Exam 2 Flashcards
Attention
The ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations.
Selective Attention
Attending to one thing while ignoring others.
During early processing, all stimuli comes in (parallel) and hearing it all, and during later processing, only one stimulus was processed (serial). Doing very little processing on everything you hear initially.
Distraction
One stimulus interfering with the process of another stimulus.
Divided Attention
Paying attention to more than one thing at a time.
Attential Capture
A rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a stimulus such as a loud noise, bright light, or sudden movement.
Visual Scanning
Movements of the eye from one location or object to another.
Filter Model of Attention
Model of attention that proposes a filter that lets attended stimuli through and blocks some or all of the unattended stimuli.
Dichotic Listening
Presenting different stimuli to the left and right ears and trying to focus on the stimuli from one of the ears.
Shadowing
Repeating a message out loud as it’s heard. Used in conjunction with dichotic listening experiments.
Cocktail Party Effect
The ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli, especially at a party where there are a lot of simultaneous conversations.
Broadbent’s Filter Model
Early selection model
Broadbent proposed that info passes through sensory memory, filter, and detector.
Filter by physical characteristics (gender, location, pitch), which are processed early.
1) Sensory memory holds all the incoming info for a fraction of a second and then transfers all of it to the filter.
2) The filter identifies the message that is being attended to based on its physical characteristics (things like the speaker’s tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, and accent) and lets only this attended message pass through to the detector.
3) The detector processes the info from the attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of the message, such as its meaning. Because only the important, attended info had been let through the filter, the detector processes all of the info that enters it. Processes the meaning.
4) The output of the detector is sent to STM and also transfer info into LTM.
Messages->->-> sensory store->->-> filter-> detector-> memory.
Bottleneck Model (Broadbent’s Model of Attention)
Model of attention that proposes that incoming info is restricted at some point in processing, so only a portion of the info gets through to consciousness.
Treisman’s Attenuation Model of Selective Attention
Early selection model.
Messages ->->->-> attenuator –>->->-> dictionary unit -> memory.
This changes the strength of the messages. All messages go through but filtered by physical properties.
Attenuator
Analyzes the incoming message in terms of: 1) its physical characteristics whether it’s high-pitched or low-pitched, fast or slow; 2) its language (how the message groups into syllables or words); 3) its meaning (how sequences of words create meaningful phrases).
Dictionary Unit
Contains words, store in memory, each of which has a threshold for being activated. For example, your name has a low threshold, which means it’s easily detected. It lets the message get through if it’s strong enough.
Late Selection Models of Attention
Proposed that most of the incoming info is processed to the level of meaning before the message to be further processed is selected.
Messages->->-> physical analysis->->-> meaning analysis-> memory.
Meaning is processed later compared to the early selection models.
Processing Capacity
Refers to the amount of info people can handle and sets a limit on their ability to process incoming info.
Perceptual Load
Related to the difficulty of a task.
Low-Load Tasks
Tasks that use few resources, leaving some capacity to handle other tasks (easy tasks).
High-Load Tasks
Tasks that use most or all of a person’s resources and so leaves little capacity to handle other tasks (difficult tasks).
Load Theory of Attention
Proposal that the ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out. High-load tasks result in less distraction. For low-load tasks, there’s still processing capacity left. So there are still resources available to process task-irrelevant stimulus, which slows down reaction time.
Overt Attention
Shifting attention from one place to another by moving the eyes. Attending where your eyes are looking.
Covert Attention
Shifting attention from one place to another while keeping the eyes stationary. Attending to where your eyes aren’t looking.
Central Vision
Area you are looking at. Objects here fall on fovea, better detail vision than peripheral retina on which everything else falls.
Peripheral Vision
Everything off to the side.
Fixation
A pausing of the eyes on places of interest while observing a scene.
Saccadic Eye Movement
Rapid, jerky movements from one fixation to the next while scanning a scene.
Stimulus-Salience
The physical properties of the stimulus, such as color, contrast, or movement. This is a bottom-up process bc it depends solely on the pattern of light and dark, color and contrast in stimulus.
