Cognitive Psych Exam 1 PDF

Cognitive Psych Exam 1 Tuesday, February 4, 2025 4:44 PM Chapter 1 and History Topics Cognitive Psychology: the study of the mental processes that allow us to function; it is, in many ways, the study of the mind What is the Mind?: system that creates mental represe...

Cognitive Psych Exam 1 Tuesday, February 4, 2025 4:44 PM Chapter 1 and History Topics Cognitive Psychology: the study of the mental processes that allow us to function; it is, in many ways, the study of the mind What is the Mind?: system that creates mental representation of the world and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking and reasoning Cognition: the mental processes, such as perception, attention, and memory, which is what the mind creates -- involved in understanding and engaging with life and the world ○ Additional Processes: 1) recognizing and recalling. 2) creating and receiving communications, 3) reasoning and problem solving, 4) making judgements and decisions Study of the Mind involves… ○ Forming and recalling memories ○ Solves problems, considers possibilities, makes decisions ○ Helps us to survive and function normally ○ Is a symbol of creativity and intelligence ○ Creates representation of the world so we can act in it 1800s and early 1900s Early Attempts to Study the Mind: Fechner and Weber (psychophysics): 1854, Germany. Began theorizing about how we can measure what goes on in the mind ○ Gustav Fechner: physicist studied how physical differences are experienced psychologically ○ Ernst Weber (physician) and him learned that experience does not always match objective differences. ○ Learned we are reference dependent: our ability to perceive differences depends on the starting point Paul Broca: 1861, French physician. Studied brain-damaged patients ○ Linked specific part of brain with specific dysfunction -- showed mind and brain are closely linked -- localization of ability ○ Patients who were unable to speak but could understand were OFTEN found to have damage in back of frontal lobe on left side : Broca's aphasia Franciscus Donders; 1868, Netherlands. Dutch ophthalmologist: one of several researchers to systematically study reaction times as a window into cognitive processing: mental chronometry ○ FIRST COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY EXPERIMENT ○ Did one of the first cognitive psychology experiments ○ Showed mental responses must be inferred from behavior ○ Simple Reaction Time: reacting to presence or absence of a SINGLE stimulus ○ Choice Reaction Time: time to response to one of two or more stimuli ○ Choice RT - Simple RT = time to make a decision -- (usually 1/10th second) Willhelm Wundt (structuralism and introspection): 1879, Germany. Set up the first psychology lab AND course to learn about the structure of human experience ○ FIRST LAB OF SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY ○ First one to call himself a psychologists ○ Father of Experimental Psychology ○ Established psychology as a field of scientific study ○ Structuralism: approach to psychology that explain perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations ○ Analytic Introspection: procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli Hermann Ebbinghaus (forgetting and saving curves): 1885, Germany. Studied how own memory by studying lists of nonsense syllabus aloud to determine number of repetitions necessary to repeat the list without errors -- after taking breaks, he relearned the list ○ QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT OF MENTAL PROCESSES ○ Savings: measure he used to determine the magnitude of memory left from initial learning. Higher saving indicate greater memory § Ex: 1,000 sec to learn list and 400 sec to relearn : 1,000-400=600 sec ○ Savings Curve: shows that memory drops rapidly for the first 2 days after the initial learning and then levels off - plot of savings versus time after original learning ○ Forgetting Curves: gives us a sense of how quickly and how much we are likely to forget + value of repeated learning ○ Serial Position Effect: items at the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of a list are easier to recall than words in the middle ○ Short-break intervals = fewer repetitions necessary to relearn list ○ Also found that perception is context dependent. -- ex: size of circle looks different depending on what's around it William James (psychology text and course): 1875, U.S. taught the first U.S psychology course at Harvard and in 1890 wrote first treatise on science of psychology (Principles of Psychology) ○ Functionalism: observations based on the functions of his own mind, not experiments Early to Mid-1900s Behaviorism: an approach that advocates psychologists restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectively observable behavior ○ Felt studied of the mind were too unreliable ○ Necessary to ensure experimental psychology maintains the same standards as other physical sciences Ivan Pavlov (1890s-1920s): physiology of digestion: founded classical conditioning (conditioned and unconditioned stimulus-response pairing) ○ Classical Conditioning: a procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response ○ Pavlov Experiment: wanted to study dog's digestion but noticed that because the bell sound caused by the door every time he