Psyc 230 Final exam Flashcards
What kind of signals do neurotransmitters emit?
Chemical
What kind of signals do action potentials emit?
Electrical
Single Cell Recording
technique used to measure changes in voltage in a single neuron
EEG/ERP
captures neural activity related to sensory and cognitive processing
MRI/fMRI
measures structure using hydrogen/measuring function using hemoglobin
Neuropsychology
study of nervous system related to behavior and cognition
Double Dissociation
a technique where 2 areas are dissociated by 2 behavior tests that leads to a conclusion about brain function
Broca’s area
responsible for speech production.
Wernicke’s Area
responsible for language comprehension
Spatial Resolution
the capacity a technique has to tell you exactly which area of the brain is active
Temporal Resolution
ability to tell you exactly when the activation happened
What cortex is responsible for vision?
occipital lobe, visual cortex
What cortex is responsible for auditory functions?
auditory cortex
What cortex is responsible for motor functions?
primary motor, frontal lobe
Where is the somatosensory cortex?
primary sensory cortex
bottom up processing
perceptions based on current input
top down processing
perceptions based on lived experiences
closure
gestalt principle about an item being whole
proximity
gestalt principle refers to closeness of object
similarity
gestalt principle refers to items looking the same
continuity
gestalt principle refers to items being one
connectedness
gestalt principle refers to objects being one united figure
Scene Schema
objects that are likely to be seen in a specific place (a stove being in a kitchen)
Action, Dorsal
Where pathway
Perception, Ventral
What pathway
Selective Attention
attention is choosing to focus on one thing
Divided Attention
attention is split across several things
Cocktail Party Effect
being able to drown out excessive noise and focus in one one stimulus
Overt Attention
eyes on specific topic, bottom up processing
Covert Attention
not related to eye movements
Dichotic Listening Task
requires the subject to shadow, or repeat aloud, a message presented to one ear while ignoring a message presented to the other ear.
Inattentional Blindness
occurs when an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight, purely as a result of a lack of attention rather than any vision defects or deficits.
Change Blindness
a perceptual phenomenon that occurs when a change in a visual stimulus is introduced and the observer does not notice it.
Early vs. Late Selection Theories
Early selection advocates argue that the locus of selection is at early stages of processing and that therefore, unattended stimuli are not fully processed. In contrast, late selection theorists argue that attention operates only after stimuli have been fully processed.
Lavie’s Load Theory
the quantity of stimuli presented to a person determines how their selective attention system will function – whether they will be more or less distractible
Stimulus Salience Effect
how obvious or prominent a stimulus is in a person’s environment. If a person has visual deficits, then visual stimulus will not have as much salience as auditory stimulus.
Scene Schema Effect
organize memory based of what you know to be true about an environment
two types of Sensory Memory
Iconic and Echoic
Iconic Memory
brief visual stimuli that decays in less than one second
Echoic Memory
brief auditory stimuli that decays in ~10 seconds
Short Term memory capacity and duration
5-9 items for 12-20 secs
Chuncking
grouping together connecting things so they can be stored as one
Long Term memory
memory for years
Working memory
limited capacity system for temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks
Phonological Loop
holds a limited amount of audio info for a few seconds
Rehersal
repeating items mentally to prevent it from decaying
Phonological Similarity
confusion of letters and words that sound the same
Word Length Effect
memory for lists with short words is better than memory of lists with long words
Articulatory Suppression
reduced memory when speaking an irrelevant sound
Visual spatial Sketchpad
hold visual and spatial information
serial position effect
tendency to recall the first and last items of a series best and the middle items the worst
primacy vs recency
better memory for words at the beginning of the list vs. the end
2 types of explicit memory
episodic and semantic memory
episodic memory
memory of personal events
semantic memory
memory of facts
3 types of implicit memory
procedural memory, priming (repetition vs. associative), and conditioning
Procedural memory
task memories
repetition priming
improved processing of a stimulus when that stimulus, or a similar one, is repeated compared to when it appears the first time
associative priming
using two stimuli that are normally associated with one another. For example, “cat” and “mouse”
encoding
the act of getting information into our memory system through automatic or effortful processing
