Cognitive Psychology

Question 1

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 1

First modern researcher of memory in late 1800s. Used self as a subject to study memory with nonsense syllables.

Question 2

Edward Titchener

Answer 2

Early structuralist who used introspection to identify forms of consciousness. Trained by Wundt.

Question 3

Structuralism

Answer 3

Goal is to break consciousness down into its elements/specific mental structures.

Question 4

Noam Chomsky

Answer 4

Linguist who critiqued BF Skinner saying that speech could not be due to reinforcement due to the creative ways it is used.

Question 5

Three Research Methods in CogSci

Answer 5

Reaction Time
Eye Movements
Brain Imaging

Question 6

Method of Savings

Answer 6

Method used by Ebbinghaus. After memorizing the list and then distracting himself, he would see how many times he had to read the list to re-memorize it (assuming the faster he re-memorized it, the more he had remembered).

Question 7

The Forgetting Curve

Answer 7

Designed by Ebbinghaus. Essentially the curve suggests that we rapidly forget things over the first five days, and then we plateau and forget at a much lesser rate after that.

Question 8

Mental Processes of Memory

Answer 8

Encoding: putting info into memory
Storage: retaining info in memory
Retrieval: recovering info in memory

Question 9

Two Methods of Retrieval

Answer 9

Recall: Independently reproducing information you were previously exposed to.
Recognition: Realizing that certain stimulus in is one you have seen before.

Question 10

The Generation-Recognition Model

Answer 10

Recall task taps the same basic process of retrieval as a recognition task uses.

HOWEVER- recall required the additional step of generating the information rather than just recognizing it.

Question 11

Clustering

Answer 11

When asked to recall lists, we tend to recall words belonging to the same categories.

Question 12

Order Effects

Answer 12

Primacy and Recency

Question 13

Stage Theory of Memory

Answer 13

Asserts that there are several different memory systems and that each system has a different function. Supposes that memory enters each system in a specific order: sensory memory, short term memory (i.e. working memory), and long term memory.

Question 14

Sensory Memory

Answer 14

Fleeting impressions of sensory stimuli which lasts at most a few seconds.

Question 15

Types of Sensory Memory

Answer 15

Visual = iconic
Auditory = echoic

Question 16

Whole-Report Procedure

Answer 16

Method used in early memory research to determine what information could be contained in sensory memory. Participants were presented with 9 items on a grid, and researchers presented it quickly then asked what they remembered (usually only about 3-4 items)

Question 17

Partial Report Procedure

Answer 17

Devised by George Sperling (based off of the whole report procedure) where he asked participants to report a single row of the 9x9 grid (he told them which row after presentation). Recall was nearly perfect- suggesting they had remembered all on the grid. Later this was tried with larger grids, but subjects failed suggesting a 9 item limit.

The reason this worked was that in the whole report procedure, memory decayed quickly for everything, but in the partial report procedure they knew which row to remember before it decayed.

Question 18

Short Term Memory

Answer 18

If not using short term memory- items remain there for about 20 seconds. However often the information here is rehearsed, and can stay in short term memory for a long time.

Question 19

Maintenance Rehearsal

Answer 19

When information is rehearsed to remain in long term memory (like repeating a phone number in your head).

Question 20

How much is kept in Working Memory

Answer 20

7+/-2 chunks of information (determined by George Miller)

Question 21

Long Term Memory

Answer 21

The ‘permanent’ storehouse of experiences, knowledge and skills.

Question 22

Elaborative Rehearsal

Answer 22

Organizing the information and associating it with information already in long term memory. Used to move the information from working memory to long term memory.

Question 23

Types of Long Term Memory

Answer 23

Procedural: remembering how things are done (i.e. typing).
Declarative: remembering explicitly information (i.e. fact memory).

Question 24

Types of Declarative Memory

Answer 24

Semantic: remembering general knowledge (word meanings, concepts, etc)
Episodic: remembering particular events/episodes you’ve experienced.

Question 25

Encoding (Short Term v Long Term)

Answer 25

When we remember items, we use different formats. For example, encoding verbal material in short term tends to be phonological, and in long term tends to be meaning based.

Question 26

Semantic Priming

Answer 26

A semantic priming task is looking at the reaction times of word retrieval, and finds that if words are similar in nature, they are retrieved more quickly, suggesting that they were stored in similar locations.

Question 27

Semantic Verification Task

Answer 27

Subjects are asked to indicate if a simple statement is true or false. The experimenter measures the time it takes to respond. Patterns of response times will then (theoretically) provide insight into how semantic memory is stored.

Question 28

Response Latency

Answer 28

How long it takes a subject to respond to a stimuli or question

Question 29

Spreading Activation Model

Answer 29

Proposed by Collins and Loftus in 1975. Utilized the semantic verification task to make a chart of where they thought different words were placed in a model, with connectors between words being shorter or longer depending on how closely connected they were.

Question 30

Semantic Feature Comparison Model

Answer 30

Proposed by Smith, Shoben and Rips in early 1970s. This model suggests that concepts are represented by sets of features which are required for that concept, and some which are typical of that concept. Theoretically then on the Semantic verification task, subjects would respond more quickly when item pairs have many/few similarities, and would take longer if there were some overlap, but not total overlap of features.

Question 31

Decay Theory

Answer 31

Holds that if the information in long term memory is not used/rehearsed it will eventually be forgotten.

Criticism: theory assumes what we learn between encoding and retrieval don’t effect anything.

Question 32

Inhibition Theory

Answer 32

Suggests that forgetting is due to the activities that have taken place between the original learning and later recall. Two types of inhibition:
Proactive: what you learn earlier interferes with what you learn later
Retroactive: when you forget what you learned earlier as you learn something new.

