Midterm #2 Flashcards
What does memory do?
Routines and habits. The sense of self. Social functions. Solving problems.
Three stages of memory
Encoding –> Memory Consolidation –> Storage –> Retrieval
Memory encoding
Learning new info, processing info to form a memory, forming new “memory trace” as a neural code.
Memory storage
Retaining encoded memory trace/neural code. Consolidating memory. Takes time.
Memory Retrieval
Activating a memory trace via a cue (probe for that memory) for a purpose.
Encoding a memory in the brain
Encoding: When a memory trace is formed as a hippocampal-cortical activity pattern.
Memory storage in the brain
Consolidation: memory is transformed into a stable cortical pattern.
Memory retrieval in the brain
When a cue (part of a memory trace) triggers pattern completion of the brain pattern.
The multi-store model: Memory as systems
Sensory input –> Sensory memory (information not transferred is lost) –> Short-term memory - rehearsal (Information not transferred is lost) –> Long-term memory –> Short-term memory
Sensory memory
Info that is present in the most unprocessed form. Automatic reflections of a sense. Lasts a very short time. Processed differently in each sense (gustatory, olfactory). Echoic memory, Haptic memory, Iconic memory.
Echoic memory
Brief memory of sounds, help us separate streams of sound quickly. Sound-byte held for around 3 seconds.
Haptic memory
Very brief memory of touch
Iconic memory
Holds visual info for short period, right after you perceive it. Millisecond visual memory. A ‘persistence of vision’.
Iconic memory: Afterimages
Positive afterimage: A visual memory that represents the perceived image in the same colours. Helpful for seeing things smoothly. Exactly what you saw before you looked away.
Negative afterimage: A visual memory is the inverse of the perceived image. Colour is not the same was what you originally perceived, it is the complimentary colours. Slightly longer than the positive afterimage.
Short term memory
Attended information moves from sensory to short term memory. Lasts longer than sensory memory. Also has limited capacity. Prefrontal cortex.
Primacy effect
Remember things you see first (supported by short term and long term).
Recency effect
Remember things you saw most recently (supported only be short term memory).
Chunking strategy
Helps to overcome short term memory limits. Grouping items together in a meaningful way so more information to be represented at one time.
The chunking effect.
Chunking increases with knowledge. Expert chess players recall more pieces on a chess board than new chess players: experts use knowledge of moves to ‘chunk’ prices together. This effect is not present if the pieces are on the board randomly.
Working memory
Retention and manipulation of information not in our environment in conscious awareness. Guides behaviour. Essential for many cognitive functions.
Working memory model
Central executive: moving things around with short term memory stores. Two memory stores: verbal and visual. The phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad.
The phonological loop
Store for verbal information
1. Phonological store: Passive store for verbal information Holding onto verbal info. “The inner ear”.
2. Articulatory control loop: Active rehearsal of verbal information. “The inner Voice”. Used to convert written material into sounds (reading).
Visuospatial sketchpad
- The visual cache: information about visual features.
- The inner scribe: Information about spatial location, movement and sequences.
Neuroimaging evidence for short term memory stores
Different areas of the brain are active for visual and verbal short term memory tasks.
Double dissociation in neuropsychological cases: short term memory stores
Patient ELD has problems recalling visual-spatial but not verbal material in the short term. Patient PV has problems recalling verbal but not visual material in the short term.
The episodic buffer
Integrates visual and verbal information. Bridge between short and long term memory. Conscious awareness.
Long-term memory
Implicit: Non-Declarative; Non-Conscious Memory. Procedural and Priming.
Explicit: Declarative; Conscious Memory. Episodic and Semantic.
Encoding Explicit memories
Short term memory –> Encoding (learning) – (Retention Interval Time) –> Memory (recall).
Ebbinghaus
Learned nonsense syllables. tested memory at various intervals, and examined what was retained (forgotten). Used nonsense syllables because they have no meaning. Learned sets of the syllables under strict testing conditions to remove confounds.
The forgetting curve
Memory loss is largest early on and then slows down. Exponential curve that determines how many items you can remember from what you learned.
The spacing effect
Forgetting is reduced when learning is spread over time. Explanation: Repeated information is more valuable. Lesson: don’t cram.
