COGNITION FINAL EXAM Flashcards
cognition final exam study guide -psyc310
Describe the influence and accomplishments of Donders.
ch.1
Donders was one of the founders of cognitive psychology.
In 1868 he conducted a study focused on the reaction times of simple and choice tasks in order to measure how long it took to make a decision
- simple RT task: participant would indicate whether they saw a light or not appear on the screen
- choice RT task: participant would indicate whether they saw a light or not appear on the right or left side of the screen. (choice RT was 1/10th longer than simple RT)
- Concluded that [choice RT- simple RT] = time to make a decision
mental responsese CANNOT be measured directly, but can be INFERRED from participants behavior
Describe the influence and accomplishments of Helmholtz
ch.1
Helmholtz (~1860s) is also another founder of cogntive psychology.
Spoke about unconscious inference:
which claims that some of our perceptions are the result of assumptions we make about our enviornment
- a lot of what we think we know about the world is inferred
Describe the influence and accomplishments of Ebbinghaus
ch.1
Ebbinghaus (1885) is another founder of cognitive psych.
He discovered that by using short intervals which required fewer repetitions to relearn, he could learn a list of nonsense syllables
- savings = = [(initial repetitions) – (relearning repetitions)]/ (initial repetitions)
Describe the influence and accomplishments of Wundt
ch.1
Wundt (1879) is another one of the founder of cognitive psych.
He created the first psych lab in Germany, where he conducted many RT experiments.
Created structuralism: experience is determined by sensations.
What was the paradigm shift from behaviorism to cognition in the 1950s. List major events
ch.1
In the 1950’s the cognitive revolution began in 1954.
Switching from behaviorism to cognition.
- done by measuring observable behavior and making inferences about underlying cognitive activity
Major events:
- 1954: birthday of cognitive revolution because the first commerically available digital computer
- 1957: Skinner published Verbal Behavior
- 1959: Chomsky published a review of Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior”
- 1961: Breland published “The Misbehavior of organisms”
- *add iin all important info about the papers published
Describe the behavioral approach to studying the mind.
ch.1
Behavioral approach to studying the mind was taking note of observable behavior and a participants response or actions to stimuli
Shepard and Metzler (1971) conducted a spatial experiment, by having participants rotate objects in their mind. Discovered that the greater the angle of seperation, the longer it took to mentally rotate object (longer RT)
Subtraction technique: it measured the amount of time it takes for someone to mentally process something while completing a task.
Describe Shepard & Metzler’s “Mental Rotation” experiement.
ch.1
Created by Shepard and Metzler (1971): conducted a study where participants rotated an image of an object in their mind to compare whether it was similar or different from another object.
- Discovered that participants took longer to compare two objects separated by a larger angle than a smaller angle.
Describe Davachi’s study of remembered vs. forgotten words
ch.1
Davachi’s study explored the physiological approach to studying the mind.
He measured brain activation while participants were asked to create 20 images of 200 words inside FMRI
Discovered that when the participants were asked to remember the words, FMRI showed that their peririhinal cortex was activated.
- peririhinal cortex is heavily involved in memory.
List the major functions of the four lobes.
ch.2
Frontal lobe: involved with executive control of behavior
- ○ Planning, inhibition, motor control, cognition, memory, language, personality, emotion
*frontal and parietal lobe are separated by the central sulcus
Temporal lobe: memory, hearing, language, higher visual function
Parietal lobe: spatial representation.
Vision, touch, control of attention
Occipital lobe: vision
be able to label a figure showing the lateral surface of the brain.
ch.2
label: all four lobes, central sulcus, lateral fissure
What is the basic structure of the neuron. What are the three basic types?
ch.2
Neuron are made up of dendrites, axons and cell bodies.
- Dendrites receive information
○ The more the are the more info
Cell body integrates information, and potentially releases an action potential through the axon
- 3 types: ○ Sensory (afferent) neuron: carries info to CNS ○ Interneuron: receive from a neuron and send info to a neuron (most common) Motor (efferent) neuron: sends info from CNS to muscles
What the processes of sensory transduction?
Ch.2
Sensory transduction: receptors trasnforming energy from enviornment into electrical energy.
Process:
1) sensory receptor detects stimulus from enviornment
2) information from stimlus travels through nerve fiber to synapse of a neuron in CNS
3) then an action potential is potentially released if threshold is reached.
what is an action potential?
