Summation of key points

Question 1

What is Cognitive Psychology?

Answer 1

• Mental activity produces thoughts/behaviours.
• Cognitive Psychology is one of a number of areas interested in mental activity (Cognitive Science).
• Mental activity underlies agency. Note its features.
• Involves information processing within a mental architecture.

Question 2

What is information & how much do we possess?

Answer 2

• Biological information is fixed.
• Experiential information is constantly increasing in quantity.
• Mental architecture is a combination of both, and imposes constraint.

Question 3

Focus is on mental activity

Answer 3

• Investigate mental activity via a range of data types.
• Data does not directly reflect mental architecture and activity – transparency issue.
• Need to generate models and test them against data.
• Note the limits of introspection.

Question 4

Historical & philosophical developments.

Answer 4

• Over 2,500 years, two dominant approaches to understanding mental activity.
• Classical and Associationist have each emerged in various forms.

Question 5

Conscious & unconscious aspects

Answer 5

• Most mental activity might not be reflected in consciousness.
• Nature and role of consciousness is unclear.

Question 6

Autism: A case study

Answer 6

• Need to ask what type of mental activity generates the symptoms that define autism.
• Functional explanations implicate theory of mind (ToM) … But what is responsible for an individual’s development of theory of mind?
• Biological information may have a role to play … mental architecture may vary across individuals.
• Yet any explanation may need to go deeper than ToM. Critical point is to understand the mental architecture.

Question 7

Levels of Analysis

Answer 7

• Functional (computational) level – input-to-output functions.
• Procedural (algorithmic) level – information processing explains functions.
• Physical (implementational) level – the physical properties.
• All required … primary focus of cognitive science is the procedural level.

Question 8

Microstructure – classical approach

Answer 8

• Information consists of formal properties, manipulated by dedicated processes.
• Complex pre-existing architecture.
• Note the defining features and problems.

Question 9

Microstructure – connectionist approach

Answer 9

• No formal properties or dedicated processes, relies upon associative strength. Information is defined by connection strength/weights.
• Claims better plausibility in respect to physical and functional levels of analysis.
• Note the defining features and problems.

Question 10

Macrostructure

Answer 10

• Associationism proposes common structure/processes which only generates knowledge-based domains.
• Classical proposes specialised/dedicated structures & processes which reflect competence-based domains, and can generate knowledge-based domains.
• Are there competence based domains, and what might be their features? Modularity hypothesis proposes three types of mental activity – transducers, modules, central system.
• Modules are like reflexes – primary properties are domain specific and informationally encapsulated.
• Central system – Isotropic and Quinean principles.

Question 11

Reasons to study mental activity

Answer 11

What is the same across individuals of the same species and what is free to vary?

Question 12

Microstructure - What does information look like in the brain?

Answer 12

• Anatomy of the neuron – dendrites, soma, axon.
• Informational states are passed from one neuron to another via the synapse.
  
  • What form does an information state take?
  • Electrical form, similar to connectionism. Chemical form, similar to classical.

Question 13

Macrostructure – How is information distributed in the brain?

Answer 13

• No areas dedicated to specific types of information vs dedicated domains (localised functions).
• Range of data types for investigating brain function.
• Evidence for localised functions:
  
  • Topographic organisation of motor & sensory strips.
  • Language and auditory areas.
  • Various functional deficits reveal separate functions (e.g., double dissociation).

Question 14

Cognitive/Clinical Neuropsychology

Answer 14

• Loss of cognitive functions define some clinical groups.
• Provides a means for understanding the mental architecture.

Question 15

Learning

Answer 15

• What is learning?
• Using language as an example, can it be learned without any pre-existing internal constraint (innate information)? If it can, the Learnability Principle explains what the environment must provide – positive & negative evidence.
• If positive evidence alone is not sufficient for learning to be achieved, is there sufficient negative evidence?
• It appears that negative evidence might only have minimal involvement in language learning. This would render languages unlearnable, from the perspective of the learnability principle. If languages are unlearnable, then is there pre-existing language-specific information?