Active rehearsal: The testing effect
Participants studied a text passage. Between group manipulation (studied more; practice test). Both groups took the final test. Retrieving memories after test leads to deeper encoding.
Levels of processing theory
The strength of a memory (and potential for forgetting) depends on processes engaged at encoding. Shallow: Focus on sensory information.
Deep: Integrate higher-level knowledge (things we know) with learned information.
Memory is stronger with deep processing - more elaborate memory traces.
Examples of shallow vs deep processing
Learn new words in a new language, memorizing vocabulary words and their translations is shallow, but using the words in sentences is deep.
Mnemonics using deep processing
Organizational strategies to help encode information. Often involves linking new information to prior (semantic information) knowledge. Chunking strategies. Acronyms to remember lists. Imagery and the Method of Loci: use a familiar image to link encoded info together.
Decay Theory
Memories are lost over time due to disuse. Like a muscle you don’t use, a memory gets weaker.
Interference theory
Interference is responsible for much of forgetting. Encoded memories are labile and need to be consolidated into stable long-term memories. During pre-consolidation period, memories are susceptible to disruption and effects of interfering information.
Proactive interference
‘Forward in time’. Prior information interferes with encoding a new memory. E.g., trouble learning a new phone number because your old number keeps popping up in your memory.
Retroactive interference
‘Backward in time’. Newly learned information overwrites or interferes with a prior encoded memory. E.g., Trouble remembering an older password after you formed a new password. a
Similarity effects
The more alike something is to what is already learned, the more it will mingle and interfere with memory.
The encoding specificity hypothesis
Memory retrieval is better when there is overlap with encoding context. Context can act as a retrieval cue. If you are in the same context that you learn something in when you want to retrieve it, you’re going to remember it better. Context can be internal state or external environment.
Transfer-appropriate processing
Memory depends on the relationship between the information, how it was initially encoded, and then how it is later retrieved. We need to encode info in a manner in which we want to retrieve it later on.
Episodic memory
Specific events and episodes. Retrieve encoding context (what, where and when). Eg., dancing at my high school prom.
Semantic memory
Facts and general information. No retrieval of context of learning. Eg., proms occur at the end of high school.
Children with hippocampal damage
Episodic memory impairment: cannot copy images after a delay.
Semantic memory preservation: normal factual knowledge.
Episodic memory depends on the hippocampus.
Semantic dementia
Relatively spared at episodic memory tasks. Impaired at word naming and picture matching tasks.
Long-term memory 3 consciousness levels
- Anoetic Consciousness: Implicit Memory. No awareness or personal engagement.
- Noetic Consciousness: Semantic Memory. Awareness but not personal engagement.
- Autonoetic Consciousness. Episodic Memory. Awareness AND personal engagement.
Episodic memory: The reappearance hypothesis.
An episodic memory trace is recalled the same way at each retrieval - it is reproduced, not reconstructed. Based on clinical observations that recurrent memories are unchanged from the original event in cases like PTSD.
Flashbulb memories
Vivid memories of significant events that are: Emotionally arousing or shocking events. Retrieve specific details about the time and place when hearing about the event.
Are flashbulb memories special?
Study found that there is a decrease in the number of consistent details for both flashbulb and everyday memories, AND an increase in the number of inconsistent details for both types of memories. Suggests that flashbulb memories are subject to change with retrieval - just like regular memory.
Constructing an episodic memory trace
During retrieval, the hippocampus will bind together whatever details are accessed and activated at that time from the network.
Memory consolidation
Experiences are encoded and then consolidated into a long-term memory trace. The formation of stable cortical representations of memories.
Memory re-consolidation
When a trace becomes activated, it becomes de-stable. Cortical connections can be strengthened and modified during this time, which alters how the memory trace is reconsolidated. Retrieval changes a memory trace.
Impact of constructing memories at retrieval.
Means these memories are susceptible to distortion. We may use general knowledge, semantic memory (schemas) to infer the way things “must have been” in a recalled memory. We may insert false information into the constructed memory, affecting later retrieval.
How does semantic memory affects episodic memory?
Semantic knowledge affects retrieving detailed memories.
How can schemas distort memories
Schemas organize and categorize information, provide expectations about how things should occur.
