Midterm 1 Flashcards
Goal of Basic Research
Understand the world and its phenomena without regard to specific end-use of this knowledge
Applied Research
Research with end-goal of developing a solution to a problem
Plato was promoting _____ which states that ______
Rationalism, which states that there is an innate aspect to our mental processes and reasoning
Aristotle was promoting ______ which states that____
Empiricism, which states that thoughts arise from forming associations among observations
Structuralism
Identifying the basic elements of thought and learning how these basic elements combine to form complex thoughts
Wundt
Wanted to identify the simplest units of mind that he thought followed certain laws to create complex thoughts
Psychophysics
Study of basic cognitive phenomena by linking sensory experiences to physical changes. (e.g. measuring threshold for touch).
Downsides of structuralism (2)
- Experimental methods were considered too subjective since they relied on self-report
- Approaches were too simplistic (focusing on simple sensory processes)
Functionalism
Asks why the mind works and focuses on the usefulness of knowledge.
William James and Pragmatism
Opposed to searching for basic mental elements. Believed that consciousness is personal and cannot be broken down into parts as it is constantly changing.
What did William James emphasize
An eclectic methodological approach to study the usefulness and variability of accessing knowledge in the real world.
Downside of Functionalism
It is difficult to study some of the ideas presented by functionalism since cognition is constantly changing
Behaviorism
Focuses on what can be observed (input and output -> did not consider mental processes) and assumes all species obey the same laws of behavior. John Watson.
Problems with behaviorism (3)
- Overestimates the scope of their explanations
- Cannot account for complex human behavior
- The assumption that learning was the same for all individuals across species was false
Definition of Cognition
The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
Sum of all intelligence mental activities. Act of thinking & how it affects our behavior.
Human factors
A field of psychology concerned with applying scientific findings to the design of systems that people interact with.
E.g. A designer of the cockpit of a plane might want to know which kinds of displays are most easily read or attention-grabbing.
Artificial intelligence
A branch of computer science & engineering concerned with building machines that can perform human-like intelligent behaviors.
Why does Zoom fatigue emerge?
- Zoom lacks a lot of the excuses we use for communication: body language, social & situational cues, eye contact… (you have to focus solely on the verbal stream -> much more taxing).
- Audio out of sync.
- The lack of immersion makes it easy to be distracted.
if-this-then-that» (IFFT) programming
Human programmer specifies what a computer program should do under each condition.
Machine learning
Computers are programmed to learn, changing their behavior, to get better at some task
Hypothesis
A certain guess about the link between variables under study.
Phenomenon-based research
An “effect” is discovered by accident, and follow-up research examine the nature of the effect.
Experiments test hypotheses
Contain IV and DV. Can include confounding variables.
Cognitive psychology
Study of behavior to understand the mind.
Neuroscience
Study of the brain & linking it to the mind.
Computational modeling
Building & modeling the mind-brain connection.
Cognitive psychology of emotion: Emotional enhancement effect
Emotional stimuli are more easily attended to, remembered than neutral stimuli.
Cognitive neuroscience of emotion: Amygdala & memory
Amygdala activity predicts memory for emotional but not neutral images.
The more your amygdala is engaged, the more you’e gonna remember elements of that event.
Correctness
Measures whether or not a given response is accurate.
Thresholds
A stimulus may be manipulated along one or several dimensions in order to test what level or change in the stimulus people can detect.
Reaction time
How long it takes a participant to produce a response.
Speed-accuracy tradeoff
Sacrificing accuracy in order to respond more quickly.
Common measurement of subject’s responses in an experiment (3)
Correctness, Thresholds, Reaction time.
Cognitive neuroscience
Combines behavioral experiments with methods for measuring brain activity.
Behavioral neuroscience
Incorporate behavioral experiments and physiological measures of the brain. Uses animals in majority.
Epistemology
Philosophical study of human knowledge.
Mental chronometry (Wundt)
Estimating time for a participant to perceive something (“I see it”; “I hear it”). Wundt created the “thought meter”.
Legacy of structuralism: Think aloud protocol
Research method that involves having participants verbally describe their thought process as they are performing task.
Classical conditioning
Behavior can be learned rather than depending on inborn («innate») behavioral capacities or tendencies. Behavioral responses can be modified by experience.