Question 16

Perception - Recognizing objects

Answer 16

• Direct perception.
• Indirect perception.

Question 17

Transducers and Sensory Buffers/Memories

Answer 17

• Iconic and Echoic memories hold the outside world to allow for perception and attention.
• Different capacities and duration of each sensory memory reflected in the modality effect.
• Like displaces like (suffix effect).

Question 18

Initial organisation prior to object recognition

Answer 18

Gestalt principles – mental architecture and parsimony.

Question 19

Object Recognition

Answer 19

• Sensory features alone, or abstract features as well.
• Top-Down and Bottom-Up processing … How to explain Context Effects.

Question 20

Selective Attention

Answer 20

• Information-general processing applies focus.
• Directed by goals.
• Defined by location; like a spotlight?
  
  • Early selection (prior to object recognition) – using the dichotic listening task – but some objects in unattended space are recognised.
  • Late selection (object recognition prior to attention) – only for some types of objects.
• Defined by available resources?
  
  • Process of attention is resource demanding. Attentional capacity depends on pre-attention processing and automaticity.

Question 21

Automatic and Controlled Processing

Answer 21

• Automaticity determined by mental architecture (information-specific) or over- learning (information-general).
• Logan’s model – controlled attention transforms into memory retrieval.
• Automaticity has advantages and disadvantages.
• Controlled processing involves attention.
• Example of object recognition prior to attention – words.

Question 22

Divided Attention

Answer 22

• Doing two or more controlled tasks at once.
• Are the same information-specific resources used?
  
  • If each task is performed as well as when on its own, different resources are involved with different tasks (additive factors).
  • If each is performed more poorly than when on its own, common resources are involved (multiplicative factors).
• Never a perfect separation of tasks due to necessity of information-general resources.
  
  • Response selection
  • Coordination

Question 23

Controlled Attention -> Working Memory

Answer 23

• Controlled Attention involves maintenance of information in Working Memory.
• Function of working memory is to maintain and process current information, generally for a unique outcome.
  
  • Information-general and resource demanding.

Question 24

Vertical and Horizontal Organisation of Memory

Answer 24

• Vertical organisation = From sensory to long-term memories.
• Horizontal organisation = How many different memories at each level?

Question 25

Stage and Process Theories

Answer 25

• Stage account of vertical organisation. Evidence for distinct stages includes:
  
  • Capacity and duration limits.
  • Time-based retrieval effects.
  • Discrete/systematic breakdown.
  • Each memory system has its own competence.
• Memory loss; decay or interference?
• Process account of vertical organisation – Levels of Processing Theory. Seeks to explain the same functions used as evidence for the stage account.
• Stage and Process accounts reflect structuralist (classical) and functionalist (associationist), respectively.

Question 26

Stage and Process Theories

Answer 26

Regardless of which account provides the best explanation for the vertical organisation of memory at the procedural level of analysis, elaborative rehearsal at encoding is important for subsequent successful memory retrieval. This is achieved through the creation of distinctive memories that are stored in a systematic (organised) manner.

Question 27

Working Memory

Answer 27

• Involves both Storage (short-term memory) and Process.
• Is it unitary? Measures of Span tended to reflect a unitary assumption.
• Passive span 7+/-2 and Active span 4+/-1.

Question 28

Features of working memory

Answer 28

• Speed
• Passive/Active Span
• Controlled Attention
• Cognitive Inhibition
• Interference
• Long-Term Working Memory

Working memory may be complex.

Question 29

Non-unitary model of working memory … Baddeley

Answer 29

o Central Executive
o Phonological Loop
o Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad

o Episodic Buffer

Question 30

One Long-Term Declarative Memory or two?

Answer 30

• Episodic and semantic memories are one … Tagging Theory
• Episodic and Semantic memories are two … Encoding Specificity Theory

In the end, it would appear that episodic and semantic memories may be distinct memory systems, although their relationship is still not clear. What is optimal for episodic retrieval? … correspondence between encoding and retrieval, outside and inside.