The War of Ghosts experiments
Participants read an unfamiliar Native American folk story, which did not match Western folk story structure (schema). They examined how the story changed within participants with repeated retrievals. Participants remembered a simplified version of the story and it became more conventional with repeated retrievals. There were omissions and alterations to match Western schema.
False memories
- A familiar feeling can lead to incorrect associations.
- Details can be added to memories during retrieval.
The misattribution effect
Retrieving familiar information from the wrong source (place). A failure in source monitoring (not remembering the where or when accurately).
The misinformation effect
Leading questions can cause false memory formation. Participants viewed a simulated car crash and after were asked: “How fast were the cars going when they contacted each other?” OR “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”
Implanting memories
Participants recalled childhood experiences recounted by their parents over three experimental sessions. A false memory was added to the list of experiences by the experimenter. 20% of people had a false memory of this event by the end of the third session.
Virtues of reconstructive memory
The same processes that help us construct the past help us imagine the future and plan for our lives. These are processes of the hippocampal episodic memory system.
The Rashomon Effect
Memories are reconstructions… Is this why people can recall the same event differently?
Implicit memory: Procedural memory
Automatic behaviour/actions. Patterns of movements encoded in the brain: Basal Ganglia - motor sequence. Prefrontal cortex - organization. More immune to forgetting compared to other types of memory.
Habits: when deliberate actions become routine
Initially rely on explicit memory; with training and or exposure will then rely on implicit memory. Motor action sequences, repetitive thoughts or emotions, basis of some addictions.
Habit formation
Prefrontal cortex is important for keeping habits going. Rats were trained on a T-shaped maze with tones to signal reward at the left or right end. Required the stratium.
Breaking habits
Removing a reward at one end, or making one reward gross (non-rewarding) did not break the habit of the rats. To break habit, need to inhibit prefrontal cortex, which is the region that monitors habit.
Implicit memory: Priming
Prior exposure facilitates information processing without awareness. Example: Word-fragment completion test. Participants are shown a list of words. Asked to complete word fragments. Participants are likely to use prior words to complete the fragments without knowing it.
Implicit emotional responses
Automatic emotional response to scary/emotional: fear response to snakes, the dark and other scary stimuli. Amygdala is important for both implicit and explicit emotional memory. Conditioned emotional response is important for things that could harm us.
Explicit memory
Semantic: facts
Episodic: unique episode/experience
Everything starts off as episodic memory in some way. Key difference: episodic memory is about one key episode, semantic is about general knowledge.
Semantic memory organization
Goes from general to specific.
Unit: concept
Properties: feature or description of unit
Pointers: depicting relationship between concepts and properties
Spreading activation in the semantic network
When you retrieve one concept, that activity will spread to other closely related concepts. Semantic priming: related ideas triggered at retrieval. Trains of thought that might seem nonsensical.
Dissociations in longer term memory: Amnesia due to brain injury
HM: Experimental neurosurgery to reduce seizure activity. Bilateral medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus removed. Selective episodic memory loss.
HM and the role of the hippocampus in episodic memory
Intact short-term memory: can remember a short list of words for 30 seconds. Intact procedural memory: could learn new skill-based tasks. Intact semantic memory: could recall major historic events of childhood. Profound episodic memory loss: could not learn new information and recalled his past in sparse detail.
Anterograde amnesia
This is the inability to form new episodic memories. Info cannot move from short term to long term.
Retrograde amnesia
The loss of memories form before the onset of amnesia. Specific to episodic memory. Temporally graded: memories closer to event (more recent) will be more affected.
Dissociative amnesia
Results without any brain injury at all - a very rare psychiatric disorder. Related to information about the self. Leads to shifts in lifestyle. Usually a response to psychological and physical trauma.
Dreams and amnesia
Dreams are linked to memory - Theory: dreaming helps people process past experiences as they sleep. Patients with focal bilateral hippocampal damage and amnesia and healthy controls. Woken up at various points during thenight and asked if they dreamt and to describe the dreams. People with hippocampal damage reported fewer dreams and the dreams they had were much less detailed. Experiment suggest perhaps you need functioning memory process to engage in dreams.
Dementia: pathological aging
Umbrella term. Dementia: progressive cognitive and functional impairments due to neuronal death. Alzheimer’s: starts with episodic memory.
