Chapter 1

Question 1

Cognition

Answer 1

Acquisition, storage, transformation and use of knowledge.

Question 2

metacognition

Answer 2

thinking about your own though processes

Question 3

Cognitive psychology

Answer 3

has 2 meanings 1) Sometimes it is a synonym for the word cognition. 2) Sometimes it refers to a particular theoretical approach to psychology. Specifically, the cognitive approach is a theoretical orientation that emphasizes people’s thought processes and their knowledge.

Question 4

Recency effect

Answer 4

refers to the observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli ( such as a list of words or numbers)

Question 5

Behaviorism

Answer 5

psychology must focus on objective, observable reactions to stimuli in the environment, rather than on subjective processes such as introspection

Question 6

Operational definition

Answer 6

a precise definition that specifies exactly how a concept is to be measured

Question 7

Gestalt psychology

Answer 7

emphasizes that we humans have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see, and furthermore, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Question 8

gestalt

Answer 8

overall quality that transcends the individual elements.

Question 9

Cognitive Revolution

Answer 9

The growing support for the cognitive approach is often referred to as the “ cognitive revolution”. This term refers to a strong shift away from behaviorist approaches to the study of human behavior. Instead, experimental psychologists began to focus on how organism-internal processes, such as memory, attention, and language, work together to give rise to the human ability to consciously perceive, interpret and act in the world around them.

Question 10

When was the birth of Cognitive psychology?

Answer 10

1956.

Question 11

ecological validity

Answer 11

Studies are high in ecological validity if the conditions in which the research is conducted are similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied.

Question 12

Cognitive Science

Answer 12

is an interdisciplinary field that tries to answer questions about the mind.

Question 13

Pure artificial intelligence

Answer 13

is an approach that designs a program to accomplish a cognitive task as efficiently as possible, even if the computer’s processes are completely different from the processes used by humans.

Question 14

computer modelling or computer simulation

Answer 14

attempts to take human limitations into account. The goal of computer simulation is to program a computer to perform a specific cognitive task in the same way that humans actually perform this task. A computer simulation must produce the same number of errors - as well as correct responses- that a human produces.

Question 15

Computer metaphor

Answer 15

our cognitive processes work like a computer. That is, computers and human minds are both examples of complex, multipurpose machinery.

Question 16

information-processing approach

Answer 16

argued that a) our mental processes are similar to the operations of a computer and b) information progresses through our cognitive system in a series of stages, one step at a time.

Question 17

Connectionist approach or parallel distributed processing ( PDP) approach or neural-network approach

Answer 17

argues that cognitive processes can be understood in terms of networks that link together neuron-like processing units; in addition, many operations can proceed simultaneously - rather than one step at a time. In other words, human cognition is often parallel, not strictly serial.

Question 18

cerebral cortex

Answer 18

is the outer layer of the brain that is essential for your cognitive processes

Question 19

serial processing

Answer 19

the system must complete one step or processing stage before information can proceed to the next step in the flowchart

Question 20

Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 20

combines the research techniques of cognitive psychology with various methods for assessing the structure and function of the brain

Question 21

social cognitive neuroscience

Answer 21

neuroscience techniques to explore the kind of cognitive processes that we use in our interactions with other people

Question 22

brain lesions

Answer 22

refers to the destruction of an area in the brain, most often by strokes, tumors, blows to the head and accidents.

Question 23

positron emission tomography ( PET ) scan

Answer 23

researchers measure blood flow in the brain by injecting the participants with a low dose of a radioactive chemical just before this person works on a cognitive task,

Question 24

Functional Magnetic resonance imagine (fMRI)

Answer 24

is based on the principle that oxygen-rich blood is an index of brain activity. The research participant reclines with his or her head surrounded by a large, doughnut-shaped magnet. This magnetic field produces changes in the oxygen atoms. A scanning device takes a “ photo” of these oxygen atoms while the participant performs a cognitive task.

Question 25

event-related potential (ERP) technique

Answer 25

records the very brief fluctuations in the brain’s electrical activity, in response to a stimulus such as an auditory tone or a visual word.

Question 26

magnetoencephalography ( MEG) technique

Answer 26

records magnetic field fluctuations produced by neural activity during processing of stimuli presented to articipants.

Question 27

Book themes

Answer 27

Cognitive processes are active, rather than passive
Cognitive processes are remarkably efficient and accurate
Cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information
Cognitive processes are interrelated with one another; they do not operate in isolation
Many cognitive processes rely on bottom up and top down processing

Question 28

Bottom-up processing

Answer 28

emphasizes the importance of information from the stimuli registered on your sensory receptors. Bottom-up processing uses only a low-level sensory analysis of the stimulus.

Question 29

Top-down processing

Answer 29

emphasizes how our concepts, expectations, and memory influence our cognitive processes. Top-down processing requires higher-level cognition.

Question 30

What works together to shape the way we access and process information in our physical environments?

Answer 30

knowledge and context

Question 31

Major depression

Answer 31

is a psychological disorder in which feelings of sadness, discouragement, and hopelessness interfere with the ability to perform daily mental and physical functions.