BCS 111 Final Exam Flashcards
(153 cards)
1
Q
Cognition
A
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses
2
Q
Parts of a neuron
A
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
3
Q
How neurons communicate
A
via electrical events called ‘action potentials’ and chemical neurotransmitters
4
Q
Independent variable
A
the part of the experiment that is being changed on purpose to test the results of that change
5
Q
Dependent variable
A
variable affected by the change, what is measured
6
Q
Parts of the visual system
A
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
7
Q
Parietal lobe
A
processes sensory information regarding the location of parts of the body as well as processing language
8
Q
Occipital lobe
A
visual processing center
9
Q
Frontal lobe
A
involved with motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, judgement, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior
10
Q
Temporal lobe
A
primary auditory perception
11
Q
Sensation
A
a physical feeling or perception resulting from something that happens to or comes into contact with the body
12
Q
Perception
A
the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses
13
Q
Rods
A
- less intense light
- no color vision
- low acuity
14
Q
Cones
A
- intense light
- color vision
- high acuity
15
Q
Bipolar cells
A
two sets of processes; can synapse with either rods or cones
16
Q
Ganglion cells
A
neuron located near the inner surface of the retina; receives visual information from photoreceptors
17
Q
Attention
A
selection process for an external or internal event which has to be maintained at a certain level of awareness
18
Q
Working memory
A
the part of short-term memory that is concerned with immediate conscious perceptual and linguistic processing
19
Q
Short-term memory
A
- limited capacity (roughly 7 items at a time)
- limited duration
- encoding
20
Q
Long-term memory
A
intended for storage of information over a long period of time; unlimited amount of information almost indefinitely
21
Q
Neglect syndrome
A
failure to attend to the side opposite of the brain lesion
22
Q
Automatic processes
A
used when a task is simple or similar and tends to be rapid
23
Q
Controlled processes
A
involves conscious, alert awareness and mental effort in which the individual actively focuses their attention on achieving a particular goal
24
Q
Feature binding
A
the integration of different stimulus properties as an object
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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
26
Feature search
scanning the environment for a particular feature or features
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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
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Selective attention
the capacity for or process of reacting to certain stimuli selectively when several occur simultaneously
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Combination search
a conjunctive search; you look for the combination that is the conjunction of two features.
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Late selection attention model
semantic features are what determine our current focus of attention
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Early selection attention model
emphasize physical features of stimuli are attended to
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Dichotic listening task
a psychological test commonly used to investigate selective attention within the auditory system
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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
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Bottom-up processing
processing sensory information as it is coming in
35
Geons
visual input is matched against structural representations of objects in the brain
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Features
a distinctive attribute or aspect of something
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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
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Recognition by components
a bottom-up process to explain object recognition; we are able to recognize objects by separating them into geons
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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
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Gestalt effect
ability of the brain to generate whole forms from groupings of lines, shapes, curves, and points
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Biederman (1975)
hard er to identify pictures that have geons or relations between geons removed than pictures that preserve geons and relations
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Feature nets model
a model of recognition based on detectors activating on three levels of perception: feature, letter, and word
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Response threshold
the likelihood of reacting to task-associated stimuli
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Change blindness
a perceptual phenomenon that occurs when a change in a visual stimulus is introduced and the observer does not notice it
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Capgras syndrome
syndrome where people have an irrational belief that someone they know or recognize has been replaced by an imposter
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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
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Implicit memory
type of long-term memory; it is acquired and used unconsciously, and can affect thoughts and behaviors; procedural memory
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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
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Consciousness
the awareness or perception of something by a person
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Schema
a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model
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Spreading activation
a method for searching associative networks, biological or artificial neural networks or semantic networks
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Proposition
the most basic unit of meaning in a representation; it is the smallest statement that can be judged either true or false
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Loftus & Palmer (1974)
tested whether the phrasing of the question influences speed estimates; the phrasing of the sentence affects the speed estimate
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Types of amnesia
retrograde - inability to retrieve information that was acquired before
anterograde - inability to form new memories
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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
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Misinformation effect
happens when a person's recall of episodic memories because less accurate because of post-event information
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Node
can represent concepts
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Concept
refer to the development of the ability to respond to common features of categories of objects or events
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Memory accuracy
often produces confidence, but confidence does not necessarily indicate accuracy
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Template
describes the most basic approach to human pattern recognition; assumes every perceived object is stored into long-term memory
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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
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Primacy effect
more likely to remember words at the beginning of a list
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Recency effect
often stronger; the most recently presented items will most likely be remembered best
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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
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Intentional learning
persistent, continual process to acquire, understand, and use a category of strategies to improve one's ability to attain and apply knowledge
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Smith (1979)
- field study to see how coaches affect motivation and and performance
- intrinsic motivation improved by extrinsic factors
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Collins & Quillian
proposed that semantic knowledge is underpinned by a set of nodes, each representing a specific feature or concept
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Categorization
the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood
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Item typicality effects
a phenomenon whereby typical items are more easily judged as members of a category than atypical items
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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
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Semantic memory
one of two types of declarative memory; refers to general world knowledge that we have accumulated throughout our lives
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Procedural memory
responsible for knowing how to do things, also known as motor skills; stores information on how to perform certain procedures
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Script
a series of behaviors, actions, and consequences that are expected in a particular situation or environment
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Hypnosis
a state of highly focused attention or concentration, often associated with relaxation, heightened suggestibility
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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
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Decay
memory fades due to the mere passage of time
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Prototypes
a mental structure that reflects what is perceived to be a typical example of a category
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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
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Fuzzy boundaries
the concept is vague in some way, lacking a fixed, precise meaning, without however being unclear or meangingless
80
Production task reaction times
used to measure the amount of time that is takes an individual to process information
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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
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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.