Semantic dementia
Specific trouble with semantic memory. Can often recall episodic memories - shows a division. Neurodegeneration begins in the left anterior temporal lobe. Deficits recognizing faces of friends, words, and uses of objects.
Healthy aging
Volume loss: ~5%
per decade after age of 40. Not all areas affected equally. Implicit memory is intact. Semantic memory is intact. Episodic memory (and working memory) is impaired.
Theories to explain decrease in episodic memory
- Domain-genera cognitive aging theories
- The associative deficit hypothesis
Domain-general cognitive aging theories
Older adults have deficits in general executive cognitive processes from frontal lobe atrophy. Slower at processing information. Can’t inhibit irrelevant information. Eg., Older adults will have trouble focusing on one picture and ignoring all other pictures on a busy wall.
The associative deficit hypothesis
Older adults have problems encoding and retrieving associations in memory due to hippocampal atrophy. Familiarity or single items: recognizing a face (non-hippocampal). Recollection: remembering a face and place (hippocampal).
Cases of extreme memory: Taxi drivers
Memory and space are intimately linked. ‘The knowledge’: memorize a labyrinth of 25,000 streets within a 10-km radius. Taxi drivers preformed better on tests of spatial memory than bus drivers. Taxi drivershave greater posterior hippocampus grey matter volumes. The volume of the posterior hippocampus in taxi drivers is related to years of experience as a taxi driver.
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
HSAM people can remember every single detail from their lives in detail. Enhanced autobiographical memory. HSAM does not involve mnemonic strategies. The do not remember a word list better than the average person - is is specific to personal memories. Downside: consistency in recalling memories (not forgetting details of the past) relates to OCD symptoms.
Goldilocks principle
Memory works well with just the right amount of it - not too little and not too much.
Concepts
General knowledge of a category; a mental representation of it
Categories
Items that are grouped together according to concept
Exemplars
Individual items within a category
Concept organization
We can define or access a concept at different levels of specificity. Superordinate, Basic, Subordinate.
Concepts in development
Children learn basic, then superordinate, and then subordinate.
Concepts in disease
Semantic dementia patients can use basic level concepts (dog), becomes impaired as the disease progresses. Early in disease, basic level concepts are accessed (a dog is a dog). As the disease progresses, use general concepts (a dog is an animal).
Cognitive economy
Organization allows for efficient access of knowledge for given situation. Balance between accessing general enough info to separate that info from other things for the purpose you have. Use the simplest terms that is still meaningful for the situation.
A graded concept organization
Graded structure to how we organize concepts. Organization across each of the levels.
Generalization
The process of deriving a concept from specific experiences, so that you can apply that knowledge more widely to new situations.
Concept learning
Generalization is the process of deriving a concept from many specific experiences.
Classic approach to concept learning
If something you see has those defining features, then it’s going to belong to that category and if it doesn’t, it’s going to belong to another concept category.
Defining features
Are necessary and sufficient for category membership
Characteristics features
Are those common but not essential for category membership.
What does/doesn’t concept learning work well for?
Works well for simple concepts. Doesn’t work well for complex concepts that are subject to variability, ambiguous concepts.
How concepts are represented by similarity
Concepts are not based on similarity, rather are defined by the resemblance to a collection of features.
Prototype theory
Categories are formed from the overlap of exemplars - these are extracted from experience. Each category has an abstracted prototype that is pre-stored in memory - this represents the most common features with other members. Exemplars included in a category network around that prototype - similar items are stored closer to the prototype than dissimilar items.
Prototype theory experiment
Participants learned to classify dot patterns that were variants of a prototype - they did not see this prototype. Participants classified the studied patterns, new patterns and the prototype into groups. They were worse at classifying new compared to old patterns, and were equally able to classify prototype and old patterns.
How is a prototype an abstracted exemplar
Other members resemble the prototype to different degrees. The more obscure members are farther away from the prototype in the network.
Typicality effect
A preference for processing items close to the prototype.
The role of context in the prototype theory
Concepts are context independent. Does also not account for how a situation determine concept representation.
Exemplar theory
There is no single abstract prototype for a concept - every instance of a category is stored in memory, not a prototype. To determine if a new item is member of a category: retrieve some or all exemplars of category members, compute similarity to new item at the time of concept determination. Explains how context can influence concept representations.
