Unit 2 - Chapters 3, 4, and 5
cell phone drivers versus texting drivers
- 4x increase in accidents when on cell phone, but 23x increase in accidents when texting - texting produced the worst train wreck in 15 years with 25 people killed
illusory conjunctions
- Treisman demonstrates this phenomenon where certain features can become inappropriately bound together - i.e., a red circle and a green square are presented to a participant at fast presentation rates (i.e., 200ms or less) followed by a mask, and illusory conjunction is formed
anosognosia
- a condition where individuals are unaware of their attentional deficit - a symptom of individuals with parietal neglect, schizophrenia, etc ... - an issue for getting these sets of patients to continuously take their medication
gradual task
- a display of a hiking trail is shown to participants - when something is a gradually added to the scene, our attention is not drawn to that space, and we miss it
La Berge & Samuels Model
- a model of reading acquisition that suggests people move through different stages of automation as they move through levels (i.e., from features to letters to spelling to sound to meaning) - attentional processes are required to break down a level after achieving automation at that level for a given stimulus - typically feature level is from 2-3 years, letters level is from 3-4 years, spelling to sound level is from 5-8 years, and meaning level is an adult skilled reader
Kahneman model of attention
- accounts for data used to support selection models by assuming differences in allocation of capacity - capacity refers to a reservoir of attention that may be greater or lesser during different times of the day - performance is dependent on: amount of capacity available, demands of each task, amount of capacity allocated to each task
predictions for people with ADD, schizophrenia, or AD vis-a-vis Stroop and negative priming studies
- all groups show disproportionate Stroop interference compared to matched age controls - there are smaller effects of the priming in the negative priming studies as they aren't as good at inhibiting that competitor stimuli anyways - Stroop effect goes up and the negative priming effect goes down in these populations
Balint's syndrome
- appears to be a deficit in attention to multiple objects in vision - a feature of this syndrome is simultagnosia - possibly due to a breakdown in storing bound features for objects, such that they are simultaneously available in location files - a problem for normal visual processing where once we identify objects we place them in locations in a spatial representation
conclusions on suffix effects
- appears to reflect precategorical, but not sensory storage - likely due to a storage system for language specific representations (i.e., phonology in speech or features of American sign language in the deaf)
Treisman and Gelade model
- argues that when an object is presented, there is a pre-attentive stage where we analyze the object - the later binding of the features together is more attentionally demanding
Strayer et al study 2003
- asked participants to follow a pace car - looked at the influence of a number of measures in driving - single versus dual task - low versus high traffic density - results: following distance was more variable, brake onset was slower (more rear end collisions), and there was a slower time to recover to minimum speed if in high traffic and in dual task conditions
Deutsch Norman model
- attempted to merge growing information regarding memory and the selection process of attention - claimed that selection occurs after the pattern recognition stage - attention is equivalent to the selection stage - selection attends to the most personal pertinence to the individual at any particular moment after memory representations
Strayer et al 2006
- cell phone driver vs drunk driver - drivers were asked to follow a pace car - control (single task), cell-phone, and drunk (.08 BAC) conditions - driving habits between the cell phone driver and drunk driver is very similar (on measures of accidents, braking onset, braking force, following distance, SD following distance, time to recover speed, and time to collision)
Simon & Levin study
- curious about how much people pick up in their visual world when their attention is pulled elsewhere - a real life example between seeing and attending - took place at Cornell University - a researcher asks a random person for directions, as the stranger gives directions, the researcher switches places with someone else (via a construction worker distraction) - 50% of people did not notice a change in who was speaking to them - we think that when we are talking to someone, we are picking up on that information; however, we too forget that information even moments later
Baddeley's working memory model
- demonstrates the intimate tie between attention and memory - has four components: (1) visuospatial sketchpad, (2) episodic buffer, (3) phonological loop, and (4) central executive
other examples that demonstrate the findings of Tipper et al
- ex: "organ" after being in a musical context inhibits "organ" from being perceived in a bodily feature context - ex: if you have something in your visual field, then you must inhibit it to get something else in your line of movement
non shift expected related
- ex: BIRD-Robin - at the short SOA, has facilitation because the prime and target are related (feeds into automatic spreading activation mechanisms) - at the long SOA, has facilitation because the target was expected (feeds into limited attentional capacity mechanisms)
non shift unexpected unrelated
- ex: BIRD-Sofa - at the short SOA, is neutral because the prime and target aren't related (doesn't feed into automatic spreading activation mechanisms) - at the long SOA, is inhibition because the target wasn't expected (due to limited attentional capacities)
shift unexpected related
- ex: BODY-Arm - at the short SOA, is facilitation because the prime and target are related (feeds into activation spreading mechanisms) - at the long SOA, is inhibition because the target wasn't expected (due to limited attentional capacities)
shift expected unrelated
- ex: BODY-Door - at the short SOA, is neutral because the prime and target were unrelated (doesn't go with automatic spreading activation mechanisms) - at the long SOA, is facilitation because the target was expected (feeds into limited attentional capacity mechanisms)
functional dissociation logic
- first, identify tasks or components of tasks that tap the targeted concepts - second, manipulate IVs that have an isolated effect on the targeted components
example of computation span
- give participants computational expressions, and ask them to determine the truth of each expression - i.e., "7+4 = 11" ... true - after receiving a few expressions, participants are asked to recall the solutions from each expression (i.e., 11)
example of reading span
- give participants sentences to read, and ask to determine the truth of each sentence - i.e., "a dollar involves 3 quarters" ... false - after receiving a few sentences, participants are asked to recall details from the sentences (i.e., quarters)
what are the effects of different variables on primacy portions (and not recency portions) of the serial position effect?
