1. Introduction

Question 1

OKAY

Answer 1

We’re hoping this will be short and sweet! Concepts should be easy to come by, a lot of it’s already in your head. Think of the pizza you’ll have at the end.

Question 2

INFORMATION THEORY

Answer 2

The theory that information exists to reduce uncertainty.

The theory that the probability of an event occurring is inversely proportional to the amount of information it provides.

Question 3

Hick

Answer 3

A guy in 1952 who studied participant’s reaction times to lightbulbs. As the number of lightbulbs increased, participants’ reaction times slowed.

Question 4

Hyman

Answer 4

A guy who extended Hick’s idea. He made some lights more frequent than others, and participants would react more quickly to the frequent lights.

This shows us that it takes us longer to respond to an improbable stimulus than to a probable one.

Question 5

LIMITS ON INFORMATION PROCESSING

Answer 5

There was a study done on air-traffic controllers. They had no difficulty listening to callsigns; those were routine and easily predictable. But they had trouble with the random words.

This suggests that we are active selectors of the information that enters our brains. And that we have a limit, and we handle overflow by being selective with our attention.

Question 6

MODELS OF INFORMATION PROCESSING

Answer 6

There are a couple. Broadbent’s Filter Model and Waugh and Norman’s Information Processing

Question 7

Broadbent’s Filter Model

Answer 7

We filter out information we’re not interested in.
We have a “channel capacity”
And information flows in four steps:
Sensory memory, short term memory, filter, attention.

Information stays in the short term sensory buffer, and the roaming filter goes around and selects the info we want to attend to.

Question 8

Waugh and Norman’s Model

Answer 8

Not very different. Instead it has stimulus going to primary memory. Rehearsal will keep information in primary memory, but eventually it will go into long term memory or it will be forgotten.

Question 9

Brown-Peterson task

Answer 9

Evidence for Waugh and Norman’s Model.
They say if you disrupt rehearsal, information will be forgotten. So that’s what Brown-Peterson did! Remember a series of letters, and then count backwards by threes.

Question 10

Gibson

Answer 10

Ecological approach. There’s a wealth of stimuli, and we pick up the information important to us.

Question 11

Neissner

Answer 11

Schemas. And things. Uggh.