Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
What are the three major research methods used in cognitive psychology?
- Reaction time: stimulus-response
- Eye movements: measures information processing
- Brain imaging: associates various cognitive processes with parts of the brain
Who was Herman Ebbinghaus and what was his contribution to psychology?
Memorized non-sense syllables; then memorized others as a distraction; measured how much of the original list he remembered; compared the number of times he had to read the list in order to re-memorize it; if faster, concluded that he remembered some (called method of savings); also came up with forgetting curve (drops quickly without practice and then plateaus)
What is the method of savings?
Attributed to Herman Ebbinghaus:
Memorized non-sense syllables; then memorized others as a distraction; measured how much of the original list he remembered; compared the number of times he had to read the list in order to re-memorize it; if faster, concluded that he remembered some
What is the forgetting curve?
Attributed to Herman Ebbinghaus; ability to remember chartered in a curve; drops quickly without practice and then plateaus
What three mental processes are involved in memory?
- Retrieval
- Recall
- Recognition
What is the generation-recognition model?
Recall task taps the same basic process of accessing information in memory as does a recognition task; recall = additional processing step
What is the storage theory of memory?
States that there are several memory systems:
- sensory (includes iconic and echoic)
- short-term/working
- long-term
What is the partial-report procedure?
Discovered by George Sperling when he was investigating sensory memory; flashed 3 x 3 cards but asked to report 1 row (unknown by participant); they could generally report it accurately; determined that sensory memory can hold 9 but by time repeated four, memory had receded
What was George Sperling’s contribution to psychology?
Identified that sensory memory can hold 9 items using partial-report method:
flashed 3 x 3 cards but asked to report 1 row (unknown by participant); they could generally report it accurately; determined that sensory memory can hold 9 but by time repeated four, memory had receded
(previously, flashed 3 x 3 matrix of numbers - ask to name - got mostly 4 - decided that was the max number of items that the sensory memory could hold)
What is maintenance rehearsal?
Information from sensory memory will stay in short term memory if you keep repeating it
What is elaborative rehearsal
Organizing material and associating it with information already have in long-term memory
What are the two component parts of long term memory according to the storage theory of memory?
- Procedural: remembering how things are done
- Declarative: where explicit memories are stored
a. Semantic: general knowledge/words
b. Episodic: events/episodes experienced
What does the ABC song reflect?
Encoding verbal material in short term memory more likely to be based on sound than meaning
What is the semantic verification task?
Used to map long-term memory; asked whether a simple statement is true or false; measure how long it takes to respond (called response latency) to find out how information is stored.
What is response latency?
The time it takes to respond to a prompt.
What was Collins and Loftis’ contribution to psychology?
Proposed spreading activation model:
Studied long-term memory: shorter distance between words, closer they are in memory (looks like a web); indicated by speed of response
What are the two competing theories with the storage theory of memory?
- Levels of Processing or Depth of Processing Theory (Craik and Lockart)
- Dual-Code Hypothesis (Paivlo)
What is the levels of processing or depth of processing theory?
How long you remember material depends on the way you process material (only one memory system); three ways/levels that info can be processed:
1. Physical/visual
2. Acoustical/sound
3. Semantic/meaning
Deeper stages require connecting with info already stored; deeper level = remembered longer
What did Craik and Lockart contribution to psychology?
The levels of processing or depth of processing theory
How long you remember material depends on the way you process material (only one memory system); three ways/levels that info can be processed:
1. Physical/visual
2. Acoustical/sound
3. Semantic/meaning
Deeper stages require connecting with info already stored; deeper level = remembered longer
What is the dual-code hypothesis?
Info can be stored/encoded in two ways:
1. Visually
2. Verbally
Abstract information is encoded verbally (ex. concept of virtue); concrete information is encoded visually and verbally (ex. elephant)
What was Paivlo’s contribution to psychology?
Dual-code hypothesis
Is memory completely reliable?
No - what we remember and what we experience are not exact replicas; largely based on schema/schemata and how we make meaning
What is decay theory?
If information is long-term memory is not used/rehearsed, it will eventually be forgotten (doesn’t take into account impact of learning new information)
What is inhibition theory?
Suggests that forgetting is due to the activities that have taken place between original learning and later attempted recall. Two kinds:
- Proactive inhibition: what you learned earlier interferes with what you learn later (teacher with siblings)
- Retroactive inhibition: occurs when you forget what you learned earlier as you learn something new
What is proactive inhibition?
what you learned earlier interferes with what you learn later (teacher with siblings)
What is retroactive inhibition?
occurs when you forget what you learned earlier as you learn something new
What is encoding specificity?
Explains why sometimes it seems like we’ve forgetting something; actually just need the right “trigger” (recall is easier if information present at time of encoding is present at time of retrieval)
What is the theory of state-dependent learning?
