Final Exam Flashcards
Cognitive Psychology
The study of the mind: memory, perception, attention, etc.
Socrates
Very interested in the nature of knowledge and belief. He created the Socratic method.
Aristotle
Developed the first known model of how memory works. He compared memory it wax seals: how impressions mold your mind. Younger people have “hotter wax” and it’s easier to have them remember.
Franciscus Donders
Ophthalmologist and physiologist. First to measure reaction time by flashing lights and having participants press a button when they saw the light.
Simple Reaction Time
Flash ->(processing)-> button press
Perceive the light -> physical response
Choice Reaction Time
Flash -> (processing) -> button press but 100 ms difference from Simple Reaction Time bc of choice between two buttons.
Perceive light -> identify location of it -> physical response
Cognitive Research
Lets us measure cognitive processes, which requires inference and requires a model of the processes.
Cognitive Models
Stimulus detection -> stimulus identification -> response organization
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Focused on learning and forgetting by studying meaningless syllables bc they were independent from a meaning bc that would lead to contextual clues. He did research on himself. He also looked at retention and improvement. He was the first person to discover forgetting curve by learning words and testing himself to see how much he forgot.
Savings
Being able to learn something a second time made it easier than learning it for the first time.
Spacing Effect
Spread out your learning, which allows you to remember more.
Wilhelm Wundt
Founded the first psychology lab, which was in Germany. Created structuralism.
Structuralism
Tried to break down the mind down into small pieces to see what it was made up like the table of elements. Wundt did this through introspection.
Introspection
What goes on in your mind when you see something. Introspection is unverifiable, unreliable bc people are different and even the same person could be different, and most mental processes are unconscious.
Behaviorism
All about the study of behavior and things that happen on the outside, which took the spotlight from the mind.
Stimulus -> response instead of stimulus -> mental processing -> response bc behaviorism only studies observable behavior. It was the dominant focus for a while. Can’t explain rats not going back to the same location on a maze.
Classical Conditioning
Pavlov’s experiment with dog, bell, and food, which led to salivation. Also, with Little Albert and his fear of small white animals.
Operant Conditioning
B.F. Skinner said, “All we need to know in order to describe behavior: reward good behavior and not bad behavior.” This is how animals are trained.
Cognitive Maps
Mapping out places in your mind.
Instinctive Drift
Going back to their instinct behavior.
Noah Chomsky
Famous linguist who argued that people understand the structure of language. A sentence can be grammatically correct but make no sense.
The Cognitive Revolution and End of Behaviorism
Made it okay to talk about how the mind works again like failure of conditioning animals, human language, developments in brain research, subjective experience, new models arose, bc behaviorism couldn’t explain this.
Behavioral Approach
Overt, deliberate responses like response time, accuracy, recall, etc.
Physiological Approach
Bodily responses and often outside conscious control. Measuring your brain’s activity and eye tracking.
Consolidation
Stabilization of a memory trace after its initial acquisition.
Cognitive Neuroscience
The study of the physiological basis of cognition.
Levels of Analysis
Refers to the idea that a topic can be studied in a number of different ways, with each approach contributing its own dimension to our understanding.
Neurons
Cells that are the building blocks and transmission lines of the nervous system.
Nerve Net Theory
A network believed to be continuous, like a highway system. It was proposed that signals could be transmitted throughout the nets in all directions by providing a complex pathway for conducting signals uninterrupted through the network. Discovered that it was not continuous by Ramon y Cajal.
Ramon y Cajal
A Spanish physiologist who was interested in investigating the nature of the nerve net. He discovered that the fact that the Golgi stain affects less than 1% of the neurons, made it possible for him to see that the nerve net was not continuous, but instead was made up of individual units connected together.
Neuron Doctrine
The idea that individual cells (neurons) transmit signals in the nervous system, and that these cells are not continuous with the other cells as proposed by the nerve net theory.
Microelectrodes
Small shafts of hollow glass filled with a conductive salt solution that can pick up electrical signals at the electrode tip and conduct these signals back to a recording device.
Nerve Impulse (Action Potential)
An electrical response that is propagated down the length of an axon (nerve fiber), which lasts 1 millisecond. APs travel all the way down the axon without changing its height or shape.
Neurotransmitters
Chemicals that make it possible for the signal to be transmitted.
Mind
System that creates representations (everything we experience is the result of something that stands for experience) of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals.
Principle of Neural Representation
Everything a person experiences is based not on direct contact with stimulus, but on representations in the person’s nervous system.
How experience is determined by representations in the nervous system.
Quality Across the Senses
Different experience associated with each of the senses like perceiving light for vision, sound for hearing, smells for olfaction, etc.
Quality with a Particular Sense
Shape, color, or movement for vision, or recognizing different kinds of objects based on their shape or different people based on face.
Sensory Neurons (Receptors)
Firing based on light from the world in eye, touch based on pressure, etc. It’s based on external stimulus instead of other neurons.
Brodmann’s Area
Broke the brain down into thousands of pieces.
Single-Cell Recording
Placing an electrode right outside/next to a neuron and measure signals.
Disadvantages: Billions of neurons, but you can only measure one with this. Also, it’s very intrusive and probably the only people who get this are the ones who are getting brain surgery.