Saliency Map
Map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the scene. Highlights visually salient info: contrast, color, brightness, movement, and depth.
Precueing
A procedure in which participants are given a cue that will usually help them carry out a subsequent task. Presented with cues that tells them where to direct their attention.
Same-Object Advantage
Occurs when the enhancing effect of attention spreads throughout an object, so that attention to one place on an object results in a facilitation of processing at other places on the object.
Split-Scan Experiment
Dichotic listening but letters of the alphabet, different letters at the same time in opposite ears, they have difficulty repeating the letters that were presented at the same time in the different ears.
Early Selection Models
Messages->->-> physical analysis-> meaning analysis-> memory.
Broadbent’s filter model and Treisman’s attenuation model.
Automatic Processing
A type of processing that occurs: 1) without intention (it happens automatically without the person intending to do it) and 2) at a cost of only some of a person’s cognitive resources.
Doesn’t require attention (mind does it on its own), unlimited capacity, very difficult to modify, can easily focus on movement, and everything is a benefit of automaticity.
Inattential Blindness
Not noticing something even though it’s in clear view, usually caused by failure to pay attention to the object or the place where the object is located. Ex. paying attention to a cross and not noticing a small square off to the side.
Change Blindness
Difficulty in detecting changes in scenes. Easier when there is no gap between pictures.
Continuity Errors
Changes in some aspect of a scene that should remain the same changes from one shot to the next in films.
Binding
The process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object.
Binding Problem
The question of how an object’s individual features become bound together. How our brain brings together features but binds them to the wrong object.
Feature Integration Theory
An approach to object perception, developed by Anne Treisman, that proposes a sequence of stages in which features are first analyzed and then combined to result in perception of an object.
Object-> preattentive stage-> focused attention stage-> perception.
Preattentive Stage
The first step in processing an image of an object where objects are analyzed into separate features. Without attention, all features are independent and free-floating.
Illusory Conjunctions
A situation, demonstrated in experiments by Treisman, in which features from different objects are inappropriately combined. This occurs bc in the preattentive stage, each free-floating feature exists independently of the others.
Focused Attentive Stage
The second stage in which attention causes the combination of features into perception of an object. These “free-floating” features get combined.
Balint’s Syndrome
A condition caused by brain damage in which a person has difficulty focusing attention on individual objects, which causes more illusory conjunctions like with RM.
Visual Search
Something we do anytime we look for an object among a number of other objects.
Feature Search
Finding something based on one feature.
Conjunction Search
Search for a combination of two or more features.
Topographic Map
Spatial map of visual stimuli on visual cortex.
Cognitive Resources
An individual’s resources for carrying out cognitive processing.
Cognitive Load
The processing demands of a particular cognitive task.
Controlled Processing
Requires attention, limited capacity, and can be used flexibly (conscious control over it).
Endogenous Attention
Consciously choosing where to direct our attention.
Exogenous Attention
Something grabs our attention.
Bottom-Up Determinants
Physical features of the stimulus (stimulus salience).
Top-Down Determinants
Knowledge, expectations, and the meaning of the scene.
Valid Cue
Draws attention to the location of the stimulus.
Invalid Cue
Draws attention to an irrelevant location.
“Spotlight” Model
Attention is like a spotlight and you can move it around to focus your attention on it. Sped and accuracy varies with distance.
Object-Based Selection/Attention
When you’re able to direct your attention to the same object in which the cue was flashed on. You can see the target faster where the cue was flashed bc that’s where your spotlight attention is.
Memory
Process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using info about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original info is no longer present. Memory is active anytime some past experience has an effect on the way you think or behave now or in the future.
Sensory Memory
The retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects of sensory stimulation. A brief persistence of an image, which is one of the things that makes it possible to perceive movies. Holds almost everything you experience, but very brief.
Short-Term/Working Memory
Information that stays in our memory for brief periods of about 10-15 seconds if we don’t repeat it over and over.
Long-Term Memory
Responsible for storing info for long periods of time, which can extend from minutes to a lifetime.
Mostly not active (at any one time).