Question 31

Memory for events

Answer 31

• Explicit memory - information from different sources contributes to retrieving memory for a specific event.
• Implicit memory - a different set of properties.
• Are explicit and implicit memories structurally different memory systems?

Question 32

Too little memory … or … too much memory

Answer 32

• Amnesia
• Hyperthymesia

Question 33

Horizontal organisation of Long-Term Memories

Answer 33

• Six different types of LTM?
• What constitutes evidence for different memory systems.

Question 34

Memory Errors

Answer 34

• Simple inferences concerning original event.
• Complex inference at encoding and retrieval … like perception, memory involvesinference.
• Source errors.
• Misinformation effect … false memory or repressed memory?
• Are false memories different from veridical memories?

Question 35

Semantic memories … processes

Answer 35

• Association … spreading activation … content-addressable.
• Classical … location-addressable

Question 36

Organisation of Semantic Memory

Answer 36

• Semantic memory is the primary source of non-perceptual information used in working memory.
• Collins & Quillian’s hierarchy provides economy of storage. Supported by some behavioural evidence, but not by semantic distance effects.
• Associationist network models provide a more complete account – semantic distance effects are a feature of the categorisation process.
• In contrast, Classical feature models view semantic categorisation and semantic distance effects as separate.

Question 37

Function of Concepts

Answer 37

• Simple and Complex Concepts.
• Schemata are complex concepts, providing more information than available in the current instance - presuppositions and inferences.
• Concepts provide information, and allow us to discriminate between different objects/events.
• Categorisation is the act of using a concept (type) to interpret an instance (token).

Question 38

Theories & Origins of Concepts

Answer 38

• Different kinds of concepts – sensory, natural, artefact and nominal.
• Simple concepts are given, but what of complex concepts?
• Is categorisation based on a largely perceptual similarity-match – defining features, prototypes, exemplars?
• Or does it involve implementing a theory defined by essential properties that might not have a direct perceptual form?
• Basic level categories … why are they special?

Question 39

Origins of thought; external or internal?

Answer 39

• Internalised language … Whorf’s Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis … but then language and thought seem to be different.
• Single vs Multiple Languages of Thought

Question 40

Single Language of Thought

Answer 40

• Concepts & mentalese produce propositions.
• Propositions involve symbolic code, and so are not analogous in form to states of the world (non-analogue)

Question 41

Multiple Languages of Thought

Answer 41

• Mental Images and Mental Models.
• Depict states of the world, and so represent the world in an analogue form.

Question 42

Reasoning

Answer 42

• Mental models can account for different types of bias evident in reasoning, such as confirmation bias.
• Dual models of reasoning – one approach accounts for different systems (System 1 & System 2) using associative principles and rule-based operations.
• Another dual model of reasoning distinguishes between inference generation and reasoning concerning those inferences (Argumentative Theory).

Question 43

Problem solving

Answer 43

• Stages – Representation, Processing, Solution
• Defining an explicit problem – create a mental representation that provides a problem space.
• Representation needs to reflect coherence, correspondence & relationship to background information.
• Representation may be in the form of a mental model; generation of which will be influenced by context, schematic knowledge, and solutions to past problems.
• Processing will be constrained by architecture and may utilise heuristics; searching the problem space.
• Insightful problem solutions suggest that a range of architectural domains may be involved.

Question 44

Judgement & Decision Making

Answer 44

• Choices based upon uncertain information.
• When information becomes too complex, or reasoning resources are otherwise reduced, tend to resort to heuristics.

Question 45

Reasoning Heuristics and Outcomes

Answer 45

• Availability
• Representativeness
• Anchoring & Adjustment
• Entrapment
• Over-Confidence

Growing evidence that reasoning, in the context of problem solving and decision making, may involve a range of explicit and implicit mental domains.