Knowledge-based theories
We have knowledge or expectations that we use to determine if a certain instance happens to go in a certain category. Explanation rather than similarity-based view of concept categorization. Implicit intuitive knowledge used. Essentialism.
Essentialism
The idea that certain categories have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe.
An embodied view of concepts
Concepts are accessed as a function of the environment and current goals. Concepts are processed in different brain networks, and shift depending on what is required to be accessed from a concept.
Facilitating Goals: Ad-hoc categories
A category concept that is invented for a specific purpose or goal. Bringing together dissimilar members into a single temporary category to meet a goal. Related to creativity.
Embodiment and the brain
Knowledge is stored as sensorimotor neural representations. The representation that is accessed is done as function of what information (sense/perception) is required.
Perceptual symbols system
Perception and conceptual knowledge are linked as ‘perceptual symbols’. Activating a concept will engage certain sensory-perceptions to engage mental stimulation as a function of the goals of the current task. Highlights the importance of perception but also goals in storing and accessing knowledge.
Perceptual symbols system experiment
Property verification task. Participants were much faster to do one trial of this task if the previous trial was one that asked about the same perception.
Brain representations of concepts
In an MRI scanner, participants passively read action words (pick, kick, lick). Specific brain region that processes movements associated with those words (fingers, foot, tongue) were active. Concepts are rooted in motor and sensory activity.
Neuropsychological case studies about concepts/categories
Brain injury cases of people with category specific deficits. Some have selective impairment in naming living things, some have selective impairment in naming non-living things.
Sensory functional theories
Concepts represented by defining feature. Living things are defined by visual features - visual processing regions. Inanimate objects (tools) are defined by functional features - motor cortical regions.
What is language?
A shared symbolic system for purposeful communication. Symbolic: There are units to reference something else. Shared: It is common among a group of people. Purposeful: To communicate and translate thoughts.
How does language respond flexibly
Morphology (complexity) decreases with languages spoken by more people. Lexical tones are partly determined by climate - tonal languages spoken in warmer climates.
Aphasia, 3 types
Impaired language function, usually from brain injury. Broca’s Non-fluent aphasia, Wernicke’s Fluent aphasia, Conduction aphasia.
Broca’s aphasia
When a person’s comprehension of language is relatively intact, but there are problems fluently producing language. Speech is halted and difficult to produce. Typically writing is affected in a similar manner. Impairment depends on the amount of damage to Broca’s area.
Broca’s aphasia and Patient Tan
First described in Patient Tan. Could only speak one syllable (Tan). Still tried to communicate via gestures, tone, inflection. Large lesion in the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca’s area).
Wernicke’s aphasia
Posterior superior temporal lobe damage - typically left hemisphere (language commonly in left hemisphere). Written and spoken comprehension is affected. Language content is not meaningful nor comprehensible. Paraphasia’s are a key condition.
3 types of Paraphasias
Verbal: substituting a word with something semantically-related. Shares meaning with intended word. Swapping term brother with sister.
Phonemic (literal): swapping or adding speech sounds. Shares sound with intended word. Calling Crab Salad, Sad Cralad.
Neologisms: using a made-up word. Mansplain.
Conduction aphasia
About disconnection between regions that help us produce/comprehend speech. Neural pathway from between Broca’s and Wernicke’s area - reminds u language depends on a network of brain regions. Speech production and comprehension intact. Impaired repetition - load dependent.
Language and brain lateralization
Language is often considered left lateralized. Broader aspects of language are supported by the right hemisphere: prosody and pitch to convey intonation, mood, attitude, gestural communication and overall comprehension. Right hemisphere seems to be important for higher-order non-literal language use.
Language acquisition, Nuturist view vs Naturist view
Are we pre-equipped with language capabilities?
Nuturist: No. Language is acquired through the same mechanisms as skill learning.
Naturist view: Yes. We are born with the innate capability to learn language.
Chomsky and Naturist views
Language is NOT: stimulus dependent, or determined by reinforcement.
Language IS: complex and acquired rapidly, allows us to understand and speak what we have not heard before.
The innateness hypothesis
Grammar, syntactic structure, is separate from semantic meaning and cognition. We are born with principles of universal grammar, and when you learn a language, you put it on top of this universal grammar.
