Human cognition Flashcards
What are the 4 key areas in cognitive psychology?
- cognitive psychlogy
- cognitive neuropsychology
- cognitive neuroscience
- computational cognitive science
What is cognitive psychology?
understanding human cognition through observation of behaviour during performance on cognitive tasks
What are 3 approaches in cognitive psychology?
information-processing approach
bottom-up approach
top-down approach
What is the information-processing approach?
assumption that human processing resembles a computer
What is the bottom-up approach?
believes processing is directly influenced by environmental stimuli
What is the top-down approach?
believe processing is influenced by internal factors
What are 3 strengths of cognitive psychology?
- very flexible as it can be applied to all areas of cognition
- was the 1st scientific approach
- led to multiple theories being developed
What are 3 limitations to cognitive psychology?
- most of the cognitive tasks used lack ecological validity
- theories are vague and hard to test
- findings are often paradigm specific
What does it mean if findings are paradigm specific?
means they are created from a specific perspective
What is cognitive neuropsychology?
studying brain damaged patients to understand human cognition in general
What does cognitive neuropsychology provide?
fairly direct evidence of brain-cognition interconnections
What are the 4 key assumptions of cognitive neuropsychology?
- functional modularity
- anatomical modularity
- universality assumption
- subtractivity
What is functional modularity?
refers to independent processing units
example of domain specificity (where different domains are supported by specialised cognitive processes)
What is anatomical modularity?
each cognitive module is located in a specific brain region
What is the universality assumption?
idea that the organisation of cognitive functions is very similar across all individuals
What is subtractivity?
brain damage can only disrupt modules or the connections between them but patients don’t develop new modules to compensate
What are the 4 lobes in each hemisphere?
frontal
parietal
occipital
temporal
What is the frontal lobe divided from the parietal lobes by?
the central sulcus
What separates the temporal lobes from the parietal and frontal lobes?
lateral fissure
What are the 3 methods used in cognitive neuropsychology?
correlational evidence/making associations
single-case studies (useful for rare cases)
case-series studies (gains rich data)
What is case-series study?
studies several patients with similar symptoms or damage
What is the double dissociation test? (Keane et al 1995)
patient (L.H) bilateral occipital lobe lesions
patient (H.M) bilateral medial-temporal lobe lesions
visuo-perceptual priming - impaired in L.H, intact in H.M
visual recognition memory - intact in L.H, impaired in H.M
(shows double dissociation)
What is a double dissociation?
technique that compares two tests to identify specialised brain functions
2 types:
- single dissociation
- double dissociation
What is a single dissociation?
doesn’t necessarily indicate modularity as one task might be more difficult than the other
