Chapter 1 Flashcards
Metacognition
Thinking about your thought processes
Cognitive approach
Theoretical orientation that emphasizes people’s thought processes and their knowledge
Aristotle
First cognitive psychologist
Examined perception, memory, and mental imagery
also how humans acquire knowledge through experience and observation
Wilhelm Wundt
Introspection
Introspection
Carefully trained observers would systematically analyze their own sensations and report them as objectively as possible, under standardized conditions
Proposed by Wundt
Hermann Ebbinghaus
First person to scientifically study human memory
Mary Whiton Calkins
Recency effect
Recency effect
The observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli
William James
Theorized about our everyday psychological experiences
Behaviourism
Psychology must focus on objective, observable reactions to stimuli in the environment, rather than introspection
Argued that researchers could not objectively study mental representation
Gestalt psychology
Emphasizes that we humans have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Gestalt
An overall quality that transcends the individual elements
Frederic Bartlett
Used meaningful material and discovered that people made systematic errors when trying to recall the stories
Memory is an active, constructive process
Noam Chomsky
Humans have an inborn ability to master all the complicated and varied aspects of language
Jean Piaget
Children actively explore their world in order to understand important concepts
They change as they mature
Atkinson-Shiffrin model
An information processing speed model
Proposed that memory involves a sequence of separate steps, and in each step info is transferred from one storage area to another
3 types of memory proposed by the Atkinson-Shiffrin model
Sensory memory: records info from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy (2 secs or less)
Short term (or working) memory: only the small amount of info that you are actively using (30s)
Long term memory: minutes to decades old info – relatively permanent
Ecological validity is high if…
The conditions in which the research is conducted are similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied
Cognitive neuroscience
Combines the research techniques of cognitive psychology with various methods for assessing the structure and function of the brain
PET scan (what is it, how does it work, what does it give)
Positron Emission Tomography
Blow flow increases in the activated part of the brain to bring oxygen
Measured by injecting participant with a low dose of radioactive chemical
Picture of the brain’s function, not structure
fMRI
Based on principle that oxygen-rich blood is an index of brain activity
Magnetic field produces changes in the oxygen atoms and device takes pics of the oxygen atoms
Event-related potential technique
Records the brief fluctuations in the brain’s electrical activity in response to stimulus
Electrodes on scalp record the electrical activity generated by a group of neurons located directly under the skull
Computer simulation vs artificial intelligence
CS: takes human limitations into account
AI: designed to accomplish a cognitive task as efficiently as possible
Mental chronometry
Measuring the speed at which information is processed
Basically looking at reaction times
2 assumptions made when studying patients with brain lesions
- Modularity (that each part of the brain is responsible for a particular cognitive function)
- Generalizability (that it’s okay to generalize from a brain damaged individual to a person with normal cognition)
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Sends a pulse of electromagnetic activity, which induces a current in the brain (massive, synchronized depolarization of cells)
Then there is a period of hyperpolarization, and that brain area is knocked out (like a temporary brain lesion)
Advantages (1) vs Disadvantages (3) of PET Scans
A: relatively high spatial resolution
D: injected with radioactive material, poor temporal resolution, interpretation (doesn’t take into account excitatory vs inhibitory neurons)
Advantages (3) vs Disadvantages (4) of MRIs
A: Has high spatial resolution, non-intrusive, can be used with humans or animals
D: expensive, poor temporal resolution, also can’t tell between excitation and inhibition, contraindicated in people with metal implants
Advantages (4) vs Disadvantages (4) of ERPs
A: high temporal resolution (good because a lot of cognition happens really quickly), non-intrusive, can be used with infants (not so good with animals), relatively inexpensive
D: not structural, poor spatial resolution, can only detect activity that is projected to the scalp, depends on multi-trial filtering (need a lot of responses to be able to interpret the data)
Magneto-encephalography (MEG) (including advantages (4) and disadvantages (1)
Measures the magnetic field generated by neural activity
Purely functional
A: both spatial and temporal resolution, provides a direct measure of brain function, non-invasive, does not apply magnetic field
D: magnetic fields are weak and difficult to detect
Single-Cell recording
including advantages (3) and disadvantages (1
Recording the activity of a single neuron
Puts a transducer beside a neuron and measures the electrical activity by the neuron which is then translated into a sound
A: highest spatial resolution, exact localization, on-line measurement of behavior (immediate)
D: highly invasive
Connectionist approach
Argues that cognitive processes can be understood in terms of networks that link neuron like units
Many operations can proceed simultaneously
Human cognition is often parallel, not linear
Also called the parallel distributed processing approach and the neural-network approach
Social cognitive neuroscience
Uses neuroscience techniques to study the cognitive processes that we use in our interactions with other people
What approach developed the idea of insight?
The Gestalt approach
