Unit 5: Cognitive Psychology

Charles Spearman (1863-1945)

- Believed we have one general intelligence (g) that underlies all mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test - Granted that people often do have special, outstanding abilities. But people that score high in one area will typically score higher than avg in other areas - Factor analysis: A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlies a person's total score

Stability of intelligence over life span

- By age 4, children's performance ont elligence tests begins to predict their adolescent and adult scores - Consistency of scores overtime increases with age of child - More intelligence = healthier and longer lives

children's eyewitness recall

- Children's memories can be easily molded - Children CAN be accurate eyewitnesses when they are questioned in non leading, less suggestive, neutral words

Aging and Intelligence

- Depends on what and how we assess age and intelligence Crystalized intelligence: Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age - Authors produce best work in 40s and beyond when they accumulate more knowledge Fluid intelligence: Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age. especially during late adulthood (after 85) - Scientists produce their most creative work during late 20s and early 30s when fluid intelligence is at peak Cross-sectional study: research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time; mental ability declines with age Longitudinal study: research that follows and retests the same people overtime; intelligence remains stable,and on some tests it even increases

Deafness and language development

- Easier to learn and master sign language earlier in development - Cochlear implants are most effective when given before age 2 because the auditory cortex become less available for hearing since its not being used - Challenges of life without hearing are the greatest for children. Harder communicate with children and school is harder because activities are rooted in SPOKEN language - Deafness can make people frustrated and sad because to communicate with others is to affirm out humanity as social creatures

Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories

- Effortful processing can become automatic through experience and practice Ex: reading, learning to read -> reading Sensory memory - Sensory memory feeds our active working memory as it records momentary images of scenes or echoes of sounds - Iconic memory: A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second - Echoic memory: A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds Short-Term Memory Capacity - George Miller (1956) proposed that we can store about 7 pieces of info (give or take two) in short-term memory - Short-Term Memory Decay (Peterson & Peterson): Unless rehearsed, verbal information may be quickly forgotten - Without active processing that we now understand to be a part of our working memory, short-term memories have a limited life - Working memory capacity varies, depending on age and other factors a. Compared with children and other adults, young adults have a greater working memory capacity b. We do better, more efficient work when focused, without distractions, on one task at a time Effortful Processing Strategies 1. Chunking: Organizing info into meaningful units, such as letters, words, and phrases, help us recall it more easily; often occurs automatically Ex: Acronyms: chunk info into familiar form by creating a word from the first letters of the to be remembered items 2. Mnemonics: Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices, because we are particularly good at remembering mental pictures. Ex: Learning Japanese lettering using pictures 3. Hierarchies: Composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts. Organizing knowledge in hierarchies helps us retrieve info efficiently Ex: Taking notes in outlines 4. Distributed Practice - Spacing effect: the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed practice; we retain info better when our encoding is distributed over time - One effective way to distribute practice is repeated self-testing aka the testing effect: Enhanced memory after retrieving rather than simply rereading info. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning * forced retrieval good for memory*

The Amygdala, Emotions, and Memory

- Emotions trigger stress hormones that influence memory formation - Stress hormones focus memory. Stress provokes the amygdala (two limbic system, emotion-processing clusters) to initiate a memory trace that boosts activity in the brain's memory-forming areas - Result: Emotional arousal can sear certain events into the brain, while disrupting memory for irrelevant events - Significantly stressful events can form almost unforgettable memories. Such events even strengthen recall for relevant, immediately preceding events. Makes adaptive sense: memory serves to predict the future and to alert us to potential dangers. - Emotional events produce tunnel vision memory: Focus our attention and recall high priority info, reduce recall of irrelevant details. - Flashbulb memories: A clear, sustained memory of an emotionally significant moment or event. - Dramatic experiences remain clear in our memory in part because we rehearse them. We think about them and describe them to others

