Final Exam (test 3 material) Flashcards
Brain structure that has been shown to be specialized for processing emotional stimuli
the amygdala
short duration, synchronized response indicating the evaluation of an internal or external stimuli
emotion
diffuse active state; low intensity and long in duration
mood
relatively lasting state that affects beliefs, preferences, and predispositions
attitude
propensity to action that is the result of an affective response
motivation
2 dimensions for measuring emotion
facial expression
dimensional approaches (arousal, valence)
two ways to manipulate emotion
mood induction
evocative stimuli
Method of measuring emotion by direct questions, introspection (relies on hippocampus/ declarative memory)
Direct Assessment
Method of measuring emotion by measuring autonomic nervous system activity (relies on amygdala)
Indirect Assessment
People, places, and things are not neutral but acquire some kind of value
emotional learning
What are some elements of classical conditioning (Pavlov)?
fear conditioning- neutral stimulus pair with fearful event
autonomic conditioning- bodily responses (arousal
evaluative conditioning- expressed through a preference or attitude
What are some elements of Operant conditioning?
learning by reward or punishment
behavior/response increases or decreases depending on the outcome of that behavior
Mesolyombic dopamine pathway reward circuit
Neuron that is critical in the process of instructional and observational learning
Mirror Neuron
States that learning is based on familiarity so only the repeated presentation of the stimulus is necessary
Mere Exposure Effect
If aroused via the _____ the storage of declarative memories activates
amygdala
How does stress affect memory?
Prolonged stress and extreme arousal can impair memory
How does mild to moderate arousal affect memory?
enhances it
States that memories related to the mood a person is in are more easily accessible (depression- only thinking about bad memories)
Mood-Congruent Memory Effect
Vivid and detailed memories that seem clear but may not be very accurate
Flashbulb Memory
Results of the emotional stroop task:
participants find it more difficult to ignore the words and name the color when the words are emotional (results exaggerated for stimuli specific to the person)
Hypothesis that say emotional stimuli are processed automatically, making fewer demands on limited cognitive resources that other types if stimuli
Affective Primacy Hypothesis
The amygdala has connections to a from this region
The sensory cortical region
An organized means of combining words in order to communicate; allows thoughts about processes we can’t perceive
Language
What are the 6 properties of language?
1) Communicative
2) Arbitrarily symbolic
3) regularly structured
4) structured at multiple levels
5) generative and productive
6) dynamic
Attempt to categorize the nature of language
linguistics
Relationship between language and thought
psycholinguistics
basics units of spoken languages (letters)
phonemes
smallest unit of meaning
morphemes
rules that govern the combos of phrases and sentences
syntax
errors of meaning in language
semantic violations
error of grammar and structure in language
syntactic violations
3 major points of Chomsky in language:
1) language has underlying uniformity
2) language is a generative system (not closed)
3) underlying structures have common elements in all languages (structure is innate)
Approach that emphasis that the function of human language in everyday life is to communicate
Cognitive-Functional Approach
factors that make language comprehension more difficult:
negatives
passive voice
nested structures
ambiguity
What are the 5 stages of postnatal language development?
1) cooing (2-4 months)
2) babbling (6 months)
3) one-word stage (starts at 5 months)
4) two word stage (18-24 months)
5) basic adult structure
2 environmental influences on child speech development
child-directed speech
mean utterances to child
8 differences between spoken and written languages:
1) visual vs. auditory
2) readers can control rate on input
3) readers can rescan writing
4) writing is more standardized
5) writing shows clear boundaries between words
6) speech includes nonverbal communication
7) writing is formally learned; spoken language is more easy to pick up
8) adults learn new words more quickly through reading
Says reading happens when we recognize words on sight without sounding anything out
Direct-Access Route
Reading happens by sounding out words; works well for regular spelling
Indirect-Access Route
Reading learned by memorizing whole words
Whole-word approach
Reading learned by sounding out letters
Phonetics approach
Hypothesis that says language determines or influences ones thoughts- linguistics relativity
Whorf hypothesis
Language color vocabulary and categorization may affect of its speakers perceive and remember color
linguistic relativity
Stages of speech production
1) plan the gist
2) generate sentences
3) select specific words
4) articulate the sentences
Stages of writing production
1) plan gist
2) generate sentences
3) revise
Benefits of second language learning
greater experience of inhibition
better ability in general attention and cognitive control
attitude more than aptitude
Area used for early visual processing during active visualization
Occipital areas
represents spatial relationships among objects
spatial imagery
lacking the capacity for visualization
aphantasia
how imagery affects LTM
mental images generally improve memory
more imaginable words are easier to remember
imagery can help recall of non visual materials
Says we use both image-based and verbal codes for representing info
Paivio’s Dual-Code Hypothesis
Process of assessing info and choosing among two or more alternatives
Decision making
Theory that says we uses system 1 or 2 for making decisions
Dual-Process Theory
Describe system 1
operates fast and automatically
little or no effort
non sense of voluntary control
impulsive and intuitive
Describe system 2
effortful attention
complex computations
associated with agency, choice, concentration
reasoning
cautious
Kahneman’s Key arguments:
1) thinking can be effortful
2) If effort can be avoided, we avoid it
3) system 1 has influence when system 2 is taxed
Some tendencies of system 1:
overemphasize info that is irrelevant
ignore relevant info
fail to combine multiple pieces of info properly
Heuristic that happens when we answer an easier question than the one posed
attribute substitution
Heuristic where events that come easily to mind are judged as more frequent than they are
Availability heuristic
Heuristics that says we judge a same as being from a population if it has similar characteristics to that population
Representative heuristic
Thinking a person has more characteristics than they really do
conjugation fallacy
What can help overcome system 1 errors?
