Cognitive Science Overview

Cognitive Science Approach

• Key Themes: Attention (focused, selective, multitasking, limited resources), multiple types of memory (STM, LTM, semantic, episodic, procedural), interactions between memory types for learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and intelligence.
• Representation, Organization, and Categorization: Organizing information in memory.
• Automatic Processing: Information processed quickly, without awareness, and doesn't require much attention.
• Conscious Processing: Deliberate processing of information with awareness; requires attention.
• Information Processing Approach: Cognition and learning emerge from coordinated mental processes in a multi-component memory system.
• Automatic Processes: Allow efficient "autopilot" mental operations, but lack flexibility.
• Bottom-up Processes: Driven by immediate, available environmental information.
• Top-down Processes: Rooted in prior knowledge, preconceptions, and expectations.

Stroop Effect

• Definition: Automatic process of reading interferes with controlled process of naming the color of a word (e.g., the word "red" printed in blue).
• Successful Performance: Requires suppressing automatic processes.

Information Processing

• Global (Gestalt): Processing the bigger picture.
• Local (Focused/Detailed): Processing smaller details.
• Parallel Processing: Multiple cognitive processes occurring simultaneously for enhanced efficiency.

Levels of Analysis (Marr, 1982)

• Functional Level: The goal of the computations and the function/purpose of the cognitive processes, including information inputs and behavioral outputs.

Measuring Information Processing

• Reaction Time (RT): Time elapsed between stimulus presentation and response.
• Reading Times: Time taken to read sentences or passages.
• Verbal Protocols: Descriptions of participants' thought processes during problem-solving.
• Preference Method: Choosing between competing or available stimuli.
• Eye Tracking: Measuring gaze or eye movements.
• Accuracy Measures: Evaluating the number and type of errors (e.g., omissions, incorrect responses).

Wisconsin Card Sorting Task

• Description: Task involving sorting cards based on color, number, and shape with changing sorting rules.
• Purpose: Evaluating performance in the face of changing rules.

Priming

• Definition: Initially presented stimulus influencing later cognitive processes.
• Examples: Activation of automatic unconscious processes.

Neurocognition

• Brain Function Principles: Specific areas of the brain perform specialized functions, processing information efficiently.
• Contralaterality: Receptors and control centers for one body side are in the opposite brain hemisphere.
• Hemispheric Specialization: Different brain functions rely more heavily on one hemisphere (e.g., language in the left hemisphere for right-handed individuals).
• Cognitive Neuropsychology: Studying behavior and high-level cognitive processes in individuals with brain damage to examine brain function.
• Cognitive Neuroscience: Manipulating stimuli in experiments and using brain imaging to understand cognitive processes.
• Mapping the Living Brain: Methods for understanding brain activity during cognitive tasks (e.g., EEG, ERP, fMRI).
• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): Measuring brain activity based on blood flow.

Brain Lobes

• Occipital Lobes: Processing visual information (eyes).
• Parietal Lobes: Integrating sensory information (skin), spatial representation.
• Temporal Lobes: Processing auditory information, memories, and emotions (ears).
• Frontal Lobes: Initiating voluntary movements, short-term memory, planning, and higher-level cognitive functions (limbs).
• Prefrontal Cortex: Higher-level thinking.