- high frequency words were better recalled than low frequency words - healthy controls had better recall performance on earlier presented words than did mentally challenged individuals
sensory registers
- hold information in a precategorical form, before categorization has taken place - may afford the opportunity for categorization - preserves information for a few hundred milliseconds - includes iconic and echoic memory
parietal neglect and the Posner exogenous cueing paradigm
- if the target is in the left visual field and the cue is on the opposite side, they miss most of these trials (i.e., invalid trials with the target in the left visual field) - if the target and the cue are presented in the left visual field, they don't get the facilitation effect
anti-correlated brain networks
- if you begin doing an attention demanding task, the attention network activation goes up and the default mode network activation goes down - this can be used in a meaningful way regarding individuals who are predisposed for Alzheimer's disease
echoic memory
- may be more important because sound necessarily unfolds across time - stress and changes in pitch depend on representations of earlier precategorical stimuli
Hardyck and Petrinovich study
- measured EMG activity while individuals where reading easy and difficult texts - skilled readers produced greater speech-related EMG activity while reading difficult speech - suggests reverting back to an earlier stage, since difficult material was not automatized
dual task method (for capacity demands)
- measures reaction times on a second task while individuals are engaged in a primary, more demanding task - Britton tested this by asking participants to read select passages and when they heard a tone to press a button - as the primary task gets more difficult, responses to the secondary task become more delayed
Patient H.M.
- most studied individual in science - suffered profound episodic memory loss due to a radical medial temporal lobe resection to eliminate his epileptic seizures - they removed the hippocampus and he was left with profound amnesia - he had no primacy effect in the serial position function
implications for cell phone drivers
- new legislation, though laws are mainly for the use of handsfree/Bluetooth devices - laws mainly tackle drunk drivers and texters
characteristics of STM
- once categorization is finished, information must be actively processed otherwise it is lost - appears to have a clear limitation on capacity (i.e., Miller's magic number 7, +/-2 digits)
basketball selective attention example
- participants are tasked to count the number of times a basketball is passed - based on a project Niesser did in 1970 - many people don't notice the gorilla who enters and leaves the scene - saw that what you are attending to can override what you see and that certain stimuli will automatically drive attention to that space (exogenous stimuli)
Tipper et al study
- participants fixated at a fixation cross in between a sequence of two letters - two conditions: negative priming sequence and control sequence - participants asked to name letters of a certain color - in negative priming sequences, the distractor letter in trial 1 became the target letter in trial 2 - in control sequences, the target letters and distractor letters only appeared in one trial each - thought that if during active selection, a person inhibited the distractor letter to activate the target letter, then on the next trial, they would be slower to activate the previous distractor letter that is now the target (this wouldn't occur under controls) - supports the idea that unimportant selections are inhibited
Healy's unitization of lexical forms
- participants were asked to read passages while counting the number of f's that appeared - people struggled with this as readers have an automatic processing of words as whole units - frequency of the word impacts this such that a higher frequency word has a higher chance of unitization
Treisman's feature integration study
- participants were given a feature search display and asked to look for a red x - when the red X occurred in a feature search display (where all other objects are green), there is no effect of set size and suggests parallel and automatic search - when the red X occurred in a conjunction search display (where there were other red O objects), there was an increasing RT as a result of set seize, suggesting serial and attentional search
Marshall and Halligan study
- patients with parietal neglect are presented two different images of houses (identical except that one is on fire) - houses are then displayed simultaneously - when asked to choose which house they would like to live in, they pick the house on the right (without the fire) - suggests that some information might get in from an unattended to space
Yantis et al study
- people were seeing and hearing continuous information (i.e., letters changed rapidly and simultaneously in the visual and auditory system) while being scanned in an fMRI - saw that when attending to vision, occipital lobes were more active (and temporal lobes less active) - this changes your brain state and reduces your sensitivity to visual events happening right in front of you
what do working memory spans predict?