Support for the innateness hypothesis
Convergence: Children are exposed to different learning situations, yet converge on the same grammar.
Uniformity.
Poverty of stimulus argument
The linguistic environment of a child is not sufficient enough to allow that child to learn a language via reinforcement, rules or imitation. A child doesn’t hear enough language samples to acquire all language, doesn’t have enough opportunities to learn from mistakes. There must be something innate about language.
Counter to poverty of stimulus argument
The environment is not so impoverished. Adult reformulations of children’s speech target the structure but not meaning. Children extract regularities from experiences to form rules. Evidence that rules are not all innate.
Psycholinguistics
Breaks down language into 4 main building blocks. Phonemes, Morphemes and Words, Syntax, Semantics
Phonemes
Smallest linguistic unit. /d/, /o/, /g/. English has a few dozen phonemes to produce morphemes.
Morphemes and Words
The smallest meaningful units of language. /dog/
Syntax
Rules that govern how words are arranged in a sentence
Semantics
The meaning of a word/language
Language comprehension
Understanding the message - semantics - from language. Resolving types of linguistic ambiguity - use context and top-down processing.
Phonological ambiguity
Phonological: within a sound. Determining phonemes depends on audio signal, which is often noisy. You use context and internal knowledge of speech to “hear”.
Lexical ambiguity
Lexical: within a word. A single word can refer to more than one different concept. Eg., Bark.
Cross modal priming task Hypothesis
If both meanings are active in the biased condition, you should see a reduction in the lexical decision task for both the Ant and the Spy word compared to the control word - the unrelated word. But if only one meaning is active, the one that’s biased towards, then you should see a reduction in the lexical decision time, a faster response only for the Ant word.
Cross modal priming task Results
When they gave words shortly after hearing that critical word bug, both meanings were active. But when they gave it even a few syllables after hearing bug in the sentence, only the word Ant was primed.
What do the results of the Cross modal priming task suggest?
That when you initially hear a word, you think both are active, but then the context will quickly reduce the activity in the inappropriate meaning of that word.
Parsing and Syntactic ambiguity
Syntactic or parsing: within a sentence. Dividing a sentence into words and identifying them as nouns, articles, verbs. Ambiguity can come because we hear sentences incrementally, and there is often more than one parse a sentence (words can be nouns and verbs).
Garden path sentence
Sentences with multiple syntax structures. Interpreting a word one way leads to faulty interpretation.
Two theories of sentence parsing
- Syntax First: Parsing of a sentence is first done just on the principle of grammar.
- Constraint-based model: We use more than just syntax to understand ambiguity.
Syntax first (garden path) approach
We parse with only grammar principles in one direction, and we may get to the end and realize “oops” wrong meaning, so we must go back.
Constraint based models
We use more than grammar to parse sentences. Non-grammatical information can be used: semantic and thematic context, expectation, frequency.
Thoughts on language: Linguistic Universalists vs Linguistic Relativity
Linguistic Universalists: Language and thought are independent.
Linguistic Relativity: Language and thought are interconnected. Languages chance how we think and perceive. People who speak different languages think differently.
Colours across languages
Russian language discriminates between lighter and darker blues - not English. English and Russian speakers performed a colour discrimination task with blue colours. Russian speakers were faster for colours that fell into different blue categories than those from the same blue category. English speakers showed no effect. Shows that language affects perception.
Surface Dyslexia
Reads letter-by-letter, sounds out words. Difficulty matching words to a mental dictionary. Impaired at producing irregular words, like “Comb” or “Thought”.
Phonological Dyslexia
Reads by comparing whole words to mental dictionary (lexicon). Difficulty reading letter by letter, sounding out words. Impaired at reading non-words or new words.
A new attitude about bilingualism
There is greater plasticity than previously understood. Language learning occurs at all ages and language processes are dynamic. Bilingualism provides a lens for examining neurocognitive processes. Bilingualism alters the structure and function of the mind. Bilingualism is a conseqeuntial life experience. Bilinguals are not two monolinguals in one.
Three discoveries about bilingualism
- Language coactivation: Both languages are active and competing.
- Beyond language processing: Cognitive control.
- Individual differences: Not all bilinguals are the same.
