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Psyc 221 test 1 > Week 1 > Flashcards

Week 1 Flashcards

1
Q

cognitive psychology

A

the scientific investigation of human mental processes

or

the way humans interpret their environment, process infom and form responses

(how does the brain work and how do we think and process info)

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2
Q

what model does cognitive psyc use

A

information processing model
* perception is mostly vision
* through senses we take information, take representation, to output

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3
Q

how do we aquire knowledge

A

sensation, perception, attention,

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4
Q

how do we store knowledge

A

memory

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5
Q

how do we use knowledge (4)

A

reasoning, problem solving, decision making, language

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6
Q

sub areas of cognitive psyc

A

perception: how we take info from environment

attention: allocation of resources

memory: how we store info and retrieve it

language: how we trasnfer info to others

reasoning: how we derive info from what we already know

problem solving: how we gain information

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7
Q

applications of cognitive psychology

A
  • improving training and learning
  • analyzing how people do things
  • improving object design
  • improving computer interfaces
  • improving written and spoken materials
  • testing the assumptions of economic models
  • figuring out what sort of car people will want to drive
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8
Q

history of Cognitive psyc - philosophy

A

Period: ancient greece to now

Question: where does knowledge come from
* nativism: born with it
* empiricism: we learn it

Method: discussion

Significance: assumption that psychology could be productively studied

problem: can’t test a theory with discussion

example: eyes and stability
* argue that eyes remain steady to see things clearly but eyes are always moving

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9
Q

Psychologists = philosophers + physicists

A

scientific method to study the mind
* making predictions and theorizing the underlying processes

empiricism: psych came from this idea
* knowledge stems from experience
* can be studied with experimentation and observation
* we can take a strict approach and study something that’s illusive

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10
Q

how do you measure something you can’t see?

A

Donders and Reaction time = first cognitive experiment
* first to demonstrate the mental processes are not instantaneous

he measured how quickly people reacted to light by pressing button
* he showed that the time it takes to make a decision can be measured

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11
Q

history of cognitive psych - Introspection

A

1800s to 1920s

Introspection: not a scientific approach but a method
* ask people why and how they did something

significance: assumption that psychology was something we could productively study

questions:
* structuralism: what are the elements of knowledge
–> focused on breaking down mental processes into most basic components
* functionalism: everything u know is to survive – what is knowledge for?

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12
Q

Introspection

A

Structuralist: Wundt - wanted to exlain conscious processes and experience (periodic table of consciousness)

functionalist: William James - wanted to know how the mind functions and adapt to new circumstances

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13
Q

Introspection - problem

A

can’t test a theory with subjective observations

  • some things are not available to consciousness
  • training biases what people report
  • some processes happen so fast they can’t be reported

basically we don’t know what were thinking
* its a best guess

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14
Q

introspection example

A

how do your eyes move when you read

  • most people have the impression that their eyes move smoothly across the page
  • this impression is wrong - eyes move in saccades (little jumps) followed by periods of fixation (stability)
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15
Q

history of cognitive psych - behaviorism

A

behaviourists say that you can’t study the mind

significance: unconcerned with thought, mind, consciousness
* focused on observable & quantifiable behavior

question: how is behaviour learned?
- theory was that if u can control simple behaviour and have a theory for learning, you can predict complex behavior

main focus: using data
method: experimentation

John Watson: proposed that only behavior is objectively observable
* little albert experiment

B.F. Skinner: saw behaviourism as a philosophy of the science of psychology
* rat in box

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16
Q

behaviourism

A
  • believed that all behavior could be broken down into simple lawful relationships between stimulus and response
  • everyone started off with a blank slate (Tabula Rasa) and could be trained to do anything
  • humans abilities were no different and were simply scaled up versions of rat, cat, or dog responses

our experiences lead us to have different behaviors in reaction to our behavior

  • pavlov and dog operant conditioning
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17
Q

downfall of behaviorism

A

Language: it is generative and can not be accounted for by stimulus - response - reward notions of behaviorism
* where do you learn the recognition response?

real-world problems: practical problems in ww2 could not be addressed by behaviourist theories
* pilots experienced information overload and would often result in crashes
* experiencing information overload

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18
Q

History of cognitive Psych - the Cognitive revolution

A

Newell & Simon: compare humans to computers (metaphor)

Chomsky discusses language as inherited rule-governed system (theory of processing accounts for language acquisition)

Miller presents his work on short term memory
* limited capacity in how much information can be stored and processes