- reading comprehension - reasoning ability - problem solving ability - academic performance - fluid intelligence
importance of chunking
- related to automaticity - relieves demands on working memory, allowing attention to higher level capacities/strategies - skilled performance is akin to developing critical chunks or pattern recognition representations
inattentional blindness example
- researchers placed billboards on the side of the road that were available to both dual and single task conditions - between single and dual task conditions, there was no difference in the rate of fixation on the billboard for the driver - between single and dual task conditions, dual task drivers recognized the billboard in a later memory test half as well as single task drivers - concluded, there is a loss of memory for fixated information when on a cell phone
Clive Wearing
- suffers from anterograde and retrograde amnesia - he cannot recall aspects from his past memories nor can he form new memories - frequently believes that he has recently awoken from a comatose state, and is experiencing life for the 1st time
what do reading and computation spans measure?
- switching and focusing of attention - retrieval from secondary memory - maintenance of active information
conclusions on interference
- the degree of interference depends on similarity across materials - the more similar the to-be-retained and interfering information is, the more interference one will find
memory
- the influence of experience on changing the state of the cognitive system - defines who we are by creating a personal narrative
Stroop task
- the most studied task of attentional selection - often a 2x3 design with conditions of response (word versus color) and color (congruent, neutral, and incongruent) - color naming is disrupted by color dimension, where incongruent conditions produce slower reaction times than congruent or neutral conditions - neutral conditions may not have an impact at all - older adults show disproportionate slowing in the Stroop effect (i.e., I-C/I is greater in old than young adults)
Treisman's attenuation model
- the selective filter distinguishes between two messages on the basis of their physical characteristics (like location, intensity, and pitch) - the 'dictionary' in this model allows for selection between messages on the basis of content - certain information requires a very low threshold in activating awareness of a stimulus (like our name in a cocktail party example) - proposes that there is a decrease in the perceived loudness of an unattended message - the selection filter in attention occurs prior to selection (or pattern recognition stage)
Hasher and Zacks 5 criteria
- to distinguish between automatic and effortful processing 1. intentional vs incidental learning 2. effect of instructions and practice 3. task interference 4. depression or high arousal 5. developmental trends
Posner's exogenous cueing paradigm
- tried to understand the simplest operations of visual search - participants were asked to fixate at a fixation cross in between two rectangles - over time, one of the rectangles would light up and then an asterisk would appear in one of the rectangles - valid and invalid trial conditions as well as variable inter stimulus intervals - in valid trials, the asterisk appears in the same rectangle than that of the previously lit up rectangle - in invalid trials, the asterisk appears in a different rectangle than that of the previously lit up rectangle - saw that when it was a valid trial, and the ISI was short, then there was an effect of facilitation; as you increase the interval, then you become slower in valid trials than invalid trials - as I am fixated, I get a cue that pulls my attention automatically to that location, I get a target and my eyes are already there - there too is a bias to not re-attend to previously and recently attended to locations, so there is an inhibition at longer intervals when attention drifts away - suggests that where the eyes are may be dissociated from where attention is
basic methodology and ideology of cell-phone drivers
- use a driving simulator - looked at driving performance when alone, with cell phone, listening to radio, or with another passenger - saw that cell phones (but not radio control or another passenger) produces a considerable cost - no difference between hand held and handsfree because engagement in conversation is what's critical - passenger is cued into what's going on in the environment - not related to "experience" with driving and using a cell-phone
iconic memory
- very short lived, between 200 & 500 milliseconds - critical to integrating information across time in the visual domain (i.e., when we make eye movements, we don't see the world jumping because our brains integrate the previous scene with the new scene) - movies and CRTs (technology used for computer monitors and televisions) argue that this is critical to create constancy in the visual world where continuity doesn't exist
default mode network
- when people are not doing anything inside an imaging scanner, and they are simply looking at a fixation cross, a powerful network is active - this powerful network turns off when a task begins - it is sensitive to mind wandering and self referential thought - historically, it is important in motivating network science for the brain
Yerkes Dodson function
- x axis measures arousal and y axis measures performance level - there are two different curves, representing difficult or easy tasks - suggests that difficult tasks warrant lower levels of arousal to have maximum performance (too much arousal creates too much interference and breaks down performance) - suggests that easy tasks warrant higher levels of arousal so as not to make a mistake and have peak performance