- Language Coactivation
Joint activation of two language systems. If a bilingual has 2 languages in their brain, what happens to the language that is not being used? Both languages are active and interacting. Lexical Decision Task: asking if something is a real word, and taking accuracy/reaction time.
Picture Naming Task: Naming pictures out loud in English.
Cognates
Facilitation effect. Words that are the same in both languages
Interlingual homographs
Interference effect. A word that occurs in more than one language, but it has different meaning or pronunciation in each language.
Language coactivation, Libben & Titone (2009) experiment
What is the time-course of cross-language effects?
Initial stages of comprehension: First fixation duration - length of the 1st time eye fixates on the target. Later stages of comprehension: Total fixation duration - length of all eye fixations on target.
Longer fixation durations are linked to greater comprehension difficulty.
Language Coactivation: L1 vs. L2
L1 - Native Language, L2 - Second Language. In general, smaller/no effects in Native Language when comparing congruent and incongruent with reaction time. Facilitation and interference effects were stronger in L2. Behaviourally, no cognate effect (coactivation) in L1. The native language is affected by the second language.
- Beyond Language Processing
Inhibition is triggered in the presence of competition, and is proportional to the level of coactivation, prevents intrusions from the non-used languages. The Inhibitory Control Model.
The Inhibitory Control Model
Inhibitory system sends signal to non-use language. If I have more activation, I need more inhibition. Inhibition is dependent on coactivation.
Domain-specific (language control) vs Domain-general (cognitive control)
The concept that strong cognitive demands are needed for language control and that brain and cognition are plastic and very influenced by experience, underlie the proposal that multilinguals and monolinguals might differ in the way that they use their cognitive control processes beyond those needed for language processing.
- Individual Differences
Meta-analyses and systematic reviews found a bilingual/multilingual advantage. Studies and meta-analyses have emerged questioning the differences. Bilingual/mulitlingual advantage is modulated by the TASKS employed to assess executive functions. Dual Language contexts may be particularly demanding - but if you can use both languages in a certain setting, there is cooperation not competition. Experience also plays a role.
How does bilingualism have consequences in for both languages
The bilingual’s language system is permeable in both directions. Critically, the L1 changes in the response to learning.
Are the two languages of a bilingual seperate?
No. Bilinguals are not two monolinguals in one. Both languages are active and competing.
Effects of bilingualism on cognitive control
There are effects on cognitive control. Brain and cognition are plastic.
Are all bilinguals the same?
No. Language experiences are multifaceted. Bilinguals differ by virtue of the demands of the context and the experience.
Heuristics
Mental short-cuts that allow us to skip careful deliberation to draw an inference.
Thinking Fast and Slow: Two types of reasoning systems
Slow: Serial logical analysis of information. Effortful, non-automatic. Eg., weighing the pros and cons of a difficult decision.
Fast: Heuristics-based reasoning. Easy, automatic. Eg., going “autopilot” on your route home.
Three broad categories of biases
- Biases that affect how we interpret information.
- Biases that affect how we judge frequency.
- Biases that affect how we make predictions.
Availability Heuristic
A heuristic in which we estimate the probability of an event based on the ease at which it can be brought to mind. Why do some things come to mind easier than others. Affect heuristic.
Affect heuristic
The tendency to overestimate the risk of an event that generates strong emotional response.
Representativeness Heuristic
People tend to make inferences on the basis that small samples resemble the larger population they were drawn from. Related to the availability heuristic: relies on stereotypes, schemas, and other pre-existing knowledge structures. People base their judgments of group memberships based on similarity. This results in biases like base-rate neglect & the conjunction fallacy.
Base Rate Neglect
When you fail to use information about the prior probability of an event to judge the likelihood of an event. (assuming someone is a math major because of his personality, ignoring the fact that there are a lot more psyc students so the probability is higher)
Conjunction Fallacy
False belief that the conjunction of two conditions is more likely than either single condition. The likelihood of one event happening is always higher than the likelihood of that event AND another event occurring together.
Anchoring and Adjustment
Anchoring: the tendency for people to overweight initial information when making decisions. Anchoring is particularly important for designing self-report scales.
Regression to the mean
When a process is somewhat random (i.e. weak correlation), extreme values will be closer to the mean (i.e., less extreme) when measured a second time. This is not a fluke, it is a statistical necessity.