Episodic Memory
Memories of experiences, which are long-term memories. Involves mental time travel.
Procedural Memory
A type of LTM that allows us to remember how to ride a bike or any of the other things that involve muscle coordination.
Semantic Memory
Memories of facts such as an address, birthdays, or names of objects.
Knowing, with the idea that knowing doesn’t involve mental time travel.
No personal experience recalled.
Modal Model of Memory
1) Sensory memory is an initial stage that holds all incoming info for seconds or fractions of a second, 2) Short-term memory (STM) holds 5-9 items for about 15-20 seconds, or as long as you want to, 3) Long-term memory (LTM) can hold a large amount of info for years or even decades.
Incomplete bc it doesn’t capture everything with STM (like WM) and LTM.
Structural Features
Types of memory indicated by boxes in models of memory.
Control Processes
Dynamic processes associated with the structural features that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another. Ex. Rehearsal.
Rehearsal
Repeating a stimulus over and over, as you might repeat a phone number.
Encoding
The process of storing a STM into LTM.
Retrieval
The process of remembering info that is stored in LTM.
The process of transferring info from LTM to STM/WM.
Persistence of Vision
The continued perception of a visual stimulus even after it’s no longer present. This persistence lasts only for a fraction of a second, so it isn’t obvious in everyday experience when objects are present for long periods. Ex. moving sparkler.
Whole Report Methods
Sperling’s letter grid experiments.
Subjects are asked to report as many letters as possible from the entire 12-letter display. Avg. of 4.5/12 reported to recall.
Partial Report Methods
Sperling’s letter grid experiments.
Subjects saw the 12-letter display for 50 ms, as before, but immediately after it was flashed, they heard a tone that told them which row of the matrix to report. High to low pitched tones (one for each row). Avg. 3.3/4 letters reported.
Delayed Partial Report Methods
The letters were flashed on/off and then the cue tone was presented after a short delay of 1 second. Avg. 1 letter per row.
Iconic Memory/Visual Icon
Brief sensory memory for visual stimuli that corresponds to the sensory memory stage of the modal model.
Echoic Memory
Persistence of sound that lasts for a few seconds after presentation of the original stimulus.
Decay
Process by which info is lost from memory due to the passing of time.
Proactive Interference
Interference that occurs when info that was learned previously interferes with learning new info.
Retroactive Interference
Occurs when new learning interferes with remembering old learning.
Digit Span
The number of digits a person can remember.
Chunking
Small units (like words or numbers) can be combined into larger meaningful units, like phrases, or even larger units.
Chunk
A collection of elements that are strongly associated with one another but are weakly associated with elements in other chunks.
Working Memory
A limited-capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of info for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning. Consisting phonological loop, visuospatial sketch pad, and central executive.
Phonological Loop
It consists of two components: the phonological store, which has limited capacity and holds info for only a few seconds; and articulatory rehearsal process, which is responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological store from decaying. The phonological loop holds verbal and auditory info.
Visuospatial Sketch Pad
This holds visual and spatial info, and spatial manipulation and planning. Ex. solving a puzzle or finding your way through campus.
Central Executive
Where the major work of WM occurs. It pulls info from LTM and coordinates the activity of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad by focusing on specific parts of a task and deciding how to divide attention between different tasks. AKA Traffic cop.
Used for manipulating contents of memory, focusing attention, and inhibition.
Phonological Loop Evidence
Phonological similarity effect, word length effect, and articulatory suppression.
Phonological Similarity Effect
The confusion of letters or words that sound similar and they’re easier to confuse in STM.
Word Length Effect
Occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words.
Verbal STM = ~2 sec
The faster you read, the more you remember.
Articulatory Suppression
Interference with operation of the phonological loop that occurs when a person repeats an irrelevant word such as “the” or “bah,” while carrying out a task that requires the phonological loop. This leads to poorer recall and eliminates the word length effect.
Visual Imagery
The creation of visual images in the mind in the absence of a physical visual stimulus.
Mental Rotation
Rotating an image of an object in the mind.
Preservation
Repeatedly performing the same action or thought even if it’s not achieving the desired goal.