Explicit Memory System: The Frontal Lobes and Hippocampus

- Explicit, conscious memories are either semantic (facts and general knowledge) or episodic (experienced events) - The network that processes and stores new explicit memories for these facts and episodes includes the frontal lobes and hippocampus Frontal lobes: - When you summon up a mental encore of a past experience, many brain regions send input to your prefrontal cortex for working memory processing - The left and right frontal lobes process different types of memories Left: Recalling password & holding it in working memory Right: Calling up a visual party scene Hippocampus: a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit (conscious) memories - of facts and events - for storage - "save" button for explicit memories Damage to hippo - disrupts the formation and recall of explicit memories - Left-hippocampus damage causes people to have trouble remembering verbal info, but still can recall visual designs and locations. With right-hippocampus damage, the problem is reversed Subregions of the hippocampus serve different functions: - One part is active as people learn social info - another part is active when engaging in spatial mnemonics - rear area processes spatial memory Memories are not permanently stored in the hippocampus. Instead, it acts as a loading dock where the brain registers and temporarily holds the elements of a to-be-remembered episodes - its smell, feel, location. Then memories migrate for storage elsewhere. This storage process is called memory consolidation (the neural storage of a long-term memory) - Sleep supports memory consolidation, during deep sleep, the hippocampus processes memories for later retrieval

High extreme

- High scoring children (135+) are healthy, well-adjusted, and unusually successful academically - Labeling children as ungifted can widen achievement gap between ability groups - Schools should provide appropriate placement suited to each child's talents to promote equity and excellence for all

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

- Howard Gardner identified eight relatively independent intelligences (naturalist, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalist) * 9th possible intelligence: existential intelligence - Views these intelligence domains as multiple abilities that come in different packages - Brain damage may destroy one ability but leave others intact - Savant syndrome: a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, like computation or drawing; 4/5 people are male and many also have autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Automatic Processing and Implicit Memories

- Implicit memories include procedural memory for automatic skills (riding bike) and classically conditioned associations among stimuli - Automatically processes without conscious effort about... 1. Space: Visualizing the location of stored info 2. Time: Unintentionally note the sequence of events, automatically encoded 3. Frequency: Effortlessly keep track of how many times things happen The two-track mind engages in efficient info processing: One track automatically tucks away routine details, the other track is free to focus on conscious, effortful processing (parallel processing)

Making material personally meaningful

- Make new info meaningful for deep processing - Self-reference effect: Tendency to remember more personally relevant info

Gender Similarities and Differences in Intelligence

- Men and women are the same as far as g is concerned - Girls outpace boys in spelling, verbal fluency, locating objects, detecting emotions, sensitivity to touch, taste, oder - Boys outperform girls in tests of spatial ability and complex math problems - Boys outnumber girls at the low and high extreme - Social influences & expectations construct gender and opportunities

L.L Thurstone (1887-1955)

- One of Spearman's early opponents - Identified seven clusters of primary mental abilities (word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, memory) - Did not rank people on a single scale of general aptitude like Spearman + g - Still, there is evidence of g factor because those who excelled in one of the seven clusters generally scored well on the others

Genetic Influences on Intelligence

- People who share genes share mental abilities - Intelligence scores of identical twins are extremely similar. Scores of fraternal twins are similar too but differ more - Heritability of intelligence: THe extent to which intelligence test score variation within a group can be attributed to genetic variation. Range from 50-80% - Identical twins have similar brain structure - Intelligence is polygenetic, involving many genes - Genetic influences - not environmental ones - become more apparent as we accumulate life experience. Heritability of general intelligence increases from about 30% in early childhood to well over 50% in adulthood Adoption: - Adoption enhances intelligence scores of mistreated or neglected children - Adopted children's intelligence scores resemble those of their biological parents much more than their adoptive parents

Racial and Ethnic Similarities and Differences

- Racial and ethnic groups differ in their average intelligence test scores - High-scoring people and groups are more likely to achieve high levels of education and income - Group differences provide poor basis for judging individuals - Race is not a neatly defined biological category - When Blacks and Whites have or receive the same pertinent knowledge, knew exhibit similar information processing skill - Schools and culture matter (rich vs. poor, discipline) - In different eras, difference ethnic groups have experienced golden ages - periods of remarkable achievement - Shrinking White/Black aptitude gap overtime with more equal education

Criticisms of Multiple Intelligence Theories

- Research using factor analysis confirms that there is a general intelligence factor: g matters - Predicts performance on various complex tasks and in various jobs - Success is not a one-ingredient recipe. It is a combination of talent and grit (a passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals) - Mastering a skill takes about 10 years of intense, daily practice. 11,000 hours on avg, 3,000 hours min. The recipe for success is nature + a lot of nurture

