L3B: Information Processing Flashcards
What are Computations?
Computations are what take place between
a stimulus (input) and a response
What is the Fundamental assumption of information processing framework?
Fundamental assumption of information processing
framework is that processing is time consuming
What slows down information processing? (3)
- Processing what something is /looks/sounds/ feels likes
- Deciding how to act/the complexity of a decision
- Planning a (complex) response slows us down
What are the 3 Stages of
Information Processing?
What is Mental chronometry?
One way to study time course of information processing
Measures the speed with which the brain processes information through comparisons of different RT situations
What are the 3 Types of RT Tasks?
- SIMPLE
- CHOICE
- DISCRIMINATION (Go/No-Go)
What is Simple RT?
What is Choice RT?
What is Discrimination RT (go/nogo)?
Subtractive method: Simple RT task
What are the stages involved in RT?
Which Stages are excluded?
Simple RT: No discrimination or selection
Choice RT: All 4 Involved
Go/No-Go: No Response Selection
How can we calculate
Stimulus Discrimination Time?
Subtractive logic: If we know RTs for these 2 tasks we can calculate: discrimination time
How can we calculate
Response Selection Time?
Subtractive logic: If we know RTs for these 3 tasks
we can calculate: discrimination & selection times
Using the subtractive method,
What is the duration of Response Selection?
What is the duration of Stimulus Discrimination
- Simple RT = 200 ms
- Choice RT = 290 ms
- Go/No-go RT = 240 ms
Stimulus Discrimination: 240-200 = 40 ms
Response Selection: 290-240 = 50 ms
Using this chronometric/subtractive RT, what major assumption is being made?
Assume that stages of information processing are independent stages and hence serial in nature. BUT, as we will return to, we also process in parallel.
