BCS 111 Final Exam Flashcards
Cognition
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses
Parts of a neuron
Soma - contains the cell nucleus
Axon - conducts electrical impulses away from the cell body
Axon terminal - nerve impulse release
Dendrites - receive action potentials
Myelin sheath - help electrical impulse travel faster/more efficient
Nodes of Ranvier - facilitate rapid conduction
How neurons communicate
via electrical events called ‘action potentials’ and chemical neurotransmitters
Independent variable
the part of the experiment that is being changed on purpose to test the results of that change
Dependent variable
variable affected by the change, what is measured
Parts of the visual system
Retina - containing cells that are sensitive to light and trigger nerve impulses
Optic nerve - transmits impulses to the brain from the retina
Optic chiasma - point where the two optic nerves cross over each other
Optic tract - relays information
Visual cortex - receives and processes sensory nerve impulses
Parietal lobe
processes sensory information regarding the location of parts of the body as well as processing language
Occipital lobe
visual processing center
Frontal lobe
involved with motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, judgement, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior
Temporal lobe
primary auditory perception
Sensation
a physical feeling or perception resulting from something that happens to or comes into contact with the body
Perception
the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses
Rods
- less intense light
- no color vision
- low acuity
Cones
- intense light
- color vision
- high acuity
Bipolar cells
two sets of processes; can synapse with either rods or cones
Ganglion cells
neuron located near the inner surface of the retina; receives visual information from photoreceptors
Attention
selection process for an external or internal event which has to be maintained at a certain level of awareness
Working memory
the part of short-term memory that is concerned with immediate conscious perceptual and linguistic processing
Short-term memory
- limited capacity (roughly 7 items at a time)
- limited duration
- encoding
Long-term memory
intended for storage of information over a long period of time; unlimited amount of information almost indefinitely
Neglect syndrome
failure to attend to the side opposite of the brain lesion
Automatic processes
used when a task is simple or similar and tends to be rapid
Controlled processes
involves conscious, alert awareness and mental effort in which the individual actively focuses their attention on achieving a particular goal
Feature binding
the integration of different stimulus properties as an object
Cocktail party effect
phenomenon of the brain’s ability to focus one’s auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of stimuli
Feature search
scanning the environment for a particular feature or features
Feature-integration theory
when perceiving a stimulus, features are “registered early, automatically, and in parallel, while objects are identified separately” and at a later stage in processing
Selective attention
the capacity for or process of reacting to certain stimuli selectively when several occur simultaneously
Combination search
a conjunctive search; you look for the combination that is the conjunction of two features.
Late selection attention model
semantic features are what determine our current focus of attention
Early selection attention model
emphasize physical features of stimuli are attended to
Dichotic listening task
a psychological test commonly used to investigate selective attention within the auditory system
Top-down processing
how our brains make use of information that has already been brought into the brain by one or more of the sensory systems; process that initiates with our thoughts, which flow down to lower-level functions such as the senses
Bottom-up processing
processing sensory information as it is coming in
Geons
visual input is matched against structural representations of objects in the brain
Features
a distinctive attribute or aspect of something
Tachistoscope
a device that displays an image for a specific amount of time. It can be used to increase recognition speed, to show something too fast to be consciously recognized, or to test which elements of an image are memorable
Recognition by components
a bottom-up process to explain object recognition; we are able to recognize objects by separating them into geons
Word superiority effect
phenomenon that people have better recognition of letters presented within words as compared to isolated letters and to letter presented within nonword strings
Gestalt effect
ability of the brain to generate whole forms from groupings of lines, shapes, curves, and points
Biederman (1975)
hard er to identify pictures that have geons or relations between geons removed than pictures that preserve geons and relations
Feature nets model
a model of recognition based on detectors activating on three levels of perception: feature, letter, and word
Response threshold
the likelihood of reacting to task-associated stimuli
Change blindness
a perceptual phenomenon that occurs when a change in a visual stimulus is introduced and the observer does not notice it
Capgras syndrome
syndrome where people have an irrational belief that someone they know or recognize has been replaced by an imposter
Subjective experience
refers to the emotional and cognitive impact of a human experience as opposed to an object experience which are the actual events of the experience
Implicit memory
type of long-term memory; it is acquired and used unconsciously, and can affect thoughts and behaviors; procedural memory
Activation level
high activation or arousal is what we think of as being fired up and is characterized by a higher than normal heart rate and a feeling of readiness to act
Consciousness
the awareness or perception of something by a person
Schema
a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model
Spreading activation
a method for searching associative networks, biological or artificial neural networks or semantic networks
Proposition
the most basic unit of meaning in a representation; it is the smallest statement that can be judged either true or false
Loftus & Palmer (1974)
tested whether the phrasing of the question influences speed estimates; the phrasing of the sentence affects the speed estimate
Types of amnesia
retrograde - inability to retrieve information that was acquired before
anterograde - inability to form new memories
Neisser & Harsch (1992)
suggesting that FBM is not reliable as it can be affected by post-event information; claim that such findings suggest that FBMs may just be ordinary memories
Misinformation effect
happens when a person’s recall of episodic memories because less accurate because of post-event information
Node
can represent concepts
Concept
