Test 1 Flashcards
Folk psychology
Term for various assumptions and theories based on the everyday behaviour of ourselves and others
Stimulus
An entity in the external environment that can be perceived by the observer
Bit
Short for “binary digit”
The most basic unit of information. Every event that occurs in a situation with 2 equally likely outcomes provides one “bit” of info
Information theory
A theory suggesting that the information provided by a particular event is inversely related to the probability of its occurrence
Filter model
A theory based on the idea that info processing is restricted by channel capacity
Channel capacity
The maximum amount of info that can be transmitted by an information processing device
Introspection
“Looking inward” to observe your own thoughts and feelings
Primary memory
What we are aware of in the “immediately present moment” often called immediate or short term memory
Secondary memory
Knowledge acquired at an earlier time that is stored indefinitely, and is absent from awareness. Also called long term memory
Brown Peterson task
An experiment in which subjects are given a set of items and then a number to start counting backward by 3 from, after a specific interval they’re asked to recall the items
Ecological approach
A form of psychological inquiry that reflects conditions in the real world
Accordances
The potential functions or uses of small stimuli (objects and events) in the real world
Information pickup
The process whereby we perceive information directly
Schema
An expectation concerning what we are likely to find as we explore the world
Perceptual cycle
A process where our schema’s guide our exploration of the world and are in turn shaped by what we find there
Schema (directs) exploration (samples) objects/available info (modifies) schema
Cognitive ethology
A new research approach that links real-world observations with laboratory based studies
Metacognition
Knowledge about the way cognitive processes work.
Understanding our own cognitive processes
Modules
Different parts of the brain, each of which is responsible for particular cognitive operations
Phrenology
The study of the shape, size, and protrusions of the skull to attempt to discover the relationships between parts of the brain and various mental activities/abilities (Gall, and Spurzheim)
Localization of function
The idea that there is a direct correspondence between specific cognitive functions and specific parts of the brain
Law of mass action
Learning and memory depend on the total mass of brain tissues remaining rather than properties of individual cells
Law of equipotentiality
Although some areas of the cortex may become specialized for certain tasks, any part of an area can (within limits) do the job of any other part of that area
Interactionism
Mind and brain are separate substances that interact and influence each other
Epiphenomenalism
“Mind” is a superfluous by product of bodily function
Parallelism
“Mind” and brain are two aspects of the same reality, and they operate in parallel
Isomorphism
Mental events and neural events share the same structure
Sensory system
A system that links the physical and perceptual worlds via the nervous system.
Composed of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and distinct regions of the brain dedicated to the perception of information
Broca’s aphasia
A deficit to produce speech as result of damage to Broca’s area
Broca’s area
The area of the brains left hemisphere that is responsible for how words are spoken
Wernicke’s area
Area of left hemisphere responsible for processing the meaning of words
Wernicke’s aphasia
A deficit in the ability to comprehend speech as a result of damage to wernicke’s area
Interhemispheric transfer
Communication between the brains hemispheres. Enabled largely by the corpus callosum
Corpus callosum
Plays big role in enabling the hemispheres of the brain to interact with each other
Split brain
A condition created by severing the corpus callosum
Emergent property
Roger sparry’s idea that a property that “emerges” as a result of brain processes, but is not a component of the brain, is neither deductible to, nor a part of a particular region of the brain
Emergent causation
In sperrys sense, causation brought about by an emergent property. Once the “mind” emerges from the brain, it has the power to influence lower level processes
Supervenient
In sperry’s sense, describe mental states that may simultaneously influence neuronal events and be influenced by them
Event related potential (ERP)
An electric signal emitted by the brain after the onset of a stimulus
Positron emissions tomography (PET)
An imaging technique in which participants are injected with radioactive substances that mingle with the blood and scanners use it to detect the flow of blood in brain areas
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI)
A non radioactive magnetic procedure for detecting the flow of oxygenated blood to brain areas
Magnetoencephalography
MEG
A non invasive brain imaging technique that directly measures neural activity
Connectionism
A theory that focuses on the way cognitive processes work at the physiological/neurological level as opposed to information processing level.