Two meanings of bias on intelligence tests

- Scientific meaning of bias is based on test predictive validity. If test does not accurately predict future behavior for all groups of test- takers, it is biased. - A test can also be biased if it detects not only innate differences in intelligence but also performance differences caused by cultural experiences. - They measure your abilities, which reflect your education and experiences (ex: assumptions that a cup goes with a saucer) - Test-makers expectations introduce bias in an intelligence test. Our expectations and attitudes can influence our perceptions and behaviors

Test-Taker's Expectations

- Stereotype threat: a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype - Self-doubts and self-monitoring may hijack your working memory and impair your performance - Exercise in self-affirmation and confidence boosting can increase performance and school achievement - Competence + Diligence = accomplishment

Alfred Binet: Predicting school achievement

- Task of designing fair tests - Mental age: a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet: the level of intelligence performance typically associated with children of a certain age. A child who does as well as an avg 8 year old has a mental age of 8 - Mental aptitude is a general capacity - Didn't want his test to become intelligence test that limited opportunities but it did

Retaining Information in the Brain

- The brain distributes the components of a memory across a network of locations, we do not store info in single, precise locations - Brain networks encode, store, and retrieve the info that forms our complex memories

Thinking in images

- Thought in images with implicit (nondeclarative, procedural memory) - a mental picture of how you do it - Imagining a physical experience activates some of the same neural networks that are active during the actual experience (Ex: practicing horseback in head to strengthen skills)cere

Levels of Processing

- We process verbal info at different levels, and that depth of processing affects our long-term retention 1. Shallow processing: Encoding on a basic level, based on the appearance / structure of words or a words sound Ex: Type there when we mean their 2. Deep processing: Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention. The deeper (more meaningful) the processing, the better our retention - Craik and Tulving's experiment: Flashed words then asked questions that elicit different levels of processing. The deeper, semantic processing elicited by a question yielded a much better memory than the shallow processing elicited by other questions.

Francis Galton: Presuming Heredity Genius

- nature and nurture - Hereditary genius: book of his persistent belief in heritance of genius; shows how individual scientists are affected by their own assumptions & attitudes even tho science should be objective - Quest for simple intelligence measure failed

Problem Solving Obstacles

1. Confirmation bias: a tendency to search for info that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence Pros: Lets us quickly recognize supporting evidence Cons: Hinders recognition of contradictory evidence 2. Fixation: The inability to see a problem from a new perspective Mental set: Example of fixation; tendency to approach a problem in one particular way often a way that has been successful in the past - Predisposes how we think Pros: Focus thinking on familiar solutions Cons: Hinders creative problem solving

Thinking creatively

1. Convergent thinking: narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution Ex: Aptitude test (such as the SAT) require convergent thinking - an ability to provide a single, correct answer 2. Divergent thinking: expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different direction Ex: Creatively tests require divergent learning

Robert Sternberg's 5 Components to Creativity

1. Expertise: Well developed knowledge furnishes the ideas, images, and phrases we use as mental building blocks 2. Imaginative thinking skills: Provide the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections 3. A venturesome personality: Seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles 4. Intrinsic motivation: The quality of being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures 5. A creative environment: Sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas. Mentored, challenged, and supported by their colleagues. To boost creative process: - Develop your expertise - Allow time for incubation - Set aside time for the mind to roam freely - Experience other cultures and ways of thinking

Improving memory

1. Rehearse repeatedly - Use spacing effect and distributed practice - New memories are weak- exercise to strengthen them - Testing effect 2. Make material meaningful - Build a network of retrieval cues by taking notes in your own words, then increase these cues by forming as many associations as possible - Apply concepts to your own life, form images, understand and organize info 3. Activate retrieval cues - Remember importance of context-dependent and state-dependent memory - Mentally re-create the situation and mood in which original learning occurred 4. Use mnemonic devices - Create vivid images - Chunk info into acronyms 5. Minimize proactive and retroactive interference - Study before sleep 6. Sleep more - During sleep, brain reorganizes and consolidates info for long-term memory

