Unit 5 Flashcards
Cognitive Control
The ability to orchestrate thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals
Proactive Control
Applying cognitive control in anticipation of a challenge
Reactive Control
Applying cognitive control in reaction to a challeng
Mental Resource
limitations on how much information the mind can process at any given time
-applying resources to one task can limit what we can apply to something else
Internal Attention
Attention that is directed to one’s thoughts and response selections
Cognitive Load
How difficult a task is
Cognitive overlap
How much the demands of simultaneous tasks compete for the same mental resources
Cognitive interference
Performance suffering when load is high or two tasks have a lot of cognitive overlap
Dual-task experiments
Require participants to engage in two tasks simultaneously
-like texting and driving
Automatic Process
Performing a task requires minimal cognitive effort
ie. walking, automatically reading a stop sign
-Primarily ventral stream: running the show
Controlled Process
Performing a task requires more cognitive involvement
ie. doing math, reasoning, pros and cons, long-term planning
-Primarily dorsal stream: thinks its running the show
Perseveration errors
persistent responses that fail to adapt to changing rules or circumstances
-common in individuals w/prefrontal damage
Inhibition
Ability to suppress information, thoughts, or actions that may interfere with ongoing behavior
-reduces distractions and helps people choose how to act
Stop-Signal Task
Measures inhibition
Individuals respond as quickly as possible to a green circle target
On some trials a red circle stop signal appears soon after the target stimulus
Participants must withhold their response - inhibit their response
The later the stop sign appears the harder it is to stop as people have already committed to the target
Inhibition during continuous performance task
Observers must respond differently or withhold their response to an unpredictable and infrequent target
ie. a TSA agent has to inhibit the process of just letting luggage through when a suspicious object appears
-The continuous performance task reveals decrements in sustained attention/vigilance- the ability to maintain focus on a task.
Stroop Task
Participants have to state the physical color of words like “red” “orange” “green”
It is harder/takes longer to name the colors when the word meanings conflict with the physical color of the words
-word reading is highly automatic
-word meaning interferes with naming the color of the word
-Requires selective inhibition for cognitive control
-can show unconscious bias: subjects more likely to shoot at bottle-holding suspects if they are black than if they are white in a simulation.
Simon Task/Spatial Interference Task
Either a blue circle or green circle appears to the left or right of a focus point
Participant responds by pushing a blue or green button in front of them corresponding to the colored circle they saw
-Blue button on the left
-Green button on the right
Spatial incompatibility between the target (blue or green circle) location and the responding hand slows down response time
ie. the green circle appears on the left side of the focal point
Flanker Task
Participants respond to a target that is flanked by non-targets that activate a conflicting or non-conflicting response
ie.
X X < X X
XX<XX>><>>
Task: Participants have to respond by stating which way the middle symbol is facing</XX>
Perceptual Interference
Perception is affected by distractors that make a target harder to see
In the flanker task: occurs when the flankers are closer to the target than when further away- takes longer to identify which way the center symbol is facing
XX<XX
Response Interference
Perceptual slowing caused by distractors that elicit a conflicting response
In the flanker task:»_space;<»
- takes longer to identify which way the center symbol is facing
Conflict Monitoring
When cognitive control processes detect interference
ie. the word meaning conflict in the Stroop task
Anterior Cingulate Cortex (AC)
Central conflict monitor in the brain
-conflict monitoring occurs when multiple perceptual inputs compete for attention or when several response options compete for selection
-sends signal to Dorsolateral PF cortex for resolution
ie. in the Stroop task the ACC is more active when the meaning of the words compete with the colors to be named
Conflict resolution
When cognitive control processes reduce interference through inhibition or other behavioral adjustments
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
Employs cognitive control once ACC detects conflict to resolve conflict
ie. Stroop task: inhibits distracting word interference
Error detection
The Anterior Cingulate Cortex registers and responds to errors and triggers cognitive control mechanisms to adjust performance to reduce further error
Prediction error
failure to receive the reward or outcome you predicted
ACC initiated error response (oh shit response) that allows cognitive control mechanisms to respond adaptively to mistakes
Error-Related Negativity
Negative EEG response to error in a task
Mental Chronometry
Infers perceptual and cognitive processing by measuring response time to different stimuli and tasks
Psychological Refractory Period
The response to a second stimuli is slowed if the stimuli are shown more than 300 ms apart because the first stimulus is still being processed
Central Bottleneck model
Only one response can be selected at a time, the second response is queued.