Little Albert experiment
After the experiment, he developed a strong fearful reaction not only to white furry objects, but to all types of furry objects. (classical conditioning)
Operant conditioning
A method of conditioning that reinforces certain behaviors through a system of rewards and punishments. (Skinner)
Skinner & Operant conditioning
Skinner claimed that all behaviors could be explained based on a combination of classical and operant conditioning. Very straightforward account of cognition.
Negative reinforcement
Removing an unpleasant stimulus.
Positive punishment
Generating an unpleasant stimulus.
Negative punishment
Removing a pleasant stimulus.
Positive reward
Generating a pleasant stimulus.
Example of Behaviorism’s limitations: Language
Children learn to apply language rules to new situations.
Legacy of behaviorism (2)
- Behaviorist methodological approach still used widely in many laboratories.
- Some forms of therapy for humans depend heavily on the behaviorist approach. (treatment of phobias)
Cognitive revolution
The mind could be understood as a computational system (1950s). Sensory information = input, decision-behavior = output.
Accepted that there are internal mental states, accepted scientific method. Mind as a processor of information.
Assumptions in cognitive psychology (3)
- Humans actively process the information they receive from the environment.
- The mind can be systematically and empirically studied.
- The brain is the basis of mental processes.
Box & arrow flowcharts
- «Boxes» in these diagrams don’t represent different brain areas => they represent different computational steps or stages.
Why do we process information?
We process information to reduce uncertainty. Since processing information takes time, the more uncertain something is, the longer it will take it.
Hick’s Law
A mathematical equation to show that the more information contained in a signal, the longer it takes to make a response to this signal.
Decision fatigue
Making decisions taxes cognitive processing and we have a limited amount of cognitive processing.
Ecological validity
The extent to which the findings of a research study can be generalized to real-life naturalistic settings.
Mind-body problem
How are mental events related to or caused by physical mechanisms in the body (brain)?
Dualism
The mind and body consist of fundamentally different kinds of substances or properties.
Monism
The mind and brain are the same; Only one entity exists.
Cite 2 types of dualism.
Interactionism, Epiphenomenalism
Interactionism
The mind and brain interact to induce events in each other. The mind can affect the body (and inverse). Subscribes to the idea we have a ‘soul’.
Where does Rene Descartes think the “principal seat of the soul” is?
He suggested the pineal gland (small gland in the center of the brain - melatonin) is this “principal seat of the soul”, full of animal spirits, and where the interaction between entitles occurs.
Epiphenomenalism
Mental thoughts are caused by physical events (brain), but thoughts do not affect physical events. -> The mind is a byproduct of the brain: it cannot alter physical events.
What does Plato think of the mind-body problem? (ancient dualism)
Argued that the mind was based on an immortal soul that was «more real» than the physical world.
What does Descartes think of the mind-body problem? (modern dualism)
Distinction between mind & matter. Mind & body form two different types of substance, but these can interact with each other.
What’s the common point between Plato and Descartes in their opinion on the mind-body problem?
Both agree that the mind and body have a strong relationship with one another.
Monism
Only one substance exists. Mental & physical are different expressions of the same thing.
Cite 3 types of monism.
Idealism, Neutral monism, Physical-Materialism
Idealism
View that the only kind of reality is mental. The brain & all physical reality is a mental construct.
Neutral monism
There is only one kind of substance that is neither just physical nor mental. Mind & body guided by something else (neutral).
Physicalism - Materialism
The only kind of reality is physical reality. Mental states can ultimately be explained as being based in the processes of the physical brain.
Pragmatic materialism
Observable behavior can be based on physical processes.
Pragmatic materialism
Observable behavior can be based on physical processes. This view doesn’t claim that the mind & body are identical, as per monism. (it is possible to understand the mind)
Phrenology
Process that involves observing and-or feeling the skull to determine an individual’s psychological attributes.
Phrenology
Process that involves observing and-or feeling the skull to determine an individual’s psychological attributes.
To what correspond the “bumps” and “dents” in phrenology?
Well-used mental functions: related brain area grows (bump).
Under-used mental functions: related brain area shrinks (dent).
Brain functional specialization
Specific brain areas - Parts of the brain correspond to mental functions and personality.
Give the name of behavioural measures that measure voluntary & involuntary response.
Voluntary responses: Behavioral experiments.
Involuntary responses: Psychophysiological measurements.