Forgetting and the Two-Track Mind

1. Sensory memory (the senses momentarily register amazing detail) -> 2. Working/short term memory (a few items are both encoded and noticed) -> 3. Long-term storage (some items are altered or lost) -> 4. Retrieval from long-term memory (some things get retrieved, some don't) Memory loss impacts ability to form new explicit memories, but automatic processing abilities and the ability to form new implicit memories stays intact. This is because we have 2 distinct memory systems, controlled by different parts of the brain

Principles of Test Construction

1. Standardization 2. Reliability 3. Validity

Problem Solving Strategies

1. Trail and error 2. Algorithms: A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier - but also more error prone - use of heuristics Pros: Guarantees solution Cons: Requires time and effort 3. Heuristics: a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error prone than an algorithm Pros: Lets us act quickly and efficiently Cons: Puts us at risk for errors 4. Insight: A sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy based solutions - Before the realization, frontal lobes (involved in focusing attention) were active. At the instant of discovery, there is a burst of activity in the right temporal lobe. - Wolfgang Kohler (1925): Showed humans are not the only creatures with insight - chimps using tools to get food Pros: Provides instant realization of solution Cons: May not happen

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin's three-stage memory forming model:

1. We first record to-be-remembered information as a fleeting sensory memory (the immediate, very brief recording of sensory info in the memory system) 2. Form there, we process info into short-term memory (activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the digits of a phone number while calling, before the info is stored or forgotten), where we encode it through REHEARSAL 3. Finally, information moves into long-term memory (the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences) for later retrieval.

Forming Good and Bad Decisions and Judgements

1. We seldom take time and effort to reason systematically. We follow our intuition (an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning) 2. Two Quick but Risky Shortcuts - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1974) researched on representativeness and availability heuristics The Representativeness Heuristic -Ex: After 9/11, non-Arab travelers felt anxiety seeing a man of Arab descent board their plane because the man fitted into their "terrorist" prototype, and the representativeness heuristic kicked in despite how nearly 100% of people who fit this prototype are peace loving citizens The Availability Heuristic - Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common Ex: Casinos entice us to gamble by broadcasting wins with noisy bells and flashing lights. The big losses are soundlessly invisible - Can distort our judgements of people. Ex: If people from a particular ethnic group commit a terrorist attack, as seen in pictures of innocent people being beheaded 3. Overconfidence - The tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs & judgements - Affects our decisions and judgements - Planning fallacy: overestimating our future leisure time and income - Overconfidence has adaptive value: believing that their decisions are right and they have time to spare, self-confident people tend to live more happily Pros: Allows us to be happy and make decisions easily Cons: Puts us at risk for errors 4. Belief Perseverance - Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited - CONSIDER the opposite to stop belief perseverance Pros: Supports our enduring beliefs Cons: Closes our mind to new ideas 5. Framing - Framing: the way an issue is posed; how an issue is worded can significantly affect decisions and judgements - Ex: People more supportive of a "carbon offset fee" than to a "carbon tax" Pros: Can influence others decisions Cons: Can produce a misleading result 6. Intuition - Unreasoned intuition can plague our efforts to solve problems, assess risks and make wise decisions Pros: Based on our experience: HUGE and adaptive Cons: Can lead us to overfeel and underthink

Language strucutre

3 building blocks to a spoken language: 1. Phenomes: The smallest distinctive sound units in a language Ex: bat (b-a-t) = 3 phenomes 2. Morphemes: The smallest language units that carry Meaning; may be a word or a part of a word Ex: readers (read-er-s) = 3 morphemes 3. Grammar: A language's set of rules that enable people to communicate. Grammatical rules guide us in deriving meaning from sounds (semantics) and ordering words into sentences (syntax)

Concepts

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people - Simplify our thinking - Form concepts by developing prototypes: A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories - When we categorize people, we mentally shift them toward our category prototypes. Categorizing faces influences recollection.