walked in to give food was paired with food, the dogs salivated before even seeing food John Watson (1910s-1940s): starts behaviorism with goal to predict and control behavior through the study of observable behavior; Little Albert Study (stimulus- response-environment) ○ Little Albert Study: made Albert afraid of white animals and rats by pairing a loud noise with the showcase of a rat B.F. Skinner (1930s-70s): introduces operant conditioning, Skinner box, shaping behaviors. Controversial publications re: human mind as tabula rasa and emphasizes power of reinforcement (stimulus-response-reinforcement) ○ Operant Conditioning: focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection ○ Ex: showed that reinforcing a rat with food for pressing a bar maintained or increased the rat's rate of bar pressing ○ Reinforcement is key to behavior and did NOT believe in free will Edward Chace Tolman (1930s-50s): behaviorist who trained rats to find food when started from one arm in a four armed maze ○ Even when rats started in different arm of maze, they still went to correct arm for food ○ Argued that this was evidence of rat creating a Cognitive Map: mental conception of a spatial layout ○ Rejected behaviorists perspective Edward Thorndike (1920s-50s): hypothesized that animals engaged in goal- directed behaviors ○ Focus on learning ○ Postulated that goals lead to "trial and error learning" where in an animal tries any numbers of behaviors until they find one that leads to success ○ Involved assumptions about thought processes in animal ○ Father of Educational Psychology 1950s and 1960s: Start of Field of Cognitive Psychology Cognitive Revolution: shift in psychology, beginning in 1950s, from behaviorists approach to approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in terms of the mind Scientific Revolution: shift from one paradigm to another ○ Involves a paradigm shift Paradigm: system of ideas that dominate science at a particular time Invention of the Computer started the Cognitive Revolution! Computers processed information in stages : 1. Info Received by "input processer", 2. Stored in "memory unit", 3. Processed by an "arithmetic unit", which then creates output Psychologists used this as inspiration! Information-Processing Approach: approach to psychology developed beginning in the 1950s in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages ○ Stimulus -> Input Processes (Perception and sensory registration) -> Storage and Related Processes (Elaboration, manipulation, selection, and storage) -> Output Processes (Production of appropriate responses) -> Response Ulric Neisser coined the term "Cognitive Psychology" in 1967 book, officially marking the Cognitive Revolution 1970s to the Present Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) make a three-stage model of memory ○ Sensory memory (less than 1 second) ○ Short-term memory (a few seconds, limited capacity) ○ Long-term memory (long duration, high capacity) ○ Input -> Sensory memory -> short-term memory -> capable of higher resolution pictures Development after Neisser's Book 1. More sophisticated models 2. Research focusing on the physiological basis of cognition 3. Concern with cognition in the real world 4. The role of knowledge in cognition Events that led to Cognitive Revolution 1. Chomsky's critique of Skinner's book Verbal Behavior 2. The introduction of the computer and idea that the mind processes info in stages, like a computer 3. Cherry's attention experiments and Broadbent's intro of flow diagrams to depict the processes involve in attention 4. Interdisciplinary conferences at Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chapter 2 Topics: Neurons and the Brain The Basic Structure and Function of the Brain Levels of Analysis: a topic can be understood by studying it at a number of different levels of a system ○ Levels: Neurons, Nerves, Brain Structures, Group of Brain Structures ○ Types of Analysis: Chemical processes, Brain Activity, Self-Report, Behavior The Brain: part of the central nervous system (CNS) ○ Weights about 3-4 pounds ○ Floats in cerebrospinal fluid ○ Contains 100-200 billions neurons Neurons: cells specialized to create, receive, and transmit information in the nervous system ○ Each neuron has a cell body (soma), an axon, and dendrites ○ Cell Body (Soma): contains mechanism to keep cell alive. Center of neuron ○ Axon: tube filled with fluid that transmits electrical signal (then chem) to other neurons. Transmits from cell body to synapse at end of axon ○ Dendrites: structure that branch out from cell body to receive electrical signals from other neurons ○ Synapse: small gap between end of neuron's axon and dendrites or cell body of another neuron Early Theories of Nerve Processes Camillo Golgi (late 1800s+): created a staining technique that allowed FIRST clear view of brain neuron ○ Nerve Net Theory: each neuron fiber flows in both directions -- says there is a network of continuously interconnected nerve fibers. They touch and fuse because directly connected to each other, creating nets. Almost like highway system ○ Staining technique could not see the small details at the time Santiago Ramon y Cajal (late 1800s - early 1900s): used Golgi's staining technique and COULD NOT find evidence of axons and dendrites fusing ○ Also studied tissue from brains of