education
stats training
When something is good on one dimension, it must be good on all dimensions
Halo effect
Process where you forecast about new cases based on observations
Induction
Process where you start with premises and ask what follows from them
Deduction
Greater sensitivity to confirming bias and tendency to ignore counter evidence
Conformation bias
tendency to keep a belief despite disproving evidence
Belief perseverance
Key ingredients of a decision
desired outcome
more than one course of action toward that outcome
uncertainty about likelihood of that outcome if another action is taken
chance of choosing a particular outcome weighed by the likelihood if that outcome occurring
expected utility
basics of the expected utility model:
1) evaluate each option by multiplying the utility of each of the consequences by the probability of occurrence
2) adding weighted values to create a summery eval of each option
3) choose the best option- with highest utility
people who prefer certain gain
risk-averse
people who prefer the chance to win more even at the risk of greater loss
risk-seeking
avoid all risks/gambles
loss aversion
an object acquires more value by simply belonging to us
endowment effect
limitations of expected utility
mental accounting
behaving irrationally
optimism and risk
tendencies in decision weights:
over-weight small probabilities
insensitive to middle and high probabilities
over-weight certain outcomes
structure essentiel for evaluating somatic markers in emotional decision making
Orbital cortex
predicting future emotions
Affective forecasting
A method that may not find the best possible solution, but is good enough to meet desired outcome and efficient
satisficing
structure of a problem:
goal state
initial (start) state
possible actions
obstacles
problems that have clear initial and goal states and all possible moves are known
well-defined
problems where rules, initial states, operations, and goals are unclear/unknown
ill-defined
Case where the answer seems to come in a sudden flash of realization
insight problem
Theory that says problem solving is a search within the problem space
Problem-space Theory
Will always come up with a correct answer to a problem but can be inefficient
algorithm
general rule that gives a correct answer most of the time (not not always)
heuristic
Method of “trail and error” in problem solving
random search
method of looking one more ahead and choosing the move most resembling the goal state
hill climbing
method of breaking the problem into subproblems that requires knowledge and greater working memory demands
means-ends analysis
Thinking of a problem with similar characteristics that has been solved before and using/adapting the known solution to the current problem
Analogical reasoning
Subprocesses of analogical reasoning
1) Retrieval
2) Mapping
3) Evaluation
4) Abstraction
5) Predictions
What is analogical reasoning so demanding of attention and memory?
uses superficial and structural similarities
must maintain target in working memory
must search LTM for appropriate connections/similarities
How experts solve problems
use related chunks of knowledge from LTM
focus on deep structure
empty forwards search (symptoms to diagnosis)
System 1 consciousness
automatic processing not easily turned off; intuitive
System 2 consciousness
controlled processing that requires attention; slow and inefficient, taxing
seeing is not the same as ___________
visual awareness
State of awareness of sensations/ideas so one can reflect, know what sensations feel like, report awareness to others
consciousness
broad set of mental activities we perform without being aware
cognitive unconscious
After that fact reconstructions of an event (adding motivations to your past actions)
Mistaken introspection
cause you to do something different than what you intended to do (driving home instead of to the store after work)
Action slips
guided by circumstance; inflexible; can operate without supervision (many at the same time)
Mental reflexes
Executive control requires:
a way to initiate or override actions
a way to represent its goals and subgoals
info about inputs
info about the state of mental processes
(System 2!)