Intelligence test

A method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with scores of others, using numerical scores

Working Memory

Alan Baddeley & others extended Atkinson and Shiffrin's initial view of short-term memory as a space for briefly storing recent thoughts and experiences - they added the idea of WORKING MEMORY: a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual info, and of info retrieved from long-term memory Working memory model: Central executive manager focuses our attention and pulls info from long-term memory to make sense of new info (auditory rehearsal and visual-spatial info)

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Disorders that strip away memory:

Alzheimers disease: Beginning as difficulty remembering new info and progresses into an inability to do everyday tasks; the brain structure decays

The Brain and Language

Aphasia: Impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage either to Broca's area (impaired speaking) or to Wernicke's area (impaired understanding - Some with Aphasia can speak fluently but can't read, others can read but can't speak. Others can write but not read, read but not write, read numbers but not letters, sing but not speak - Suggest that language is complex and different brain areas serve different language functions The brain's processing of language is compex - Broca's area: helps control language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere that directs the muscle movements involved in speech - Wernicke's area: a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression, usually in the left temporal lobe - The brain multitasks and networks. Different neural networks are activated by nouns and verbs; by diff vowels; by stories of visual vs. motor experiences; by who spoke and what was said; and by many other stimuli - Brain processes two language in similar areas, but in different areas if you learned a second language after the first - In processing language, like other forms of info processing, the brain operates by dividing its mental functions - speaking, perceiving, thinking, remembering- into subfunctions

Infantile amnesia

As adults, our conscious memory of our first four years is largely blank. Two influences contribute to infantile amnesia 1. We index much of our explicit memory with a command of language that young children do not possess 2. The hippocampus is one of the last brain structures to mature and as it matures it gets more retained

Encoding Memories Dual-Track Memory: Effortful vs. Automatic Processing

Atkinson and Shiffrin's model focuses on how we process explicit memories - Explicit memory: retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare"; also called declarative memory - Explicit memories are encoded through conscious effortful processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort Our mind has a second, unconscious track where info skips the conscious encoding track and goes directly into storage. Called automatic processing: Unconscious encoding of incidental info, such as space, time & frequency, and of well-learned info, such as word meanings. - Automatic processing produces implicit memories - Implicit memory: retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection also called nondeclarative memory The two-track mind encodes, retains, and retrieves info through both effortful and automatic tracks.

Language and Thought

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956) - "Language itself shapes a person's basic ideas" Linguistic determination: The strong form of Whorf's hypothesis- that language controls the way we think and interpret the world around us. - TOO EXTREME. We all think about things for which we have no words (ex: specific shade of blue) Linguistic influence: the weaker form of linguistic determination -the idea that language affects thought (thus our thinking and world view is "relative to" our cultural language) - Many bilingual individuals report that they have different senses of self depending on what language they are using - When responding in their 2nd language, bilingual people's moral judgement reflect less emotion - So our words DO influence our thinking -Perceived differences grow as we assign names - Increased wordpower & language expands our ability to think (ex. bilingual advantage) *Thinking affects our language, which then affects our thought*

Implicit Memory System: The Cerebellum and Basal Ganglia

Cerebellum - plays a key role in forming and storing the implicit memories created by classical conditioning. - Implicit memory formation needs the cerebellum Basal Ganglia - deep structures involved in motor movement - Facilitate formation of our procedural memories for skills (ex: knowing how to ride bike) - It receives input from the cortex but does not send info back to the cortex for conscious awareness of procedural learning

The Question of Bias

Debate over racial difference in intelligence - There are genetically disposed racial differences in intelligence - There are socially influenced racial differences in intelligence - There are racial differences in test scores because the tests are inappropriate or biased

Standarization

Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group Normal curve: the bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes - Highest point = average - 95% of people fall within 30 points of 100 - 68% of people score within 15 points of 100 - 130+ = 2.5% - 70- = 2.5% Flynn effect: Intelligence test performance increases overtime. Flynn attributes the performance increase to our need to develop new mental skills to cope with modern environments

Is intelligence one general activity?

