Definitions, EXAM 1 Flashcards
View that it is possible to have a complete understanding of human behavior such that you can know what a person does before he or she does it
Determinism
View that it is impossible to predict another person’s behavior because there is something else that influences human behavior (e.g. the soul)
Nondeterminism
View that ideas are native to every human
Nativism
View that knowledge originates from simple information from the senses, which can be combined into more complex ideas
Associationism
View that there are basic building blocks (periodic table) of consciousness
structuralism
View that all mental processes must have a purpose
Functionalism
Method of study which people tried to follow their own thought processes
Introspectionism
an automatic action by the body that occurs when a particular stimulus is perceived in an environment
Reflex
A learned reflex is also known as
a Conditioned Reflex
Stimulus which an animal has a predisposition to respond a particular way
unconditioned stimulus
predispositioned response to a stimulus
unconditioned response
A stimulus which, on its own, produces little to no response
conditioned stimulus
a response learned from association with a conditioned stimulus
conditioned response
finding an area in the brain that supports a specific function
localization
the amount of light the eye receives
luminance
The sun and the moons size equivocation is an example of
size and distance indeterminacy
conceptual knowledge influences the processing or interpretation of lower level perceptual processes
top-down processing
The strategy of employing multiple techniques to address the same question
converging operations
Empiricism
All knowledge comes from experience
complex behaviors done by animals, though they have little opportunity to practice or receive a reward
fixed-action patterns
A window of time during which an organism is primed to learn some particular information
critical period
people can create novel sentences, which means that language is _____
generative
a symbol for an entity in the real world
a Representation
something that manipulates representations in some way
process
a theoretical set of processes
abstract construct
learning about the world by trying things out, hypothesizing
empiricism
Naturalistic Observation
type of descriptive research; involves observing behavior in its natural setting
Researcher observes an individual on a number of occasions
Case Study
Examining two aspects of the world with an eye to seeing whether they are related
Relational Research
independent variable
the variable that the researcher manipulates
variable that the researcher measures
dependent variable
WEIRD
Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic
ecological validity
the extent to which a experiment would apply to real life
neural communication is both ______ and ______
electrical, chemical
recording the number of times per second a single neuron fires
Single-cell recording (used first in cats to test relationships between seeing geometric symbols and mental processes)
Event-related potentials
Neural activity related to an action, and not resting potentials.
the vascular system floods the ______ with _________
active part of the brain, oxygenated blood (fMRI detects this extra blood)
memory of a path through a maze is supported by…
a specific pattern of neuron firing
The Inverse Projection Problem
relates to the way the world falls on the retina; how we recover a three dimensional image from a two dimensional projection
Objects may be at in different shapes and orientations, which results in ambiguity; this is called
shape and orientation indeterminacy
Assumption of whether or not a change in color is due to light source, reflectance, or shadow is called
light source, reflectance, and shadow indeterminacy
Making an assumption of the shape of an object due to how often may be in that position
the likelihood principle
The visual system makes assumptions, one of which is that surfaces are _____ colored.
uniformly
The visual system assumes that areas next to each other on the same plane have the same luminance. This process is called _______ ______
local contrast
We determine the true size of an object by taking in a variety of clues, called _____
depth cues
Oculomotor depth cues are based on
the movements of your muscles in your visual system (whereas other cues use information derived from your retinas)
hypothesis that there are two streams of visual processing that determine what and where an object is
what/where hypothesis
what/how hypothesis
visual hypothesis that maintains that the two streams of visual processing can be thought of as what an object is, and how it is we are to move to reach that object
patients who are impaired in using visual guidance for movement, typically due to damage to the superior parietal cortex
optic ataxia
Based on the fact that each eye sees something slightly different, we can employ _____
stereopsis
if there is an opportunity to see a line continuing, you will see it continuing. This is called __________
good continuation
three dimensional objects which are theorized building blocks of visual representation, posed by viewpoint independent model
geons
conjunctions of edges assumed to correspond to different 3D shapes
Perkins’ laws
occlusion, texture gradient, linear perspective, height in the picture plane, and atmospheric perspective are examples of _______
pictorial cues
close focus changes the shape of the lens of an eye
accomodation (cue to distance)
looking at something very close causes the eyes to turn inward
convergence (cue to distance)
a sudden discontinuity in intensity of light that falls onto your retina
edge
2 Methods of Neuroscientific Data Collection:
Brain damaged patient (identify the problem and where the patient’s damage is)
Brain intact patient (observe activation using fMRI while the patient does a particular cognitive task
2 activation tasks: Take one that involves a number of processes and contrast it with one that involves the same processes except one
subtraction
In dyslexics there is less activity in ______
left temporal region
Neural constraints, evolutionary constraints, and efficiency are all used to _____
differentiate theories with data
knowing you’ve seen information before, but little else
familiarity
a cue which matches the nature of the memory/experience
transfer-appropriate processing
Movement of our body creates different relative motion of objects on our retinal image, which is called _______
cue motion parallax
how lines and points of light move relative to each other over time
vector flow field
neuropsychological deficit it recognizing faces
prosopagnosia
face recognition is strongly associated with the ____ ______ of the brain
fusiform gyrus