Question 33

Encoding Specificity

Answer 33

The assumption that recall will be best if the context at recall approximates the context during the original encoding.

Question 34

State Dependent Learning

Answer 34

Suggests that recall will be better if your psychological or physical state at the time of recall is the same as the state where you memorized the material.

Question 35

Mnemonic Devices

Answer 35

Techniques that we use to improve the likelihood that we will remember something.

i.e. chunking

Question 36

Method of Loci

Answer 36

System of memory where you associate information with a sequence of places which you are familiar.

Question 37

Sir Frederick Bartlett

Answer 37

Studied memory in famous study called the “War of Ghosts” (a native american folk tale). Bartlett found that when people retold the story they reconstructed it to match their own cultural expectations and schemas for ghost stories

Question 38

Elizabeth Loftus

Answer 38

Studied eyewitness memories and the ability for eyewitnesses to be influenced by misleading information. Recently, she has studied the accuracy of repressed memories that return later in life.

Question 39

Zeigarnik Effect

Answer 39

Refers to the tendency to remember incomplete tasks better than completed tasks.

Question 40

Luchins Water-Jug Problem

Answer 40

Task where subjects are presented with three empty jars (and the capacities of each jar) and are asked to obtain a particular amount of water in one of the jars.

Question 41

Mental Set

Answer 41

A tendency to keep repeating solutions because they worked in other situations, rather than finding a new solution which is more effective

Question 42

Functional Fixedness

Answer 42

The inability to use a familiar object in an unfamiliar way.

Question 43

Creativity

Answer 43

A cognitive ability that results in new ways of viewing problems or situations.

Question 44

Guilford’s Test of Divergent Thinking

Answer 44

Thinking that involves producing as many creative answers to a single questions as possible.
Guilford used this to test creativity in subjects.

Question 45

Heuristics

Answer 45

Shortcuts or rules of thumb used to make decisions- often heuristics lead us astray in decision making, but they are also vital to making speedy and effective decisions in our lives.

Question 46

Tversky and Kahneman

Answer 46

Known for studying the decision making process (and how it can go awry)

Question 47

Availability Heuristic

Answer 47

Used when we try to decide how likely something is. If we use this heuristic, we make our decision based on how easily similar instances can be imagined.

Question 48

Representativeness Heuristic

Answer 48

When one categorizes things on the basis of if they fit the stereotypical image of the category.

Question 49

Base Rate Fallacy

Answer 49

When one uses stereotypical factors rather than actual numerical information about which category is more numerous.

Question 50

Morphemes

Answer 50

The smallest units of meaning in a language (i.e. walked is two morphemes, “walk” and “ed” since “ed” indicates it’s in the past)

Question 51

Learning Theory

Answer 51

Believe that language is acquired through conditioning.modeling. (i.e. skinner)

Question 52

Early Cognitive Development Theory

Answer 52

Believe that language has to do with the child’s capacity for symbolic thought (developing at the end of the sensorimotor period). (proposed by Piaget).

Question 53

Chomsky’s Grammatical Structure Theories

Answer 53

Structure theories regarding the structure of a sentence.

Surface Structure: the actual work order.

Deep/Abstract Structure: the underlying form that specifies the meaning of the sentence.

Question 54

Chomsky’s Transformational Rules

Answer 54

Tell us how we can change one structure into another. (aka the set of rules that tell us how to change a sentence to a question, or another type of transformation…)

Question 55

The Whorfian Hypothesis

Answer 55

AKA The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Suggests that our perception of reality is determined by the content of our language. (language affects the way we think).

Question 56

Maccoby and Jacklin

Answer 56

Studied gender differences in linguistic ability and found evidence that verbal abilities are better in girls (this is v controversial though)

Question 57

Charles Spearman

Answer 57

Suggested that individual differences in intelligence are due to variations in the amount of a general, unitary factor, which he called “g”. He posited also that individuals had differences in ability to perform specific tasks, which he called “s”.

Question 58

Louis Thurstone

Answer 58

Identified seven abilities he called primary mental abilities (ie numbers, reasoning, verbal comprehension). He analyzed these in a more complex way then “g”, but not completely task specific (so less complex then “s”).

Question 59

Triarchic Theory

Answer 59

Suggested by Robert Sternberg. Suggests that there are three aspects to intelligence: componential (test-taking), experiential (creativity), and contextual (street smarts).

Question 60

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Answer 60

Proposed by Howard Gardner. He defined 7 types of intelligence (i.e. logical, musical, interpersonal, etc). He felt that western culture valued logical and verbal over others since this is what we test on traditional IQ tests.

Question 61

Cattell’s Two Types of Mental Abilities

Answer 61

Fluid Intelligence: described as the ability to quickly grasp relationships in novel situations and correctly deduce from them. Increases in childhood/teens, plateaus in young adulthood, and declines in advance age.

Crystallized Intelligence: The ability to understand relationships or solve problems that depend on acquired knowledge from experiences/school. Increases throughout lifespan.

Question 62

Arthur Jensen

Answer 62

Prominent educational psychologist who studies intelligence. He proposes that intelligence (if IQ) was entirely genetic, and you could not teach someone to score higher. He studied how race and IQ interacted, which was super controversial.

Question 63

McClelland and Rumelhart

Answer 63

Known for publishing a book about information processing, suggesting the parallel distributed process and that information is distributed across the brain and processed in a parallel fashion.

Question 64

Metacognition/Metamemory

Answer 64

The ability of someone to think about and monitor cognition/memory.