Midterm 1 Flashcards
Black plague changed the world
changed social dynamics, the government, economics, politics, etc.
John Locke
empiricist; believed our knowledge comes from learning, the environment, and experience; we are born as blank slates and experience shapes our minds; experience in the world necessary to develop knowledge
Immanuel Kant
believed experience is important, but knowledge is more than just experience; we are born with innate organizational and learning systems of the mind that determine how that experience is used
three areas to look when determining where cognitive systems form
in infants, imperative psychology (looking across species), cross-cultural studies
invariant information
information that is not changed over generations (ex. general face shape)
variant information
information/things that change over time (ex. politics, technology, social dynamics)
underlying modular systems
social modules, biological modules, physical modules
social modules
being able to communicate
biological modules
what’s biological and what’s not, what we do and don’t do
physical modules
being able to identify tools and process how to use them
two information domains of the mind
social information and ecological information
social information
information about who I am
ecological information
having information about the biological world
self schema
the idea of me; based on your experiences; your idea of youself
person schema
how we understand other individuals and how they affect us
group schema
whether groups are cooperative vs. hostile; who is in-group and who is out-group; different types of groups
innate cognitive functions
space perception, navigation, object representation, numbers, social cognition, culture, morality and religion, humor, intelligence, face processing
visual perception relies on…
light, our eyes, and how we act based on what we see
visual needs
hunting, precision in visual acuity, ability to read other people, ability to navigate the world
importance of vision for the human mind
primary source for information about the world, survival, protection, social interactions, mental representations
properties of light
reflection, transmission, absorption, scattering
cornea
outer, clear layer; basic transmission of light
iris
muscle with color
lens
focuses the light so that it ends up on the retina correctly
retina
two-dimensional membrane; image is upside down and mirrored on the retina; contains receptor cells
receptor cells
designed to pick up certain stimuli
rods
primary role is for night vision, movement, and peripheral vision
cones
primary role is for visual acuity and color perception
three types of vision
scotopic, mesopic, photopic
scotopic vision
starlight, moonlight; rods activated only; night time vision
mesopic vision
both cones and rods activated; during sunrise and sunset; makes colors more grand
photopic vision
color perception; cones activated; under white light; rods not as activated
fovea
an indentation on the retina; center of the eye; where the most visual acuity is and where the most cones are
optic disc
the beginning of the optic nerve; blind spot
development of vision
as a newborn, you can see general shapes up to 12 inches away but no color; color does not come in until about 3 or 4 months of age
optic radiation
a projection tract that connects the lateral geniculate nucleus to the primary visual cortex in the optic tract
primary visual cortex
processes basic parts of vision like lines, shadows, and contours
visual association cortex
associates what you are looking at; integrates and processes the material
V1 area
visual field representation
V2 area
feedback loop between V1 and other areas
V3 area
sensitive to motion and color
V4 area
color processing
V5 area
sensitive to motion
dorsal pathway
sends the information in the occipital lobe to the parietal lobe; processes spatial information
ventral pathway
sends information in the occipital lobe to the temporal lobe; identifies visual information
visual system evolved to solve these problems
stable visual picture (our eyes jump when moving from side-to-side), continuous feed, 3D spatial layout
some problems of visual spatial perception
perceiving motion is highly complex, size is another problem our vision has to solve, object motion vs. observer motion
monocular depth cues
cues about space that you can perceive with just one eye
interposition
cues that tell us where something is located in space
linear perspective
cues that tell us there is depth
depth illusions
can be created with shadows and lighting
binocular depth cue
close objects cause convergence of the eyes; farther objects cause more divergence of the eyes; move the eyes in relation to how close or how far an object is from you
two possibilities for mechanisms that lead to interpretation
humans have special-purpose cognitive systems (core knowledge of space) and humans endowed with general-purpose capacity (no core knowledge of space, but have the capability to learn about our surroundings)
nativist theory of space perception
René Descartes; the observer is able to determine visual angles through muscular responses that direct the eyes toward an object and the brain doing geometrical calculation to judge the distance between self and object
rationalism and nativism + vision perception
-the mind and brain are built to perceive space
-perceptual processes like reasoning
-geometric inferences
empiricism and associationism + visual perception
-the mind and brain are built to sense impinging stimuli (effort)
-learn to interpret stimuli by association and touch
-no reasoning process
proprioception
the sense that lets us perceive the location, movement, and action of parts of the body
space perception is…
innate
white light
sunlight
different colors
different wavelengths
color doesn’t exist in nature
our ability to see colors is a results of a biological electrochemical process; color only exists in our brains
photoreceptors
rods and cones
rods
peripheral vision, detects motion, does not detect color
cones
allow us to see color, three types of cones, majority are on the fovea, allow us to have high visual acuity
S-cones
blue, short wavelengths
M-cones
green, medium wavelengths
L-cones
red, long wavelengths
if we only had one type of cone
we would be completely colorblind; the cone would be unable to perceive which color it is meant to, so it wouldn’t
protanope
no L-cones; red-green color blindness
deuteranope
no M-cones; red-green color blindness
tritanope
no S-cones; cannot perceive lower wavelength colors like blue and green; blue-blind
three components of color
hue, saturation, brightness
hue
type of color
saturation
richness of a specific color
brightness
lightness
color constancy
no matter the context of lighting or filter, the colors of objects will always remain noticeably the same; context is important
one fundamental question of cognitive science
Which theory best explains the origin of the mind, the origin of knowledge, and how inborn knowledge and experience come to shape us as humans
and other animals as what they are: John Locke or Immanuel Kant?
two main ideas of cognitive science
1) all animals are endowed with innate cognitive systems
2) humans, not animals, evolved an ability for cultural evolution
result of natural and sexual selection
brain evolved with cognitive, affective, and conscious psychological systems to process dynamic environment
conscious-psychological systems
how the world should operate = cognitive mechanisms to reduce difference between ideal and actual states
cognitive systems
evolutionary function to generate and manipulate conscious-psychological systems
affective systems
emotions provide feedback to others; particularly positive emotions
brain systems
not just the size of the brain, but the organization of the neurons and neural pathways
folk systems
source of information represented in immediate memory as the content for conscious-psychological simulations
folk psychology
social information related to the self, other individuals, and groups
folk biology
information about natural environment
folk physics
information about how the physical world works (ex. sharper objects cut meat more effectively)
ganglion cells
the first neurons in the visual pathway with axons, which are gathered into a bundle called the optic nerve
optic chiasm
axons in the optic nerves cross to the left and right hemispheres and travel to visual areas of the thalamus and then to the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe (blind spot)
inferior temporal cortex
responds to shapes
continuity over development
common mechanisms in infants and adults
continuity over evolution
common mechanisms in humans and non-human animals