An action potential: a brief reversal of electrical charge that travels rapidly down the axon (electrical signal) when there’s rapid changes in membrane potential.
- Requires excitatory information (graded potentials), inhibitory information doesn’t allow AP to fire
- ALL OR NOTHING
- Resting membrane potential: -70mV
- Threshold: -50 mV
- Depolarizes: +30mV
- Hyperpolarizes: -90mV
Repolarizes: -70mV
Describe the synapse and its involvement in neurotransmission. What are the steps of neurotransmission?
| ch.2
the synpase is the gap of space between dendrites of pre and post synaptic neurons.
the synapse allows for information to travel through in the form of neurotransmitters.
Information is only passed across the synpase if membrane potential reaches threshold (-50v)
- 4 steps ○ Synthesis: creation of neurotransmitters ○ Storage: vesicles contain NTs and reach the axon terminal ○ Release: vesicles bind to the membrane and are released into synaptic cleft (exocytosis) ○ Receptor action: NT crosses cleft and binds to a receptor on the post-synaptic neuron ○ Inactivation: NT can be inactivated by reuptake (SSRI's) or enzymatic degradation Reuptake: neuron that released NT, absorbs the NT back into the axon terminal for storage and reuse
be able to label synapse figure
ch.2
Be able to label
- synaptic vesicle
Storage granule
Neurotransmitter
Post synaptic receptors
Post synaptic membrane
Pre synaptic membrane
Synaptic cleft
What are the parts of the nervous system?
ch.2
There is the peripheral and central NS.
Peripheral is composed of autonomic (controls of self regulated action)
and somatic (controls voluntary movments of skeletal muscles).
- Autonomic is composed of sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (calming)
what are the 8 major principles of functional brain organization?
ch.2
Principle 1: In -> integrate -> out
Principle 2: Sensory and Motor Divisions exist throughout the NS
- Principle 3: brain’s circuits are crossed
- Principle 4: Brain is both symmetrical (both hemispheres) and asymmetrical (one hemisphere)
- Principle 5: NS works through excitation and inhibition
- Principle 6: CNS has multiple levels of function
- Principle 7: Brain Systems are organized both Hierarchically (different levels of function) and in parallel (all areas run at the same time)
- Principle 8: functions in the brain are both localized & distributed
How is information represented within a single neuron? Between neurons?
Information within a neuron is represented electrically (action potential)
Information between neurons is represented chemically (neurotransmitters)
Why is detecting edges fundamental for object recognition?
ch.3
important because objects need to be distinguished from surroundings and each other. Edges help provide spatial structure.
compare algorithms vs heuristics
ch.3
- Algorithm: guaranteed to solve a problem
○ used by computers and are slow, always accurate - not constructive
○ Disadvantages
§ Don’t know how to differentiate what is important in the image or not to then define with edges (think of the elephant picture)
§ Object recognition isn’t great
§ I can’t determine the main thing in the image- Heuristic: “rule of thumb”
Fast, usually right-but error prone, used by people - constructive
- Heuristic: “rule of thumb”
why do computers sometimes have difficulty recognizing objects?
ch.3
computers can be programmed to detect edges, however they are not able to distinguish changes that are due to properties or different parts of the scene.
What is the template theory of object recogniton? What is the major problem with this theory?
ch.3
having a specific template for each potential object.
However there are too many objects.
What’s the “recogntion by components” theory of object recogniton?
ch.3
all objects can be made up of similar 3D forms called geons.
*simple, efficient theory
What is the “feature integration model” of object recognition?
ch.3
Invented by Treisman (1986). Claims that there are two stages to object recogntion:
- preattentive stage: immediately extracts and processes sensory information (primitives).
- focused attention stage: requires conscious effort, examining each element.
what is the computational approach to object recogniton?
Three stages to the approach:
- The primal sketch: computing differences in reflected light between objects/background
- the 2.5D sketch: based on primal sketch, computation of orientations, depth, and structures relative to the viewer.
- The 3D model representation: 3D perspective is indpendent of viewing perspective. Associated with how objects relate to each other.
“Old view”- structuralism (involves adding up sensations)
“new view” - mind group patterns according ot law of perceptual organization.
