cognitive psychology

Question 1

define cognitive psychology

Answer 1

understand internal processes when making sense of the environment, a form of applied science

Question 2

what are internal mental processes?

Answer 2

memory
attention/perception
information processing - problem solving
language acquisition - producing language
perception - visual = how we perceive objects, speech = how we hear/comprehend language

Question 3

what is cognitive psychology?

Answer 3

Uses behavioural evidence to enhance understanding of human cognition
Large influence, behavioural data used often in cognitive neuroscience/neuropsychology

Question 4

what is cognitive neuropsychology?

Answer 4

Study brain-damaged patients to understand ‘normal’ human cognition
Closely linked to cognitive neuroscience

Question 5

what is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 5

Uses evidence from behaviour/brain to understand human cognition
Closely linked to cognitive neuropsychology

Question 6

what is computational cognitive science?

Answer 6

Develop computer models to enhance understanding of human cognition
Computational model is in form of an algorithm = precise specification of steps involved in a task
Designed to simulate human processing in a task

Question 7

what is short term memory?

Answer 7

unrehearsed memory decays quickly
rehearsal essential for LTM
Peterson & Peterson (1959) = brown-peterson task, after 3 secs 80% trigrams correctly recalled, 6 secs fell to 50%, 18 secs > 10%

Question 8

short term vs long term memory

Answer 8

murdoch (1962) serial position effect
primary effect = words correctly recalled @ start of list, more time to rehearse into LTM
recency effect = words correctly recalled @ end of list, words still in STM when recalled

Question 9

memory and understanding

Answer 9

Bransford & johnson (1972)
recall higher when topic known beforehand
context affects recall + retention

Question 10

information processing

Answer 10

Wason (1966)
deductive reasoning - progressing from ideas to conclusions
> 10% ppts correct in a given task couldn’t form logical reasoning

Question 11

perception

Answer 11

McGurk effect
mis-categorisation of perceptual cues - auditory vs. visual
auditory + visual information integrated
right handed more likely experience McGurk effect

Question 12

selective attention

Answer 12

the cocktail party effect (cherry, 1953)
ability to tune into 1 voice/event in a crowd
can’t recall info presented in unattended speech