levels of processing theory
Deep processing is more effective than shallow
active testing vs. passive studying
actively making flashcards is better than reading your notes
spacing effect
learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out
retrieval practice
better memory when you have to retrieve answers (testing effect)
encoding specificity
the theory that memory retrieval is improved when the encoding context is the same as the retrieval context
state dependent learning
memory is best when a person is in the same internal state they were in when learning the information
transfer appropriate processing
state-dependent memory specifically showing that memory performance is not only determined by the depth of processing, but by the relationship between how information is initially encoded and how it is later retrieved
fragility of memory
we are subject to forgetting and memory is not always as accurate as we would like to believe
autobiographical memory
memory for specific life events, can include semantic and episodic
self-relevance impact on memory
events with greater self importance are remembered better
timing of event impact on memory (reminiscence bump)
better memory for adolescence and early adulthood
Emotionality (flashbulb memories)
vivid memory of shocking events
Source monitoring error
mis identifying source of memory
illusory truth effect
more likely to believe something you have heard over and over
misinformation effect
misleading information presented after a person witnesses an event
false memories
a phenomenon where someone recalls something that did not actually happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened.
error of familiarity
falsely recognize bystander as a perpetrator
acquisition of language
can lead to memory errors if coming from a cop or detective on a crime scene.
hierarchy of language
phonemes, morphemes, words, sentences, text
lexicon
mental dictionary of all the words we know
syntax
rules for combing words
semantics
meaning of words
Phonology
pronunciation of words
orthography
spelling of words
word frequency effect
words that are said more often (higher frequency) are
word predictability
knowing what words will come next because of learned experiences
Lexical Ambiguity
happens when a word has more than one meaning, causing a word or phrase to be interpreted differently from how the speaker or writer intended
Parsing
mental grouping of words in a sentence into phrases to understand meaning
Garden Path Sentences
best on the best guess of syntactic structure
Anaphoric Inference
connection between an object or person in another sentence
Casual Inference
events in separate clauses related
Gestalt approach to problem solving
- represent the problem
- reorganizing or structuring the representation
representation and restructuring
Gestalt approach
insight problem
problem solved with sudden comprehension
analytical problem
solved by systematic process, using techniques learned in the past
mental set
preconceived notion about how to solve a problem based on what has worked in the past
functional fixedness
assumption that because an object has a fixed purpose it can’t be used for anything else
analogical problem solving
Noticing, mapping, applying
Information processing approach
viewed problem as states that make up “problem space”
initial state of problem
where you are at the start of the problem
goal state
where you want to be when you finish solving a problem
intermediate state
where you are between the initial state and goal state
operators
the things that get you from one goal to the next
subgoals
smaller goals before the goal state
experts vs. novices
experts spend more time analyzing then attempting to solve. Novices are more likely to find a new solution because of trial and error
inductive reasoning
drawing general conclusions through observations
deductive reasoning
drawing a specific conclusion that logically follows from statements
heuristics
type of inductive reasoning: mental shortcuts we use that are usually correct
availability heuristic
events that come to mind more easily are deemed more probable than events hard to recall
representative heuristic
we categorize things based on how well it resembles the properties we believe to be true of that category
syllogism
2 broad statements followed by a third
truth vs. validity
is it true? vs. is it valid?
categorical sylloisms
a particular kind of argument containing three categorical propositions, two of them premises, one a conclusion
belief bias
tendency to think a syllogism is valid if it’s conclusion is believable or that it is invalid if the conclusion is not believeable
conditional syllogisms
“if… then statement” (if the conditions apply, then this is true)
rational decision making
expected to lead to a beneficial result
dual systems approach
Two mental thinking systems: System 1 and System 2
System 1 vs System 2
System 1 is fast and unconscious while System 2 is slower, controlled, and reflective