Suggests that recall will be better if your psychological and/or physical state at the time of recall is the same as your state when you memorized the material
What is the method of loci?
Associating information with some sequence of places with which you are familiar
What is Elizabeth Loftus’ contribution to psychology?
She proved that eye witness memory is often erroneous; now focusing on accuracy of repressed memories that resurface
What is the Zeignarnik Effect?
Refers to the tendency to remember incomplete tasks better than completed tasks
What is functional fixedness?
Inability to use a familiar object in an unfamiliar way
What is mental set?
Tendency to keep repeating solutions that worked in other situations (Luchin’s water jar problem)
What is divergent thinking?
Thinking that involves producing as many creative answers to a question as possible (Guilford)
What was Guilford’s major focus?
Studied divergent thinking:
Thinking that involves producing as many creative answers to a question as possible
What is a phenome?
Smallest sound unit of language
What is a morpheme?
Smallest unit of meaning in language
What are the four major theories of language development?
- Learning theory (Skinner)
- Cognitive Developmental Theory (Piaget)
- Nativist theory (Chomsky)
- Whorfian hypothesis/linguistic relativity hypothesis
What is the learning theory of language?
Language acquired through classing conditioning, operant conditioning, or modeling (Skinner)
What is the cognitive developmental theory of language?
Language has to do with a child’s capacity for symbolic thought; language continues to develop according to child’s cognitive level (Piaget)
What is the nativist theory of language?
Innate, biologically based mechanism for language acquisition (Chomsky)
What is the Whorfian hypothesis/linguistic relativity hypothesis of language?
Our perception of reality is determined by the content of language; language affects the way we think and not the other way around; ex: Intuit language = lots of words for snow
What was Chomsky’s contribution to psychology?
Nativist theory of language: Innate, biologically based mechanism for language acquisition
Proposed a language acquisition device (LAD): built-in advanced knowledge of rule structures in language
Ulric Neisser
coined the term icon for brief visual memory and found that an icon lasts for one second. Also found that when subjects are exposed to a bright flash of light or a new pattern before the iconic image fades, the first image will be erased. This is backward masking, and it works for the auditory system as well.
George Miller
found that short-term memory has the capacity of 7 +/- 2
Frederick Bartlett
found that memory is reconstructive rather than rote
Karl Lashley
memories are stored diffusely in the brain
Donald Hebb
posited that memory involves changes of synapses and neural pathways, making a “memory tree”. ER Kandel had similar ideas from studying the sea slug
serial learning
list
Serial anticipation learning:
Subject is asked to recall one item at a time
Pair-associate learning
what we do when we learn another language; hola = hi
The following factors make items on a list easier to learn/retrieve:
a. Acoustic dissimilarity
b. Semantic dissimilarity
c. Brevity
d. Familiarity
e. Concreteness
f. Meaning
g. Importance to subject
Eidetic imagery
photographic memory
Tachtiscope
instrument often used in cognitive or memory experiments; presents visual material to subjects for a fraction of a second
Scripts
ideas about the way events typically unfold
Problem Space
sum total of possible moves that one might make in order to solve a problem
Mediation
the intervening mental process that occurs between stimulus and response. It reminds us what to do or how to respond based on ideas or past learning
Atmosphere effect
when a conclusion is influenced by the way information is phrased (survey)
Semantic Effect
believing in conclusions because of what you know or think to be correct rather than what follows from the information given
Confirmation bias
remembering and using information that confirms what you already think
Elizabeth Loftus and Allan Collins
suggested that people have hierarchical semantic networks in their memories; the more closely two are related, the faster they can be retrieved
Allan Collins and Ross Quillian
assert that people make decisions about the relationship between items by searching their cognitive semantic hierarchies; the farther apart, the longer it will take to make a connection
Saccades
eye movements from one fixation point to another
Stroop effect
reading colors
Sir Frederick Bartlett
memory is reconstructive not rote
over-extension
overly broad use of word to refer to new object or situation; dog = anything with four legs
Under-extension
overly narrow use of a word to refer to a new object or situation; animal = dog
telegraphic speech
pack a lot of info into a few words
overgeneralization
generalized grammar rule: runned instead of ran
which hemisphere: phonology, syntax, semantics
left
Which hemisphere: pragmatics
right
Holophrastic speech
when a young child uses one word (holophrases) to convey a whole sentence
Roger Brown
researched the areas of social, developmental, and linguistic psychology. Found that children’s understanding of grammatical rules develops as they make hypotheses about how syntax works and then self-correct with experience.
Katherine Nelson
found that language really begins to develop with the onset of active speech rather than the first year of only listening
william labov
studied ebonics
Charles Osgood
Studied semantics. Created semantic differential charts. Words have similar meanings for subcultures.
