Cognition Flashcards
Behaviourism
- The stimulus and response and environmental contingencies shape the person
Skinner
- People do things because of reward and punishment
Rats Maze Experiment
- If don’t give food (reward), rat will not learn the maze
- If given food (reward), rats will be inclined to learn the maze
Limitations of Cognitive Overload
- Making machines that match our capabilities
- E.G. Designing xbox controllers for human hands
Mental Chronometry
Measuring how long thoughts take
Measured with:
- Simple Reaction Time: press button to any light
- Choice Reaction Time: press one button to red light and another button to green light
- Choice RT - Simple RT = Estimate of stimulus evaluation time
- Measured how long mental chronometry is BUT DOESN’T WORK
Memory Scanning Task
Docs
Prospect Theory
Docs
Selective Attention Test
- Focused Attention - Concentrated on specific task
- E.G. Listening to lecturer
- Diffused Attention - Occurs subconsciously
- E.G. Shower thoughts
Why is Attention Limited?
- Hardware limitations - We have evolved for survival instincts. We are NOT evolved to use complex technology
- Limited Attention Resources - We don’t have cognitive capacity
Selection for Action Theory
- We can only pay attention to some things because we can’t do anything with the information if we do process it all
- We select information we can act on
Locus of Selection
- How thoroughly you think of something before you make a decision
- Something is selected for processing and other things is discarded
Types of Locus Selection
- Early LOS - rejecting on dating app just by appearance
- E.G. Making decision and removing stimulus based on physical characteristics
- Late LOS - Meet all 10 dates in person and then rejecting
- E.G. Making decision based on deeper meaning
Dichotic Listening Task
- People were aware of whether it was a voice at all but weren’t aware of the language of the voice
- Docs
Cocktail Party Phenomenon
- Attention shifted from conversation to another conversation when you hear your name
- Not evidence but confirmation Bias
Flexible Locus of Selection
- When we are completely focused on a task then we have an early locus selection for anything else going on because we don’t have spare resources
Feature Integration Theory
- We process features independently in a preattentive manner (parallel process) and the role of attention was to bind these features together into objects (serial process)
Control of Attention
- Endogenous - Target said wearing red dress, looking for red target
- Exogenous - You are looking for a red target but a loud noise grabs your attention
Iconic Sensory Memory
- Visual information
- Requires no effort
- Unlimited capacity but very short duration (50-200ms)
Echoic Memory
- Auditory information
- Requires no effort
- Accurate and lasts 8 seconds
Short Term Memory
- Limited 7+-2 items
- Forgets within 20 seconds if not rehearsed
- Phonological
Long Term Memory
- Unlimited capacity
- Forgets due to interference rather than decay
- Semantic
Miller’s Law
- People can hold 7+-2 items in their memory
Primacy Effect
- Remember first items better then middle items in long term memory
- E.G. Remembering a phone number
Recency Effect
- Remembering the last items better then middle items in short-term memory
- E.G. Last person interviewing for a job
Short-Term Memory Coding Difference
- We store things they way they sound
Long-Term Memory Coding Differences
- We store things based on what they mean
Neuropsychological Evidence
- HM had hoppocampus extracted and couldn’t transfer STM to LTM
- Person who does not have long term memory only live in 20 second periods and their reality is within 20 seconds
Phonological Loop
- Counting demonstration
- Speed of speech
- Effect of language efficiency/digit span
Episodic Memories
- Memories of life events that happened to you
Semantic Memories
- Memories of generall knowledge
Knowing but not remembering how you aquired it - E.G. Countries in Africa
Hierarchal Network of Models
Docs
Sentence Verification Task
- Here is a sentence. Is it true?
- The time to verify setence depends on distance between concepts
- A dog is a mammal takes longer to verify than a dog is an animal
- E.G. Robin is a bird. Is it true
Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)
- Emulate the organisation structure of neurons
- E.G. When a person is driving a car, they are interpreting visual data while listening to music or talking to a friend e.t.c.
