Textbook for PSY 108 Midterm 1
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Questions and Answers

What is the primary focus of the cognitive approach to psychology?

  • People's thought processes and their knowledge (correct)
  • People's observable behavior in response to stimuli
  • The role of environment in shaping behavior
  • The structure of the human brain

    • Who is credited with developing the introspection technique?

  • Ebbinghaus
  • Watson
  • Wundt (correct)
  • James

    • What was Ebbinghaus primarily interested in?

  • Human memory (correct)
  • Human emotions
  • Learning behavior
  • Social psychology

    • What is the recency effect, as reported by Calkins?

    <p>The phenomenon where our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What was James' preferred approach to psychology?

    <p>Theorizing about everyday psychological experiences</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary focus of behaviorism?

    <p>Objective, observable reactions to stimuli in the environment</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Who is associated with the behaviorist approach?

    <p>Watson</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What do behaviorists typically study?

    <p>Learning behavior in nonhuman animals</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What was Tolman's contribution to psychology?

    <p>He provided evidence that learners create mental representations of their environment</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the core idea of the Gestalt psychology approach?

    <p>That the whole is greater than the sum of its parts</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the significance of Piaget's work in the cognitive revolution?

    <p>He believed children actively explore their world to understand important concepts</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary function of the primary visual cortex?

    <p>To process visual stimuli from both eyes</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the figure-ground relationship?

    <p>A phenomenon where the figure and ground of a visual stimulus reverse</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is feature-analysis theory?

    <p>A theory of object recognition through the analysis of distinct features</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the recognition-by-components theory?

    <p>A theory proposing that people recognize objects through the arrangement of simple 3D shapes called geons</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the connectionist approach to cognitive processing?

    <p>A theory describing cognitive processing as a network of neuron-like units</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the role of iconic memory in visual perception?

    <p>To preserve an image of a visual stimulus for a brief period</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the significance of empirical research in psychology?

    <p>It uses conditions similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the primary function of geons in object recognition?

    <p>To recognize visual objects</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main principle behind fMRI?

    <p>Oxygen-rich blood is an index of brain activity</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is an example of top-down processing?

    <p>Reading a sentence and understanding the meaning</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the failure to detect changes in an object or scene due to overuse of top-down processing?

    <p>Change blindness</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the inability to recognize human faces?

    <p>Prosopagnosia</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the observation that people are more accurate at recognizing upright faces compared to upside-down faces?

    <p>Face-inversion effect</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the basic unit of spoken language?

    <p>Phoneme</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the variability in phoneme pronunciation due to differences between speakers?

    <p>Interspeaker variability</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for filling in a missing phoneme based on contextual meaning?

    <p>Phonemic restoration</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the concept that the whole is more than the sum of its parts?

    <p>Gestalt</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the inappropriate combination of features from separate objects?

    <p>Illusory conjunction</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the process of being aware of one's internal and external environments?

    <p>Consciousness</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What occurs when a person's thoughts shift away from the external environment and focus on an internal topic?

    <p>Mind-wandering</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the phenomenon where people's efforts to control their thoughts often backfire?

    <p>Ironic effect</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the term for the condition in which an individual can report details of an object they claim not to see?

    <p>Blindsight</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What type of meditation involves focusing on internal and external experiences in the present moment?

    <p>Mindfulness meditation</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the McGurk effect related to?

    <p>The influence of visual information on speech perception</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the main idea of the special mechanism approach to speech perception?

    <p>Humans are born with a specialized device for speech perception</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is divided attention in the context of attention and consciousness?

    <p>Focusing on multiple messages simultaneously</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the Stroop task used to measure?

    <p>Selective attention</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the isolated-feature/combined-feature effect in visual search?

    <p>The finding that people can locate an isolated feature more quickly than a combined feature</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the feature-present/feature-absent effect in visual search?

    <p>The finding that people can locate a feature that is present more quickly than a feature that is absent</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is a PET scan used to measure?

    <p>Blood flow in the brain</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is the bottleneck theory of attention?

    <p>A theory that proposes that attention is a limited resource</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is distributed attention in feature-integration theory?

    <p>A fast, parallel process</p> Signup and view all the answers

    What is focused attention in feature-integration theory?

    <p>A slow, serial process</p> Signup and view all the answers

    Study Notes

    Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

    • Definition of cognition: mental activity, including the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge
    • Cognitive approach to psychology: a theoretical orientation that emphasizes people's thought processes and their knowledge

    Origins of Cognitive Psychology

    • Introspection: an early approach to studying mental activity, in which carefully trained observers systematically analyzed their own sensations and reported them as objectively as possible
    • Wundt's introspection technique: considered subjective by current cognitive psychologists
    • Early memory researchers: Ebbinghaus, Calkins, and James
      • Ebbinghaus: interested in human memory, examining factors that influence performance on memory tasks
      • Calkins: reported the recency effect, emphasizing the study of cognitive processes in real-world situations
      • James: preferred to theorize about everyday psychological experiences, emphasizing the active and inquiring nature of the human mind

