Content Evaluation Quiz

Cognitive Psychology

• Focuses on how the brain processes information, encompassing perception, learning, memory, thinking, and language.

Stages of Cognitive Processing

• INPUT: Initial stage of sensory input.
• Perception: Processing of sensory information.
• Learning and Memory Storage: Acquiring and storing information.
• Retrieval: Accessing stored information.
• Thinking: Processing and manipulating information.

Approaches to Studying Cognitive Psychology

• Experimental psychology: Scientific testing of processes in human and animal subjects.
• Computer modelling: Simulating cognitive processes using computers.
• Cognitive neuropsychology: Studying the brain's activities underlying cognitive processes by investigating cognitive impairment in brain-damaged patients.
• Cognitive neuroscience: Investigating human cognition by relating it to brain structure and function typically obtained from brain-imaging techniques.

Behaviourism

• An approach that restricts psychological investigation to observable behavior and rejects consideration of internal mental processes.

Gestalt and Schema Theories

• Emphasizes how components of perceptual input are grouped and integrated into meaningful patterns and figures.

Key Term: Schema

• A mental pattern, typically derived from past experience, used to interpret new perceptual input. Schemas help us to identify familiar shapes and sounds.

Key Term: Top-Down (Schema-Driven) Processing

• Processing that leverages stored knowledge and schemas to interpret incoming stimuli.

Key Term: Bottom-Up (Stimulus-Driven) Processing

• Processing directed by information directly contained within a stimulus.

Computer Models of Information Processing

• Computer analogies and computer modelling of brain functions. Broadbent's model of selective attention. Feature detectors in perceiving shapes.

Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

• Studying brain structure and function.

Key Term: Broca's Area

• Region in the left frontal region that controls motor speech production.

Key Term: Wernicke's Area

• Region in the left temporal region concerned with the comprehension of speech.

Hemispheric Specialisation

• Left hemisphere often dominates in right-handed individuals, involved in language and speech processing. Right hemisphere is often involved with non-verbal input, like patterns and faces. Left-handed individuals may show reversed specialisation.

Cerebral Cortex

• The brain's outer layer responsible for higher cognitive processes; extensively interconnected. Different areas perform specific functions.

Specific Brain Lobes

• Occipital lobes: Primarily involved in visual input processing and visual perception. Damage can impair this.
• Parietal lobes: Concerned with perception, including somatic sensory processing (input from skin, muscles, and internal organs) and some aspects of short-term memory.
• Temporal lobes: Involved in memory and, as discussed elsewhere, may be related to amnesia.

Key Term: Double Dissociation

• A method for distinguishing two functions; each can be impaired independently by external factors.

Information Storage in the Brain

• Neurons and synapses, with synaptic connections strengthening and enabling neuron communication.

Key Term: Neurotransmitter

• Chemical substances that carry signals across synapses between neurons, enabling communication.

Key Term: Synapse

• The gap between axon of one neuron and dendrite of another.

Key Term: Cell Assembly

• A group of linked neurons that represent a particular pattern of input; a possible biological mechanism for memory storage.

Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

• A lasting change in synaptic resistance caused by electrical stimulation that reflects a change enabling easier activation of neurons. This is considered a possible biological mechanism behind learning.

Automatic Processing

• Processing that happens without conscious effort, does not use up mental resources and may involve habitual actions.

Controlled Processing

• Cognitive processing that requires directed, deliberate, conscious effort; involves mental resources and is subject to interference.

Visual Illusions

• Illusions: situations where what is perceived does not truly reflect reality. Studying illusions helps to understand perceptual mechanisms.

Key Term: Blindsight

• The ability of some functionally blind people to detect visual stimuli at an unconscious level.

Key Term: Perception

• The subjective experience of sensory information after cognitive processing.

Visual Perception: Theories of Perception - Schemas and Template Matching

• Recognition of objects by matching incoming information to pre-existing mental representations (schemas or templates).

Feature-Extraction Theories

• Recognize objects by breaking them down into component features. Selfridge's Pandemonium model is an example.

Marr's Computational Theory

• Stages to achieve internal representation of viewed objects. Initial stage is primal sketch for identifying lines and curves in an image.

Key Term: Gons

• 36 basic three-dimensional forms used to construct a variety of objects in Biederman's recognition-by-components approach

Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)

• Model representing the brain's likely processing style, which handles information in parallel across many interconnected parts.

Visual Illusions

• Study of scenarios where perception is incorrect.

Key Term: Sensory Conspicuity

• How easily an object can be detected. Contrast with the background is a factor.

Visual Search

• Process of finding a target object in an array of objects.

Top-Down Influences of processing

• Where prior knowledge influences how we perceive information.

Constructivist Approach: Perception for Recognition

• Perception is based on prior knowledge to interpret incomplete sensory information; We are constantly constructing our perception of the world.

Evidence for the Constructivist Approach

• Masking and re-entrant processing in perception; experiments have shown that the prior processing of information or prior knowledge can impact how we perceive and process information.

Key Term: Early Selection

• Selective attention operates on physical stimuli early in the process before they get analysed for meaning.

Key Term: Late Selection

• Selective attention operates after stimuli have been analysed for meaning.

Subliminal Priming Effects

• Experiments demonstrating effects of unattended stimuli that occur below conscious awareness.

Key Term: Masking

• Disruptive influence of an auditory or visual pattern on an earlier stimulus, prevents conscious processing

Object Selection, Inhibition and Negative Priming

• Negative priming experiments show that items previously ignored slow down our subsequent response to them, suggesting they are semantically processed, even if not consciously recognised.

Directing the Spotlight of Visual Attention

• Focused attention highlighting objects in the visual field; covert and overt attentional orienting.

Cross-Modal Cueing of Attention

• Attention processes working across different senses.

Auditory Perception

• Focuses on how we locate sounds in space.

Auditory Localisation

• Localising sounds in space.

Auditory Attention

• Techniques for differentiating important sounds from the background noise.

Top-Down Influences on Auditory Perception

• Internal and prior knowledge influences of how we interpret sensory input.

Key Term: Mental Model

• A representation based on the premises in a reasoning process.

Key Term: Sensory Overload

• Excessive sensory input that is too much for processing.

Haptic Perception

• Sensory awareness integrating touch, movement, and position.

Proprioception, Kinematics, and Haptic Information

• Our body positioning and limb movement awareness.

Attention

• How we select and prioritise information. Different types of attention (controlled and automatic).

The Binding Problem

• How we integrate different properties of an object.

Psychological Refractory Period (PRP)

• How short time intervals between stimuli impact the processing time of the second stimulus.

Shadowing

• Dichotic listening procedure where participants repeat one message while ignoring the other.

Breakthrough

• Unattended information can sometimes reach awareness, not being filtered out.

Conjunction Search

• Identification of the target object by combining feature information in a serial process. 

Test your understanding of content analysis with this quiz. Evaluate the purpose, structure, and engagement methods effectively. Explore what might be missing in standard content presentations.