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
Measures electrodes externally using a cap and getting different brain waves.
Event-Related Potential (ERP)
Related to the particular stimulus given. For example, N400 refers to negative 400 ms in ERP which means that you’ll have a high jump in the graph (when the meaning is wrong) or P600 means a low jump (when the grammar is off).
Feature Detectors
Neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, movement, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli.
Hierarchical Processing
Processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain.
Problem of Sensory Coding
The problem of neural representation for the senses.
Sensory Code
How neurons represent various characteristics of the environment.
Specificity Coding
The idea that an object could be represented by the firing of a specialized neuron that responds only to that object, which is unlikely to be correct.
Population Coding
The representation of a particular object by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons.
Most or all neurons firing for everyone, but in different patterns.
Sparse Coding
Occurs when a particular object is represented by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons, with the majority of neurons remaining silent. This occurs when small groups of neurons are involved.
Localization of Function
Specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain.
Cerebral Cortex
A layer of tissue about 3 mm thick that covers the brain (wrinkled covering).
Neuropsychology
The study of the behavior of people with brain damage.
Wernicke’s Area
Located in left temporal lobe and is specialized in language comprehension. Aphasia in this area leads to not being able to comprehend, but speak.
Broca’s Area
Located in left frontal lobe and is specialized in speech production and grammar. Aphasia in this area leads to not being able to speak, but can comprehend.
Parietal Lobe
Responsible for perceptions of touch, pressure, and pain.
Prosopagnosia
An inability to recognize faces. Also known as face blindness.
Double Dissociation
Occurs if damage to one area of the brain causes function A to be absent while function B is present, and damage to another area causes function B to be absent while function A is present. This is used to conclude that functions A and B are served by different mechanisms, which operate independently of one another.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Brain imaging technique that creates images of structures within the brain.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
Brain imaging technique that measures how blood flow changes in response to cognitive activity. Red and yellow indicate increases in brain activity and blue and green indicate decreases in brain activity.
Voxels
Small cube-shaped areas of the brain about 2-3 mm on a side. Units of analysis for fMRIs.
Fusiform Face Area (FFA)
An area in the temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces. Damaged in prosopagnosia.
Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA)
Area in the temporal lobe that contains neurons that are selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes. Important for spatial layout and fires for places that you can easily navigate.
Extrastriate Body Area (EBA)
An area in the temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies, but not by faces or other objects.
Distributed Representation
The idea that specific cognitive functions activate many areas of the brain.
Neural Networks
Group of neurons or structures that are connected together.
Pain Matrix
Consists of a number of connected structures that are involved in the perception of pain.
Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI)
Based on detection of how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers. It’s a fairly new technique that measures communication throughout the brain.
Episodic Memory
Memory for personal experiences.
Semantic Memory
Memory for facts.
Spatial Resolution
How small of an area of space you can zoom into.
Temporal Resolution
How small of a slice of time you can zoom into to see brain activity.
Table of Temporal and Spatial Resolution
SCR EEG PET fMRI
Temporal Resolution Good Good Not Pretty Good
Spatial Resolution Good Not Good Good
Convenience Not Good Not so good Good
What’s most convenient always wins
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
Injected with radioactive isotope and the tracer reflects glucose uptake. Very expensive and you have to avoid small children and pregnant women for a day and a half bc you’re still radioactive. A PET scan shows that when a person listens to someone talk, the left temporal lobe is activated.
Subtraction Technique
Start off with full brain activated and compare to control brain and subtract them out to show what areas are more activated during specific activities.
Techniques That Can Change Brain Activity
TMS and Wada Test
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
Change the magnetism on machine and mess with the electricity of someone’s brain. Temporarily create brain damage.
Wada Test
Often used before brain surgery. Used to determine what side of your brain your language is on. Inject something to put one side of your brain to sleep. If language is severely impaired, then you know your language is on the side that’s asleep.
Grandmother Cell
That one cell that fires every time you see your grandma and only her. Psychologists don’t believe this is real, but that a Jennifer Aniston cell (a cell that responds to certain famous people) is.
Left vs. Right Hemisphere
Left: analytical, breaks things into parts
Right: holistic, “big picture”
Damage to the right, people would see the individual parts, but not whole picture.
Damage to the left, people would see the whole picture, but not the individual details.
Distributed Processing
Localized areas are spread out throughout the brain that gets combined to understand what happens.
Perception
Experiences resulting from stimulation of the senses. Perceptions can change based on added information and can involve a process similar to reasoning or problem solving.
Inverse Projection Problem
The task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on the retina. This involves starting with the retinal image and extending rays out from the eye.
Viewpoint Invariance
The ability to recognize an object seen from different viewpoints.
Bottom-Up Processing
Sequence of events from eye to brain that starts at the “bottom” or beginning of the system, when environmental energy stimulates the receptor. Starts with sensations and builds up into objects and then builds up into scenes.
Top-Down Processing
Processing that involves a person’s knowledge or expectations, originating in the brain, at the “top” of the perceptual system.
Speech Segmentation
The process of perceiving individual words within the continuous flow of the speech signal.
Direct Pathway Model
Model of pain perception that proposes that pain signals are sent directly from receptors to the brain. Pain occurs when receptors in the skin (nociceptors) stimulated and send their signals in a direct pathway from the skin to the brain. This is a bottom-up process bc it depends on stimulation of the receptors.
