2. Information Theory Flashcards

1
Q

information theory

A
  • foundation of cognitive psychology
  • thoery acts as metaphor, as many assumptions are not always met
  • serve as channel
  • refer to diagram and explanations on page 6 of notebook
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2
Q

noise

A

anything not relevant to the task at hand

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3
Q

early evidence for information theory

A

refer to slide 11 of powerpoint for early evidence

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4
Q

what approach to psychology could be linked to information theory ?

A

behaviourist appearance (SR relationship)
- S=transmitter message
- R=recipient’s message channel, blackbox

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5
Q

historical origins: Hartley

A
  • in 1920s, telecommunication companies sought balance between rate of transmission and intelligibility
  • refer to slide 8 for example
  • Hartley defined amount of info in a message as:
    1. nb of available symbols (binary, alphabetical, etc)
    2. nb of symbols in a particular message (sentences can be short, long depending on the message
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6
Q

binary input vs alphabetical input: what is the difference?

A

binary input has less input compared to alphabetical input, therefore, the message is less likely to be lost

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7
Q

historical origins: Shannon (1940s)

A
  • focus on structure and organization, linking it with physical laws
  • terms developed from cryptography - info encoded, then decoded
  • applied to are of transmission, channel capacity, signal/noise discrimination (works at social level too)
  • considers probability and uncertainty
  • high probability events carry less info than low probability events (bird vs falcon spotting)
  • info characterized by decrease of uncertainty
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8
Q

misinformation vs disinformation

A

misinformation
- unintentional
disinformation
- intentional, trying to deceive
these work because they act as they are real information, they decrease uncertainty in the wrong way

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9
Q

issues with information theory

A
  • initial conception focused on structure, not content - excludes content
  • does not account for existing info
  • requires many conditions that must be satisfied
    1. estimates probability of events (impossible in real world)
    2. amount of info needs to be critical factor
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10
Q

Information theory fills the black box with information, similar to behaiourism… What happens between SR in the channel?

A

idk

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11
Q

applications of information theory

A

models of decision making
- probability and simple decision making
- accumulation of evidence (source of RTs and its variability)
- helps us understand what makes decision making difficult
information availability and RTs
- increase in RT will result from nb of response alternatives (Hick’s law)
- the more options we need to consider, the longer it will take

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12
Q

sequential sampling models

A
  • consider accumulation of evidence over time, after an find. obtains a critical amount of evidence (or time runs out!), they make a decision
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13
Q

sampling evidence from sequence: sequence

A
  • we assume neurons fire and go into refractory period
  • nervous system shoots out info in packets, in a sequence
  • consequently, we sample the environment
  • nature of process will determine info we can tolerate (RT)
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14
Q

simple (?) decision-making examples

A
  • refer to Tinder exmaple, slides 15-16-17
  • refer to drink example, slides 18-45
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15
Q

evidence accrual

A

recording of evidence

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16
Q

evidence accrual is determined by

A
  1. innate bias
    - LTM; experience and preference
    - endogenous attention (e.g. “It’s loud! it smells!”; activates our sense towards things we prefer)
    - in decision-making research, we find that people look for confirming evidence
    - source of info, source credibility
    - influences our perception
  2. limited nb of items can only be retained in memory for a limited time
    - working memory, decay
  3. evidence accumulated on previous trials
    - attention
  4. evidence accumulated on most recent trial
    - working memory; retention
17
Q

confirmation bias

A

if something is below our threshold of awareness, we go with confirmation bias

18
Q

channel capacity

A
  • limited nb of items can only be retained in memory for a limited amount of time
  • retaining all info would be burdensome for our cognitive and perceptual systems
  • 7+/- = chunkable
  • 4 is not chunkable
19
Q

accumulated evidence: most recent trial

A
  • last evidence may be most salient
  • e.g. car insurance - usually recent evidence = weighed more than older evidence
  • primacy affected by long term memory
  • recency affected by working memory (as long as it doesn’t exceed capacity)
20
Q

accumulated evidence: previous trial

A
  • more of something in a previous trial might displace memory for something else in current trial
  • often we don’t think of a reason to disconfirm erroneous-memory
21
Q

determinants of RT

A
  • the more evidence, the more events must be counted, the loner it takes
  • more alternatives we have = higher RT
  • smaller the difference between alternative, the longer the RT - sorting through basic categorization process
  • both interact to determine response time
  • difficulty with only thinking about the nb of internal events
  • doesn’t,t consider what happens after the evidence = accumulated (i.e. a response must be selected)
22
Q

Hick’s law

A
  • RT increases with nb of response of alternatives but reaches an asymptote
  • refer to slide 54 of powerpoint for graph
23
Q

why do assumptions matter

A
  • extent to which attention is allocated to a target stimulus will determine the amount of information encoded
  • when encoding an item in either short/long term memory, evidence must be accumulated for it
  • complex cognition (e.g. language, problem-solving, intelligence) are reliant on more fundamental processes