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19
Q

rise of cognitive psychology

A

1960s to now

question: what information fo people store and process

method: observe behavior
* experimentation
* correlations, verbal protocols, neuroimaging, computer modelling

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20
Q

computer metaphor

A

envision humans as information processing systems

examined how the computer worked to get ideas on how humans worked

representation: things your looking at, knowledge, experiences
* stored information

Processes = how do move info around, change and access it, and make predictions from it
* a program that takes information as input and transforms it as output

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21
Q

example of computer metaphor

A

remembering a short list of items to buy at the store
* representations: a few items
* process: rehearsal

computer metaphor is helpful in encouraging new way of thinking about what goes on in the mind

  • computer breaks down information in binary - number 4 represented as 100

the mind stores information as patterns of neural activity which have an unknown correspondence to the stimuli world

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22
Q

the mind & cognitive psych

A

creates mental representations and controls mental functions

  • creates and control mental functions
  • role = to determine mental abilities
  • creates representations so that we can act to achieve our goals

cognitive psych: study of mental processes which includes how the mind operates

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23
Q

first cognitive psychology experiment

A

Donder - how long it takes to make a decision

significance: mental responses cannot be measured directly but must be inferred from behaviour

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24
Q

Wundt’s psychology lab

A

Wundt’s approach: structuralism

structuralism: our experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations

perception = the adding up of sensations

created periodic table of the mind

used analytic introspection
* procedure where people describe their experience and thought processes in response to stimuli

Structuralism was not fruitful and was abandoned

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25
Q

Ebbinghaus’s memory experiment: what is the time course of forgetting

A

Student of Wundt?

researched how quickly learned info is lost over time

quantitative method: did experiment of remembering on himself

used a measure called savings: to find magnitude of memory left from initial learning
* higher savings = greater memory

longer delays = smaller savings

savings curve: plot of percent savings vs time after original learning
* shows that memory drops rapidly for the first two days after the initial learning and then levels off
* showed that memory could be quantified

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26
Q

William James

A

not a student of Wundt

  • taught Harvards first psychology course
  • based on observations of his own mind
  • observed that paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things
  • negative reaction to Wundt’s technique of analytic retrospection –> major force that caused psychology to reject the study of mental processes
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27
Q

Early pioneers in cognitive psychology

A

Donders
* simple vs choice reaction time
* decision takes 1/10th second bc thats how long choice takes
* first cognitive psychology experiment

Wundt
* analytic introspection
* not reliable results
* established the first laboratory of scientific psychology
* structuralism

Ebbinghaus
* savings method to measure forgetting
* forgetting occurs rapidly in the first 1-2 days after original learning
* quantitative measurement of mental processes

James
* no experiments; reported observations of his own experience
* descriptions of a wide range of experiences
* first psychology textbook; some of his observations are still valid today
* functionalism

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28
Q

Watson founds behaviorism

A

Behaviorism: approach says that observable behavior provides the only valid data for psychology

consequence: makes consciousness and unobservable mental process not worthy of study by psychologists

wanted to restrict psyc to behavioral data (like Donder’s reaction times)

  • little albert

ideas associated with classical conditioning
Pavlov’s pairing of food with a bell caused dog to salivate to sound of bell

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29
Q

skinner’s operant conditioning

A

type of conditioning championed by B.F. Skinner, which focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers or withdrawal of negative reinforcers

interested in behavior

idea that behavior can be understood by studying stimulus-response relationships influenced a generation of psychologists

30
Q

Tolman

A

cognitive map
* conception within the rat’s mind of the maze’s layout
* mental map indicated that when starting from the new location it needed to turn left to get food

idea that something other than stimulus-response connections might be occuring in the rat’s mind

31
Q

computers

A

computers process information in stages

psychologists proposed the info-processing approach to studying the mind
* traces sequences of mental operations involved in cognition
* the approach where the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages

32
Q

studying higher mental processes

A

model of memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin)
* flow of info in memory progesses through 3 stages

  • sensory memory holds incoming information, then to short term (few seconds) then to long term

distinguishes between different components of the memory process

33
Q

Studying the physiology of cognition

A

Neuropsychology = study of behavior of people with brain damage

electrophysiology = measuring electrical responses of the nervous system

PET - brain imaging
* positron emission tomography
* expensive and have to inject stuff

limitations to fMRI research

34
Q

levels of analysis of behavior

A

idea that the topic can be studied in a number of different ways

  • measuring behavior can be analogous to measuring the car’s performance
  • measuring the psychological processes behind behavior is stuff under the hood
35
Q

early conception of neurons (Cajal)