Bounded Rationality (Simon, 1957)
The theory that humans are rational relative to environmental constraints and individual constraints. Under this view: People are satisficers - we look for solutions that are “good enough”. “Making due” with the limitations we have as humans. Although heuristics sometimes provide incorrect answer and lead to biases; they also work.
Ecological rationality (Gigerenzer, 1999)
View that sees heuristics not as “good enough” approach to solving a problem, but as the optimal approach. A heuristic is the best solution to a particular problem.
Perceptual Decision Making
Objective (externally defined( criterion for making your choice. Are the dots moving left or right?
Value-based Decision making
Subjective (internally defined) criterion for making your choice. Do I want cake or ice cream? Depends on motivational state and goal.
Decisions under risk
Decisions when outcomes are uncertain. Ambiguity: when you have incomplete information of the consequences. When outcomes are uncertain, we still need to decide. Extremes in risk taking (high or low) can be very harmful. Risks can be framed as gains or losses. Most people are risk averse.
Risk premuim
Difference between expected gains of a risky option and a certain option. How much better is the risky option than the safe option?
Risk averse
Decision maker has positive risk premium. Need a chance at winning a lot more than a certain option to select the risky option. Risky option has to be very good for you to choose it.
Risk neutral
Decision maker has zero risk premium. No difference in the options, risk premium doesn’t really matter.
Risk seeking
Decision maker has negative risk premium. Doesn’t need the chance at winning more than the certain option to gamble.
Are risk preferences rational? Classical economic theory
Classical economic theory explained rational choice in terms of expected value: the rational thing to do is choose the option that maximizes expected value. However, people can be inconsistent in their preferences - we do not follow expected value. So - the question is not how should people act, it is how do people act.
The framing effect
The display of inconsistent risk preferences depending on the framing (loss vs gains) of the problem. People are risk-averse when the options are described as gains. People are risk-seeking when the options are described as losses.
Endowment effect
The tendency to ascribe higher value to objects people own or possess compared to identical objects they do not own. Once ownership is established, people are averse to giving it up.
Prospect Theory
A psychological theory that explains how people make decisions under uncertainty. Describes how people do act; not how people should act. Two major features: 1. Shape of Utility function (losses vs gains) 2. Shape of Probability weighting function (Unlikely vs Likely events).
Utility - Prospect Theory
Subjective value assigned to an object (i.e., satisfaction). Context dependent. Utility is assigned to a monetary amount as a function of someone’s current state (reference point) and not in absolute value. Deviations from the reference point will determine risk preference.
Utility function: Prospect Theory and Loss Aversion
Describes how people map money to utility. The insights of prospect theory: 1. The extra utility earned from gaining a dollar is larger when you only have $1 vs when you have $1M. 2. Utility for losses versus gain is asymmetrical - utility function is steeper for losses than gain, $1 loss hurts more than $1 earned, losses loom larger than gains.
Probability Weighting: Prospect Theory and Subjective Probability
According to prospect theory, people do not treat probabilities in an objective manner. Unlikely events are overestimated, and likely events are underestimated. Availability of an option changes the perceived frequency of occurence.
Prospect Theory and the Fourfold Pattern
High probability/losses: risk-seeking (horror movie logic)
High probability/gains: risk-averse (salary/jobs)
Low probability/losses: risk-averse (insurance)
Low probability/gains: risk-seeking (lottery tickets)
Dual-Process Theory
The broad scientific theory that humans possess two systems for making decisions. System 1: Fast, effortless, automatic, intuitive, emotional. Heuristics and biases. Limbic System. System 2: Slow, deliberative, effortful, explicit, logical. Rational choice. Frontal cortex.
Dual-Process Theory: How affect affects choice experiment
Participants provided higher estimates of death frequency when people were in a negative mood compared to a positive mood.
Dual Process Theory: Prediction Errors
What drives affect in daily life? Prediction error: The difference between what you predicted would happen and what actually happened. Prediction errors can be positive: unexpectedly good outcome, or negative: unexpectedly bad outcome.
Dual-Process Theory: Mood and gambling in the real world
Prediction errors in sports outcomes and the weather have been found to affect people’s mood: positive PE increases positive affect, negative PE increases negative affect. Changes in mood predict risky decision-making: when people are happy, they are more likely to gamble.
