Task 3

Question 1

Introspection

Answer 1

Looking into one’s own mind and observing its contents –> observing your conscious experience

• it is selective –> focus on what is relevant to your purpose at the moment
• first-person data

Question 2

Introspective Verbal Report (IVR)

Answer 2

A verbal description of your conscious experience

Question 3

Doctrine of Concordance

Answer 3

Assumption of concordance between behavior, mental processes, and conscious experience

Question 4

Why are introspective verbal reports controversial?

Answer 4

• consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon –> it plays no role in causing people’s behavior –> it is unimportant
• IVRs are often inaccurate and unreliable –> errors may occur in recall and reporting of conscious experiences

Question 5

Analytic Introspecion

Answer 5

Describes conscious experiences in terms of their elementary constituents

–> structuralism
–> rarely used today

Question 6

Structuralism

Answer 6

Conscious experience is constructed from a limited number of “elements” of sensory experience and simple feelings, and these elements can be discovered through introspection

Question 7

Descriptive (Phenomenological) Introspection

Answer 7

Description of conscious experience in natural language terms –> most simple form

“What did I perceive/think/feel?”

–> reflective consciousness = objective
–> simply reports about mental states

Question 8

Interpretative Introspection

Answer 8

Introspection intended to discover the causes (antecedents) of our thoughts, feelings, and actions

“Why do I feel this way?”

–> tries to explain mental states

Question 9

Limitation of IVR: Forgetting

Answer 9

Conscious experiences may be forgotten within a matter of seconds or minutes

Multistore model of memory: you can report conscious contents if they are still available in STM or they have been transferred to LTM and can be retrieved into STM

Question 10

Limitation of IVR: Reconstruction Errors

Answer 10

1) people report more than they actually recall by filling in memory gaps with plausible fabrications

2) the memory report may be more orderly than what was really recalled

Question 11

Limitation of IVR: Verbal Description Difficulties

Answer 11

Some conscious experiences cannot be adequately described in words = ineffable experiences

Question 12

Limitation of IVR: Distortion through Observation

Answer 12

Introspective Uncertainty Principle:
Attempting to introspectively observe one’s conscious contents may change the contents that are being observed

Question 13

Limitation of IVR: Censorship

Answer 13

• subjects may be reluctant to reveal embarrassing thoughts
• subjects may give false reports
• subjects claim that they do not recall anything

Question 14

Limitation of IVR: Experimental Demands

Answer 14

Subjects’ verbal reports may be altered if they try to produce subjective experiences that they think are of the expected type and then report those

Question 15

Limitation of IVR: Lack of Independent Verification

Answer 15

Researchers have no way to independently check on the accuracy of subjects’ reports

Question 16

Limitation of IVR: Substitution of Inferences for Observation

Answer 16

When people do not have direct introspective access to the stimuli or mental processes that caused their feelings or behavior, they may make plausible inferences, using whatever information is available

Question 17

Methods of Obtaining Introspective Verbal Reports: Thinking out Loud

Answer 17

Subjects make a continuous verbal report on conscious contents while they are in a particular situation

+ detailed information, little loss due to forgetting
- flow of conscious experience might be altered or slowed

Question 18

Methods of Obtaining Introspective Verbal Reports: Thought Sampling

Answer 18

Subjects are instructed that whenever a desired signal occurs, they are to report what they were thinking at the moment that the signal occurred

+ reports from STM
- no information about stream of consciousness

Question 19

Methods of Obtaining Introspective Verbal Reports: Retrospective Reports

Answer 19

They are used to collect data about thoughts that occurred on a specific previous occasion in reference to a specified previous event

+ no interference with ongoing thought processes
- forgetting, reconstruction errors, substituting inferences for observations

Question 20

Methods of Obtaining Introspective Verbal Reports: Event Recording

Answer 20

How often a subject has a particular type of thought –> each occurrence of the designated type of thought is noted

+ reports from STM, tracing changes
- knowing to report affects frequency of thought

Question 21

Methods of Obtaining Introspective Verbal Reports: Diaries

Answer 21

Written narrative reports on one’s activities and thoughts, in which entries are made periodically over a period of several days, months, or years

+ useful information over long period, open-ended
- selective, unsystematic, forgetting, reconstruction errors

Question 22

Methods of Obtaining Introspective Verbal Reports: Group Questionnaires

Answer 22

Get a lot of data from a lot of people as quickly and cheaply as possible

+ comparing groups of people
- forgetting, closed

Question 23

What is introspection NOT?

Answer 23

Introspection is not…
1) … having conscious experiences

2) … a sensory process

3) … a brain scanner

4) … simply making of inferences about our mental states, based on our overt behavior

5) … direct inner observation (ongoing thinking)

Question 24

What is introspection?

Answer 24

1) thinking about one’s primary conscious experiences -> for the purpose of describing and interpreting them

2) Introspection is retrospection: observing your remembered past conscious experiences –> retrieving information from STM and LTM

Question 25

Introspection as Retrospection

Answer 25

1) The act of introspection is not the same as the experience that is introspected
= temporary change in attitude toward conscious events

2) Each period of introspection is a retrospection of the immediately preceding moment of primary experience

3) BUT - visual perception is an exception to the claim that introspection is retrospection

Question 26

Stimulus Degradation

Answer 26

• renders an object invisible
• presenting a stimulus too briefly for a reliable detection or superimposing noise on it

Question 27

Visual Backward Masking

Answer 27

= A brief “target” stimulus is followed shortly thereafter by a “mask”

1) the mask halts processing of the target
2) the mask disrupts feedback signals associated with the target
3) the mask abolishes signals required for conscious perception

Question 28

Visual Crowding

Answer 28

= A normally visible figure may be unrecognizable when flanked by other, nearby stimuli

• the crowded figure can still produce several visual aftereffects
• crowding is robust primarily within the peripheral visual field
• careful fixation must be maintained to ensure crowding

Question 29

Bistable Figures

Answer 29

= Ambiguous figures

–> the brain resolves the perceptual contradiction by favoring one interpretation and then the other, with switches in perception occurring randomly over time

Question 30

Binocular Rivalry

Answer 30

= Presenting dissimilar monocular patterns to corresponding areas of the two eyes

• it results from visual conflict, any two dissimilar patterns

Question 31

Motion-Induced Blindness

Answer 31

= When a small object is embedded within a larger optic flow field, the object can disappear from awareness for several seconds at a time

–> the objects rendered invisible retain some effectiveness –> afterimages, orientation-selective adaptation

Question 32

Inattentional Blindness (IB)

Answer 32

= Attention focused on one object or event can render people more temporarily blind to other stimuli

–> aspects of cognitive processing of a stimulus remain intact even though that stimulus is extinguished from awareness

Question 33

Change Blindness (CB)

Answer 33

= People can be blind to conspicuous changes even when their attention is not explicitly directed elsewhere by a demanding task

Question 34

what are limitations of VR?

Answer 34

• forgetting
• reconstruction errors
• lack of independent verification
• Substitution of Inferences for Observation
• verbal description difficulties
• censorship
• Distortion through Observation
• Experimental Demands

Question 35

what are methods of obtaining introspection?

Answer 35

• Retrospective Reports
• event recording
• diaries
• thinking out loud
• thought sampling
• group questionnaires