A

nerve net: network of continuously interconnected nerve fibres connected by synapses

neuron doctrine: idea that individual cells transmit signals in the nervous system and that these cells are not continuous with other cells

neural circuits: interconnected neurons

36
Q

neural representation and cognition

A

neural representation: states that everything a person experiences is based on representation in the person’s nervous system

37
Q

feature detectors

A

feature detectors: neurons that respond to specific features, such as orientation, size, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli

experience-dependent plasticity: mechanism that causes an organisms neurons to develop so they respond most to stuff exposed to them alot
* structure of bran is changed by experience
* if someone has mainly vertical sensitive neurons, the kitten perceived only verticals and a similar result occurred for horizontals

visual cortex: area in the occipital lobe that receives signals from the eyes

38
Q

Neurons that respond to complex stimuli

A

Hierarchical processing
* neurons that respond to simple stuff send their axons to higher levels of the visual system and then to higher areas

39
Q

sensory coding

A

sensory code - how many neurons represent different aspects of environment

specificity coding - idea that an object could be represented by the firing of a specialized neuron that responds only to that object
* unlikely to be correct

population coding - representation of a particular object by the pattern of firing a large amount of neurons

sparse coding - neural coding based on the pattern of activity in small groups of neurons

representation: neurons and groups of neurons contain information for perception, memory, and other cognitive functions

40
Q

localized representation

A

basic principle of brain organization is localization of function – specific functions served by specific areas of the brain

  • many cognitive functions are served by the cerebral cortex
  • other functions are served by subcortical areas
41
Q

localization determined by neuropsychology

A

cortical equipotentiality: idea that the brain is operated as an invisible whole as opposed to specialized area

Broca’s aphasia
* damage to Broca’s area in frontal lobe
* can’t understand some types of sentences and labored and ungrammatical speech

Wernicke’s aphasia
* damage to temporal lobe
* produce fluent and correct speech but its not coherent
* meaningless speech

  • shows that different aspects of language are served by different areas of the brain
42
Q

other neuropsychology - damages/purposes

A

damage to occipital lobe = blindness
* where visual cortex is

auditory cortex: upper temporal lobe, hearing - signals from ear

somatosensory cortex: parietal lobe, responsible for perceptions of touch, pressure, pain - signals from ear

frontal lobe: coordination of senses, thinking & problem solving - signals from all senses

Prosopagnosia = inability to recognize faces
* can tell a face is a face but can’t recognize whose face

double dissociation = occurs if damage to one area of the brain causes function A to be absent while function B is present and vise versa

43
Q

distributed representation

A

different areas respond to different features of humans
* principle of cognition: most of our experiences is mulitdimensional

  • even simple experiences involve combinations of different qualities

looking at a face
* triggers responses to many different aspects of the face
* we also respond to – where someone is looking, how attractive a face is, if the face is similar, how parts of the face move

distributed representation
* looking at a face activates many areas of the brain
* other examples are remembering, and producing & understanding language

44
Q

remembering

A

episodic: memories for events in life
Semantic: memories for facts

45
Q

producing and understanding language

A

Wernicke: language goes beyond isolated regions to include connections between them

nonlanguage functions are associated with parts of Broca’s area
* processing of sentence grammar occurs throughout language system

46
Q

neural networks

A

interconnected areas of the brain that communicate with each other

structural and functional pathways

there is resting state of brain activity – so brain is always active

47
Q

structural connectivity

A

brain “wiring diagram” created by nerve axons that connect different brain areas

  • track-weighted imaging
    —based on detection of how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers
48
Q

functional connectivity

A

the extend to which the neural activity in separate brain areas correlate with each other

  • method to determine whether the responding of two areas is correlated is based on resting-state fMRI
49
Q

6 functional networks determined by resting state fMRI

A

network, visual, somatomotor, dorsal attention, executive control, salience, default mode

50
Q

the default mode network

A

a network of structures that respond when a person is not involved in specific tasks

areas in the frontal and parietal lobes that decrease activity during tasks have correlated resting state activity so they are part of a functional network

51
Q

How to study

A

Chunking - experts who show high level of performance chunk up info

fluency illusion = feels like u know info but don’t

52
Q

quantitative methods

A

correlational methods
* correlations: two variables change together
* goal: predict one variable based on another
* knowing state of one variable can predict state of the other

Experimental methods
* goal: infer that changes in one variable cause changes in another
* if variable changes how does it affect the other

