Memory pt. 1 Flashcards
three processes of sensation and definition
reception, transduction, transmission
- a physiological process involving sensory receptors detecting and responding to the presence of stimuli.
- An automatic physical reaction to a stimulus
Types of stimulus energy and there corresponding organs
- Electromagnetic radiation- sight- eyes
- Sound waves- audition- ears.
- Chemical energy- olfaction- nose
- Chemical energy- gustation- tongue
- Mechanical and thermal energy- touch, pressure, pain, temperature- skin
Reception in sensation
when sensory receptor cells detect a stimulus (or change). If the stimulus is strong enough to activate a response, then transduction begins.
Transduction in sensation
the conversion of stimulus energy into electrochemical energy. This is necessary because the nervous system can only transmit and process electrochemical energy.
Transmission in sensation
when electrochemically charged neural impulses leave the receptor sites and travel along specific nerve fibers to specialized areas of the brain.
three processes of perception and deffinition
- selection, organisation and interpretation
- The mental process of organising and interpreting sensory stimuli sent from the senses so it forms a mental representation.
Selection in perception
the brain can’t process all the information it receives so it pays attention to the important pieces and ignores the rest.
organisation in perception
the reassembling of features of sensory stimuli to make a whole or a meaningful pattern.
Interpretation in perception
the brain now gives meaning to the reassembled pattern so we understand what the stimuli represents about the external world.
The role of attention in memory
selective and divided
a voluntary or involuntary tendency to focus awareness on a specific stimulus and ignore other stimuli. It is part of our executive function and decision making processes. It allows us to focus on internal or external stimuli that may be of importance.
What is memory
the cognitive function through which information and past experiences are actively processed, stored and retrieved.
We tend to select stimuli for attention if:
- It is unusual or intense
- We are motivated to or expect to encounter a particular stimulus
- It is personally significant
- It is moving or changing
- It becomes repetitious
Selective attention
- Involves being able to choose what stimuli to focus on and ignore all other stimuli.
-Can be intentional or automatic and makes it difficult to focus on/pay attention to more than one thing at a time.
Divided attention
-rapidly switching focus between 2 or more stimuli simultaneously.
- It is dependent on the types of tasks (how difficult they are, how similar they are and if they involve automatic or controlled processes)
- Dividing attention when trying to learn something causes you to share your cognitive load between multiple sources and is not efficient.
what is the cocktail party effect
- the ability for an individual to be aware of multiple conversations occurring around them at the same time using divided attention, as well as using selective attention, where their focus is on one conversation and the rest are neglected.
- Cherry’s experiments demonstrate how we use divided attention via our awareness of simultaneous conversations in a crowded noisy space, and how we are able to focus our attention towards one conversation and subsequently disregard all other conversations using selective attention.
cocktail party method
- Participants were tasked with singling out and repeating one of the speeches word-by-word or phrase-by-phrase.
-Researchers marked down on the scripts the words and phrases that were correctly recognised by the participants. - While participants described the task as extremely difficult, with some replaying the tape up to twenty times, participants were generally successful in separating the speeches.