It hold that the brain consists of an enormous number of interconnected neurons and attempts to model cognition as an emergent process of networks of simple units communicating with each other
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)
An MRI-based neuroimaging technique that makes it possible to visualize the white matter tracts within the brain
Neural network
Neurons that are functionally related or connected
Hebb rule
A connection between two neurons takes place only if both neurons are firing at approximately the same time
Parallel processing
Many neural connections may be active at the same time
Serial processing
Only one neural activity may take place at any one time
Visual agnosia
An inability to identify objects visually even though they can be identified using other senses
Perception
The processing of sensory info in such a way that it produces conscious experience and guides action in the world
Cornea
The outer tissue of the eye and the first layer that light passes through on its way to the back of the eye
Pupil
The space through which light passes on its way to the back of the eye; adjusted in size by the iris ; appears black
Iris
Surrounds the pupil responsible for the colour of the eye
Lens
The transparent tissue in the eye that refracts light and focuses it on the back of the eye
Retina
The tissue at the back of the eye that contains light receptors
Photoreceptors
Cells that transduce light energy into a neutral signal
Fovea
The region of the retina where photoreceptors are most densely packed
Primary visual cortex
The area at the back of the brain that is primarily responsible for the basic processing of visual info
Retinotopic
A principle of organization of the primary visual cortex, whereby info falling on adjacent areas of the retina is processed in adjacent areas of the cortex
Achromatopsia
A visual deficit characterized by inability to perceive colour because of damage to the area of the brain that processes colour information
Akinetopsia
Inability to perceive the motion in objects (motion blindness)
Ventral “what” pathway
The stream of visual processing in the brain that is responsible for determining object shape, colour, and meaningful identity
Dorsal “where” pathway
The stream of visual processing in the brain that is responsible for determining object location and motion, and which guides action
Feedfrward sweep
The propagation of visual info from the primary visual cortex down the “what” and “where” pathways
Re-entrant (feedback) connections
Connections between brain areas that allow the propagation if visual info from the endpoints of the “what and “where” pathways back to the primary visual cortex
Bottom up influences
The feedforward influence of the external environment on the resulting perceptual experience
Top down influences
The feedback influence of context and the individuals knowledge, expectations, and high-level goals on perceptual experience
Automatic processes
Processes that run them self without requiring us to pay attention
Controlled processes
Processes we must pay attention to to execute
Automatic processes may also be called: (3)
Bottom-up,
Stimulus driven
Instinctual
Controlled processes may also be called:(3)
Top down
Goal directed
Voluntary
Visual agnosia
An inability to identify objects visually even though they can be identified using other senses
Perception
The processing of sensory info in such a way that it produces conscious experience and guides action in the world
Cornea
The outer tissue of the eye and the first layer that light passes through
Pupil
The space through which light passes, adjusted in size by iris, appears black
Iris
The tissue that surrounds the pupil and gives the distinct colour of the eye
Lens
Transparent tissue in the eye that refracts light and focuses it on the back of the eye
Retina
The tissue at the back of the eye that contains light receptors
Photoreceptors
Cells that transduce light energy into a neural signal
Fovea
The region of the retina where photoreceptors are most densely packed
Primary visual cortex
Area at the back of the brain that is primarily responsible for the basic processing of visual info
Retinotopic
A principle of organization of the primary visual cortex, where info falling on adjacent areas of the retina is processed in adjacent areas in the cortex
Achromatopsia
A visual deficit characterized by inability to perceive colour because of damage to the area of the brain the processes colour info
Akinetopsia
Inability to perceive the motion of objects (motion blindness)
Ventral “what” pathway
Stream of visual processing in the brain responsible for determining object shape, colour, and meaningful identity
Dorsal “where” pathway
The stream of visual processing in the brain that is responsible for determining object location and motion, and guides action
Feedforward sweep
The propagation of visual info from the primary visual cortex down the “what” and “where” pathways
Re-entrant “feedback” connection
Connections between brain areas that allow the propagation of visual info from the endpoints of the “what” and “where” pathways back to the primary visual cortex
Bottom up influences
The feedforward influence of the external environment on the resulting perceptual experience
Top-down influences
The feedback influence of context and the individuals knowledge, expectations, and high-level goals on perceptual experience
Fusiform face area
An area in the inferior temporal cortex that is responsible for the conscious recognition of faces
Propagnosia
A selective deficit in the ability to consciously recognize faces as result of damage to FFA
Percept
The visual experience of sensory info
Parahippocampal place area (PPA)
An area in the ventral stream that is responsible for the conscious recognition of places
Extrastraite body area (EBA)
An area in the ventral stream that is involved in processing non-facial body parts
Pattern recognition
The ability to recognize an event as an instance of a particular category of event
Memory trace
The trace that an experience leaves behind in memory
Hoffding function
The process whereby an experience makes contact with a memory trace resulting in recognition
Feature detection theory
Detecting patterns on the basis of their features or properties
Pandemonium
A model of pattern recognition consisting of 3 levels:
Data,
Cognitive demons,
And decision demon
Feature
A component or characteristic of a stimulus