Cite 2 examples of Psychophysiological measures
Eye movements, Skin conductance (emotional arousal response)
Animal models (behavioral neuroscience method)
Researchers will use animals to conduct behavioral experiments, lesioning the brain or collecting physiological brain measures.
Pros and cons of Animal models
Pros: Provides a causal link between brain and behavior.
Cons: Differences in brain structure and function across species puts limits on the generalization of these findings.
Name 2 cognitive neuroscience methods
Neuropsychological cases, Neuroimaging techniques
Name 3 neuroimaging techniques
Electroencephalography (EEG), MRI, Brain stimulation techniques
Pros and cons of EEG
Pros: Good timing information.
Cons: Not good location information.
Pros and Cons of fMRI
Pros: Good location information.
Cons: Not good timing information.
Pros and cons of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
Pros: Good to test causality.
Cons: The way it works is not entirely clear. Stimulation techniques have broad effects on the brain, so it is hard to localize effects.
Name 2 neuroimaging techniques that go beyond studying the brain areas in isolation.
Functional connectivity, Multi-voxel pattern analysis
Functional connectivity
Look at the connections in the brain and how those might change when people are doing a task vs not.
Multi-voxel pattern analysis
Way of comparing patterns of activity in the entire brain between different states. E.g., Language task vs visual task patterns.
Exteroceptive sensations
Any form of sensation that results from stimuli located outside the body detected by sensory organs (eyes, hears, nose…). We have 5 (vision, audition, touch, taste, smell).
List the 3 interoceptive sensations.
Proprioception: Sense of where our limbs are in space.
Nociception: Sense of pain due to body damage.
Equilibrioception: Sense of balance.
Synaesthesia
A neurological condition in which one sense automatically triggers the experience of another sense.
Grapheme-color synesthesia
A person sees colors with certain letters or numbers.
McGurk Effect
Multisensory illusion such that there is a change in auditory perception from visual perception.
Describe the early visual processing (4 steps)
1) Light waves enter the eye through the cornea & are focus on the retina as an inverted image.
2) Photoreceptors in the retina convert light to electrical activity.
3) The electrical signal is sent to bipolar cells and then to the ganglion cells.
4) The signal exits through the optic nerve to the brain.
Types of photoreceptors in retina
Rods & Cones
Perceptual Filling-In
Your visual system take the surrounding of whatever is around your blind spot (or something).
Blindspot
Ganglion cells make up the optic nerve that move past the photoreceptor layer.
At this ‘exit location’, there are no photoreceptors so visual stimuli are not received (you don’t sense anything).
Why don’t we see our blindspot?
This is because of perceptual filling-in & because left and right visual fields compensate for each other’s blind spot.
Thalamus
A way-station between sensory inputs and the cortex. Subcortical structure.
Primary visual cortex functions
Contains specialized regions that process particular visual attributes or features (demonstrates functional specialization): edges, angles, color, light…
Visual Association Areas functions
Visual Association Areas interpret visual information and assign meaning.
Blindsight
Damage to Primary visual cortex. No conscious awareness (explicit perception) of visual objects in their damaged visual field.
What’s so special about patients with blindsight?
They’re to implicitly respond to questions about objects presented in the damaged visual field.
Suggests that they can perceive something without ‘consciousness’ or awareness (implicit perception).
Test of Blindsight
Over trials, turn a light on or off in the blinded visual field.
Ask patients to guess if the light was on or off (forced-choice responding task).
-> Patients responded above chance.
Implications of blindsight
Perception is first processed without conscious awareness in the brain.
Raises the idea that awareness is on a continuum with respect to perception.
Awareness & perception can dissociate.
Critiques of blindsight (3)
1) There may be other pathways for visual information to bypass the PVC. Alternating pathways.
2) These cases rely on self report.
3) Some blindsight cases report a non-visual feeling that something happened.
Difference between patients without and with blindsight in perceiving vs imagining faces.
Perceiving: Activity of patient with blindsight reduced compared to control.
Imaging: Activity of patient with blindsight when imagining is similar to control
Ventral & Dorsal visual streams
What (ventral) pathway: temporal lobes. Recognition.
Where (dorsal) pathway: parietal lobes. Localization.
Akinetopsia
Visual motion blindness: cannot see motion. Damage to where pathway.
Optic ataxia
Component of akinetopsia. The person can’t estimate movement or directions of objects in space. Inability to reach for objects with the ability to name objects.