    The Cognitive Revolution

    • Behaviorism: an approach to psychology that focuses on observable, objective reactions to stimuli in the environment
      • Watson and other behaviorists: emphasized observable behavior, studying nonhuman animals, and quantifying changes in behavior
    • Gestalt psychology: emphasizes the active organization of what we see, the perception of patterns, and the whole being greater than the sum of its parts
    • Cognitive revolution: Piaget and Chomsky
      • Piaget: believed children actively explore their world to understand concepts, and their cognitive strategies change as they mature
      • Chomsky: emphasized the complexity of language structure, arguing that humans have an inborn ability to master language

    Empirical Research and Ecological Validity

    • Empirical evidence: scientific evidence obtained by careful observation and experimentation
    • Ecological validity: a principle of research design that uses conditions similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied

    The Connectionist Approach and Cognitive Neuroscience

    • Connectionist approach: a theory describing cognitive processing in terms of networks that link together neuron-like units
    • Cognitive neuroscience: an approach to studying mental activity that uses cognitive psychology and neuroscience techniques

    The Computer Metaphor of the Mind

    • A way of describing cognition as a complex, multipurpose machine that processes information quickly and accurately

    Visual and Auditory Recognition

    Definition of Perception and Object Recognition

    • Perception: the use of previous knowledge to gather and interpret stimuli registered by the senses
    • Object recognition: the process of identifying a complex arrangement of sensory stimuli and perceiving it as separate from its background

    The Visual System

    • Distal vs proximal stimuli: the actual object in the environment (distal) vs the information registered on sensory receptors (proximal)
    • Sensory memory: a large-capacity storage system that records information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy
    • Iconic memory: visual sensory memory, preserving an image of a visual stimulus for a brief period
    • Primary visual cortex and occipital lobe: the part of the cerebral cortex concerned with basic processing of visual stimuli

    Figure-Ground Relationship and Illusory Contours

    • Figure-ground relationship: a perceptual phenomenon studied by gestalt psychologists, where the figure and ground of a visual stimulus reverse
    • Illusory contours: the perception of edges in a visual stimulus even though they are not physically present

    Feature-Analysis Theory and Recognition-by-Components Theory

    • Feature-analysis theory: proposes that people recognize visual objects based on distinctive features
    • Recognition-by-components theory: proposes that people recognize three-dimensional shapes in terms of an arrangement of simple 3D shapes called geons

    Top-Down vs Bottom-Up Processing

    • Top-down processing: emphasizes the importance of concepts, expectations, and memory in object recognition and other cognitive tasks
    • Bottom-up processing: emphasizes stimulus characteristics in object recognition and other cognitive tasks

    Face Recognition

    • Gestalt: an overall quality that transcends the individual elements in the stimulus
    • Prosopagnosia: the inability to recognize human faces visually, though other objects may be perceived relatively normally
    • Face-inversion effect: the observation that people are more accurate in identifying upright faces compared to upside-down faces

    Applied Research and Schizophrenia

    • Applied research: examples include workers letting someone with an incorrect photo ID slip past them, and security surveillance systems
    • Schizophrenia: a serious psychological disorder characterized by lack of emotional expression, hallucinations, disordered thinking, and poor performance on many cognitive tasks

    Speech Perception

    • Phoneme: the basic unit of spoken language, such as the sounds a, k, and th
    • Word boundaries: the perception of clear-cut boundaries between words in the language
    • Variability in phoneme pronunciation: interspeaker, intraspeaker, and coarticulation
    • Phonemic restoration: filling in a missing phoneme based on contextual meaning
    • The role of visual cues on speech perception: the McGurk effect
    • Special mechanism vs general mechanism theories of speech perception: debating whether humans have a specialized device for decoding speech stimuli or use general neural mechanisms

    Attention and Consciousness

    Definition of Attention

    • Attention: a concentration of mental activity

    Divided vs Selective Attention

    • Divided attention: paying attention to two or more simultaneous messages
    • Selective attention: paying attention to certain kinds of information while ignoring other present information

    Tasks Used to Measure Selective Attention

    • Dichotic listening: a laboratory technique presenting one message to the left ear and a different message to the right ear
    • Stroop task/effect: the observation that people take a long time to name an ink color when it appears in an incongruent word
    • Visual search: a task requiring the observer to find a target in a visual display with numerous distractors

    Theories of Attention

    • Bottleneck theories: proposing a narrow passageway in human information processing limits the quantity of information to which one can pay attention
    • Feature-integration theory: proposing two elements: distributed attention and focused attention

    Definition of Consciousness

    • Consciousness: a person's awareness of the external world and of their own perceptions, images, thoughts, memories, and feelings

    Mind-Wandering and Thought Suppression

    • Mind-wandering: a situation where a person's thoughts shift away from the external environment
    • Thought suppression: the attempt to push an undesirable idea out of consciousness, often resulting in ironic effects

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    Learn about the definition and approaches of cognitive psychology, including the cognitive approach, origins, and early methods like introspection.

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