Introduction to cognitive research

Question 1

what factors are involved in cognition?

Answer 1

perception, problem solving, learning, attention, thinking, memory, reasoning, language.

Question 2

what is the history of cognitive psychology?

Answer 2

the concept began late 1950s/ early 1960s as it moves away from the behaviourism concept.

Question 3

what is behaviourism?

Answer 3

the scientific study of observable behaviour.
rejected the use of introspections.
1910

Question 4

what is cognitive psychology?

Answer 4

1960
- the observation of internal, mental processes used in perception, comprehension, remembering and thinking.
- uses behavioural evidence to understand cognition
- uses proxy measures.
- uses studies in laboratories with high levels of control.
- involved in making sense of the environment and taking action.
- our cognitive processes often occur rapidly and are below our level of consciousness- hard to make sense of the processes if we are consciously aware of them.

Question 5

what are proxy measures?

Answer 5

a way of indirect measurements of what the researcher is trying to understand (human behaviours to make sense of human cognition)

Question 6

what is cognitive neuropsychology?

Answer 6

study brain damaged patients to apply the findings to healthy individuals so they can understand “normal” cognition.
understand how brain damage can change memory.

Question 7

what is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 7

using evidence from behaviour AND brain imaging techniques.
helps us understand brain processing and how memory can influence brain activity.

Question 8

what is computational cognitive science?

Answer 8

the development of computational models to help us understand cognitive processes.
uses algorithms as a computational procedure to provide specific steps to solve problems.

Question 9

what are the 3 assumptions of cognitive psychology?

Answer 9

1. mental processes exist
2. mental processes can be studied scientifically (proxy measures)
3. humans are active participants in the act of cognitive

Question 10

what is the cognitive science approach?

Answer 10

• systematic study of people performing tasks to help us understand mental processes
• experiments on healthy people in laboratory based conditions that try to pinpoint one condition.
• uses proxy measures such as response time and accuracy.

Question 11

explain what the proxy measure of accuracy is:

Answer 11

• measuring proportions of a response that are correct
• e.g.: remembering sequence of 8 numbers (we remember the beginning and end more than the numbers in the middle)
• the proxy measure helps us to understand the mental processes without studying it directly.

Question 12

explain what the proxy measure response time (RT) is:

Answer 12

• a measure of time elapsed between a stimulus and a person’s response to that stimulus.
• e.g.: answering a series of question (5x2=?/ 9x16=?)

Question 13

what are the strengths of the cognitive science approach?

Answer 13

• provides a foundation for understanding human mental processes
• continues to inform theorising in contemporary research across disciplines
• the source of most theories and tasks used by other approaches.

Question 14

what are the weaknesses of the cognitive science approach?

Answer 14

• task impurity problems: most tasks involve multiple cognitive processes- hard to be sure we are only measuring one. (e.g.: stroop experiment).
• lacks ecological validity (peoples behaviour may be different form every day life)
• lab based measures provide indirect evidence because they are highly controlled it may not be the best way to measure a concept.
• paradigm specificity: findings on one task don’t always generalise to other similar tasks (task specific).

Question 15

what is meta-theory?

Answer 15

• scientists need more than just questions when deciding what to experiment and how to experiment a concept.
• a set of assumptions and guiding principles to generate research questions that the researchers are interested in finding answers to.
• raises the questions of: where to start? what to look for? what to be aware of?

Question 16

what is information processing?

Answer 16

mental processes understood as a sequence of independent processing stages.
- output (response) to the input (stimulus)
- can be interpreted in many different ways.

Question 17

what is bottom-up processing?

Answer 17

data driven
our response/processing is driven by the stimulus

Question 18

what is stimulus processing?

Answer 18

• current process is completed before the next one starts
• in a sequence where stages CANNOT occur at the same time.

Question 19

what are the weaknesses of bottom-up processing and stimulus processing?

Answer 19

too simplistic:
- more contemporary approached have moved away from strict information processing approaches
- cannot account for other types of mental processing.

Question 20

what is top-down processing?

Answer 20

• processing is influenced by the individuals’ expectations and knowledge (and experiences)
• conceptually driven

Question 21

what is parallel processing?

Answer 21

when more than one cognitive process occurs simultaneously
- e.g.: first time driving uses lots of cognitive processes.

Question 22

what are the 7 themes of cognition?

Answer 22

1. attention
2. representation
3. implicit vs explicit memory
4. metacognition
5. embodiment
6. the brain
7. bottom up vs top down processing

Question 23

what is attention?

Answer 23

• poorly understood mental process that is limited in quality (only attend to one thing at a time)
• essential to processing (must pay attention to something for it to happen)
• only partially under our control (based on different stimuli)
• is it a mechanism? do we have a limited pool of mental resources? what controls attention? why do some processes occur naturally?

Question 24

what is representation?

Answer 24

• a hypothetical entity (can’t physically understand it)
• stands for a particular perception, thought or memory
• manipulated during cognitive operations, such as retrieval from memory, thinking, or problem solving (can depend on our mood also)
• how is information represented in memory? are memories formatted in the same mental code? are there separate codes for different types of memories?

Question 25

what is implicit vs explicit memory?

Answer 25

• implicit: unconscious memories that require no thinking to remember them
• explicit: conscious memories- episodic= personal memories, semantic= factual memories
• what is the role of the unconscious in cognition? can unconscious processes affect our behaviour and thinking?

Question 26

what is metacognition?

Answer 26

• an awareness of our own cognitive systems and how they work (thinking about thinking)
• the process used to plan, monitor, and asses our understand and performance (can self-assess performance and understand concepts)
• is our awareness and knowledge completely accurate? does this awareness and knowledge sometime mislead us?

Question 27

what is embodiment?

Answer 27

• the way we think and represent information is a reflection of how we interact with the world.
• e.g.: thinking something is heavy when you go to pick it up but it is actually light so you jolt backwards.
• how do we capture the world in our mental life? how do the ways we interact with the world affect out thinking?

Question 28

what is the brain?

Answer 28

• brain-cognitive relationships question the cons of contemporary cognitive psychologists ( how our brain and mental processes interact with each other inc lose connection)
• focuses on how and where memories are stored in the brain= interested in going directly to the brain and brain. imaging (e.g.: fMRI scans)
• will cognitive psychology eventually evolve into biology and neuroscience?