Episodic Buffer
Can store info (thereby providing extra capacity) and is connected to LTM (thereby making interchanges between WM and LTM possible). It is a way of increasing capacity in WM.
Delayed-Response Task
Requires a monkey to hold info in WM during a delay period (and have to determine where the hole with food is after a delay).
This supports the idea that the prefrontal cortex is important for holding info for a brief period of time.
Neural Mind Reading
Refers to using a neural response, usually brain activation measured by fMRI, to determine what a person is perceiving or thinking.
Representation for STM/WM
Info is represented by largely auditory (even when presented visually, mistakes are for things that sound alike, often confuse a letter for similar sound and never for similar appearance). It’s also visual for things that are hard to verbalize, also limited capacity and involves chunking. And semantic (interference from the meaning of the words and when the meaning is changed, interference has disappeared).
Mainly auditory coding, also some verbal and semantic coding.
Operation Span
Measure of WM that involves holding info and using it. Correlates to fluid intelligence. Have to do a math problem, remember a word, and do it again 2x.
Anti-Saccade Task
Eye tracking task where you have to ignore and look away from a certain target.
Anterograde Amnesia
Unable to form new long-term memories. Ex. Clive Wearing and HM.
Amnesia for events that occurred after the event.
Division
Refers to distinguishing between different types of memory.
Interaction
Refers to the fact that different types of memory can interact and share mechanisms.
Serial Position Curve
In a memory experiment in which participants are asked to recall a list of words, a plot of the percentage of participants remembering each word against the position of that word in the list.
Primacy Effect
The finding that subjects are more likely to remember words presented at the beginning of a sequence. This is maybe bc subjects had time to rehearse the words at the beginning and transfer it to LTM.
Recency Effect
The better memory for the stimuli presented at the end of a sequence. Most recently presented words are still in the STM and therefore are easier to remember.
Coding
Refers to the form in which stimuli are presented. Determining how a stimulus is represented by the firing of neurons is a physiological approach to coding. A mental approach to coding is asking how a stimulus or an experience is represented in the mind.
Visual Coding
In STM: Remembering a pattern by representing it visually in your mind.
In LTM: Visualizing a person or place from the past.
Auditory Coding
Coding in the mind in the form of a sound.
Semantic Coding
Coding in the mind in terms of meaning. Ex. Remembering what you read.
Release from Proactive Interference
A situation in which conditions occur that eliminate or reduce the decrease in performance caused by proactive interference.
Recognition Memory
The identification of a stimulus that was encountered earlier.
Mental Time Travel
The experience of traveling back in time to reconnect with events that happened in the past.
Self-knowing or remembering (Episodic memory).
Autobiographical Memory
Memory for specific experiences from our life, which can include both episodic and semantic components.
Personal Semantic Memories
Semantic components of autobiographical memories.
Autobiographically Significant Semantic Memories
Memories involving personal episodes.
Remember/Know Procedure
A procedure in which subjects are presented with a stimulus they have encountered before and are asked to indicate remember (episodic), if they remember the circumstances under which they initially encountered it, or know (semantic), if the stimulus seems familiar but they don’t remember experiencing it earlier.
Semanticization of Remote Memories
Loss of episodic detail for memories of long-ago events.
Constructive Episodic Simulation Hypothesis
States that episodic memories are extracted and recombined to construct simulations of future events.
Explicit Memories
Memories we are aware of (conscious) such as facts and personal events in LTM.
Episodic and Semantic memory.
Implicit Memories
Occurs when learning from experience is not accompanied by conscious remembering.
Priming and Procedural memory.
Procedural/Skill Memory
Memory for doing things that usually involve learned skills. This is acquired gradually through practice and will eventually become an automatic process.
Ex. Tying your shoes and mirror reading and drawing.
Mirror Drawing
Involves copying a picture that is seen in a mirror.
Priming
Occurs when the presentation of one stimulus (the priming stimulus) changes the way a person responds to another stimulus (the test stimulus).
Associated with decreased brain activity bc you’re used to seeing it.
