Cognitive Processes Flashcards
divided attention
study by Becklen with how many people in white shirts passed a ball
what attention is thought of
used to be as a spotlight, now thought of as only being attended to objects
attentional limits
you need to pay attention for info to be processed in your mind
in-attentional blindness
when you are not paying attention to something at all e.g. card trick
limited “attentional resources”
we can either focus on one thing and not process anything else, or spread our attentional resources across many things and perform each less well
early locus of attention
info is selected or rejected based on its physical characteristics. unattended stimuli will be processed crudely
late locus of attention
info is selected/rejected on the basis of more complex characteristics like its meaning. unattended stimuli do not have their meaning processed e.g. cocktail phenomenon
cocktail party phenomenon
we notice our name in a conversation we are not attending to
the lcoation of the attention filter depends on
cognitive load
involuntary, exogenous, stimulus-driven control of attention
when an object/feature “pops out” or captures attention
voluntary, endogenous, goal-directed control of attention
when we try to find an object or feature
change blindness
when we make a saccade or “jumping eye movement” the input washes out motion sensors
iconic and echoic (sensory) memory
literal copies of visual and auditory events, limited capacity
short-term memory
limited capacity, decays within 20 seconds if not rehearsed, phonological type of coding
chunking
can be used by turning the amount of things to be remembered into a smaller number of units, saving space in memory
serial position effects in short term recall
primacy - transferred to LTM and recency - info dumped from short term buffer
working memory consists of
central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketch pad, and episodic buffer
phonological loop
influences memory tasks. memory span depends on how long it takes to repeat info
central executive
manipulation of info, elaborative processing, reasoning, planning
long term memory
unlimited capacity, forgetting due to interference rather than decay, semantic type of encoding
explicit memory: episodic memory
your memory of your life history, important occasions
explicit memory: semantic memory
knowledge of the meanings of words, facts, a sense of knowing rather than remembering
nodes
e.g. canary, bird, animal
properties
e.g. yellow, wings, breathes
cognitive economoy
each property is stored only once
hierarchical networks
properties stored at the highest level, with interconnected nodes
spreading activation
presenting a concept leads to activation of the appropriate node and to the spread of activation to related nodes
schema
generalised mental representations or concepts describing objects, people, scenes
importance of schema
make memory encoding more efficient
negative thing about schema
force all kinds of info into existing schemas therefore distorting experience and perceptions
the bechdel test
a movie has to have two women in it who talk about something other than a man
stereotypes aka person schemas
used for ease of understanding
scripts: event schemas
generalised mental representations of events in time
priming
display or mention of one concept leads to spreading activation of related concepts
procedural memory - explicit
semantic, episodic
procedural memory - implicit
memory for how to do things, operates automaticall
deep level of processing
abstract or concrete task
explicit memory task
you know your memory is being tested
implicit memory task
not told to try and remember, just to perform a task
false memory
misleading “post-event” info integrated with original memory and permanently overwrites it
what causes false memory
distortions of fitting memories into schemas and scripts
flashbulb memories
usually traumatic events that shock the world where everyone shares emotion about the memory
confabulation
you have no intention to deceive, but you are aware you have provided incorrect info
recovered memories
under hypnosis or strong therapist suggestions
infantile amnesia
almost no memories from birth to three years old
why infantile amnesia
freud trauma theory, underdeveloped emotional encoding, neurological causes
reminiscence bump
surprisingly large number of memories between 10-30 especially 15-25
why reminiscence bump
time in your life your brain is growing a lot and where you gain some independence
self-schema
strengths and weaknesses
attitudes to study
self-schema, motivation to remember
memory and ageing
myelination reduces with age and affects processing speed
american schema of old people
slow, forgetful, frail. influences performance on memory tasks
recognition
retrieval cue is given
recall
harder, have to find the retrieval cues
free recall task
report items from earlier study episode
recognition task
select previously studied items from mixture of old and new items
recognition task provides
a cue which can prime the memory network, however the cues can prime the wrong info
retrieval is best when
encoding and retrieval match - mood, nature of task, smells, time
