Human Memory & Cognition Exam 1

Information processing models (IP)--> computer equal mind

-4 assumptions- 1. Humans are symbol manipulators who encode store retrieve and manipulate symbolic data. Data consists of representations that correspond to info from the environment and processes--> the word "cat" doesn't mean anything until we tie an object to it. 2. Thought is characterized as a system of interrelated capacities and processes that all affect the other 3. Humans are active and creative info scanners and seekers and we don't just passively react to the environment 4. Cognitive processing occurs in step by step processing-product of one stage is the input for the next. Different cog processes take time and can be isolated from each other methodologically. Reaction time is a common dependent measure of cognition processing

Structualism

-All conscious experiences can be broken down into basic mental elements-> -sensations: the basic sensory dimensions that we encode from a stimulus: feelings, emotions aroused by a stimulus; images: mental impressions that seem sensory in nature -measured by use of introspection: intense self analysis of one's conscious expereince in order to identify mental elements -Tichener brought Wundt's ideas to the US and gave it the label structualism

Dissociation in Consciousness

-Authorship of action--we are in control of what we do ---illusion of conscious will--we are not in control as much as we think--ouija board -Wegner, Sparrow, and Winerman 2004 ---when a subject had someone behind him/her moving, she felt like they had more control over movements if they heard the confederates instructions -study thrown out -subjects who guessed that they were lucky in playing a video game did not rate their success to themselves--had accurate metacognition about how much they caused their sucess -blindsight ---ventral stream(what pathway) ---dorsal stream (where pathway) --subliminal processing ---James Vicary: advertising expert: eat popcorn, drink coke--> later admitted to falsifying data. Results have never been dublicated

Event-Related Potentials (ERP)

-Change in electrical activity when an event occurs (action potentials that occur in relation to some event) -P300 occurs when something out of the ordinary occurs

Communications engineering

-Claude Shannon in 1949 developed a general theory of how communications systems work -this provided a metaphor for how the mind might work

Behaviorism's influence

-Cognitive revolution began on Sept. 11, 1956 -based on methodological precision of behaviorism studies -we are still measuring behavior but allow for interference about cognitive processing

Hemispheric asymmetries

-Contralateral organization-> left hemisphere controls right body and right hemisphere controls left side of body-> hempispheres communicate via the corpus callosum -hemispheric specialization: right hemisphere-> non-verbal; left hemisphere-verbal processing

Wolfe and Horowitz 2004

-Feature integration entails a two stage, discrete search -Wolfe et al., have found that we retain info from first stage and use it to continue our search -Find a red X among green Xs and red Os. Can immediately rule out everything green so dont have to start over again -this is known as a guided search

Behaviorism (Skinner and Watson)

-Felt mind was unobservable and therefore should not be focused of scientific psychology -only behavior, which is observable, should be focus of scientific study -Referred to as S-R psychology -psychologists shold focus on finding the connections between stimuli and responses to those stimuli -between stimuli and responses is a black box that houses consciousness -acknowledged existence of consciousness but felt it 1. Could not be scientifically studied and 2. Did not have casual role in producing behavior -consciousness and emotion has nothing to do with process; only stimulus and response

Embodied perception

-Proffitt, Bhalla, Gossweilter and Midgett 1995 --Estimating slant of hill --before a run and after a fatiguing run --visual and verbal estimates were much greater after run --haptic was okay before and after --may be physically adaptive--> conserve energy --similar results with chronic back pain patients estimating distance -golf--easier putts--golfers estimate the hole size as larger and better golfers perceive all golf holes as larger

Multisensory Interaction

-Synethesia: blending of senses and its undirectional--> strong synesthesia (rare); input to one sensory modality procedures a perceptual experience in that modality and another one tend to be unidirectional and consistent McGurk effect: illusion what we see overrides what we hear--> close our eyes, we actually hear the sound, open eyes and are we experiencing an illusion-->what we hear may no always be the truth--> conflicting information of senses-->sense of vision takes over -Related research: people with synesthesia--purple BA, pink DA-->sensory processing-->see pink-->synesthetic experience caused by blended perecption-->results:saw pink *Strong synesthesia is the result of later perceptual processing*

Cocktail party phenomenon

-Trisman 1960: dichotic listening with mixed messaged: people could not speech shadow as well-gave a complete message that made sense -having conversations with people at a party and focusing on that conversation but you can hear your name or anything salient (important) from across the room in a different conversation

Inattentional blindness CAN be affected by culture

-Western culture emphasiezes central objects and Eastern culture de-emphasize central -so each culture starts out with a different Perceptual Set or tendency to see things in a particular way -Nisbett and Masuda 2003 did find Cultural differences in the expected way-> people from Eastern cultures noticed differences in the periphery better and those from Western cultures noticed changes in the central objects

