Chapter 1: Intro to Cognition Flashcards
cognition
The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses
what is cognition primarily concerned with
understanding the processes that produce complex behaviours even though separate abilities are studied
how is cognitive function regulated
brain activity
how many nerve cells are there
100 billion
basic research
Goal is to try to understand the world and its phenomena without regard to a specific end-use of this knowledge
applied research
Research with the end-goal of developing a solution to a problem
human factors is an example of
applied reserach
human factors
a field of psychology concerned with applying scientific findings to the design of systems humans interact with
why do we have zoom fatigue
- A lack of information from body language, social cues, and eye contact
- The audio signal is out of sync on Zoom, so there are higher demands on processing (Powers et al., 2011)
- The lack of immersion makes it easy to be distracted
hypothesis
A certain guess about the link between variables under study
phenomenon-based research
an “effect” is discovered, and follow-up research examines the nature of the effect
independent variable
what you change
dependent variable
outcome
control/nuisance variables
factors that influence the IV/DV relationship
cognitive psychology
the study of behaviour to understand the mind
neuroscience
the study of the brain and linking it to the mind
computational modelling
building and modelling the mind-brain connections
emotional enhancement effect
Emotional stimuli are more easily attended to, remembered than neutral stimuli
focal memory and emotions
Behavioural experiments show focal memory enhancements for negative stimuli in an image (Loftus et al., 1987)
amygdala activity and memories
Amygdala activity predicts memory for emotional but not neutral images (Dolcos et al., 2004)
computational modelling of emotion
Researches make models to try to build robots that can simulate emotion
If the computations lead to the same effects we see in humans, we have a good understanding of how emotion affects the brain and behaviour
challenges associated with AI
differences in expression across cultures and people
what is the most complex computing device
the human brain
artificial intelligence
a branch of computer science that is concerned with building machines that can perform some of the tasks that humans can do
can computers outperform humans?
Computers can outperform humans when it comes to predictable situations (ex. carrying out many calculations in a second), but cannot when it comes to more unpredictable and constantly changing situations (ex. Social interactions), though recent advancements are changing this
machine learning
programming machines to learn and change their behaviour to get better at a task
naturalistic observation
when researchers observe the behaviour of people or other organisms in their natural habitat without any experimental intervention