Distinct brain networks enable distinct abilities, with g explained by their coordinated activity

Environmental Influences on Intelligence

Early Environmental Influences - Extreme conditions: sensory deprivation, social isolation, poverty, can slow brain development - Poor environmental conditions depress cognitive development - Poverty-related stresses impede cognitive performance: Worries and distractions consume cognitive bandwidth and can diminish thinking capacity - "Enriched" environment won't give children a superior intellect Schooling and Intelligence 1. Early Intervention - Education boosts children's chance's for success by developing their cognitive and social skills - Genes and experience weave together the fabric of intelligence 2. Growth mindset - Carol Dweck: reports that believing intelligence is changeable fosters a growth mindset, a focus on learning and growing - Ability + motivation + opportunity = success - Growth mindset + self-discipline allows for higher intelligence & success than a fixed mindset

Synaptic Changes

Eric Kandel and James Schwartz (1982) - Observed synaptic changes during learning in the neurons of the california sea slug, Aplysia - When learning occurs, the slug releases more of the neurotransmitter serotonin into certain neurons. These cells' synapses then become more efficient at transmitting signals. Experience and learning can increase the number of synapses Long-Term Potentiation (LTP): An increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning + memory - In experiments, rapidly stimulating certain memory-circuit connections has increased their sensitivity for hours or even weeks to come. The sending neuron now needs less prompting to release its neurotransmitter, and more connections exist between neurons. - After LTP occurs, passing an electric current though the brain won't disrupt old memories, but the current will wipe out very recent memories a. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) b. Why you can't remember events just before getting knocked out; working memory has no time to consolidate the info before the knockout. Methods to improving memory based on LTP - Drugs that boost the LTP-enhancing neurotransmitter glutamate - Developing drugs that boost production of CREB, a protein that enhances the LTP process - Boosting the CREB production might trigger increased production of other proteins that help reshape synapses and transfer short-term memories into long-term memories

Measuring Retention

Evidence that learning persists includes these three retention measures: 1. Recall - Retrieving info that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time. A fill-in-the-blank question tests recall. 2. Recognition - Identifying items previously learned. A multiple choice question tests recognition. 3. Relearning - Learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time. When you study for a final exam or engage a language used in early childhood, you will relearn the material more easily than you did initially. Our recognition memory is impressively quick + vast Our response speed when recalling or recognizing info indicates MEMORY STRENGTH, as does our speed at relearning - Pioneering memory researcher Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909) studied memory strength

Theories of Multiple Intelligences

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, Sternberg's Three Intelligences

Low extreme

Intellectual disability: a condition of limited mental ability indicated by 1) an intelligence test score of 70 or below and difficulty adapting to the demands of life and independent living Demands of life and independent living have 3 skills 1. conceptual (language, reading, concepts of money, time, numbers) 2. Social (interpersonal skills, being socially responsible 3. Practical (health and personal care, occupational skill, travel) Flynn effect: intelligence tests are periodically restandardized and the intellectual-disability test score boundary can shift

Reasons we forget

Memories were never encoded, others were discarded (stored memory decay), others out of reach because we can't retrieve them 1. Encoding Failure - Much of what we sense, we never notice, and what we fail to encode, we never remember - Age can affect encoding failure a. (Brain areas that encode new info are less responsive in older adults. This slower encoding helps explain age-related memory decline c. we selectively attend to sensory info. Without encoding effort, many potential memories never form 2. Storage Decay - Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve: The course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time - Explanation: a gradual fading of the physical memory trace 3. Retrieval Failure - Sometimes even stored info cannot be accessed, which leads to forgetting (ex. on the tip of tongue) - Interference 1. Proactive (forward-acting) interference: occurs when prior learning disrupts your recall of new information Ex: using a new lock. The well-rehearsed old combination may interfere with your retrieval of the new one b. Retroactive (backward-acting) interference: occurs when new learning disrupts recall of old info Ex: Someone sings new lyrics to the tune of an old song, you may have trouble remembering the original words - Info presented in the hour before sleep suffers less retroactive inference because the opportunity for interfering events is minimized - Motivated forgetting 1. Repression: In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings and memories. Proposed by Sigmund Freud - Repression rarely occurs because its hard to forget emotional events. Thus we may have intrusive memories of the very same traumatic experience we want to forget