Hermann Von Helmholtz
19th century physicist and physiologist that had an idea about how people use information.
Likelihood Principle
We perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we have received bc of years of experience with the world.
Unconscious Inference
Our perceptions are the results of unconscious assumptions, or inferences, that we make about the environment. Happens automatically with no thought.
Scene Recognition
Computer being able to recognize different scenes.
Color Constancy
Our perception of the image changes based on the color of the scene.
Size Constancy
Adapt our perceptions to the context. You know that an object is farther in the scene, so your mind is compensating for the distance the object looks like it is: making it look bigger or smaller.
Gestalt Approach
The whole is more than the sum of its parts (opposite of bottom-up processing). He focused on objects having meaning + holistic image as a whole than all of the parts.
Apparent Movement
An illusion of movement perception that occurs when stimuli in different locations are flashed one after another with the proper timing. Movement is perceived, but nothing is actually moving.
Gestalt Psychologists
A group of psychologists who proposed principles governing perception, such as laws of organization, and a perceptual approach to problem solving involving restructuring.
Principles of Perceptual Organization
Used to explain the way elements are grouped together to create larger objects.
Principle of Good Continuation
Law of perceptual organization stating that points that, when connected, result in straight or smoothly curving lines are seen as belonging together. In addition, lines tend to be seen as following the smoothest path. Also, objects that are overlapped by other objects are perceived as continuing behind the overlapping object.
Lines that continue the same path are grouped together.
Law of Pragnanz, Principle of Good Figure or Simplicity
Every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible.
Go with the simplest interpretation instead of seeing an abstract object.
Principle of Similarity
Similar things appear to be grouped together. Grouping can occur because of similarity in color, size, shape, or orientation.
Regularities in the Environment
Characteristics of the environment that occur frequently.
Physical Regularities
Regularly occurring physical properties of the environment, such as physical features, the lines, and light.
Oblique Effect
The finding that vertical and horizontal orientations can be perceived more easily than other (slanted) orientations.
Light-From-Above Assumption
We assume that light is coming from above, because light in our environment, including the sun and most artificial light, usually comes from above.
Semantic Regularities
The characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes.
Makes it easier to identify an object by its contextual clues or misguide your perception.
Scene Schema
Knowledge about what is likely to be contained in a particular scene. This knowledge can help guide attention to different areas of the scene.
Conceptions of Object Perception
Helmholtz’s unconscious inference, the Gestalt laws of organization, and Regularities in the environment.
Theory of Natural Selection
States that characteristics that enhance an animal’s ability to survive, and therefore reproduce, will be passed on to future generations.
Experience-Dependent Plasticity
Mechanism through which the structure of the brain is changed by its exposure to the environment/experience.
Ex. Kitten reared in horizontal environment only has neurons that fire for horizontal lines.
Brain Ablation
The study of the effect of removing parts of the brains in animals. Experiments using this wanted to determine the function of a particular area of the brain.
Neuropsychology
Th study of the behavior of people with brain damage.
Object Discrimination Problem
A problem in which the task is to remember an object based on its shape and choose it when presented with another object after a delay. Associated with research on the what processing stream.
Landmark Discrimination Problem
Problem in which the task is to remember an object’s location and to choose that location after a delay. Associated with research on the where processing stream.
What/Perception Pathway
The pathway leading from the striate cortex to the temporal lobe. Responsible for determining an object’s identity.
AKA Ventral stream and perception pathway.
Where/Action Pathway
The pathway leading from the striate cortex to the parietal lobe. Responsible for determining an object’s location.
AKA Dorsal stream and action pathway.
Illusory Contours
When we think we see something, but other objects are just perfectly placed. We perceive normal objects.
Common Fate
Things that move together should be grouped together as one object.
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.
Two Additional Characteristics of Autobiographical Memory
1) It’s multidimensional bc they consist of spatial, emotional, and sensory components.
2) We remember some events in our lives better than others.
Reminiscence Bump
The empirical finding that people over 40 years old have enhanced memory for events from adolescence and early adulthood, compared to other periods of their lives.
Explanations for the Reminiscence Bump
Self-Image Hypothesis, Cognitive Hypothesis, and Cultural Life Script Hypothesis.
Self-Image Hypothesis
Proposes that memory is enhanced for events that occur as a person’s self-image or life identity is formed.
Development of the self-image therefore brings with it numerous memorable events, most of which happen during adolescence or young adulthood.
Cognitive Hypothesis
Proposes that periods of rapid change that are followed by stability causes stronger encoding of memories. Adolescence and young adulthood fit this description because the rapid changes, such as going away to school, getting married, and starting a career, that occur during these periods are followed by the relative stability of adult life.
People who emigrated at a later age have a later reminiscence Bump.
Cultural Life Script Hypothesis
Distinguishes between a person’s life story, which is all of the events that occurred in a person’s life, and a cultural life script, which is the culturally expected events that occur at a particular time in a life span.
Events that fit our cultural “stories.”
Events in a person’s life story become easier to recall when they fit the cultural life script for that person’s culture.
Amygdala
A subcortical structure that is involved in processing emotional aspects of experience, including memory for emotional events.