53
Q

Hypothesis

A

science centers around this

hypothesis: testable explanation of a phenomenon
* theoretical framework for what you think might be going on

theories and not facts
* testing what the probability is that the theory is correct

good theory = hypothesis can be shown to be wrong (if it can’t be proven wrong, its not useful)

54
Q

causal direction

A

things that make a variable increase or decrease
* problem is that there could be another variable that would be causing them to be increasing or decreasing together

55
Q

alternative variables

A

have to account for these bc could be causing the causal relationship and not the variable you thought

56
Q

inferring causality

A

experiments involve random assignment
* correlational studies do not

randomly assign to
* reduce bias in sample
* any variability gets equally distributed
* the variance gets added to error

57
Q

confounding variable

A

variable that correlates with the independent variable

  • still have confounds when you randomly assign

when there is a confounding variable, either it or the IV could have caused the effect
* example: sleep deprivation
* solution: control for sleep, by excluding people who get less than six hours
——when u add control variable, can take away confound

58
Q

neuron

A

cell body with nucleus

Dentrites come off cell body

axon (long part - Myelin sheath protects)

leads to arborizations which end in terminal buttons

  • intensity by rate (low intensity = slow firing)
  • rate of firing determines AP which determines when something is more intense
59
Q

Synapse and neurotransmitters

A
  • synapse allows firing from one neuron to the next to either ampliy or decrease the signal
  • just because of neuron fires, doesn’t mean the other will fire more if the connection is inhibitory
  • synapse can be modified to make the signal go by smoother or to disrupt the signal

neurotransmitters
* excitatory: increases chance neuron will fire (acetylcholine)
* inhibitory: decreases change neuron will fire (GABA)

60
Q

cortex divided into four areas

A

frontal: reasoning, planning, emotion

temporal: hearing and memory

Parietal: perception of touch, pressure, temperature, pain

occipital: vision

61
Q

two key principles of cortical functioning

A
  1. contralateral
  2. hemispheric specialization
62
Q

contralateral

A

control centers for one side of body is controlled by the opposite hemisphere of brain

the visual field is contralateral
* stuff on right side of visual worlds goes to left side of brain

  • processing contralaterally but according to what’s out there in the real world, not according to anatomy
63
Q

hemispheric specialization

A

structurally but not functionally symmetric

  • language is all on left side
  • imagery = right side

left side is more analytical and right side is more artsy and free willing/creative

ability to verbalize = when left side is used

64
Q

localizing brain function

A

what do different brain regions do

parts of brain are specialized for certain functions

methods for localizig brain function
* lesions
* electrical recording
* imaging

65
Q

lesion studies

A

case studies

observe behavioural ability given neurological deficit

limitation: if you disrupt a certain area it could be disrupting the pathway to the section of the brain that does the action so it might actually be controlled by a different area of the brain
* can’t generalize

66
Q

localizing brain function - Electrical recording single cell

A

electrical recording: Single cell
* animal studies, record activity of single cell while performing task

limitations: animal brains not human
* won’t tell you how much brain function and can’t study language with animals

67
Q

Localizing brain function - electrical recording event related potentials

A

electrical activity recorded with sensors on scalp
* activity recorded in response to a stimulus over multiple presentations – result is an event related potential – electrical activity associated with the stimulus

eeg: measurement across the whole scalp

limitations: really good at temporal but bad spatial resolutions
* can’t tell where in the brain this is happening

68
Q

localizing brain function - Functional imaging (PET)

A

Indirect measure of neural activity – injected with radioactive oxygen that is concentrated in areas that consume more blood

resolution: spatial good, temporal bad

limitations - we have better methods bc both temporal and spatial are bad

69
Q

localizing brain function: MRI

A

measurement of cerebral blood flow

oxygenated and deoxygenated blood have different magnetic properties

machine measures ratio to indicate areas of greatest oxygen usage
* fMRI shows functional part
* gives structure of the brain (black and white)

resolution: spatial good, temporal bad (worse than PET)

limitations: looking at blood
* takes while to perform a task before you start seeing changes in the functional regions to get big changes so its not so great for temporal resultion

70
Q

localizing brain function - Transcranial mgnetic stimulation

A

apply very strong and direct magnetic field to a region of cortex

all axons fire at once with this pulse

creates temporary lesion in brain so that area of brain won’t work

limitations: don’t know the long term affects, you can make someone blind or arm go limp

works well on surface just for lobes

71
Q

converging methods to localize brain function

A

different methods have different short comings

using different methods to localize a function will eventually converge on the parts of the brain that support the function

modular view of function: certain parts of the brain are dedicated to specific types of processing

Psyc 221 test 1 (3 decks)

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