Glanzer and Cunitz study
METHODS: - combined the Brown Peterson task with serial recall - presented participants with a list of items to be remembered - then gave participants a 3 digit number and asked them to subtract by 3's after list presentation for 0, 10, or 30 seconds RESULTS: - an effect of subtraction by 3's only at the end of the list - as the subtraction test length increased, recall probability declined for items at the end of the list
Craik study
METHODS: - presented 10 different 15-item lists for immediate serial recall - after recalling each list, participants were given a surprise recall for all items across all lists RESULTS: - for immediate recall, performance was best for items located later on the list (it still exists in STM) - for final recall, performance was significantly worse for items later on the list (it wasn't encoded into LTM) - demonstrates a negative recency effect
Rundus study
METHODS: - presented words to participants to study, and asked them to speak aloud while the list was being presented - record how many times they rehearse each word - look at recall performance RESULTS: - you recall last items well, but they are rehearsed little to none at all - items in the beginning if the list are encoded in LTM (primacy) and items at the end of the list are encoded in STM (recency) - demonstrates a functional dissociation logic
Segner study (1740)
PURPOSE: - interested in how people see or hear a trail of previously presented stimuli that no longer exist METHODS: - they placed a burning ember on the point of a wagon wheel, and began turning the wheel at a set of rates so that eventually individuals saw a complete circle - asked participants to report when they saw a full circle HYPOTHESIS: - the point when participants started reporting a full circle was the amount of time that it takes to hold onto information before categorization RESULTS: - it was a couple hundred milliseconds
Spoehr and Corin study
PURPOSE: - to address issues of mouthed suffix effects METHODS: - the cue was not an auditory stimulus, but it was the speaker mouthing the suffix (after list presentation) RESULTS: - mouthing the suffix has half the effect of saying the word GO on recall performance - we watch people talk, we imagine ourselves talking, and it activates precategorical phonetic features
Shand and Klima study
PURPOSE: - to address issues of suffix effects with special populations METHODS: - presented a gesture that is consistent with features from sign language to a congenitally deaf individual RESULTS: - you still find a suffix effect
Muter's study
PURPOSE: - to better investigate the forgetting rate that was neglected in the Brown Peterson paradigm (participants recognize that they will be tested and still rehearse while subtracting) METHODS: - used the Brown Peterson paradigm except participants only got tested for letters in 1 out of 30 trials RESULTS: - at 1 second, you are at 90% correct - by 3 seconds later, you're down to 15% correct at recalling the letters (when you aren't expecting to be tested)
Jenkins and Dallenbach (1924)
PURPOSE: - to better understand how people retain information while asleep versus awake periods METHODS: - presented participants with syllabic information - tested people after varying time delays - some participants slept during those delays and others were instructed to remain awake HYPOTHESIS: - a waking state would produce more interference than a sleeping state RESULTS: - there was a significant decay between retaining information after a wake period versus a sleep period - sleep is important for memory consolidation (memories are replayed automatically and unconsciously during sleep) - interference disrupts the consolidation period
McClelland et al study
PURPOSE: - to better understand memory consolidation during sleep METHODS: - had rats learn a maze and monitored which cells were firing using single cell recording - monitored the cells during subsequent sleep RESULTS: - the same set of neurons involved in learning the maze were involved during sleep (indicating that the rats were replaying the maze during their sleep)
Eriksen & Collins study
PURPOSE: - to better understand the specific time frame between when information is presented and when it gets categorized METHODS: - presented participants a pattern of dots for a couple hundred milliseconds and then take it away - there was a determined delay before a second set of dots was presented - participants were asked if they saw any letters after being presented with the second pattern of dots HYPOTHESIS: - if participants couldn't see the letters, then the information wasn't retained during that determined delay RESULTS: - it only worked if the interval was 200-300 milliseconds between stimuli
Waughand Norman study
PURPOSE: - to better understand why people forget the letters in the Brown Peterson paradigm - is it that some subsequent information interfered with previously received information (interference) or simply the passage of time (decay) METHODS: - presented 16 list items - asked participants to report the digit that followed the last digit earlier in the series - given two different presentation rates, from 1 word per second to 4 words per second HYPOTHESES: - decay theory states that performance should be better for the fast rate of presentation because there would be less time for the information to decay in memory RESULTS: - rate of presentation had very little effect on the probability of recalling the test digit - the number of interfering items has a dramatic effect on retention where the probability of recall declines rapidly as the number of interfering items increases - interference rather than decay is the primary cause of forgetting