Visual agnosia
Difficulties recognizing everyday objects. Often from damage to the Lateral Occipital Cortex.
Prosopagnosia
FFA damage. Deficit in recognizing faces.
The fact that the FFA is “specialized” in faces is controversial. Give 2 examples of experiments/facts that explain why.
1) Experiment with Greebles. Greebles activated FFA more than other objects (cats, household objects). -> FFA just discriminates.
2) Sheep farmer: Unable to name or recognize famous faces but can recognize his sheep.
Apperceptive agnosia
A failure in recognizing objects due to problems with perceiving the elements of the objects as a whole.
Associative agnosia
An inability to associate visual input with meaning.
Phonemic restoration effect
Auditory phenomenon. Involved the brain “filling in” missing sounds from a speech signal, based on expectations about which sounds belong in that portion of speech.
Constructivist Theory of Perception
Top down theory of perception. Perception is influenced by stored knowledge and context.
Gestalt theory of perception
There are fundamental organizational principles meant to deal with ambiguity in our environment.
Gestalt organizational principles
Similarity, experience, proximity, closed forms, good contour, similarity.
What are the cues to depth perception? (2)
Motion parallax: objects farther away from you will change their position more slowly on your retina as you move.
Binocular disparity: Difference in where features of the image fall on the retina of the two eyes.
Stereopsis
Ability of the brain to use the differences in disparity to determine the depth of the objects relative to fixation.
Direct models of perception (Gibson)
No mental model for sensory input to guide perception and action.
Passive bottom-up approach to perception.
Topological breakages
Discontinuity created by the intersection of two textures. Provides information about edges of object and aids in object identification.
Template matching theory
Every object has a ‘template’ in long-term memory.
What does the template matching theory cannot explain?
- Identification: The ability to recognize objects with shifts in perspective.
- Classification: The ability to recognize new objects as members of a known category.
Prototype theory
A prototype is the average representation of an object concept.
Recognition by components theory
All objects are reducible to a set of features, geons, basic geometric shapes.
Scene consistency effect
Objects paired more accurately with the right concept.
Scene schema
People learn which objects tend to appear in particular contexts. Top-down processing
Sound
Alternation of condensed and rarefied air molecules.
Structures of outer ear
Pinna: Catch sound in the environment & Amplify certain sounds.
Structures of middle ear
Ear canal, Ear drum, Ossicles
Structures of inner ear
Cochlea
Why can’t sound waves just hit the cochlea? What do the ossicles do?
You need to amplify the sound signal even more to get it to travel through the fluid in the cochlea. If no ossicles: the sound is going to be lost.
Tonotopic map on basilar membrane (explain)
Tonotopic coding all along the basilar membrane. Different frequencies are going to make the basilar membrane vibrate more or less.
Optimal frequency range of human ear.
Between 1000 and 4000 Hz.
What perceptual properties are associated with the following: Frequency, Amplitude.
Pitch, Loudness
Equal loudness contours
Not all frequencies that we hear are perceived as the same loudness level.
Perception of loudness is a function of BOTH the frequency and the amplitude of the wave.
What are the two cues for locating sounds in space?
Interaural time difference and interaural level difference.
What do we use when the sound is vertical?
We use our pinna. The reflections and amplifications are going to be different.
Auditory Scene Analysis
Process where you transform sound waves into meaningful auditory units.
Sequential integration (hearing)
Connecting sounds together in time.
Experiment: You’re playing high and low sounds at a low versus fast rhythm. How will the perception change?
Low: Perception of one single melody.
Fast: Perception of two melodies.
Fundamental frequency
Lowest frequency component in the sound wave.
Harmonics
Multiples of the fundamental frequency.
Auditory-motor synchronisation
Coupling of the auditory and motor systems in time. E.g., dancing.
Spatial (unilateral) neglect
Attentional disorder that comes from damage of the parietal lobes.
Results in an inability to attend to information in space contralateral to the brain damage.
Brain regions implicated in top-down attention.
Intraparietal sulcus and FEF (Frontal eye fields)
Brain regions implicated in bottom-up attention.
Temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) and VFC (Ventral Frontal cortex)
Components of attention
Top-down attention, Bottom-up attention, Arousal.
Brain areas implicated in Arousal
Reticular Activating System
Types of top-down attention
Sustained, Divided and Selective attention
Sustained attention
Maintain focus on one input for a long period of time.