Davidoff, et. al 2008

-Which one looks like the target -UK participants chose global precedence -Humba participants chose local precedence *Culture affects how we view the world and how we process*

Perception and Action

-affordances: how environmental stimuli can be used, moved, etc. People are pretty good at determining affordances -Ishake, Adolph, and Linn 2008 ---getting candy by putting in a hole that changed trial by trial ---subjects didnt really try unless they were sure, but there was a patter of erring into too-small holes ---maybe some tried just for fun ---but no real penalty for failure

Culture

-another confound -presumptuous: so current trend is to investigate the effect of culture on cognition

Emotion

-another consequence of dualism is the separation of reason and emotion -therefore, cognitive psychologist tried to remove confounding factors, such as emotion -current trend is to examine cog processes and how they are influenced by emotion

Emotion and affordances

-anxiety can affect affordances ---Graydon et al., 2005--> induced breathing exercises to simulate anxiety; asked subjects if they could reach a poker chip; with anxiety, subject tended to be conservative in their judgments

Embodied cognition

-as a result of dualism, cognitive psychologists study the mind disconnected from action -current trend is to examine cognitive processes within the context of bodily acitons

Consciousness

-awareness of internal and external events -think of it as occurring on a continuum -signal detection theory: tries to explain perceptual experience as both a sensory and decision process -influenced by: sensitivity-->did you hear that noise under the bed? AND response bias--> are you sure enough to wake your partner up to check under the bed

Rubber Hand Illusion

-being stroked with a brushed on rubber hand and your hidden hand and eventually you believe the rubber hand is yours, then the hammer comes and scares you because you think its your hand --vision and touch ---Pavani, Spence, and Driver 2000--> subjects had more difficulty determining the source of a vibration if dummy hands were aligned with where their hands would be

Dualism

-belief that mind and body are different entities -most cognitive psychologists are materalists

Chomsky

-challenged s-r explanation for acquisition of language -what is the stimulus for language -how can you explain inferences from language using behaviorist principles -no reinforcement for some types of language (self-talk) *All due to cognitions*

Change Blindness show two important concepts

-coherence: holds things together for us. provides flow to story. If we are too focused on one story; we may miss the other -attentional set: what are you choosing to pay attention to, strategy, what do you think is important

Computer Science

-demonstrated machines could be programmed to perform some intelligent human functions -computers provided a good model of how the mind might work

Costs of Automaticity

-difficult to get rid of automatic processes -action slips occur when were on autopilot and not really thinking: Highly learned activities are controlled by schema, an organized set of knowledge or movements that guide activities ---parent schema:big picture ---child schema: all the steps to get to the big picture -once we reach automaticity, only parent schema needs to be activated --actions slips can be: ----data driven errors: external events cause disruption. When doing something like watching TV, and you misuse a word ----capture errors: intended action is similar or related to something else. Would you like to try our new Shamrock Shake, but says instead its a nice day today isnt it, and you reply no thank yo ----association activation errors--> related but inappropriate schema is activated. Someone says hi and you say im doing fine. Wrong schema is activated ----loss of activation errors: intend to do something and then forget what it is: caused by some type of interference ----description error: do what you wanted by with the wrong things; accidently putting cereal into the fridge -----fatigue and stress

Menneer, Cave, and Donnelly 2009

-easier to look for single targets rather than multiple targets -conclusion--maybe we should have multiple screeners each specialized to look for one thing

Brain trauma and lesions: single dissociation

-examine patient with one area of brain damage -compare performance on two tasks proposed to differ in the use of one cognitive process -damage to brain area A shows deficits in process X, but not process Y -weak evidence that brain A area is responsible for process X but not process Y

Double dissociation

-examine two patients with different area of brain damage -patient with damage to brain area A shows deficits in process X, but does not process Y; patient with damage to brain area B shows deficits in process Y but not process X **strong, inclusive evidence that brain area A is responsible for process X and brain area B is responsible for process Y

Change blindness/inattentional blindness

-failure to notice changes or events -Simons and Chabris 1999 and the gorilla

Early Selection Theory

-first physical characteristics -then info is filtered and one sources is selected for processing -called early selection because first registered by the senses, then processed

Emotions can also affect precedence

-happy feelings promote global processing -negative emotions promote local processing -these authors suggest that happy means to keep doing what you are to maintain and sad means you need a change-->western cultures **we tend to process globally, change to local if change is required**

Problems in IP models

-humans, unlike computers, do not have a central processing unit -computer operate in a serial step by step fashion; brain function can occur in parallel