Emotions may trigger mechanisms in the amygdala that helps us remember events that are associated with the emotions.
Weapon Focus
The tendency to focus attention on a weapon during the commission of a crime, which is typically a high-emotion situation.
Flashbulb Memory
Refers to a person’s memory for the circumstances surrounding shocking, highly charged events.
Surrounding how a person heard about an event, not memory for the event itself. We believe these are very true compared to other memories, based on the emotions.
Ex. 9/11 and JFK’s assassination.
Repeated Recall
The technique of comparing later memories to memories collected immediately after the event. This is to determine whether memory changes over time.
Narrative Rehearsal Hypothesis
The idea that we remember some life events better because we rehearse them.
Constructive Nature of Memory
What people report as memories are constructed based on what actually happened plus additional factors, such as the person’s knowledge, experiences, and expectations.
Repeated Reproduction
Same subjects try to remember the story at longer and longer intervals after they have first read it.
Source Monitoring
Process of determining the origins of our memories, knowledge, or beliefs. Influenced by biases we might have.
Source Monitoring Error/Source Misattributions
Misidentifying the source of a memory.
The memory is attributed to the wrong source.
Cryptoamnesia
Unconscious plagiarism of the works of others.
Patient BP
Extremely rare disorder, damaging only his amygdala (bilaterally). Emotionally-charged things don’t stick with him better than neutral things.
Pragmatic Inference
Occurs when reading a sentence leads a person to expect something that is not explicitly stated or implied by the sentence.
Schema
A person’s knowledge about some aspect of the environment.
Script
Our conception of the sequence of actions that usually occurs during a particular experience. Knowledge about stereotypic sequences of events (scripts are a kind of schema). Ex. Doing laundry.
Misinformation Effect
Misleading info presented after a person witnesses an event can change how the person describes that event later.
A person’s memory for an event is modified by things that happen after the event occurred.
Misleading Post Event Information (MPI)
The misleading info from the misinformation effect.
One explanation for the MPI effect proposes that the original info is forgotten bc of retroactive interference, which occurs when new learning (misinformation) interferes with memory for something that happened in the past (actual events).
Eyewitness Testimony
Testimony by a person who was present at the crime about what he or she saw during commission of the crime.
Acceptance of Eyewitness Testimony
1) The eyewitness was able to clearly see what happened.
2) The eyewitness was able to remember his or her observation and translate them into an accurate description of what happened and accurate identification of the perpetrator(s).
Post-Identification Feedback Effect
Increase in confidence due to confirming feedback after making an identification.
Cognitive Interview
Based on what is known about memory retrieval. Involves letting the witness talk with a minimum of interruption and also uses techniques that help witnesses recreate the situation present at the crime scene by having them place themselves back in the scene and recreate things like emotions they were feeling, where they were looking, and how the scene might have appeared when viewed from diff. perspectives.
Truth Effect/Propaganda Effect
Thinking something is true because you heard it in the past, but forget the context in which you learned it in (source Monitoring).
Inferences
Assumptions made based on prior knowledge. Often happen without conscious awareness.
Elaboration
Introduced elements not in the original passage (based on schemas).
Why Are We Influenced by MPIs?
Memory trace replacement (replacing your original memory with the misleading info), retroactive interference (new learning is interfering with older info), source monitoring errors (making mistakes of sources from which you got this info).
Conceptual Knowledge
Knowledge that enables us to recognize objects and events and to make inferences about their properties.
Concepts
The mental representation of a kind of thing, class or individual / the meaning of objects, events, and abstract ideas. Ex. dog, chair, even number, crime.
Category
Includes all possible examples of a particular concept. Pointers to knowledge.
Categorization
The process by which things are placed in categories.
Definitional Approach to Categorization / Classical Approach
We can decide whether something is a member of a category by determining whether a particular object meets the definition of the category. Definitions work well for geometric objects, but not for many natural or man-made objects. Very tightly locked, you either have all the features from the definition or not.
Family Resemblance
Refers to the idea that things in a particular category resemble one another in a number of ways. Created to deal with the problem that definitions often do not include all members of a category. Ex. Chairs and sofas have a family resemblance.
Prototype Approach to Categorization
Membership in a category is determined by comparing the object to a prototype that represents the category.
Helps with all problems of the definitional approach. Classification is based on similarity to prototype.
Doesn’t require a complete definition; members share most characteristics, but not all.
Prototype
A “typical” member of the category. An average of commonly experienced members.
High Typicality
A category member closely resembles the category prototype.
Low Typicality
A category member doesn’t closely resemble a typical member of the category.
Sentence Verification Technique
A technique in which the participant is asked to indicate whether a particular sentence is true or false.
Typicality Effect
The ability to judge highly prototypical objects more rapidly.
Naming
People are more likely to list some objects than others when asked to name objects in a category. The most prototypical members of the category are named first.
Priming
Presentation of one stimulus affects responses to stimulus that follows. Prototypical objects are affected more by priming. The prime will facilitate the subjects’ response to a stimulus if it contains some of the info needed to respond to the stimulus.
Exemplar Approach to Categorization
Involves determining whether an object is similar to other objects. The standard for this involves many examples, each called exemplars.
Exemplar
Actual members of the category that a person has encountered in the past.