AV speech perception video
PURPOSE: - to demonstrate the McGurck effect METHODS: - present a nonsense syllable twenty times in repetition - half the time participants watch the speaker, the other half participants should close their eyes RESULTS: - what you hear with your eyes closed is different than what you hear with your eyes open (i.e., BABA becomes DADA) - speech gestural information is used to synthesize what we see and hear
Posner and Snyder's two-process theory
PURPOSE: - to distinguish between two mechanisms for priming: automatic spreading activation and limited capacity attentional system FRAMEWORK: - automatic spreading activation is (1) fast-acting, (2) independent of expectancies, and (3) produces facilitation - limited capacity attention is (1) relatively slow, (2) dependent on expectancies, and (3) produces both facilitation and inhibition
suffix effect experiment
PURPOSE: - to look at serial recall performance given varying signals to begin recall METHODS: - participants listen to a list of digits, and then a signal (either a tone or the word "GO") - after the signal, participants must try to recall the digits in the same order they were presented - score if the participant gets the last digit right on each trial RESULTS: - GO is more distracting than a tone, and thus relates with significant deficits in recall performance at the end of the list of digits
Schooler et al study
PURPOSE: - to look for behavioral actions that might suggest mind wandering in individuals METHODS: - called the sustained attention to respond task (SART) - a simple boring go/no-go task where participants would press a button for all digits except 6 (in which they would withhold a button press) HYPOTHESIS: - pressing a button the digit 6 could reflect mind wandering at work RESULTS: - trials before such errors relatively fast due to the rhythmic pressing of buttons, as if the mind is wandering - if engaged, your responses are slower and more variable
Watkins and Todres study
PURPOSE: - to see how long precategorical acoustic storage lasts METHODS: - used a distractor task after list presentation to minimize retrieval of echoic information HYPOTHESIS: - if the echoic trace was still sufficient, then there should be some suffix effect RESULTS: - the echoic trace does last a long time (20 seconds) - there is a modality effect where auditory items persist far longer than visual items
Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010)
PURPOSE: - to see how often people mind wander throughout the day METHODS: - asked participants to report, using experiential sampling procedures, what they are thinking about during their daily activities RESULTS: - 45% of the time, their minds were wandering
Balota & Lorch mediated priming study
PURPOSE: - to see if activation really does "spread" across the network METHODS: - ask participants if certain word pairs are related or not (i.e., DOG-CAT or LION-STRIPES) - reaction times were measured HYPOTHESES: - words have strong associates, and then those associates too have their own strong associates - there could priming from a word to its second-order strong associate - the first order strong associate acts as a mediated priming between two words (i.e., LION and STRIPES) - shorter RTs would show for mediated primes than nonrelated primes RESULTS: - activation spreads multiple steps within a semantic network - a sentence with 5 content words could activate 5 associates which could then produce activation for 5 mediated associates yielding activation of 125 concepts
Balota's masked priming study
PURPOSE: - to see if consciousness of prime is necessary for there to be an effect of being primed a certain way - if I get primed from a briefly presented stimulus, will that guide how I interpret the following word (and does that occur by a bit of spreading activation occurring with the briefly presented prime)? METHODS: - two parts: a priming session and a memory test for items in the priming session - during semantic priming, participants were given threshold and suprathreshold primes and asked to judge if two words are related - during recognition test, participants were asked to read a word (with the same or different prime) and recall if it was seen previously RESULTS: - priming effects for threshold primes and suprathreshold primes was about 30 ms - words that were primed in a threshold context, and then placed in the same context for a recognition test, were 0% better at recalling the word - words that were primed in a suprathreshold context, and then placed in the same context for a recognition test, were 31% better at recalling the word - no evidence that the prime presented in tickled conditions doesn't result from attention at all (it effects the priming not the interpretation) - near threshold primes can produce activation in the network due to automatic activation - however, this activation simply activates related concepts, but does not drive memory performance
Kanne's study
PURPOSE: - to see if researchers could still find semantic priming from a neglected visual field (i.e., in the case of people with parietal neglect)? METHODS: - a parietal neglect patient is asked to fixate on a fixation cross - you then present two sets of information on opposite sides of the fixation cross (the prime stimulus to the neglected left side) - you then present a related term to the neglected side's prime - record reaction times RESULTS: - related primes are faster than unrelated primes, even in a neglected visual field