What is the law of Pragnanz and its importance?
ch.3
law is that we automatically percieve the simplest, most stable figure out of all the alternatives.
what happens when trick the brian into applying the law of pragnanz inappropriately?
ch.3
we usually see optical illlusions.
what is the area of the brain involved with facial perception and recogntion? What happens if this area is destroyed?
ch.3
inferotemporal cortex, espeically on the right (fusiform face area).
when there’s damage to this area, agnosia or prosopagnosia.
- agnosia: failure to recognize an object/class of objects due to brain damage.
- prosopagnosia: inbility to recgnize fases.
compare the “what” and “where/how” pathways.
ch.3
- Ventral pathway (what): from occipital lobe to the temporal lobe - involved with object identification
○ If damaged, may result in visual agnosia (you can see your keys but your brain won’t actually know that they are your keys)
Dorsal pathway (where): from occipital lobe to parietal lobe and is involved with object location and visually guided movements
what is meant by limited capacity in relation to attention?
ch.4
limited capacity parallel process: this refers to the idea that our brains can process multiple streams of information simultaneously, but our ability is restricted because of limited capacity (dependent on perceptual load)
This can result in change blindess
compare and contrast “early selection” and “late selection” theories of selective attention.
ch.4
it is whether or not relevant information gets processed for meaning.
What is Lavie’s “hybrid” model of selective attention.
Why is perceptual load important for this theory?
What neuroimaging evidence supports her theory?
ch.4
- Lavie’s Hybrid Model (1995)
○ If difficulty task is hard, irrelevant information is not analyzed for meaning (early selection)
§ High perceptual load
§ Task-irrelevant information cannot be processed.
§ From Lavie’s experiments, she found that people are always slower in the hard tasks
§ The incompatible distractor doesn’t affect the response time as all resources are devoted tot the task.
○ If difficulty of task is easy, irrelevant information is analyzed for meaning (late selection)
§ Low perceptual load
§ Leftover resources are in charge of processing task-irrelevant information automatically.
The incompatible distractor slows down the response due to response competition
Describe innatentional/change blindness
ch.4
change blindess: the failure to notice something change in an object or scene
What is contralateral neglect? List symptoms, what and what areas when damaged lead to phenomenon.
ch.4
damage on the right parietal lobe will cause contralateral neglect:
○ Contralateral neglect is when a person ignores the left half of space in all modalities.
§ Not a sensory problem
§ Symptoms include:
□ Bumping into objects on the opposite side of lesion
□ Failure to groom on opposite side of lesion
□ Failure to eat food on opposite side of lesion
*occasionally, individual might believe that the neglected side of body is someone else’s (limb denial)
Compare and contrast automatic vs controlled processing
ch.4
automatic processing: unconsious, can’t be shut off and does not interfere with the processing of other information
controlled processing: conscious, must make the decision to do it, requires effort.
what are results from Poser’s (1980) experiment?
ch.4
conducted a simple probe detection experiment.
Describe Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) modal model of memory
ch.5
claimed that there are 3 different types of memory:
sensory - the initial stage that holds all incoming info for seconds or fractions of a second
short-term - holds 5-7 items for about 15 to 20 seconds. This is where rehearsal is used as a control process.
long-term - can hold a large amount of information
Also claimed that control processes: are active processes that can be controlled by the person. Such as rehearsal, strategies used to make a stimulus more memorable and strategies of attention
Also claimed that components of memory do not act in isolation.
Describe sensory memory. What is the capapcity and duration of iconic memory?
Include study of iconic sensory memory (sperling,1960)
ch.5
Sensory memory: retention of information for brief periods of time from sensory stimulation. (information decays very quickly)
Sensory memory is short-lived and registers all of most information that hits our receptors.
- iconic memory = visual
- echoic memory = auditory
So overall, sensory memory hold a large amount of information for a short period of time. It collects info, then holds info for initial processing which then allows us to fill in the blanks.
Sperling study (1960)
- participants were flashed quickly an array of letters on a screen and were then asked to report as many as possible.
- Involved the same stimulus set as the whole report method, but different response set
- estimated capacity is 9-10 items, lasting a second or fraction of second
-whole report: asked to report as many letters could be seen: reported 4.5/12 letters
immediate partial report: participants heard tone which told them which row of letters to report: reported 3.3/4 letters
delayed partial report: presentation of tone was delayed for fraction of a sec after letters were extinguished: reported 4.5/12 letters.
*both partial reports involved a smaller response set.
How does the report method influence what participants report?
ch.5