Hierarchical Organization
Larger, more general categories are divided into smaller, more specific categories, creating a number of levels of categories.
Superordinate (Global) Level
The most general category level (ex. Furniture).
Basic Level
In between both levels; it is special because it's the level where above, much information is lost and where below, little is gained. Ex. Table. Most common (first thing to pop up in your mind). Privileged because it's named first, learned earlier, have shorter names, easier to classify, and honestly depends on your expertise.
Subordinate (Specific) Level
The most specific category level (ex. Kitchen table).
Semantic Network Approach
Proposes that concepts are arranged in networks.
Collins’s and Quillian’s Hierarchical Model. Disorganized.
Hierarchical Network Model
Consists of levels arranged so that more specific concepts are at the bottom and more general concepts are at higher levels. More organized.
Cognitive Economy
Way of storing shared properties just once at a higher level node. Makes the network more efficient, but creates a problem when something doesn’t relate to all.
Spreading Activation
Activity that spreads out along any link that is connected to an activated node.
Reaction time decreases when two words were associated maybe bc retrieving one word from memory triggered a spread of activation to other nearby locations in a network, bc more activation would spread to words that were related, the response to the related words was faster than the response to unrelated words.
Asked to think of a term and spreads to connected words from the term.
Lexical Decision Task
Subjects read stimuli, some of which are words and some of which are not words. Their task is to indicate as quickly as possible whether each entry is a word or a nonword.
Collins and Quillian’s Hierarchical Model
Semantic network that consisted of nodes that are connected by links. Each node represents a category or concept, and concepts are placed in the network so that related concepts are connected.
“Computer model of human memory.”
Problems With Eyewitness Testimonies
Familiarity, source monitoring, weapons draw attention, suggestions can impact your decision (“good pick”), and reconsolidation.
Recovered Memories
Repressed memories from a long time ago (childhood) that are recovered and you’re able to remember details you didn’t remember.
Problems with Definitional Approach
Hard to define, some things are better members than others, and uncertain classifications (ambiguity).
Visual Imagery
Seeing in the absence of a visual stimulus.
Mental Imagery
The ability to recreate the sensory world in the absence of physical stimuli (also occurs in senses other than vision: auditory).
Imageless Thought Debate
The debate about whether thought is possible in the absence of images.
Paired-Associate Learning
A learning task in which participants are first presented with pairs of words, then one word of each pair is presented and the task is to recall the other word.
Conceptual Peg Hypothesis
Concrete nouns (ex. boat, tree, house) create images that other words can “hang onto.”
Mental Chronometry
Determining the amount of time needed to carry out various cognitive tasks.
Mental Scanning
Subjects create mental images and then scan them in their minds.
Imagery Debate
A debate about whether imagery is based on spatial mechanisms, such as those involved in perception, or on mechanisms related to language, called propositional mechanisms.
Spatial Representation
A representation in which different parts of an image can be described as corresponding to specific locations in space.
Epiphenomenon
Something that accompanies the real mechanism but is not actually part of the mechanism.
Propositional Representation
One in which relationships can be represented by abstract symbols, such as an equation, or a statement. Like words, whereas spatial representation would involve a spatial layout of the statement or equation.
Depictive Representation
Representations that are like realistic pictures of an object, so that parts of the representation correspond to parts of the object.
Tacit Knowledge Explanation
An explanation proposed to account for the results of some imagery experiments that states that participants unconsciously use knowledge about the world in making their judgements. This explanation has been used as one of the arguments against describing imagery as a depictive or spatial representation.
Subjects unconsciously use knowledge about the world in making their judgements.
People are relying on their knowledge of how perception works, and imitating it (demand characteristics).
Mental Walk Task
Subjects were asked to imagine that they were walking toward their mental image of an animal and how close would they have to be that the animal is taking over their entire visual field.
Dual Coding Hypothesis
When you try to remember a concrete noun, you get to remember the word and a mental image.
Imagery Neurons
A type of category-specific neuron that is activated by imagery.
Unilateral Neglect
A problem caused by brain damage, usually to the right parietal lobe, in which the patient ignores objects in the left half of his or her visual field. Ex. shaving only just one side of your face.
Method of Loci
A method in which things to be remembered are placed at different locations in a mental image of a spatial layout. Ex. remembering to go to the dental office by imagining a humongous set of teeth in your living room.
Pegword Technique
A method for remembering things in which the things to be remembered are associated with concrete words. Like remembering heaven by rhyming it with seven.
Language
A system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
Psycholinguistics
The field concerned with the psychological study of language. The study of psychological and neurological bases of language. The four major concerns are comprehension, speech production, representation, and acquisition.
Lexicon
A person’s knowledge of what words mean, how they sound, and how they are used in relation to other words.
Phoneme
Refers to sounds. The shortest segment of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of a word. Not the same as letters.
Morphemes
Refers to meaning. The smallest units of language that have a definable meaning or a grammatical function. Not syllables.
Ex. truck has many phonemes but 1 morpheme and trucks has 2 morphemes.
Phonemic Restoration Effect
Occurs when phonemes are perceived in speech when the sound of a phoneme is covered up by an extraneous noise.
Speech Segmentation
Our ability to perceive individual words even though there are often no pauses between words in the sound signal. Difficult bc there are no cues from the sound energy so it’s hard to tell when there are breaks.
