Intro, Neuroscience, and Perception Flashcards
What is cognitive psychology?
the study of mental processes like memory, language use/comprehension, attention, reasoning, and perception
What is the mind?
the mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning
Explain the computer analogy
The brain is like a computer’s hardware, while the mind is like the computer’s software that uses the parts of the hardware to create our experiences.
Difference between cognitive psychology and neuroscience
neuroscience seeks to understand mental processes by describing the biological systems involved in cognitive processes
cog. psych. is focused on describing the cognitive processes (steps, how they work)
What makes studying the mind difficult?`
It cannot be directly observed, we have to rely on behavior or physiological responses to get information about mental processes
What is the Donders’ Decision Time Experiment?
Donders measured how long it takes a person to make a decision through two tasks:
-Simple RT Task: push button quickly after light turns on
-Choice RT Task: participant pushes one button if light is on right and one button is light is on left
He reasoned that the simple RT condition measured reaction time and choice RT condition measured reaction time PLUS decision time, making Decision Time = Average Choice RT - Average Simple RT
Significance of Donders’ Decision Time Experiment
showed that observable responses can provide insight into unobservable mental processes
What was the Ebbinghaus Memory Experiment?
Ebbinghaus was interested in the rate at which we forget and relearn information so he learned a list of “nonsense” syllables. He found that after learning the list once, he learned it faster the second time. He called this difference Savings. He tested the amount of savings he had at various time intervals
Conclusions of Ebbinghaus’ Memory Experiment
It takes less time to relearn a list because the original is still partly present in memory.
He found that the longer the interval between learning and relearning, the smaller the time savings.
Decline in savings was due to list slowly being lost from memory
Savings level off after 2 days
Significance of Ebbinghaus’ Memory Experiment
-demonstrated that memory could be measured and quantified
-proposed a general rule for forgetting
-gained insight into a property of the mind by measuring observable behavior
What is a scientific revolution?
when there is a shift in thinking from one scientific paradigm to another
What is a paradigm?
a system of ideas that dominates science at a particular time
What approach to psychology was dominant prior to behaviorism?
Structuralism - the idea that mental experience can be broken down into basic elements called sensations
What technique was used in structuralism?
analytic introspection, a technique where trained participants described their thought process in response to stimuli
Why were behaviorists uninterested in studying the mind?
-believed psychology should focus on observable behaviors
-believed observable behaviors should not be used to get insight into the mind
What factors led to the paradigm shift from Behaviorism to Cognitivism? (+ examples)
-behaviorism’s failure to explain complex human behavior (reinforcement and punishment couldn’t explain things like language acquisition
-introduction of the digital computer inspired new ways of thinking (flow diagrams depicted processing information in stages which related to the mind)
-neuroimaging
Flow Diagrams and Broadbent’s filter model
flow diagrams depict the way that computers process information in stages
provided inspiration for the idea that we can depict mental processes in a similar way
Broadbent: Input -> Filter -> Detector -> Memory
Levels of Analysis (and example in neuroscience)
we do not examine topics from a single POV but multiple angles and different points of view, each viewpoint adds info that can be combined for greater understanding
(understanding the function of individual neurons allowed us to understand higher order cognitive phenomena)
neurons
brain cells that specialize in communication, interactions give rise to words, actions, ideas, and psychological experiences
Cell body
center of neurons, builds new cell components
dendrites
branched extensions from the cell body that receive information from other neurons
axon
tail of the neuron, extends toward other neurons to transmit information. covered in myelin sheath.
axon terminal
branched endings of an axon, site of communication between neurons
action potential
brief electrical charge that travels down a neuron and releases neurotransmitters.
neuortransmitters
chemical messengers that allow neuron to neuron communication
all or nothing response
a neuron either fires or it doesn’t fire, strength of stimulus affects rate of firing
neural representation
our brain’s model of the outside world, including content and our response to the content
everything we do is being represented in our brain
principle of neural representation
all of our experiences are based on representations in our nervous system
sensory coding
the brain’s representation of different characteristics of the environment
population coding
representing stimuli by using the joint activities of a number of neurons
sparse coding
representation of items by strong activation of relatively small set of neurons
localized representation
each specific cognitive function is served by a specific area of the brain
ex: broca’s area
distributed representation
multiple areas of the brain contribute to a given cognitive function
ex: looking at faces active many separate areas of the brain, memory activates different areas for different components of memory
double dissociation
damage to one area of the brain causes function A to be absent while function B is present and vice versa.
allows us to conclude that functions rely on different mechanisms that are independent of each other
neural networks
interconnected areas of the brain that can communicate with each other
Compare/Contrast structural and functional connectivity
structural - physical connections via axons that connect neurons in separate areas of the brain
functional - the extent to which activity in two brain areas is correlated, with the logic that if activity in one area tends to co-occur with activity in another area, they are functionally connected
Sensation
refers to the process by which our sensory organs detect, respond to, and translate environmental stimuli into information that can be processed by our brains
perception
refers to the processes by which the brain “makes sense” of the information fed in from our sense organs
our brain’s interpretation of raw sensory data
inverse projection problem
perception starts with the image on our retina and “works backwards” to determine what object cast that image
What aspects of perception do humans excel at that computers struggle with?
-Inverse projection problem
-objects can be hidden or blurred
-objects look different from different perspectives
-scenes contain high level information - we use prior knowledge and understanding
bottom up processing
perception that starts with information from the environment and builds up
-rely on it more when interpreting unfamiliar sensory information
-assembling many individual pieces of sensory information
top-down processing
perception that starts at the top of our perceptual system - the brain
-draws upon existing knowledge, experience, and expectations to quickly interpret
-used for familiar sensory info
Helmholtz Unconscious Inference
image on retina is ambiguous so we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the stimulation perceived, happens rapidly and unconsciously
Principle of good continuation
we prefer to perceive continuous lines rather than smaller, broken line segments
perceive objects as continuous wholes even if another object blocks part of them
gestalt principle of pragnanz (simplicity)
we tend to perceive the simplest structure that could produce a given pattern of stimulation
gestalt principle of similarity
we tend to group together similar stimuli and perceive them as part of the same whole
physical regularities
regularly occurring physical properties of the environment
oblique effect
we can perceive things that are oriented horizontally or vertically more easily than other orientations, molded by physical regularities
semantic regularities
characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scenes
ex: imagine a microscope and see a science lab
bayesian inference
we estimate the probability of an outcome based on prior probability (prior belief on probability of outcome) and likelihood (degree to which the available evidence supports an outcome)
Why study optical illusions?
how our brain processes atypical stimuli highlights how good it is at standard stimuli and how we perceive stimuli
experience dependent plasticity
the shaping of neural responses by experience
Gauthier’s Greeble Experiment
highly trained individuals showed activation in fusiform face area when looking at greeble’s, is possible to replicate with things like cars and birds
Ungerleider and Mishkin Brain Ablation Experiment
took out areas of brain and looked for problems in functioning in monkeys
discovered temporal lobe is necessary for the what pathway and parietal lobe is necessary for the where pathway
what pathway
associated with object discrimination, ventral
where pathway
associated with landmark discrimination, remembering where things are, dorsal
