Week 3

Question 1

Where in the brain is visual information mainly processed ?

Answer 1

Occipital lobe
* visual cortex

Question 2

What is the difference b/w bottom-up and top-down processing

Answer 2

• Bottom-up: trying to interpret properties based on physical stimulus we see
• Top-down: Knowledge we already know

Question 3

What is object occlusion ?

Answer 3

when an object is being blocked out by another object in the world

Question 4

What is viewpoint invariance ?

Answer 4

ability to identify an object when looking at it from different angles

Question 5

What is Hemholtz’s theory of unconscious inference?

Answer 5

• Brain is just calculating what’s the most likely thing that’ll happen based on prior knowledge (likelihood principle)
• our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions, or inferences, that we make about the environment

Question 6

What are the two Gestalt principles of organization ?

Answer 6

1. Principle of Simplicity - simplest explanantion is something I’ve seen before (top-down)
2. Principle of Similarity - things that look alike, brain groups them together (bottom-up)

Question 7

How do semantic regularities enhance or distort perception ?

Answer 7

• Ames room we expect that a room has 4 corners and parallel lines.
• Even with people changing sizes walking around, the assumption that walls are parallel is so strong that is overrides the fact that people don’t change sizes

Question 8

What is experience dependent plasticity ?

Answer 8

Experiences determine how the brain is processing things and the world around it
* Evidence - restricting developmental… of cats
* When implanted a microelectrode into neurons in cat brain, specific neurons responded to specific stimuli. If deprived of types of stimulation, then that part of the brain stops caring. (co-op it and uses it for something else)

Question 9

Where are the what and where pathways of the brain ?

Answer 9

• What - Temporal lobe
• Where - Parietal lobe
• begins at occipital lobe

Question 10

What is change blindness ?

Answer 10

difficulty in detecting changes in a scene

Question 11

Describe Standing (1973) findings

Answer 11

• 10,000 scenes
• Two-alternative forced choice test (forced to choose 1)
• 83% correct
• Categorical knowledge helps memory! (remembering things from the experiment)

Question 12

How did Brady and collegues ensure that participants in their study had to remember specific visual details to peform well on their memory test ?

Answer 12

Had 3 different tricks (lures)
* Novel - categories of objects not presented in the study (two distinct things)
* Exemplar - same category different example
* State - same item but different state

Question 13

What task do researchers use to study attention to auditory development?

Answer 13

Dichotic lisenting task - listening to 2 things at once but each thing is directed to each ear

Question 14

Compare and contrast Broadbent’s model to Treisman’s model

Answer 14

• Broadbent’s model states that there is a filter that blocks out things and focuses on the attended message
• Treisman model has a attentuator guiding our message instead of a filter. it doesn’t block anything but it just damps it down
• essentially info can break through mental barrier if its related to us

Question 15

How do stimulus salience and cognitive factors relate to bottom-up and top-down processing ?

Answer 15

• S.S: Bottom-up processing (stimulus to guide attention)
• C.F: Top-down processing (Prior knowledge)

Question 16

What is the difference b/w overt and covert attention ?

Answer 16

• Overt: Focus on something
• Covert: pay attention to things we’re not so focused on in our peripheral environment (without moving our eyes)

Question 17

What did Posner show us about covert attention?

Answer 17

The task was peformed faster when the arrow pointed at the right direction indicated that people can covertly pay attention to the world around us

Question 18

What is the feature integration theory ?

Answer 18

Look at object -> process colour and shape -> info is brought together -> come up with an answer as to what it is

Question 19

How have researchers indirectly and directly measure attention in the classroom ?

Answer 19

Observational approaches - viewing students body movements and found that as time goes on, more body movements occur indicating inattention and also measure blinking

Question 20

Desrcibe the results of Szpunar

Answer 20

• 4 segments, 3 groups
• Found that people who were tested mind wandered less than people in the re-study and not tested group
• Tells us that if people get test throughout the 4 lecture, attention increases since students know they will be tested which decreases mind wandering