Wickens paradigm
PURPOSE: - to see if retroactive or proactive interference are involved in the Brown Peterson paradigm METHODS: - participants are presented three different colors, and a 3 digit number, and then asked to subtract by 3's - the same color category is used for the next two lists - in the fourth lists, participants receive a list of either colors or animals (before doing the subtraction task) HYPOTHESES: - proactive interference expects recall of colors to be interfered with by previous colors presented RESULTS: - you become almost as good as you are on the first list when you switch categories on the fourth trial - switching out of the color category provides release from proactive interference
Reichle et al study (2010)
PURPOSE: - to see if there was any correlations between eye movement and mind-wandering during reading tasks METHODS: - asked participants to read passages aloud while tracking their eye movements looking for eye fixation and/or saccades - asked to report if they felt themselves mind-wandering RESULTS: - found that eye fixations before reported mind wandering decreases sensitivity to linguistic constraints (i.e., word frequency and syntax) - eyes still move rhythmically, insensitive to the text, when you are mind wandering
Conway, Cowan, and Butting (2001) study
PURPOSE: - to see if working memory is really related to attention METHODS: - combined working memory measures with attention tasks - participants were placed in categories of either high or low working memory spans (more or less terms) - participants simultaneously were asked to shadow and listen out for their name RESULTS: - 65% of low span conditions detected their name - 20% of high span conditions detected their name - working memory is related to attention
Neely's manipulations of the Posner and Snyder two-process theory
PURPOSE: - to test Posner and Snyder's two process theory METHODS: - manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA, the amount of time given to process the prime stimulus before participants receive the target stimulus) - manipulated subject expectancies by altering the instructions given before each block (either told a non-shift category prime or a shift category prime) - participants were asked to make a simple word/nonword decision for the target stimulus - non-shift category prime = "think of types of birds" - shift category prime = "think of building parts" - neutral primes were given as well - conditions based on shift/non shift, expected/unexpected, and related/unrelated HYPOTHESES: - a short SOA taps speed, so shorter intervals will speak to an automatic spreading activation mechanism - a long SOA will speak to limited attentional capacities RESULTS: - all predictions were found in participants
Brown-Peterson paradigm
PURPOSE: - to test limitations of short term memory METHODS: - give participants 3 letters, and then a 3 digit number - ask participants to subtract by 3 from the 3 digit number as fast as they could for a determined length of time - there were discrete intervals during this subtraction process HYPOTHESIS: - subtraction was supposed to stop participants from rehearsing the letters RESULTS: - memory recall performance gets progressively worse the longer you subtract (and neglect rehearsal)
Sperling et al study
PURPOSE: - to understand activation in the DMN across time when different populations of people are beginning a task METHODS: - 3 conditions: young adults, old adults with no amyloid build up in their brain (PIB-), and individuals who are cognitively normal with amyloid building up in their brain (PIB+) - view their brain before, during, and after they are engaged in a task using a neuroimaging scanner RESULTS: - young adults suppress the DMN while they are beginning a task - PIB- do not suppress the DMN much (healthy aging seems to change the correlations with these networks, causing a tendency to have both networks activated at once) - PIB+ individuals have the DMN also engaged while they are completing a task IMPLICATIONS: - having both the DMN and attentional activation networks simultaneously engaged while completing a task hinders performance - relevant for research surrounding people with depression, schizophrenia, ADD, etc ... - demonstrates the importance of anti-correlations in brain networks
Baddeley and Warrington (1970)
PURPOSE: - to understand how people of special populations trouble with the serial position effect METHODS: - look at performance on a surprise recall test after controls and amnesics listened to a serial word list RESULTS: - controls were better at recalling words correctly from earlier in the list (than amnesics)
de Groot study
PURPOSE: - to understand the relationship between short term memory and chunking METHODS: - presented master and average chess players example chess boards for brief periods of time - afterward, they were tasked to recreate the board they were just presented - sometimes the board was a feasible set up from a match but other times the pieces were randomely assorted HYPOTHESES: - is it a difference in memory capacity or chunk size between average and master chess players RESULTS: - experts were much better at memorizing a chess player board than average players (in an actual game) - experts were similar to average players when the board had pieces that were randomly placed - more skilled players were more successful in reproducing the chess board because they had more chunks and more pieces per chunk (that they developed over time) - the difference between novice and expert players was not due to guessing, but seemed to be due to chunking of information in perception