Failures in Behaviorism

-learning without responding (McNamara, Long, and Wike); rats ran a maze with food always on the right: it didn't take them long to realize that they need to turn right to get food: other half of the rats were in cars and strapped in and taken to the food->behaviorists think they shouldn't remember this and cognitions said they should remember=Cognitionists were right -Cognitive maps tohlman: 1. put rats in maze-> path 1 is the fastest route so the assumption is that they will use it; path 2 is the second quickest way; path 3 is the least fast-> behaviorists said they are gonna try path 1, fail then take path 2, fail then make 3-> cognitive said they are gonna see block in path 1 then formed a cognitive map and didn't try pah 2 and went right to path 3 -the misbehavior of organism: taught to put coin in bank and get treat, but they eventually went back to instinct-> Instinctive drift

Characteristics of automatic processing

-less conscious control than controlled processes -not as much conscious intention-just seems to happen -attentional efficiency: minimum amount of attention

Bartlett

-memory should be studied as nationalistically as possible ->stories -important because he suggested that memory is reconstructive process guided by schemata-> generalized knowledge structures based on past expereince

Attentional Blink

-not literal blink of the eye but rather a period of time after detecting a first stimulus when you cant detect a second (lab #4) -rapid serial visual presntation -emotions may play a part: Maratos, Mogg, and Bradley 2008, found that angry faces came out of the blink faster

Functionalism (James)

-objected to atomistic approach to sciousness proposed by structuralism -stream of consciousness: consciousness is a continious and ever changing; cannot be broken down into discrete elements -attempted to determine the purpose of scious experience -giiven focus on mental processing rather than mental structure, it had more impact on cog-psychology than structuralism

How does automaticity occur

-quantitative: automatic processes are the same as controlled processes, there just faster ---we get faster when we practice but we're doing the same type of processing -qualitative: HOW we do things (strategy) --we are good at simple math problems because we rely on memory retrieval rather than computation

Imaging techniques

-really good spatial information, but horrible temporal information -most common technique -blood flow is detected -cognitive task vs. resting state -two most common types ---position emission tomography (PET) scan: radioactive substance is ingested to track blood flow ---functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); magnetic detectors sensitive to hemoglobin levels track blood flow; detects difference in oxygenated vs. non-oxigenated blood; the larger the difference, the more brain activity in the area--> advantages over PET: noninvasive, cheaper, more scans

Evolutionary Psychology

-sensation: early processing and physiological (neuronal) -perception: later processing and psychological (interpretative)

Split brain patients: severe epilepsy

-severed corpus callosum to stop seizures -left visual field (right hemisphere)+ right visual field (left hemisphere)-> if they look at cross image

Wolfe, Horowitz, and Kenner 2005

-task similar to baggage screeners -high medium low pervalence -low definitely missed the most targets -doesnt make sense based on earlier info--it should be easier to find the presence of something rather than its absenec -Wolfe suggests that because of low prevalence, people respond faster and require less evidence to say "not there"

Neurology

-the neuron: dendrites; cell body; axon -Electrochemical info processes -within the neuron; action potential and electrical signal throught the neuron between the brain

Electroencephalogram (EEG) techniques

-uses electrodes on the scalp to meausre electrival activity created in neurons below -reveals when a cognitive process occurs (temporal resolution) -difficult to pinpoint location (spatial) of cognitive process because-> records combo of electrical activity from millions of neurons AND electrical signals travel through brain and scalp which leads to distortion in signal

Comparing the Senses

-vision and audition ---vision seems to dominate unless time based ---ventriloquist effect: if we see something at the same time we hear it, we are biased to localize the sound with the visual cue ---Schutz and Lipscomb 2007: if see marimba player act as if playing a long note, people judge the note longer ---vision and chemical sense--> Morrot, Brochet, and Dubourideu 2001 -----colored white wine with red substance -----experts described the wine with red adjectives such as cherry, clove, and cocoa -----visual cue dominated olfaction and taste

3 Main areas of the brain

1. Hindbrain: basic life functions 2. Midbrain: some sensory, regulates brain arousal 3. Forebrain: wrinkly part 4. Frontal lobe: posterior area (motor cortex)-> involved in vountary motor movement; anterior area (prefrontal cortex)--> involved in planning and executing complex actions; Broca's area-> involved in speech production 5.Parietal lobe: important in attention and immediate memory 6. Occipital lobe: primary visual cortex-> responsible for vision and ability to recognize visual patterns-> farthest from your eyes 7. Temporal lobe: auditory cortex; Wernicke's area-> speech comprehension 8. Association area: believed to integrate the processing of other brain areas

Connectionism models (based on brain/hardware)

