2. Information Theory Flashcards
information theory
- 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
noise
anything not relevant to the task at hand
early evidence for information theory
refer to slide 11 of powerpoint for early evidence
what approach to psychology could be linked to information theory ?
behaviourist appearance (SR relationship)
- S=transmitter message
- R=recipient’s message channel, blackbox
historical origins: Hartley
- 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
binary input vs alphabetical input: what is the difference?
binary input has less input compared to alphabetical input, therefore, the message is less likely to be lost
historical origins: Shannon (1940s)
- 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
misinformation vs disinformation
misinformation
- unintentional
disinformation
- intentional, trying to deceive
these work because they act as they are real information, they decrease uncertainty in the wrong way
issues with information theory
- 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
Information theory fills the black box with information, similar to behaiourism… What happens between SR in the channel?
idk
applications of information theory
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
sequential sampling models
- consider accumulation of evidence over time, after an find. obtains a critical amount of evidence (or time runs out!), they make a decision
sampling evidence from sequence: sequence
- 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)
simple (?) decision-making examples
- refer to Tinder exmaple, slides 15-16-17
- refer to drink example, slides 18-45
evidence accrual
recording of evidence