refer to the development of the ability to respond to common features of categories of objects or events
Memory accuracy
often produces confidence, but confidence does not necessarily indicate accuracy
Template
describes the most basic approach to human pattern recognition; assumes every perceived object is stored into long-term memory
Modal model
a short-term store, also called working memory or STM, which receives and holds input from both the sensory register and the LTM store
Primacy effect
more likely to remember words at the beginning of a list
Recency effect
often stronger; the most recently presented items will most likely be remembered best
Levels of processing
Shallow - leads to fragile memory trace that is susceptible to rapid decay
Deep - requires the use of semantic processing which creates a much stronger memory trace
Intentional learning
persistent, continual process to acquire, understand, and use a category of strategies to improve one’s ability to attain and apply knowledge
Smith (1979)
- field study to see how coaches affect motivation and and performance
- intrinsic motivation improved by extrinsic factors
Collins & Quillian
proposed that semantic knowledge is underpinned by a set of nodes, each representing a specific feature or concept
Categorization
the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood
Item typicality effects
a phenomenon whereby typical items are more easily judged as members of a category than atypical items
Encoding specificity
human memories are more easily retrieved if external conditions at the time of retrieval are similar to those in existence at the time the memory was stored
Semantic memory
one of two types of declarative memory; refers to general world knowledge that we have accumulated throughout our lives
Procedural memory
responsible for knowing how to do things, also known as motor skills; stores information on how to perform certain procedures
Script
a series of behaviors, actions, and consequences that are expected in a particular situation or environment
Hypnosis
a state of highly focused attention or concentration, often associated with relaxation, heightened suggestibility
Intrusion
refer to when information that is related to the theme of a certain memory, but was not actually a part of the original episode. becomes associated with the event
Decay
memory fades due to the mere passage of time
Prototypes
a mental structure that reflects what is perceived to be a typical example of a category
Exemplars
concerning the way humans categorize objects and ideas in psychology; argues that individuals make category judgements by comparing new stimuli with instances already stored in memory
Fuzzy boundaries
the concept is vague in some way, lacking a fixed, precise meaning, without however being unclear or meangingless
Production task reaction times
used to measure the amount of time that is takes an individual to process information
Place of articulation
the point of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an active articulator, and a passive location
Manner of production
we distinguish sounds first according to how the airflow is restricted; there is a load to move through the nose for some speech sounds but not others.
Speech segmentation
the process of identifying the boundaries between words, syllables, or phonemes in spoken natural language
Articulation
the formation of clear and distinct sounds in speech
Categorical perception
phenomenon of perception of distinct categories when there is a gradual change in a variable along a continuum
Prescriptive rules of language
set of norms or rules governing how a language should or should not be used rather than describing the ways in which a language is actually used
Descriptive rules of language
where you look at what native speakers do and record that as correct
Garden-path
a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that reader’s most likely interpretation will be incorrect; the reader is lured into a parse that turns out to be a dead end or yields a clearly unintended meaning
Broca’s aphasia
expressive aphasia; characterized by partial loss of the ability to produce language, although comprehension generally remains intact
Wernicke’s aphasia
receptive aphasia; individuals have difficulty understanding written and spoken language
Overregularization
a part of language-learning process in which children extend regular grammatical patterns to irregular words
Linguistic relativity
the structure of a language affects its speakers’ world view or cognition
Whorf
idea that differences between the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world
O’Craven & Kanwisher (2000)
same regions involved in perception as inn mental imagery
Farah (1985)
uses priming to observe imagery and its effects on perception - showing a link between the two
Priming
the implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to a later stimulus. It is a technique used to train a person’s memory both in positive and negative ways
Perceiving
become aware of conscious of something
Kosslyn (1978)
island experiment; it took longer to scan between greater distances, visual imagery is spatial
Depiction
to show or represent them in a piece of art
Description
a spoken account of a person, object, or event
Mental rotation
ability to rotate mental representations of two-dimensional and 3-dimensional objects as it is related to the visual representation of such rotation within the mind
Brain regions used in visualization
occipital lobe - located at the back of the head, occupies 20% of the brain’s overall capacity and is responsible for vision
Segal & Fusella
if the same mental processes are used for imaging and perceiving, images should interfere with signal detection of the same modality
Spatial imagery
mentally representing spatial relations between the parts or locations of the objects or movements
Visual imagery
a memory technique that involves constructing mental images when learning new information in order to be able to better recall the information later
Eidetic memory
an ability to recall images from memory vividly after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a brief time after exposure
Ambiguous imagery
optical illusion images which exploit graphical similarities and other properties of visual system interpretation between two or more distinct image forms
Dual coding
both visual and verbal information is used to represent information
Mental set
a framework for thinking about a problem. It can be shaped by habit or by desire; can make it easy to solve a class of problems
Representational heuristic
used when making judgements about the probability of an uncertain event; makes decision by comparing information to our mental prototypes
Availability heuristic
relies on immediate examples that come to a given person’s mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision
Functional fixedness
a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way tit is traditionally used.