newborn animals ○ Developed Neuron Doctrine: idea that individual cells called neurons transmit signals in the nervous system and that these cells ARE NOT continuous with other cells as proposed by nerve net theory\ ○ Conclusions about Neurons: § There is a gap between axon and dendrites called a synapse § Neurons are not connected indiscriminately to other neurons but form connection only to specific neurons. This forms group of interconnected neuron, making neural circuits § There are neurons specialized to pick up info from environment ○ Principles are used today Receptors (or Sensory Receptors): specialized neural structures that respond to environmental stimuli such as light, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli How Neurons Communicate WITHIN a neuron, signals are sent electrically (action potential or neural impulse) BETWEEN neurons, signals are sent chemically (neurotransmitters) Dendrites --> Cell Body --> Axon Action Potential: propagated electrical potential responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons. Typically travel down a neuron's axon ○ Always the same size or strength ○ Is all-or-none: the cell is either activated or not ○ Stronger simulation causes faster NOT stronger firing ○ Rate of firing reflects STRENGTH OF STIMULUS not potential § Low-intensity stimulus = slow firing § High-intensity stimulus = fast firing When signals research the synapse at the end of axon, a chemical called a Neurotransmitter is released ○ Neurotransmitter: chemicals that affect the electrical signal of the receiving neuron and release at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials § Makes it possible for signal to be transmitted across the gap that separates the end of axon from the dendrite or cell body of another neuron § Cross synapse and bind with receiving dendrites-- if there is another chemical activation, a new action potential is generated in the next neuron Principle of Neural Representation: everything a person experiences Is based on representations in the person's nervous system Feature Detectors: neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli ○ Found by Hubel and Wiesel in 1960s in experience where presenting visual stimuli to cat Hierarchical Processing: processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain ○ Ascension from lower to higher of the brain corresponds to perceiving objects that range from lower (simple) to higher levels of complexity ○ Ex: V1: edges and line -> V2: shapes -> V3: objects -> V4: faces ○ Different hierarchies for different things with "association area" Vision-for-Action Pathway OR Dorsal "Where" Pathway: helps you process where stimulus is -- involves visual cortex projecting to parietal love - crucial for visually guided actions like grasping, throwing, navigating through space ○ Back/Upper Vision-for-Perception OR Ventral "What" Pathway: helps identify objects and their properties -- starts in primary visual cortex in occipital lobe and in inferior temporal lobe ○ Front/Belly Sensory Code: how neural firing represents various characteristics of the environment Specificity Coding: representation of a stimulus by the firing of specifically-tuned neurons specialized to respond only to a specific stimulus ○ How many faces could be represented with 10 neurons? § 10 faces (1 face for each neuron) Sparse Coding: representation of a stimulus by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons, with the majority of neurons remaining silent ○ How many faces could be represented with 10 neurons? § Between 10 and 1,023 depending on how many neurons are used for each face Population Coding: representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing of a large number of neutrons ○ How many faces could be represented with 10 neurons? § 1,023 faces (1 face for every combination of firing neurons) Localization of Function Localization of Function: specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain How it is Studied or Evidence: 1. Neuropsychology: comparing functional impairments with areas of brain injury (e.g., double dissociation technique) 2. Neuron Recordings: using microelectrodes or electrodes to isolate neuron activity in certain parts of the brain based on stimuli present 3. Brain Imaging: using tools such as PET scans and fMRI to obtain pictures of brain activity given particular tasks or stimuli Areas of the Brain: Cerebral Cortex: 3-mm-thick outer layer of the brain that contains the mechanisms responsible for higher mental functions such as perception, language, and problem solving Broca's Area: speech control. an area in the frontal lobe associated with the production of language. Damage to this area causes Broca's aphasia (language production damaged. condition associated with damage to Broca's area, in the frontal lobe, characterized by labored ungrammatical speech and difficulty in understanding some type of sentences) Wernicke's Area: language comprehension. area in the temporal lobe associated with understanding language. Damage to this area causes Wernicke's aphasia (language comprehension damaged. a condition, caused by damage to Wernicke's area, that is characterized by difficulty in understanding language, and fluent, grammatically correct, but incoherent speech) Occipital Lobe: vision, perception - where visual cortex