Solution: word familiarity, but words often can’t be identified in isolation so we need to use context.
Word Superiority Effect
Refers to the finding that letters are easier to recognize when they are contained in a word than when they appear alone or in a nonword.
Corpus
The frequency with which specific words are used and the frequency of different meanings and grammatical constructions in a particular language.
Word Frequency
The frequency with which a word appears in a language.
Word Frequency Effect
Refers to the fact that we respond more rapidly to high-frequency words like home than to low-frequency words like hike. Nonwords are no frequency.
Lexical Ambiguity
The existence of multiple word meanings.
Meaning Dominance
The fact that some meanings of words occur more frequently than others.
Biased Dominance
When words have two or more meanings with different dominances.
Semantics
The meaning of words and sentences. Involved with Wernicke’s area.
Syntax
Specifies the rules for combining words into sentences (grammatical structure). Involved with Broca’s area.
Broca’s Aphasia
A condition associated with damage to Broca’s area, in the frontal lobe, characterized by labored ungrammatical speech and difficulty in understanding some types of sentences, but can also comprehend.
Wernicke’s Aphasia
A condition caused by damage to Wernicke’s area, in the temporal lobe, that is characterized by difficulty in understanding language, and fluent, grammatically correct, but incoherent speech.
Parsing
The grouping of words into phrases. Central process for determining the meaning of a sentence. Used to analyze the syntax and semantics of a sentence.
Garden Path Sentences
Sentences that begin appearing to mean one thing but then end up meaning something else. Useful in studying how parsing works.
Syntax-First Approach to Parsing
States that as people read a sentence, their grouping of words into phrases is governed by a number of rules that are based on syntax. Only uses semantics when syntax fails.
Late Closure
States that when a person encounters a new word, the person’s parsing mechanism assumes that this word is part of the current phrase, so each new word is added to the current phrase for as long as possible, unless that doesn’t work out grammatically.
Interactionist Approach to Parsing
The idea that info is provided by both syntax and semantics and is taken into account simultaneously as we read or listen to sentences.
Visual World Paradigm
Involves determining how subjects process info as they are observing a visual scene.
Phonology
The sounds of a language and the rules for combining those sounds. Units of sounds. English has 46 phonemes.
Morphology
Units of meaning.
Minimal Pair
Smallest change of sound you can make to change the meaning of a word.
Ex. pig -> dig.
Words
Meaningful units that can stand on their own.
Discourse
Sentences in a larger context.
Inferences
Determining what the test means by using our knowledge to go behind the info provided.
Coherence
The representation of the test in a person’s mind so that info in one part of the test is related to info in another part of the text. Meaningful connections between sentences.
Anaphoric Inferences
Inferences that connect an object or person in one sentence to an object or person in another sentence.
Ex. Saying she (or other pronouns) in the following sentence instead of using her name.
Instrument Inferences
Inferences about tools or methods that occur while reading text of listening about the presence of it.
Ex. Inferring that Hamlet was written using a quill pen and paper instead of a computer.
Causal Inferences
Inferences that the events described in one clause or sentence were caused by events that occurred in a previous sentence.
Situation Model
A mental representation of what a text is about. Spatial and perceptual.
Given-New Contract
States that a speaker should construct sentences so that they include two kinds of info: 1) given info - info that the listener already knows; and 2) new info - info that the listener is hearing for the first time.
Common Ground
The speakers’ mutual knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions. Used to say less for things that took you long to explain before and coordinate meaning.
Syntactic Coordination
The process by which people use similar grammatical constructions.
Syntactic Priming
Hearing a statement with a particular syntactic construction increases the chances that a sentence will be produced with the same construction.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The nature of a culture’s language can affect the way people in that culture think. Language can affect cognition.
Strong form: language determines thought.
Weak form: language influences thought.
Categorical Perception
If two items are in the same category, we perceive them as more similar, whereas, if two items are in different categories, it’d be perceived as different.
Problem
Occurs when there is an obstacle between a present state and a goal and it is not immediately obvious how to get around the obstacle.
A problem has a difference between our current state and goal state, an obstacle between current state and goal state, and no immediately obvious way to overcome the obstacle.
Problem Solving According to Gestalt
All about:
1) How people represent a problem in their mind.
2) How solving a problem involves a reorganization or restructuring of this representation.
Restructuring
The process of changing the problem’s representation. The solution is obtained by first perceiving the object and then representing it in a different way.
Insight
The sudden realization of a problem’s solution.
Fixation
People’s tendency to focus on a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution.
Functional Fixedness
One type of fixation that can work against solving a problem, focusing on familiar functions or uses of an object.
Candle Problem
A problem, first described by Duncker, in which a person is given a number of objects and is given the task of mounting a candle on a wall so it can burn without dripping wax on the floor. This problem was used to study functional fixedness.
Two-String Problem
The subjects’ task was to tie together two strings that hang from the ceiling.
Mental Set
A preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person’s experience on what has worked in the past.
Water Jug Problem
Subjects were told that their task was to figure out in paper how to obtain a required volume of water, given three empty jars for measure.
B-A-2C.
