Test 1 Flashcards
1
Q
Problems with behaviorism
A
- Applicability to real world
- Presented challenge to conditioning: applicability to world
- Ex: How do we reduce plane crashes? Conditioning doesn’t explain something this complicated.
- Verbal learning research
- talked about stimulus and response
- eased way for cognitive revolution to come
- Linguistics
- idea: Skinner wanted to explain language with conditioning (ex: you coo, and mom looks you in eye, smiles, and that reinforces you)
- Chomsky: reviewed Skinner and pointed out they were not even using the proper definition anymore
2
Q
Assumptions of cognitive psychology
A
- Mental processes exist
- They’re subject to objective measurement (can’t see your memory, but can give you a test)
- Animals are active information processors
3
Q
Information processing framework
A
- Analogy for information processing; looking at mind as a computer
1. Receive input – stages are one at a time (earlier version)
2. Transform input into symbolic form (humans: neural transmission… computers: 0s and 1s)
3. Recode it
4. Decide (if… then)
5. Make new expression (ex: change up info – reword)
6. Save – remembering
7. Output - Save and Output are like “save and print”
- Early models
- Serial and Parallel processing
- Updated models
- Modal model
4
Q
Early models
A
- Stages are fixed
- Stages do not overlap = serial processing
5
Q
Serial vs. parallel processing
Serial:
A
- Stages do not overlap
- Serial = When things are harder
- Ex: Modal Model
- Parallel:
- Stages can overlap
- Parallel = when things are easier
- Ex: constantly taking in info and short-term is working on its own thing
- Ex: Pandemonium
6
Q
Updated models
A
- Parallel Processing: stages can overlap
- Ex: constantly taking in info and short-term is working on its own thing
- Some processing is serial and other is parallel (serial = when things are harder; parallel = when things are easier)
- Use brain structure and function in theoretical development
- When looking at how things work, we take into account the brain-
7
Q
Modal model
A
- The Modal Model (most common model) (“mode” is statistical term)
1. Environmental input
- Sensory registers
- (visual, auditory… haptic) (all of different senses) - Short-term store; Temporary working memory
- control processes: rehearsal, coding, decisions, and retrieval strategies
- consciousness and a few seconds ago
- can do response output OR 4. - Long-term store; Permanent memory store
- can choose to retrieve something from here
- EARLY information processing model
- stages are fixed
- stages do not overlap = serial processing
8
Q
Study methods
A
- Experiments
- Quasi-Experiments
- Individual Differences/Correlational
9
Q
Experiments
A
- An IV was manipulated
- Random assignment
- High control
- Manipulate a variable
- Pros:
- high control
- isolate cause and effect
- Cons:
- ecological validity (has to do with how much experiment is like real world)
- Ex: Research question: Do people study better with or without a TV on in background?
- IV: background noise (silence or TV)
- DV: reading comprehension
10
Q
Quasi-Experiments
A
- An IV was manipulated, but they also used a quasi-IV (grouping variable)
- Medium control
- 1 or more IVs
- 1 or more variables that can’t be manipulated (quasi IV or grouping variable)
- Pros:
- individual differences (things we’re interested in that we can’t necessarily manipulate)
- high control for the manipulated variable
- Cons:
- less control overall
- ecological validity still possible
- Ex: Is the effect of background TV noise the same for introverts and extroverts?
- IV: background noise (silence, TV)
- Quasi IV: trait
- DV: reading comprehension
11
Q
Individual Differences/Correlational
A
- Asks: Is there a relationship between the variables?
- You haven’t manipulated anything
- Pros:
- examine complicated relationships between variables
- Cons:
- no control → no cause (only observing, so you can’t make causal declines)
- Ex: What’s the relationship between age and memory?
- Variable 1: age
- Variable 2: memory
- No IV or DV
12
Q
Brain imaging
A
- fMRI
- ERP
13
Q
fMRI
A
- Functional magnetic residence imaging
- Getting images of brain function through blood flow
- When brain is active, it recruits oxygenated blood (tells you where brain is active)
- Cannot get causal explanation, only correlation
- Benefit: good at spatial localization (where things are happening)
- Limitations:
- temporal (bad at timing) - blood shows up 2 seconds after
- correlational (feedback loop)
- involved regions - shows only what is involved in a task, not what is critical for it (ex: hippocampus critical for memory, but when fMRI, you’ll see frontal lobe and parietal lobe and hippocampus have blood flow, but parietal and frontal lobe are NOT critical)
14
Q
ERP
A
- Event-related potential
- Takes electrical output activity
- Quick with timing
- Looks at electrical signals
- Benefit: good at time
- Limitations:
- coarse spatial localization (bad at showing exactly where)
- involved regions (can only tell us what’s involved, not what’s critical)
15
Q
Neuropsychology
A
- Prosopagnosia: face recognition deficit; face blindness; can’t really perceive face
- Agnosia: deficit to perceive visual images – not eye problem; it’s a brain problem; inability to perceive something; visual impairments that aren’t blindness
- Hemineglect:Failure of attention to left visual field due to damage to right parietal lobe; attention to left visual field is sometimes possible if nothing is in the right visual field; sometimes associated with denial of disorder (anosognosia)
- Amnesia
- Aphasia: language disorder; sound normal, but what they’re saying doesn’t make sense
16
Q
Brain basics
A
- Neurons
- Dendrites - take in info
- Soma - regulate cell function (biological stuff)
- Axon - delivers info
- Axon terminals - delivers info
- Myelin sheath - speed up processes
- Long-term potentiation (LTP)
- Strengthening connections between neurons
17
Q
Neurons and LTP
A
Neurons:
- Dendrites - take in info
- Soma - regulate cell function (biological stuff)
- Axon - delivers info
- Axon terminals - delivers info
- Myelin sheath - speed up processes
LTP
- Long-term potentiation
- Strengthening connections between two neurons
- How we build memories
- Likes neurotransmitter, so creates growth, and then it’s easier to accept info
- Ex: Glutamate taken in by receptors, it likes the glutamate, so it creates more receptors
- Brain plasticity - changing all the time
18
Q
Cortical lobes and subcortical structures
A
- about 3 mm thick; 2.5 sq. ft. if stretched; most higher mental functions; white matter (more myelinated; grey matter: not as myelinated, darker stuff (cortex))
- Frontal Lobe
- Broca’s Area
- Motor Cortex
- Somatosensory Cortex
- Parietal Lobe
- Occipital Lobe
- Primary Visual Cortex
- Wernicke’s Area
- Temporal Lobe
19
Q
Connectionism
A
- Corpus Callosum - connects two halves
- Connectionist models (parallel distributed processing PDP models) refer to a computer-based technique for modeling complex systems that is inspired by the structure of the nervous system
- Fundamental principle is that simple nodes or units that make up the system are interconnected
20
Q
Sensation vs. perception
Sensation
A
- Reception of stimulation from the environment and encoding in nervous system
- Contact between organism and environment
- Ex: How much light is needed before you detect it?
- Retina: rods and cones, fovea
Perception
- Interpreting and understanding sensory information; organizing and interpreting sensation
- Discontinuous information, but continuous sensory experience
- Ex: What is it? How far away is it?
21
Q
Proximal/distal stimulus
A
- Distal Stimulus: thing out there in the world
- Proximal Stimulus: pattern of energy that is contacting our sensory system; upside down; 2-D
22
Q
Blind spot
A
-Big gap at back of retina