Cognitive demon
Feature detector in pandemonium model
Contrast energy
The relative ease with which a stimulus can be distinguished from the background against which it’s displayed
Squelching
The tendency of the nervous system to inhibit the processing of unclear features
Recognition by components (RBC)
The theory that we recognize objects by breaking them down into their fundamental geometric shapes
Geons
The set of 36 basic 3-D shapes from which all real-world objects can be constructed
Dichroic listening
Participants are presented with two verbal messages simultaneously. typically one to each year, and are asked to focus on only one of them. they are then asked to respond to a series of questions about what they heard most often about the message played to the unattended ear
Selective attention
Attending to relevant information and ignoring irrelevant information
Cocktail party phenomenon
The ability to attend to one conversation with many other conversations are going on around you
Shadowing task
A task in which the subject is exposed to two messages simultaneously and must repeat one of them
Filter
A hypothetical mechanism that would admit certain messages and block others
Selective looking
Occurs when we are exposed to two events simultaneously but attend it to only one of them
Early selection
The hypothesis that attention prevents early perceptual processing of distractors
Late selection
The hypothesis that we perceive both relevant and irrelevant stimuli and therefore must actively ignore the irrelevant stimuli in order to focus on the relevant ones
Stroop task
A naming task in which colour names are printed in colours other than their colours their name
Controlled versus automatic processes
Processes that demand attention if we are to carry them out properly versus processes that operate it without requiring us to pay attention to them
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
An area of the brain that may exert a top down by is that favours the selection of task relevant information
Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)
An area of the brain that may detect conflicting response tendencies of the sort that the Stroop task elicits
Spatial attention
The process of selecting visual information for conscious awareness in specific regions of space
Spotlight metaphor
The idea that special attention is like a spotlight that we shine on an object when we selected for more complex and conscious processing
Endogenous shifts
Voluntary movements of attention
Exogenous shifts
Involuntary movement of attention triggered by external stimuli
Attention capture
The diversion of attention by a stimulus so powerful that it compels us to notice even when our attention is focussed on something else
Peripheral cueing paradigm
A test in which a light (i.e. the cue) flashes in the periphery and is followed by a target either in the same (ceud) location or a different (uncued) one
Catch trials
Trials of a detection task in which a target is not presented (to see if a participant is paying attention)
Cueing effect
Faster responses in cued compared to uncued trials in the cueing task
Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA)
The time difference between the onset of one stimulus and the onset of a subsequent stimulus
Inhibition of return (IOR)
Slower responses to cued then uncued trails in the queueing paradigm
Central cueing paradigm
An experimental method in which central cues (e.g. arrow) points to a location in which the target might subsequently appear
Inattentional blindness
Failure to attend to events that we might be expected to notice
Flanker task
An experiment in which participants may be influenced by an irrelevant stimulus beside the target
Domain specific modules
The hypothesis that parts of the brain may be specialized for particular tasks such as recognizing faces
Capacity model
The hypothesis that attention is like a power supply that can support only a limited amount of attentional activity
Structural limits
The hypothesis that attentional tasks interfere with one another to the extent that they involve similar activities
Central bottleneck
The hypothesis that there is only one path along which information can travel, and it is so narrow that the most they can handle it any one time is the information relevant to one task
Divided attention
The ability to attend to more than one thing at a time
Mind wandering
A shift of mental resources away from the task at hand and towards internal thoughts
Sustained attention to response task (SART)
A continuous response task in which digits are sequentially presented on a computer screen and participants are asked to press a button in response to all of them except the infrequent digit
Commission error
Failure to withhold a response to the infrequent digit in the SART
Default network
A set of brain areas that are active when an individual does not have a specific task to do and is absorbed in internal thought
Attentional blink (AB)
Failure to notice the second of two stimuli when presented within 550 milliseconds of each other
Action slips
The kind of behavioural error that occurs often in everyday life
Parallel mental activity
Thinking about something other than the task at hand
Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP)
The presentation of a series of stimuli in quick succession
Set
A temporary, top down organization in the brain that facilitates some responses while inhibiting others in order to achieve a certain goal; also referred to as a “mental set“
Task switching
Changing from working on one task to working on another; usually studied in situations in which the switch is involuntary
Switch cost
The finding that performance declines immediately on switching tasks
Sustained attention
The act of maintaining attention focussed on a single task for a prolonged period of time
Vigilance
Sustained attention as an externally imposed requirement
prototypical
representative of a pattern or category
template matching theory
the hypothesis that the process of pattern recognition relies on the use of templates or prototypes
multiple trace memory model
traces of each individual experience are recorded in memory. no matter how often a particular kind of event is experienced, a memory will be traced ofthe individual event is recorded everytime
probe
a “snapshot” of info in primary memory that can activate memory traces in secondary memory.