Tower of Hanoi Problem
A problem involving moving discs from one set of pegs to another. It has been used to illustrate the process involved in means-end analysis.
Initial State
Conditions at the beginning of the problem.
Goal State
The solution of the problem.
Operators
Actions that take the problem from one state to another. Usually governed by rules.
Intermediate States
The various conditions that exist along the pathway between the initial state and goal state.
Problem Space
The initial, goal, and all the possible intermediate states for a particular problem.
Means-End Analysis
A way of solving a problem in which the goal is to reduce the difference between the initial and goal states. You have to work backwards to create subgoals to get to the ultimate goal, and then perform them from the last subgoal to the first.
Subgoals
Small goals that help create intermediate states that are closer to the goal.
Mutilated Checkerboard Problem
A problem that has been used to study how the statement of a problem influences a person’s ability to reach a solution.
Two corners are eliminated and you’re asked if 31 dominoes can fit on it. Not possible.
Think-Aloud Protocol
Subjects were asked to say out loud what they’re thinking while solving a problem. Not to describe what they’re doing, but new thoughts as they occur.
Analogy
Making a comparison in order to show a similarity between two different things that share abstract commonalities despite surface differences.
Analogical Problem Solving
Using the solution to a similar problem to guide a solution of a new problem. Only works if you notice the analogy between the situations and map the correspondences between them, then you use the mapping to generate an analogous solution.
Analogical Transfer
Transferring experience in solving one problem to the solution of a similar problem.
Target Problem
The problem the subject is trying to solve.
Source Problem
Another problem that shares some similarities with the target problem and that illustrates a way to solve the target problem.
Radiation Problem
A problem posed by Duncker that involves finding a way to destroy a tumor by radiation without damaging other organs in the body. Widely used in research in analogical problem solving.
Surface Features
Specific elements of the problem such as the rats and the tumor. Objects, context, and perceptual features. Leads to reminding.
Structural Features
The underlying principle that governs the solution. Doesn’t lead to reminding, but it does lead to reminding in experts in their field.
Analogical Encoding
The process by which two problems are compared and similarities between them are determined.
Analogical Paradox
People find it difficult to apply analogies in laboratory settings, but routinely use them in real-world settings.
In Vivo Problem-Solving Research
Involves observing people to determine how they solve problems in real-world situations.
Problem Solving
A “higher-order” cognitive process, complex (relies on many other processes such as perception, attention, memory, categorization, integrating and manipulating info) and deliberative (not automatic, requires conscious effort), and often slow.
Compound Remote Associates Problem
Give people three random words, such as pine, crab, and sauce, and ask what word relates all three of them. The answer is Apple. The right hemisphere is activated when people said they solved these problems with insight.
Experts
People who, by devoting a large amount of time to learning about a field and practicing and applying that learning, are know as being extremely knowledgeable or skilled in that field.
Why Experts Are Faster Than Novices
1) Experts possess more knowledge about their fields.
2) Experts’ knowledge is organized differently than novices’. Experts attend more to structural Features than novices in their field.
3) Experts spend more time analyzing problems. More qualitative evaluation of a problem. More time in the beginning, but usually less time overall.
Flexible Thinking Problem
A problem whose solution may involve rejecting the usual procedures in favor of other procedures that might not normally be used.
Divergent Thinking
Thinking that is open-ended, invoking a large number of potential “solutions”.
Creativity
Anything made by people that is in someway novel and has potential value or utility.
Problem Solving Process
Stage 1: 1) Problem finding and 2) Fact finding.
Stage 2: 3) Problem definition and 4) Idea finding.
Stage 3: 5) Evaluation and selection and 6) Planning.
Stage 4: 7) Selling Idea and 8) Taking action.
Group Brainstorming
When people in a problem-Solving group are encouraged to express whatever ideas come to mind, without censorship. Not the best method.
Creative Cognition
A technique developed by Finke to train people to think creatively.
Preinventive Forms
Ideas that precede the creation of a finished creative product.
Latent Inhibition
The capacity to screen out stimuli that are considered irrelevant.
Savant Syndrome
People with autism or other mental disorders are able to achieve extraordinary feats, such as being able to tell the day of the week for any randomly picked date, or exhibit great artistic talent or mathematical ability.
Information Processing Approach
Requires well–defined problems: know all possible moves and know when end state has been reached. Ex. Tower of Hanoi.
It describes a lot of behaviors well and it’s clean, systematic, but people often don’t think so analytically.
Measuring Creativity
Fluency (the number of answers generated), flexibility (the number of kinds of answers generated), originality (the novelty of the answers, relative to other participants).
Decisions
The process of making choices between alternatives. Based on judgments.
Reasoning
The process of drawing conclusions because it involves coming to a conclusion based on evidence. Using existing knowledge to generate new knowledge leading to conclusions.
Inductive Reasoning
Reasoning based on observations, or reaching conclusions from evidence. Conclusions we reach are probably, but not definitely, true. Starts with specific cases. Very common in daily lives.
Heuristics
“Rules of thumb” that are likely to provide the correct answer to a problem but are not foolproof.
Availability Heuristics
Events that are more easily remembered are judged as being more probable than events that are less easily remembered.
Illusory Correlations
Occur when a correlation between two events appear to exist, but in reality there is no correlation or it is much weaker than it is assumed to be.