Repetition Priming
Occurs when the test stimulus is the same as or resembles the priming stimulus.
Increased fluency for a stimulus after prior experience with it.
Propaganda Effect
Subjects are more likely to rate statements they have read or heard before as being true, simply because they have been exposed to them before.
Representation of LTM
Mainly semantic coding, some visual and auditory coding.
Maintenance Rehearsal
Rehearsal that involves repetition without any consideration of meaning or making connections to other info.
Elaborative Rehearsal
Rehearsal that involves thinking about the meaning of an item to be remembered or making connections between that item and prior knowledge.
Levels of Processing Theory
The idea that memory depends on how info is encoded, with better memory being achieved when processing is deep than when processing is shallow.
Deep processing involves attention to meaning and is associated with elaborative rehearsal.
Shallow processing involves repetition with little attention to meaning and is associated with maintenance rehearsal.
Depth of Processing
The idea that the processing that occurs as an item is being encoded into memory can be deep or shallow.
Paired-Associate Learning
A list of word pairs is presented to create connections that enhance memory.
Self-Reference Effect
Memory is better if you are asked to relate a word to yourself.
Generation Effect
Memory for material is better when a person generates the material himself, rather than passively receiving it.
Retrieval Cue
A word or other stimulus that helps a person remember info stored in memory.
More effective when created by the person whose memory is being tested.
Testing Effect
Enhanced performance on a memory test caused by being tested on the material to be remembered.
Free Recall
When a subject is simply asked to recall stimuli.
Cued Recall
When the subject is presented with retrieval cues (smell, images, sound, etc.) to aid in recall of the previously experience stimuli.
Encoding Specificity
The principle that we learn info together with its context. This means that presence of the context can lead to enhanced memory for the info.
State-Dependent Learning
Learning that is associated with a particular internal state, such as mood or state of awareness (drinking, coffee, smoking, illegal drugs, exercise).
Transfer-Appropriate Processing
Better performance when the type of processing matches in encoding and retrieval. Ex. when you have a rhyming test, the rhyme learning is better than semantic learning.
Consolidation
The process that transforms new memories from a fragile state, in which they can be disrupted, to a more permanent state, in which they are resistant to disruption.
Synaptic Consolidation
A process of consolidation that involves structural changes at synapses that happened rapidly, over a period of minutes.
Systems Consolidation
A consolidation process that involves the gradual reorganization of circuits within brain regions and takes place on a long time scale, lasting weeks, months, or even years.
Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)
Enhanced firing of neurons after repeated stimulation.
Standard Model of Consolidation
Proposes that incoming info activates a number of areas in the cortex.
The hippocampus is strongly active when memories are first formed and initially recalled, but becomes less involved as memories are consolidated, until eventually the connections between the cortical areas themselves are sufficient to retrieve remote memories.
Reactivation
A process in which the hippocampus replays the neural activity associated with a memory.
Retrograde Amnesia
Loss of memory for events that occurred before the injury.
Graded Amnesia
The amnesia tends to be most severe for events that happened just before the injury and to become less sever for earlier events bc they’ve been consolidated.
Remote Memories
Memories for events that occurred long ago.
Multiple Trace Model of Consolidation
The hippocampus is involved in retrieval of episodic memories, even if they originated long ago.
Reconsolidation
A process that occurs when a memory is retrieved and so becomes reactivated. Once this occurs, the memory must be consolidated again, as it was during the initial learning. This repeat consolidation is reconsolidation. When these memories are reactivated, they’re suceptible to disruption.
Elaborative Encoding
Connecting new info to existing knowledge.
Levels of processing: shallow processing (focused on surface) vs. deep processing (focused on meaning).
Circular Reasoning
Use two arguments to help prove something without having solid evidence.
Levels of processing idea can be circular.
Sentence Complexity
Using more info/extra elaboration in sentences allows you to remember the target word more.
Effects of Encoding
Rehearsal, elaborative (“deep”) encoding, complex scenarios, imagery, self-reference, generation, organization, testing.
Mere Exposure Effect
If you ask someone which item they like more, they go for the one they’ve seen before but don’t remember.