Memory Construction Errors

Memory is not precise. We infer our past from stored information plus what we later imagined, expected, saw, and heard. We don't just retrieve memories, we reweave them. Information acquired after an event alters memory of the event. We often construct memories as we encode them, and every time we relay a memory, we replace the original with a slightly modified version. 1. Reconsolidation: A process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again - Fewer times you use your memory, the more pristine it is 2. Misinformation effect: Occurs when misleading information has distorted one's memory of an event Ex: Breakfast cereal becomes eggs - Imagining nonexistent actions and events repeatedly can create false memories. More vivid imagination = more likely to become memories - Misinformation and imagination effects occur partly because visualizing something and actually perceiving it activate similar brain areas. 3. Source Amnesia - Faulty memory for how, when, or where info was learned or imagined. Source Amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories; also called misattribution - Frailiest part of a memory is its source Deja vu: The eerie sense that "I've experienced this before" Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience 4. Discerning true and false memories - Because the misinformation effect and source amnesia happen outside our awareness, its hard to separate false memories from real ones - False memories seem real and are persistent - People tend to recall having always felt as they feel today about a particular subject

Modified three-stage processing model of memory

Modifications: Some info slips into long-term memory without our consciously attending to it (automatic processing). So much active processing occurs in the short term memory stage so many prefer the term "working memory" 1. External event + sensory input goes to sensory memory. 2. What determines if it moves to short term or long term memory is how much attention you are putting into it. The more you rehearse the info, the more it stays in short term memory (working memory), it takes effort to keep it there. 3. Rehearse something long enough, it moves to long-term memory. 4. Then it moves back to short term memory and you can move it back to long-term. 5. Automatic processing: Unconsciously keep track of things that happen to you. Go right to long-term memory.

Language Acquisition: How do we learn language?

Noam Chomsky - Argued that language is nature's gift- an unlearned human trait, separate from other parts of human cognition - Theorized that universal grammar -a built in predisposition to learn grammar rules- explains why preschoolers pick up language so easily and use grammar so well. It happens so naturally - Nurture matters too: Children learn grammar as they discern patterns in the language they hear - We start speaking in nouns rather than verbs and adjectives

Memory Storage

Our capacity for storing long-term memories is essentially limitless

MEMORY STRENGTH

Our response speed when recalling or recognizing info indicates MEMORY STRENGTH, as does our speed at relarning Pioneering memory researching Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909) studied memory strength - Nonsense syllables: Randomly selected a sample of syllables, practiced them, and tested himself. A day after learning the list, he could recall few of the syllables, but they weren't entirely forgotten - Ebbinghaus' retention curve: Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced a list of nonsense syllables on Day 1, the less time he required to relearn it on Day 2. As rehearsal increases, relearning time decreases. - Tests of recognition and of time spent relearning demonstrate that we remember more than we recall.

Language

Our spoken, written or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

Language Development: When do we learn language?

Receptive Language - Babies' receptive language: their ability to understand who is said to and about them - Children's language development moves from simplicity to complexity - Infants' language comprehension greatly outpaces their language production - By 4 months, babies can recognize differences in speech sounds and also can read lips - At 6 months, long before speaking, can recognize object names - At 7 months and beyond, they can segment spoken sound into individual words. Can statistically analyze which syllables often go together Productive Language - Ability to produce words - Babbling stage beginning around 4 months, the stage of speech development in which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language - By 10 months, babbling changed to resemble household language - One-word stage: The stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words - Two-word stage: beginning about age 2, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks in mostly two-word statements > Start speaking two-word sentences in telegraphic speech: early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram - "go car" - using mostly nouns and verbs > Speech follows rules of syntax , arranging words in a sensible order (adjectives before nouns in english) - 24 months +: Rapid development into complete sentences Critical periods - Children who get a late start on learning a particular language follow the same sequence of development, although usually at a faster pace. - Limit on how long language learning can be delayed. Childhood is the critical period for mastering certain aspects of language before the language teaming window gradually closes - Learning starting at 2-3 produces a rush of language - By about age 7, those who have not been exposed to a language lose their ability to master any language - After puberty its very difficult to learn a second language

Memory Retrieval (Retrieval Clues)