Schneider & Shriffin (1977)
PURPOSE: - to see if people can build automatic processing in an experimental setting, or if it does take a lifetime - based on knowns about automatic processing: (1) they develop out of consistent stimulus to response mapping, (2) they are independent of attentional capacity, and (3) dependent on stimuli "triggering" the appropriate response METHODS: - targeted the visual search paradigm by giving participants a target stimulus, a distractor set of three stimuli, and then asking them if the target stimulus was in the distractor stimuli group - two conditions of consistent or varied mapping - consistent mapping = subjects are always searching for a set of items from a target set that has no overlap with a distractor set of letters - varied mapping = subjects are searching for a given letter when the set is the same for target and distractor stimuli HYPOTHESIS: - without consistent mapping, they believed that there could not be automatic processing because there would are limits on attentional demand capacity RESULTS: - for varied mapping conditions, the RT increases as a function of set size (before practice) while after practice, people get faster and the slope gets a bit more shallow (you get better at the task) - for consistent mapping conditions, the RT increases as a function of set size (before practice) the same way it does for varied mapping conditions; BUT, after practice, there is no effect of set size (you can search the elements in parallel and there's no effect on attentional demand capacity)
Neely semantic priming paradigm
PURPOSE: - to understand how people retrieve something from semantic memory - are there two different types of retrieval processing (one automatic and another more intentional)? - how does one empirically distinguish between these theoretical constructs METHODS: - used a semantic priming paradigm where participants are given a prime stimulus that is either related or unrelated to a target stimulus - participants are asked whether or not the target stimulus is a word or not - researchers are looking at the RTs for making that word/nonword judgment HYPOTHESIS: - we have nodes that correspond to meanings of words and are connected by semantic relations (i.e., red is connected with fire engine, fire, apples, cherries, sunsets, sunrises, roses, green, orange, etc ...) PROBLEM: - how can we distinguish between the different mechanisms for priming - is it automatic spreading activation or limited capacity attention?
Minami and Dallenback (1946) study
PURPSOSE: - to better understand interference during sleep in a nonhuman species METHODS: - taught cockroaches to run through a maze - placed the cockroaches in 2 conditions: matchboxes without stimulation (sleep) or allowed to roam with other cockroaches (awake) RESULTS: - matchbox cockroaches retained the maze better than those that were hanging with other cockroaches
chunks
a cluster of items that has been stored as a unit in long-term memory
episodic buffer
a component of Baddeley's working memory model that integrates memory codes from different modalities
phonological loop
a component of Baddeley's working memory model that maintains and manipulates acoustic information
visuospatial sketchpad
a component of Baddeley's working memory model that maintains and manipulates visual/spatial information
central executive
a component of Baddeley's working memory model that manages the use of working memory
momentary intention
a conscious decision to allocate attention to certain tasks or aspects of the environment
semantic code
a memory code based on the meaning of the stimulus
acoustic code
a memory code based on the sound of the stimulus
extinction task
a parietal neglect patient might be asked to fixate on the researcher's nose while they raise either or both hands and wiggle their fingers; if both fingers are raised at the same time, the parietal neglect patient will only see the right set of fingers (as their brain states extinguish your attention of the left set of fingers wiggling)
release from proactive interference
a phenomenon that reduces proactive interference by having information be dissimilar from earlier material
arousal
a physiological state that influencest the distribution of mental capacity to various tasks
exhaustive search
a search that continues until the test item is compared with all items in the memory set
self-terminating search
a search that stops as soon as the test item is successfully matched to an item in the memory set
memory set
a set of items in short-term memory that can be compared against a test item to determine whether the test item is stored there
retrieval strategies
a strategy for recalling information from long-term memory
control process
a strategy that determines how information is processed
subsidiary task
a task that typically measures how quickly people can react to a target stimulus to evaluate the capacity demands of the primary task
Atkinson and Shiffrin perspective on memory
a theory of memory that emphasizes the interaction among the sensory store, short-term memory, and long-term memory
multimode theory
a theory proposing that people's intentions and the demands of the task determine the information-processing stage at which information is selected
enduring disposition
an automatic influence to which people direct their attention
acoustic confusions
an error that sounds like the correct answer
multimodal code
an integration of memory codes such as combining visual and verbal codes
phoneme
any of the basic sounds of a language that are combined to form speech
what kind of visual search is where's waldo?