How does scheme make us efficient
- We are not processing from bottom up
- However, perceptions can be distorted
- Information can be omitted or more memorable if it does not fit in schema
Arabs as Terrorists Study
- Playing games with Arab terrorist increase negative conscious and unconsciouos attitudes against Arabs
- Nonviolent games show less of this
Script
- The order to do them
- E.G. Birthday script: Activity → birthday cake → sing happy birthday → lolly bag
Procedural Memory
- Non-verbalised
- Memory for how to do things
- Learnt through gradual experience and doing
- Can visualise but can’t access procedural memory
- E.G. Tie a shoe, cook an omelette
Implicit Memory Tasks
- Unconscious and effortless
- Memory is needed but subject isn’t even trying to retrieve from memory
- E.G. Fill in the gaps
Explicit Memory Tasks
- Recall previously learned information that requires conscious effort to receive
- E.G. Write down what happened in yesterday’s lecture
Dissociations between Implicit and Explicit Memory
- Deep level of processing - Do you find trucks in a city?
- Shallow level of processing - How many letters are there in insect
- Whether it is spoken has no effect on explicitly memory but is greatly affected on implicit memory
Declarative vs Procedural Study
- Kim Peek’s concept encoding - doesn’t understand metaphors (get a grip of yourself)
- Memory is perfect - doesn’t receive DRM effect
Misinformation Paradigm
- Tendency for the information you learned after an event to interfere with original memory of what happened
- Hypnosis does not improve memory but improves CONFIDENCE in memory
Lost in Shopping Mall Experiment
- “Lost for an extended time in a shopping mall at age 6 and rescued by an elderly person”
- 25% reported being lost in a mall and gave rich and vivid details
Flashbulb Memories
- Memories of personal circumstances when emotionally significant events happened
- Memories of who you were, where you were, who you were with
- NOT memories of event itself
Pearl Harbour Experience
- We are more confident about flashbulb memories, but they decay just like other memories
- Childhood memorybelieved he was watching baseball but it was completely false since it wasn’t even baseball season
Reminiscence Bump
- Tendency for older adults to have increased recollection for events that occurred during adolescence
- Encoding is more efficient in adolescence, making memories more memorable
Memory and Ageing
- Neurons lose their myelin across our lifespan
- BUT there is no evidence that memory drops off as age increase
We try less hard to remember so we assume that age affects memory
Recognition
- There are retrieval cue
Recall
- Requires effort to remember what was shown
- No retrieval cues
- E.G. Here is a blank sheet of paper. Write down everything you remember
Aging and Attitudes on Memory Experiment
- Half given “trivia” test, and other half given “memory” test
- Only thing changed is name of test
- Old adults performed worse on memory test compared to young adults
- Both groups performed the same on trivia test
Context
- Extra information that helps retrieve memory
- E.G. Mood, time, place, smells
Godden and Baddeley
- Memory is best when people are being tested in the same place they learnt
- Recognition test give you the retrieval cue so they are easier
Retro Interference
- Forget previously learnt task due to learning of new task
- E.G. Can’t remember old phone number after new phone number
- To avoid, study and then go to sleep for new material to be well encoded
Proactive Interference
- Cannot learn new task because of old task that has been learnt
- E.G. Can’t learn French because you know Spanish
- To avoid, study first thing in the morning
Cognitive Offloading
- If you know something is being saved, you brain shuts off knowing you can watch it later
- Hence, no attention is paid and memory is worsened
Cognitive Offloading Experiment
- Given a diagram and then given a large text reduced cognitive load compared to student given large text straight away
- Memory is doubled
Method of Loci
- Improves memory
- Associating abstract things with places
- Find something that has the same number of things
- E.G. Number of train stations your train goes past
Low Utility Study Methods
- Summarisation
- Highlighting and Underlining
- Rereading
High Utility Study Methods
- Practice Testing
- Forward Testing Effect
- Distributed Practice