echo
when a probe goes out from primary to secondary memory, memory traces are activated to the extent that they are similar to the probe. the activated memory traces are said to return an “echo”
context effects
the change in perception of a visual component of a scene based on the surrounding info in the scene and the observers prior knowledge
moon illusion
the tendency for the moon to appear different in size depending on whether its near the horizon or high in the night sky
holistic
focusing on the entire configuration of an object
atomistic
focusing on the components of objects
grouping
the combination of individual components to form a percept of a whole object
orgonizational principles
the rules that govern the perception of whole objects or events from a collection of individual components or features
principal of experience
visual components are grouped together based on the prior experience and knowledge of the observer
principal of similarity
visual features that have a high degree of visual similarity are combined
principal of proximity
visual components that are close to one another are grouped to form a whole
principal of symmetry
symetrical lines are perceived as going together
principal of parallelism
lines that are parallel or simular in orientation are perceived as going together
figure ground segmentation (segregation)
the separation of a scene so that one componant becomes the object and the other componants become background.
denotivity
the degree to which an object is meaningful and familiar to an individual observer
jumbled word effects
the ability to read wdors in seentnces evne wnhe smoe of the ltters rea mexid up
word superiority effect
its easier to identify a letter if it appears in a word than if it appears alone
empirical theory of colour vision
the theory that colour perception is influenced by prior experience with the way different illuminations affect colout (blue black/ gold white dress)
optic ataxia
a condition characterized by a deficit in ability to successfully reach for objects, especially when they are presented in the periphery vision, with unimpaired abiity to identify them
theory of ecological optics
the propostition that perception results from direct contact of the sensory organs with stimulus energy emanating from the environment and that an important goal of perception is action
ambient optical array (AOA)
all the visual info that is present at a particular point of view
transformation
Gibsons (1966) term for the chages in the optical info hitting the eye that occurs as the observer moves through the environment
optical flow field
the continually changing (transforming) pattern of info that results from the movement of either objects or the observer through the envinment
gradient of texture density
incremental changes in the pattern on a surface, which provide info about the slant of the surface
topological breakage
the discontinuity created by the intersection of two textures
intentional blinding effect
events that take place after one has taken some action are perceived as occuring sooner than they actually did
principal of common movement
visual features that move simultaniously and follow the same path are perceived to form a whole entity
modality appropriateness hypothesis
hypothesis that different senses are better at processing different stimuli, and therefor, different sensory modalities dominate at different times, depending on the circumstace
visual prepotency effect
the hypothesis that the visual system dominates other senses when it comes to perceptual processing
McGurk effect
the auditory experience of the syllable “da” when seeing a mouth silently saying “ga” while hearing a voice say “ba”
Vigilance decrement
The decline in performance overtime in vigilance task
Overload view
The view that performance on vigilance tasks declines over time because such tasks are so demanding
Resource depletion account
A version of the overload view according to which performance declines over time as attentional resources become depleted
Under load view
The view that performance on vigilance tasks declines over time because such tasks are not stimulating enough to hold a persons attention
Embodied
Existing within a body; the term reflects the general view that cognition depends not only on the mind but also on the physical constraints of the body in which the mind exists
Overt attention
Attending to something with eye-movement
Covert attention
Attending to something without eye movement
Sequential attention hypothesis
The hypothesis about the relationship between overt and covert attention that posits a tight relationship between the two. Whereby covert attention shifted first and overt eye movement follows
Saccades
The rapid, jerky movements made as the eye scans an image
Fixation
Holding the eye relatively still in order to maintain an image of the fovea
Nystagmus
Small but continuous eye movements during fixation
Regressions
Right to left movements of the eyes during reading, directing them to previously read text
Moving window technique
A method of determining how much visual info can be taken in during fix station in which the reader is prevented from seeing info beyond a certain distance from the current fixation
Entry points
The locations to which we direct our eyes before starting to read a section in a piece of complex material such as a newspaper
Smooth pursuit movements
Movements of the eye that,because they are not jerky enable the viewer to maintain fix station on a moving object
Task related knowledge
An observer’s knowledge of the goals and the task at hand as it guides the eyes during a visual task
Quiet eye
Sustained and steady I gaze prior to an action or behaviour (sport players example)
Location suppression hypothesis
A two stage explanation for the quiet I phenomenon; in the preparation stage, the quiet eye maximizes info about the target object; then, during the location stage, vision is suppressed to optimize execution of an action or behavior