conjunction search
imaging
creating visual images to make material easier to remember
subdivisions of long term memory
declarative - facts (medial temporal lobe and diencephalon) - events (medial temporal lobe and diencephalon) nondeclarative - classical conditioning (emotional responses = amygdala & skeletal musculature = cerebellum) - priming (neocortex) - procedural skills and habits (striatum) - nonassociative (reflex pathway)
implications for attenuation
driving - older adults' attentional systems break down (50% of individuals after 85 have significant neurology to get diagnosed with Alzheimer's pathology) - crash rates across the lifespan a represented in a U-shaped function where people are most at risk early and later in life
retroactive interference
forgetting that occurs because of interference from material encountered after learning
proactive interference
forgetting that occurs because of interference from material encountered before learning
absolute judgment task
identifying stimuli that vary along a single sensory continuum
anterograde amnesia
inability to store new information
expertise reversal effect
instruction that reduces cognitive load for the novice may increase cognitive load for the expert
rote learning
learning by repetition rather than through understanding
incidental learning
learning that occurs when we do not make a conscious effort to learn
retrograde amnesia
loss of previously stored information
long term memory
memory that has no capacity limits and lasts from minutes to an entire lifetime
do amnesics perform poorly on all long term memory tasks?
no - many "implicit" nondeclarative tasks show relatively normal performance in amnesics - repetition effects in speeded word naming - tower of Hanoi problem - pursuit of rotary learning - fragment completion - classical conditioning
does meaning influence the suffix effect?
no - there is no effect of meaning of the suffix, but rather an effect when suffix and list items have similar physical characteristics
what happens if researchers flip the target stimuli with the distractor stimuli (after practice)? can participants still have automatic processing?
no; even after 2,000 trials, it is very difficult to reverse a connection once it has been made
is there a prolonged effect of automaticity?
not really; it takes about 150 trials before you get back to automaticity. you somewhat have to build that automaticity again after time away from making those associations
split attention effect
occurs when people have to divide their attention between two sources; remedied by physically integrating the information
parietal neglect versus hemianopia
parietal neglect = lesions to the parietal lobe result in problems with attention hemianopia = changes in the brain produce a problem in vision
automatic processing
performing mental operations that require very little mental effort
amnesia
profound isolated memory loss
interference theory
proposal that forgetting occurs because other material interferes with the information in memory
decay theory
proposal that information is spontaneously lost over time, even when there is no interference from other material
exogenous stimuli
pulls attention automatically
rehearsal
repeating verbal information to keep it active in short-term memory or to transfer it into long-term memory
indogenous stimuli
require interpretation and higher order cortical systems
top two causes of car accidents in people older than 70
right of way (due to attentional deficits) speed signaling
coding
semantic elaboration of information to make it easier to remember
subvocalizing
silently speaking to oneself
top three causes of car accidents in people younger than 20
speed right of way alcohol
Fodor's modularity of mind
states that automaticity suggests that there are dedicated self-encapsulated modules that are not influenced by attention but rather to a certain input/output relationship; historically, this is important for motivating studies to identify modules of the brain (neuroimaging), everything is not simply interconnected
redundancy effect
states that if equivalent information is provided twice, then the added information simply provides more (rather than new) information
Crowder and Morton account
states that suffix effect is due to precategorical acoustic storage system (or echoic memory)
SOA
stimulus onset asynchrony; the interval between onset of a cue and onset of a target
knowledge acquisition
storage of information in long-term memory
serial position effect
the ability to recall words at the beginning and end of a list better than words in the middle of the list
primacy effect
the better recall of words at the beginning of a list
recency effect
the better recall of words at the end of a list
retrieval fluency
the case with which an item can be recalled
stroop effect
the finding that it takes longer to name the color of the ink a word is printed in when the word is the name of a competing color
memory (digit) span
the number of correct items that people can immediately recall from a sequence of items
metacognition
the selection of strategies for processing information
working memory
the use of short-term memory as a temporary store for information needed to accomplish a particular task
allocation of capacity
when a limited amount of capacity is distributed to various tasks