Divided attention
Shifting attentional focus between tasks.
Selective attention
Focus on one input and ignore other information.
Flanker task
You give people a cue that would orient their attention to a particular space/feature. The stimuli can be congruent (match the cue) or incongruent (doesn’t match the cue).
-> Faster time to detect an image when the cue is congruent.
Change blindness
The failure to detect changes in stimuli in an attended zone.
What tasks permits to measure change blindness?
Flicker technique paradigm: Two highly similar visual images (e.g., scenes) are presented with an interstimulus “mask”.
Inattentional blindness
Inattentional blindness is not noticing something new.
Broadbent’s early selection filter model (attention)
We filter out information early on when we process it. You filter information at the level of perception, before information is processed for meaning (semantic analysis).
Support for early selection filter model (2)
Dichotic listening tasks & Shadowing tasks
Dichotic listening tasks
Present two simultaneous messages to each ear. Participants can better recall information ear by ear than the simultaneous message. (because if simultaneous: you switch sensory buffer -> info get lost)
Shadowing tasks
People are asked to repeat a certain message. People do not remember the content of an unattended message, but they might notice some sensory features.
Problems with early selection filter models
In certain situations, unattended information can “break through.” E.g., at a party, you can attend one conversation, yet hear your name if spoken in a non-attended-to conversation.
Treisman’s attenuator model
We do filter & select information by the physical characteristics-perceptual level. However, the filter is not all-or-none: it attenuates unattended information.
Stroop task
The task when you have to say the color of the ink and not the color written.
The Stroop task supports ____ models because you process both the _____ and the _____ for the _______.
Late selection filter models, written color name, color of the ink, meaning.
How can we remove the Stroop effect?
Make meaningless words instead of color names.
Load theory
Filter placement will depend on how much of your resources are required for your currently attended-to task.
Central resource capacity view (load theory)
One resource of attention that all sensory input are pulling in.
Multiple resource capacity view (load theory)
Each perceptual stream has a different attentional pool that it pulls from.
Attentional spotlight theory (Posner)
Attention for pre-activating processing shifts. (leads to faster detection in Posner’s cuing task).
Inhibition of return
Attention is inhibited from going to a recently attended space after a long duration between space cue and target.
Very adaptive, it helps us search our environment efficiently.
Pop-out effect
The time needed to find a target that is different by one feature from distractors is independent of the number of distractors (set size).
Feature Search
Search for an object that is different from the distractors based on one feature.
Conjunction Search
Search for an object that is different from the distractors based on multiple features.
Is the reaction time in conjunction search independent from the number of distractor?
The more the distractors, the more time it’s going to take to find the target.
Embodied theories of attention
Eye movements detect visual attentional goals. Attention is embodied.
Overt visual attention
Attending to something with your eye movements.
Covert visual attention
Attending to something without eye movements.
When students watched a one-hour long video, they mind wandered more in the second part of the lecture & performed worse on quizzes on this second part of the lecture. Two theories can explain that, what are they?
Overload theory: increase attentional demands with time.
Underload theory: boredom overtime → mind-wandering → divided attention.
When students watched a one-hour long video, they mind wandered more in the second part of the lecture & performed worse on quizzes on this second part of the lecture. Two theories can explain that, what are they?
Overload theory: increase attentional demands with time.
Underload theory: boredom overtime → mind-wandering → divided attention.
Switch cost
Divided attention involves using top-down processes to switch between mental sets associated with each task.
Leads to a decline in performance after switching tasks.
Mind wandering as divided attention
Focusing on an external task and internal thought can act like a ‘dual task’ situation.
Endogenous attention
When an individual chooses what to pay attention to based on goals and intention. Top-down.
Exogenous attention
When a property of the environment drives us to pay attention. Bottom-up.
Attentional capture
Bottom-up cues that are automatically processed.
ADHD
Inability to focus on a central task. Due to failures of the frontoparietal networks to control attention & suppress impulses.
Balint syndrome
Less common attentional deficit. Usually occurs due to a stroke that simultaneously affects the parietal lobes of both hemisphere.
What are the attention-related deficits associated with Balint syndrome?
Occulomotor apraxia: inability to execute visually guided movements.
Simultanagnosia: inability to identify or use more than one object or property in a scene at a time.