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Speech segmentation
the process of identifying the boundaries between words, syllables, or phonemes in spoken natural language
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Articulation
the formation of clear and distinct sounds in speech
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Categorical perception
phenomenon of perception of distinct categories when there is a gradual change in a variable along a continuum
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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
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Descriptive rules of language
where you look at what native speakers do and record that as correct
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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
89
Broca's aphasia
expressive aphasia; characterized by partial loss of the ability to produce language, although comprehension generally remains intact
90
Wernicke's aphasia
receptive aphasia; individuals have difficulty understanding written and spoken language
91
Overregularization
a part of language-learning process in which children extend regular grammatical patterns to irregular words
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Linguistic relativity
the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition
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Whorf
idea that differences between the structures of different languages shape how their speakers perceive and conceptualize the world
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O'Craven & Kanwisher (2000)
same regions involved in perception as inn mental imagery
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Farah (1985)
uses priming to observe imagery and its effects on perception - showing a link between the two
96
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
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Perceiving
become aware of conscious of something
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Kosslyn (1978)
island experiment; it took longer to scan between greater distances, visual imagery is spatial
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Depiction
to show or represent them in a piece of art
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Description
a spoken account of a person, object, or event
101
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
102
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
103
Segal & Fusella
if the same mental processes are used for imaging and perceiving, images should interfere with signal detection of the same modality
104
Spatial imagery
mentally representing spatial relations between the parts or locations of the objects or movements
105
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
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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
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Ambiguous imagery
optical illusion images which exploit graphical similarities and other properties of visual system interpretation between two or more distinct image forms
108
Dual coding
both visual and verbal information is used to represent information
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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
110
Representational heuristic
used when making judgements about the probability of an uncertain event; makes decision by comparing information to our mental prototypes
111
Availability heuristic
relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision
112
Functional fixedness
a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way tit is traditionally used.
113
Incubation
a process of unconscious recombination of thought elements that were stimulated through
114
Illumination
the obscure thing becomes clear; this sudden flash of solution is similar to a 'aha' experience
115
Preparation
the thinker formulates the problem and collects the facts and materials considered necessary for finding new solutions
116
Verification
it is necessary to verify whether the solution is correct or not
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Inducing structure
the individual needs to identify the link between the problem's parts like analogy problems and series of completion
118
Base rate
committed when a person judges that an outcome will occur without considering prior knowledge of the probability that it will occur
119
Gambler's fallacy
the belief that the chances of something happening with a fixed probability becomes higher or lower as the process is repeated
120
Algorithms
a problem solving approach where a set of step-by-step procedure provides the correct answer to a particular problem
121
Ill-defined
problems that do not have clear goals, solution paths, or expected solution
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Well-defined
problems that have specific goals, clearly defined solution paths, and clear expected solutions
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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)
124
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
125
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.
126
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
127
Hill climbing
simply choose the alternative that seems to lead most directly towards your goal state.
128
Confirmation bias
the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories
129
Belief perseverance
maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it
130
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
131
Satisficing
accept an available option as satisfactory
132
Stereotype
an over-generalization belief about a particular category
133
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
134
System 2
an effortful, slow, and controlled way of thinking
135
Deductive reasoning
the process of reasoning from one or more statements to reach a logically certain conclusion
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Inductive reasoning
the process of making generalized decisions after observing, or witnessing, repeated specific instances of something
137
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
138
Risk seeking
a person who has a preference for risk
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Risk averse
a person who prefers lower returns with known risks rather than higher returns with unknown risks
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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
141
Affective forecasting
the prediction of one's emotional state in the future
142
Problem space
the entire range of components that exist in the process of finding a solution to a problem
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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
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Analogies
linguistic comparison of two objects that emphasize the similarities between those two objects
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IQ
an intelligence quotient is a total score derived from several standardized tests designed to asses human intelligence
146
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
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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.
148
Positron emission tomography (PET)
a nuclear medicine functional imaging technique that is used to observe metabolic processes in the body as an aid
149
Functional MRI (fMRI)
measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow
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Electroencephalography (EEG)
the measurement of electrical activity in different parts of the brain and the recording of such activity as a visual trace
151
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
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Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
a functional neuroimaging technique for mapping brain activity by recording magnetic fields produced by electrical currents occurring naturally in the bran
153
Event-related potential (ERP)
the measured brain response that is the direct result of a specific sensory, cognitive, or motor event