Incubation
a process of unconscious recombination of thought elements that were stimulated through
Illumination
the obscure thing becomes clear; this sudden flash of solution is similar to a ‘aha’ experience
Preparation
the thinker formulates the problem and collects the facts and materials considered necessary for finding new solutions
Verification
it is necessary to verify whether the solution is correct or not
Inducing structure
the individual needs to identify the link between the problem’s parts like analogy problems and series of completion
Base rate
committed when a person judges that an outcome will occur without considering prior knowledge of the probability that it will occur
Gambler’s fallacy
the belief that the chances of something happening with a fixed probability becomes higher or lower as the process is repeated
Algorithms
a problem solving approach where a set of step-by-step procedure provides the correct answer to a particular problem
Ill-defined
problems that do not have clear goals, solution paths, or expected solution
Well-defined
problems that have specific goals, clearly defined solution paths, and clear expected solutions
Framing
a cognitive bias where people decide on options based on it the options are presented with positive or negative semantics (a loss or a gain)
Subgoals
giving a name to a group of steps, in a step-by-step description of a process, to explain how the group of steps achieve a related goal
Means-end
problem solving heuristic; the problem solver begins by envisioning the end, or ultimate goal, and then determines the best strategy for attaining the goal in his current situation.
Flynn effect
the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world
Hill climbing
simply choose the alternative that seems to lead most directly towards your goal state.
Confirmation bias
the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories
Belief perseverance
maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it
Problem-solving set
a person’s predisposition to solve a given problem in a specific manner even though better or more appropriate methods of solving the problem exist
Satisficing
accept an available option as satisfactory
Stereotype
an over-generalization belief about a particular category
System 1
an automatic, fast, and often unconscious way of thinking; it is autonomous and efficient, requiring little energy or attention, but is prone to biases and systematic errors
System 2
an effortful, slow, and controlled way of thinking
Deductive reasoning
the process of reasoning from one or more statements to reach a logically certain conclusion
Inductive reasoning
the process of making generalized decisions after observing, or witnessing, repeated specific instances of something
Tversky & Kahneman (1987)
- to investigate the influence of the way a problem is framed to the decision
- there was no actual difference between the two groups’ options other than the way they were framed. this indicates that framing of a question impacted the decision
Risk seeking
a person who has a preference for risk
Risk averse
a person who prefers lower returns with known risks rather than higher returns with unknown risks
Emotion and decision making
one way of thinking holds that the mental process of decision-making is rational; a formal process based on optimizing utility
Affective forecasting
the prediction of one’s emotional state in the future
Problem space
the entire range of components that exist in the process of finding a solution to a problem
Operators
people solve problems by searching in a problem space; the problem space consists of the initial state, the goal state, and all possible states in between. the actions that people take in order to move from one state to another
Analogies
linguistic comparison of two objects that emphasize the similarities between those two objects
IQ
an intelligence quotient is a total score derived from several standardized tests designed to asses human intelligence
Computerized axial tomography (CT)
a form of tomography in which a computer controls the motion of the X-ray source and detectors, processes the data, and produces the image
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
a form of medical imaging that measures the response of the atomic nuclei of body tissues to high-frequency radio waves when placed in a strong magnetic field, and that produces images of the internal organs.
Positron emission tomography (PET)
a nuclear medicine functional imaging technique that is used to observe metabolic processes in the body as an aid
Functional MRI (fMRI)
measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow
Electroencephalography (EEG)
the measurement of electrical activity in different parts of the brain and the recording of such activity as a visual trace
Transcranial magnetic resolution (TMS)
a noninvasive form of brain stimulation in which a changing magnetic field is used to cause electrical current at a specific area of the brain through electromagnetic induction
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
a functional neuroimaging technique for mapping brain activity by recording magnetic fields produced by electrical currents occurring naturally in the bran
Event-related potential (ERP)
the measured brain response that is the direct result of a specific sensory, cognitive, or motor event
