certain areas of the brain are destroyed or damaged.

machines

Parallels between human mind and ________ have been made since ancient times. Computer analogy is recent.

Schizophrenia

Patients with _____ have difficulty recognizing faces and took longer time to judge photos for facial content and made many errors (same was true in judging emotions). However, later controlled research challenged this.

Distal and Proximal

Psychologists talk about two kinds of perceptual stimuli, the _________(the object) _______ ___________ (retinal image) stimulus.

identity

The _______ of the distal stimulus is recognized, even though the information in the proximal stimulus is not perfect.

cognitive neuroscience

The field of _______ ________ expanded around the 1980's when neuroscientists started using imaging techniques on people performing different cognitive functions.

blindness

Where top down processing facilitates recognition, it can make errors in recognition because of change ______ and inattentional _______. Such errors are referred to as smart mistakes.

Retinal image

______ _______ (proximal stimulus) moves through the visual pathway to reach the primary visual cortex (and other cortical areas) to be processed for perception.

sensation

________ refers to activation of the receptors in the sense organs by stimuli (physical energy) ex: salt (stimulus) can activate (sensation) a taste bud.

Perception

_________ is a cognitive process that gathers stimulus information from the senses (sensation), and uses previous knowledge (memory) to interpret, filter, or recognize data

Two explanations for the multi-stable reversible figures

a. neuronal adaptation to one figure and then switching to the other b. solving visual paradox by alternating two reasonable solutions

neuroscientific methodology

brain lesions, CT scans, MRIs, PET, fMRIs, Event-related Potential, Single-Cell Recordings

multi-stable reversible figures

certainty of figure ground relation is challenged in __________ ________ _________ _________ such as vase-faces figures. Sometimes the vase is the figure and at other times the faces.

Cognition

co- + gnoscere (Latin) to come to know; knowing requires mental activity, which involves acquiring, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge (Matlin, 2002).

inferotemporal cortex

face recognition is likely to be represented in the ________ ______ of the brain

John Watson (1878-1958)

father of behaviorism

upright

human brain responds faster and more accurately to pictures of ________ faces compared to inverted faces (fMRI, D'Esposito et al., 1999; McKone, 2004; Inversion Effect, Yin, 1969).

prosopagnosia

inability to recognize faces

computer simulation

involves designing a system that stimulates human performance on a selected cognitive task

parallel processing

involves processing information or data simultaneously; much faster

serial processing

involves processing of information or data in a stage format; time consuming

conceptually driven processing or constructive perception

other names for top-down processing

Hubel and Wiesel

provided neurobiological evidence of feature detectors (neurons) in the primary visual cortex

change blindness

refers to the inability to detect changes in an object or a scene (simon and levin, 1997) and is due to overactive top-down processing

inattentional blindness

refers to the inability to process a single object (present or absent) in a scene because attention is focused on other objects in the scene

Marr (1982)

suggested a number computational steps take place in the brain between 2D representation of the object and its 3D geons (recognition by components)

Beiderman (1987)

suggested that we perceive objects by using "Geons" (short for geometric icons) which have 3D shapes (cones, cylinders etc.) He lists 36 geons to recognize shapes, objects and faces (recognition by components)

Recognition-by-Components Model

theory proposes that edges (geons) and concavaties (separation between two or more geons) enable viewers to recognize