Assumptions: -cognitive system is made up of billions of interconnected nodes that come together to from complex networks -nodes can be activated and the pattern of activation corresponds to conscious experience -knowledge is represented in patterns of nodes distributed throughout the vast network -cognitive processing occurs in paraeel **drawing of the bubble/thoughts connecting from the dog-->leather

Cherry 1953 ON TEST

Dichotic listening: different messages in each ear Speech Shadowing: repeat one message word for word -although people knew that there was a message in each ear, they could only report the message that they attended to

Global Precedence

Do we automatically process the whole or parts of perceptions -Navon: presented big letters made up of small objects -Results=overall global letters were reported more quickly AND big letters not affected by identity of small letters, but small letters were affected by identity of big letter **Global precedence effect-->global perceived before local

Lashley

Felt that s-> R connections could not explain complex behaviors -complex behaviors require planning and organization. Does not seem much like s->R

Ebbinghaus

He found a way to study cognition: memorized lists of nonsense consonant trig rams to reach 100% accuracy -discovered it took fewer trials to rememorize the lists (savings) -These experiments revealed some fundamental principles of memory -Recall more difficult as list length increases -Retention increases with number of repitions -**Foregetting function: forget rapidly at first and then levels**-->forget things pretty quickly at first and then as time goes by things level out

Auditory Attention-Selective Attention

If you think of vision as having a spotlight where you only focus some of your attention, audition has a gateway--only some of the info gets in -we ignore much auditory stimuli everyday ---selective attention tasks--> multiple inputs are presented and must respond to some and ignore others

Limbic System

Learning, remembering and emotinos: hippocampus (processing new episodic memories) and amygdala (processes emotions like fight or flight)

Unconscious inference

Perceiver plays an interpretive role in what is perceived -perceptual and cognitive processes are influenced by previous experience -cognitive and perceptual processes often occur outside of conscious awareness EX: I dont suddenly have giant hand as I move it closer to my face

Interdisciplinary approach to cog science

Philosophy: Artistolte-laws of association John Locke-Tabula Rasa (blank tablet when were born) Physiology: Body is a machine; used scientific method to discover how the body works; which led to using these methods to determine how the mind works Psychophysics: study of the relationship between the physical properties of a stimulus and the properties taken on when filtered through subjective experience

Limits in Visual Attention

Target Prevelance-how common does something happen -low target prevalence means that something does not really occur all that often -real-life application: TSA and medical technicians

Figure-ground

Tendency to segment a visua scene as a figure superimposed on a background -figure relative to ground are bigger, contain more symmetrical features, are meaningful, are surrounded by other elements in the visual scene, are lower in the visual field, and display convexity

The Brain

Terminology: anterior:front posterior: back dorsal (like a fin of a dolphin, on top): top portion ventral: bottom portion lateral:closer to periphery medial:closer to midpoint

Cognitive Psychology

The scientific study of mental processes and the scientific study of thought, language, the brain, and the mind

Gestalt Psychology

The whole is different than the sum of its parts -he was interested in how we organize information and perceive it -the mind is an active information processor

Van Wert, Horowitz and Wolfe, 2009

Thought difference was due to complexity of displays. They used baggage displays again and did not find a difference when subjects could change their answers

Fleck and Mitroff 2007

Thought that Wolfe's results might be due to fast responding then knowing that you made a mistake, so they let subjects change answers. They found that subjects often did change answer when given the opportunity

Post-attentive processing:

after attention is directed at a stimulus array and identification of these elements for further processing and categorization

bottom-up processing

analyzing just the data without previous information: based on information from the stimulus

Pre-attentive processing

before attention is directed at a stimulus array and organization of an incoming stimulus array into discrete elements -processing the air temperature without even thinking about it

Techniques to study neurology

criteria (how well does it work)-> spatial resolution (where) and temporal resolution (when)

Direct View

emphasizes the role of bottom-up processing in arriving at a percept -optical flow:movement of eye through environment -texture gradient: changing perceived detail, farther back=fuzzier, closer=clearer

Constructive View

emphasizes the role of top-down processing in arriving at a percept

Perceptual organizational processes

grouping principals: -similarity=things are grouped together that are similar -proximity=pairs being closer together -good continuation -closure=we have a tendency to connect things even when they aren't connected -common fate=when things move in same direction we tend to see them as a unit -element connectedness -common region

Cognitive psych affects:

it affects social, mental health, work related aspects, human development and biology of the brain

Metacognition

knowledge of ones own thinking process

Palmer and Beck 2007

repetition discrimination task: is repeated element a circle or a square -RT was meaured -within group (same color): helped people to go faster in recognition

top-down

using information from personal experiences; based on knowledge, expectations, context