Stereotype
An oversimplified generalization about a group or class of people that often focuses on the negative.
Representativeness Heuristic
States that the probability that A is a member of class B can be determined by how well the properties of A resembles the properties we usually associate with class B. Related to the idea that people often make judgements based on how much one event resembles another event.
Base Rate
The relative proportion of the different classes in the population. Base rate neglect is ignoring that number that defines a question and just paying attention to the other details.
Conjunction Rule
The probability of a conjunction of two events (A and B) cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents (A alone or B alone).
Law of Large Numbers
The larger the number of individuals that are randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population.
Myside Bias
The tendency for people to generate and evaluate evidence and test their hypotheses in a way that is biased toward their own opinions and attitudes.
Type of confirmation bias.
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to selectively look for info that conforms to our hypothesis and to overlook info that argues against it.
Deductive Reasoning
Reasoning that involves syllogisms in which a conclusion logically follows from premises. Determine whether a conclusion logically follows from statements called premises. Starts with general rules like “all dogs like bacon.”
Syllogism
Consists of two premises followed by a third statement called a conclusion.
Categorical Syllogisms
The premises and conclusion are statements that begin with “all, no, or some.”
Validity
A syllogism is valid when the form of the syllogism indicates that it’s conclusion follows logically from its two premises.
All A are B, All B are C, therefore, all A are C. Valid.
Belief Bias
The tendency to think a syllogism is valid if it’s conclusion is believable.
Mental Model Approach
Determining if syllogisms are valid by creating mental models of situations based on the premises of the syllogism.
Mental Model
A specific situation represented in a person’s mind that can be used to help determine the validity of syllogisms in deductive reasoning.
Conditional Syllogisms
Syllogisms that have two premises and a conclusion like categorical syllogisms, but the first premise has the form “if…then.”
Modus Ponens
The way that affirms by affirming. Type of conditional syllogism. The conclusion follows logically from the two premises.
Modus Tollens
The way that denies by denying. Second premise: not q, conclusion: therefore, not p. Valid.
Wason Four-Card Problem
A conditional reasoning task developed by Wason that involves four card (for ex. with numbers on one side and letters on the other). Various versions of this have been used to study the mechanisms that determine the outcomes of conditional reasoning tasks. You flip over the one that might go against the rule you’re trying to prove to see if it goes against it. Check the two that affirm the antecedent and deny the consequent to see if the rule is correct.
Falsification Principle
To test a rule, it’s necessary to look for situations that would falsify the rule.
Permission Schema
If a person satisfies a specific condition (being of a legal drinking age), then he or she gets to carry out an action (drinking alcohol). Better at answering in this form probably because of familiarity and concrete compared to abstract.
Social Exchange Theory
An important aspect of human behavior is the ability for two people to cooperate in a way that is beneficial to both people.
Dual Systems Approach
The idea that there are two mental systems: a fast, automatic, intuitive system (system 1) and a slower, more deliberative, thoughtful system (system 2).
Truth
Whether the conclusion reflects reality.
Expected Utility Theory
Assumes that people are basically rational. According to this theory, if people have all of the relevant info, they’ll make a decision that results in he maximum expected utility. Allows for variation between people, based on their situation and preference.
Picking the option that has the most value to you. Always moving up on the charts.
Utility
Outcomes that achieve a person’s goal.
Expected Emotions
Emotions that people predict they’ll feel for a particular outcome.
Risk Aversion
The tendency to avoid taking risks.
Incidental Emotions
Emotions that are not caused by having to make a decision.
Opt-In Procedure
Procedure in which a person must take an active step to choose a course of action such as choosing to be an organ donor.
Opt-Out Procedure
Procedure in which a person much take an active step to avoid a course of action.
Status Quo Bias
The tendency to do nothing when faced with making a decision.
Risk Aversion Strategy
A decision-making strategy that is governed by the idea of avoiding risk. Often used when a problem is stated in terms of gains.
Risk-Taking Strategy
A decision-making strategy that is governed by the idea of taking risks. Often used when a problem is stated in terms of losses.
Framing Effect
Decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated, or framed.
Neuroeconomics
Combines research from the fields of psych, neuro, and economics to study how brain activation is related to decisions that involve potential gains or losses.
Ultimatum Game
A game in which a proposer is given a sum of money and makes an offer to a responder as to how the money should be split between them. The responder must choose to accept the offer or reject it. Only one trial (either get some from accepting or nothing from rejecting it). Used to study people’s decision-making strategies.
Anchoring
Relying strongly on presented values to make estimates.
Adjustment
Making judgements by “adjusting” away from an anchor.
Declining Marginal Utility
The more of something you add like money, the less of a difference it makes. Ex. Adding $200 to a bank of $2M doesn’t make a big difference.
Endowment Effect
When you possess something, it automatically becomes more valuable to you. You resell things for more than what you bought it for.
Context Effects
The set of choices themselves can change your order of preference. Ex. When you can’t decide between two reasonable apartments, but then you see a dump apartment and go for the cheaper of the other two.
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Refusing to abandon a prior investment, even when it results in a worst outcome.
Empathy Gap
People have a hard time predicting the preference of others and predicting their own future preferences bc we underestimate the effects of context and we look at our current feelings, like hunger.