Resource sharing music
Responses to both stimuli can be selected at the same time but priority is given to the first response, slowing the second response.
Task-Switch Cost
Speed and accuracy penalty that comes with switching tasks
The preparation effect
Increasing the time between targets/switching tasks (trials) gives people more time to prepare and reduces the task switch cost
Residual Switch Cost
Even with long delays with ample time to prepare for the next target, the task switch cost does not completely go away
7+/- 2
George Miller
Established mean span of short-term memory as 7+/-2 items called “chunks”
Working Memory
a brain system that provides temporary storage and manipulation for the information necessary for complex cognitive tasks such as language comprehension, learning, and memory
Storage
a capacity that helps sustain access to information after it is no longer available in perception (no longer visible, audible, or touchable)
-a form of internal attention
Manipulaton
the mind performs operations and transforms information
ie. subtracting 52-37, the act of sequencing the arithmetic in your head requires active manipulation of information
The central executive
the primary system for controlling attention and thinking
-operates over information stored in the visuospatial sketchpad, the phonological loop, and episodic buffer
The phonological loop
stores and rehearses verbal and acoustic information
-tested with digit span test
-has a duration and length: about 2 seconds
Acoustic Similarity Effect
Interference of the phonological loop
Reduced capacity of working memory to recall words from a list of items similar in sound, compared with items that are dissimilar in sound
ie. cat, knit, pin, gnat
-the words get jumbled up and its harder to remember words with a similar sound
Irrelevant Speech Affect
Interference of phonological loop
impairment of working memory by irrelevant spoken material
ie. if a song is playing on the radio, its harder to remember the lyrics to another song
Articulatory Suppression
Repeating sounds oneself or paying attention to them interferes with the phonological loop
Articulatory Rehearsal Loop
Occurs through inner speech
-holds onto 7+/-2 items
Word-length effect
-word span is higher for short than large words
-digit span is higher for people who speak monosyllabic languages
Phonological Store and Digit Span Task
The storage capacity of the phonological store is commonly tested with the digit-span task.
-about 1-2 seconds
-experimenter reads series of numbers
-immediately repeat back
-tests with longer lists
Serial Recall
Form of phonological working memory that involves remembering a series of numbers
-listening to music can disrupt this
Visuospatial sketchpad (visual working memory)
stores and manipulates visual information
Slot Model
Visual Short-term memory
- a slot corresponds to an object
-visual short-term memory can store all the object’s features without reducing capacity for other objects - up to about 4 objects
Episodic Buffer
Integrates information from the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop
Change Detection (Luck and Vogel, 1997)
Sought to answer how big is the short term memory store?
-Participants are shown two displays
-In the second some items will be different
-The number of items in the picture progressively increases
-Participants must indicate the last number of items where you can detect a difference
-This is most difficult to do with shaded cubes
Rumination
incessant focus on negative thoughts
-negative thinking interferes with cognition and well-being
Yerkes-Dodson Curve
Describes how performance suffers as a result of stress and anxiety, especially for difficult tasks that require a high degree of cognitive control
-Stress and anxiety take up working memory capacity that would be devoted to problem solving
-Individuals with high working memory capacity suffer more
Ego Depletion
When energy for mental activity is exhausted it impairs cognitive control and other cognitive activities
-cognitive control tasks cause ego depletion
Scarcity hypothesis
scarcity (ie. living in poverty) impairs cognitive control
Attention restoration theory
Being out in nature can restore cognitive fatigue
Action Video Games-improvements in attention and low-level visual skills
Video games may improve general cognitive capabilities
-Dual task training == attentional improvements
-improve external and internal attention
Emotion Regulation
the ability to manage, modulate, and alter one’s emotions
-the ability to manage one’s emotions is a cognitive control function