Retrieval clues - Memories are held in storage by a web of associations, each piece of info interconnected with others - Retrieval clues: Bits of info that are associated when encoding a memory. The more retrieval clues you have, the better your chances of finding a route to the suspended memory. - Best retrieval clues come from associations formed at the time we encode a memory 1. Priming - The association, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory Ex: After hearing or seeing word "rabbit", we are more likely to spell the spoken word "hair/hare" as "hare", even if we don't recall seeing/hearing "rabbit" - Can also influence behaviors and the way you view people 2. Context-Dependent Memory - Putting yourself back in the context where you earlier experienced something can prime your memory retrieval - Remembering depends on environment - Encoding specificity principle: The idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it 3. State-Dependent Memory - What we learn in one state - be it drunk or sober - may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state 4. Mood-congruent memory - The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood - Emotions that accompany good or bad events become retrieval clues - Being depressed sours memories by priming negative associations, which we then use to explain our current mood - Mood's effects on retrieval help explain why our moods persist. When happy, we recall happy events and therefore see the world as a happy place, which helps prolong our good mood 5. Serial Position Effect - Our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and first (primacy effect) items in a list - Explains why we may have large holes in our memory of a list of recent events - Immediate recall: first and last items best - Later recall: only first items recalled well

Sternberg's Three Intelligences

Robert Sternberg's triarchic theory 1. Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence - assessed by intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single right answer. Predict school grades well and vocational success more modestly 2. Creative intelligence - demonstrated in innovative smarts: the ability to adapt to new situations and generate novel ideas 3. Practical intelligence - required for everyday tasks that may be poorly defined and have multiple solutions

Emotional Intelligence

Social-intelligence: the intelligence involved in understanding social situations and managing ourselves successfully Emotional intelligence is a critical part of social intelligence. Consists of 4 abilities: 1. Perceiving emotions (recognizing them in faces, music, and stories, and identifying one's own emotions) 2. Understanding emotions (predicting them and how they may change and blend) 3. Managing emotions (knowing how to express them in varied situations, and how to manage other's emotions) 4. Using emotions to facilitate adaptive or creative thinking Emotional intelligent people characteristics: - Both social aware and self-aware - Avoid being overwhelmed by depression, anxiety, or anger - Can read others emotional cues and know what to say to people - More often succeed in a relationship, career, and parenting than do academically smarter people - Tend to be happy + healthy Considerations: Does this stretch the concept of intelligence too far?

Lewis Terman: Measuring Innate Intelligence

Stanford-Binet: the widely used American revision of Binet's original test Intelligence quotient (IQ): defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 IQ = ma/ca x 100 - Works for children but not adults

Intelligence

The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations

Creativity

The ability to produce new and valuable ideas - Creativity is supported by a certain level of aptitude (ability to learn) Pros: Ability to innovate valuable insights and products Cons: May distract from structured, routine work

Validity

The extent to which a test measured or predicts what it is supposed to High reliability does not ensure a test's validity Content validity: the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest Predictive validity: the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior - Aptitude tests are not as predictive as they are reliable - Predictive power peaks in early school years - Predictive power of aptitude scores diminish as students move up the educational ladder because as range of data under consideration narrows, predictive power diminishes

Reliability

The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternative forms of the test, or on retesting - Higher the correlation between two scores of the test, the higher the test's reliability

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information

Information-processing model

To remember any event, we must: - Get information into the brain & memory system, a process called ENCODING - Retain that encoded info overtime, a process called STORAGE - Later get the info back out. of memory storage, a process called RETRIEVAL Connectionism - an information-processing model - Parallel processing: Processing many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of info. processing for many functions - Connectionism focus's on multitrack parallel processing and views memories as products of interconnected neural networks. Specific memories arise from particular activation patterns within these networks. Everytime you learn something new, your brain's neural connections change, forming and strengthening pathways that allow you to interact with and learn from your constantly changing environment. Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) Model - Processing different bits of sensory info simultaneously - Memory processes take place simultaneously over large network of neural connections - Connections strengthened which enables parallel processing

David Wechsler: Testing Separate Strengths

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS): most widely used intelligence tests: contain verbal and performance (nonverbal) subsets > 15 subsets including: - Similarities - Vocab - Block design - Letter number sequencing > Yields overall intelligence + individual scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, processing speed > Held realize Binet's aim: to identify opportunities for improvement and strengths teachers & others can build upon

Achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned ex: ap exam

Aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn ex: college entrance exam

Anteretrograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories

retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past