Is located Frontal Lobe: movement, problem solving, concentrating, thinking, behavior, personality, mood Temporal Lobe: hearing, language, memory Brain Stem: consciousness, breathing, heart rate Cerebellum: posture, balance, coordination of movement (walking, jumping) Parietal Lobe: sensations, language, perception, body awareness, attention Motor Area: control of voluntary muscles Sensory Area: skin sensations (temperature, pressure, pain) Distributed Representation Distributed Representation: occurs when a specific cognition activates many areas of the brain ○ Brain processing is largely multidimensional Neural Networks: interconnected areas of the brain that communicate with each other ○ Can be primarily hierarchical, complementary, and associational ○ Connectome: structural description of the network of elements and connections forming the human brain Structural Connectivity: the brain's "wiring diagram" created by axons that connect brain areas (like a 3D road map) ○ As unique to individuals as fingerprints ○ Measured by physical evidence of connections Functional Connectivity: how groups of neurons within the connectome function in relation to the types of cognition ○ Determined by the amount of correlated neural activity in two brain areas ○ Resting-State fMRI: fMRI response measured while a person is at rest (not performing a cognitive task) ○ Resting-State Functional Connectivity: method for determining functional connectivity that involves determining the correlation between the resting- state fMRI in separated structures -- introduced by Bharat Biswal and coworkers Dynamics of Cognition: the flow and activity within and across the brain's functional networks change based on conditions ○ Change within and across networks never stops, even when we are not engaged in any activity Default Mode Network: mode of brain function that occurs when it is at rest ○ One of the brain's largest network ○ Mind-wandering, social or self-related thoughts Chapter 3 Topics: Perception Perception: experience resulting from stimulation of the senses NOT the same as perspective or point of view ○ A specialized skill of humans ○ Attempts to create artificial forms of perception ○ Senses: § Sight § Hearing § Taste § Touch § Smell § Movement § Balance § Interoception (feeling what's going on inside of us) Basic Concepts of Perception 1. Percepts can change based on added information 2. Involves a process similar to reasoning or problem solving -- but often out of conscious awareness 3. Percepts occur in conjunction with action -> adaptive Stimulus Energy -> Sensory Receptors -> Neural Impulses -> Brain Kinesthetic Sense: body position, body movement, coordination ○ Receptors in joints and muscles - spinal cord - thalamus - somatosensory cortex and cerebellum Vestibular Sense: head position, head movement (balance) ○ Receptors in inner earl 0 thalamus - cerebellum, muscles of the eye, digestive Why Can't Machines Perceive Like Humans? 1. Stimuli on Receptors are Ambiguous Inverse Projection Problem: task of determining the object that caused a particular image on the retina § Involves starting with retinal image and then extending outward to the source of that image § Perceptual system can resolve this ambiguity 2. Viewpoint Invariance Requirement: object images are different from different viewpoints, but we still perceive them as the same objects -- the ability to recognize an object seen from different viewpoints § Shape Constancy: stimuli are perceived as having constant shape, despite changes in shape of the image they cast on retina 3. Scenes Contain High-Level Information a. Scenes are difficult to process because there are many things that need to be parsed apart, but also because understanding scene requires knowledge and expectations Information Used In Human Perception: uses two types of information : From environmental energy stimulating the receptors: ○ Bottom-Up Processing (Data-Based): processing that starts with info received by the receptors -- features and parts are identified and put together and THEN recognition occurs Knowledge and Expectation the Observer Brings to the Situation: ○ Top-Down Processing (Knowledge-Based): processing that involves a person's knowledge or expectations - percepts are actively constructed using info based on expectations or prior knowledge Historical Perspectives on How we Perceive Hermann von Helmholtz: realized that the image on the retina is ambiguous. ○ Likelihood Principle: part of Helmhotlz's theory that states that we perceive the object that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we have received ○ Unconscious Inference: Helmholtz's idea that some of our perceptions are the results of unconscious assumptions that we make about the environment ○ Process of perceiving what is most likely to have caused pattern on retina happens unconsciously Gestalt Psychologists: group of psychologists who proposed principles governing perception, such as laws of organization, and a perceptual approach to problem solving involving restructuring ○ View on perception originated in reaction to structuralism ○ Stated the mind groups patterns according to intrinsic laws of perceptual organization Gestalt Assumptions: 1. Perception is determined by specific organizing principles, not just dark and light stimuli activating the retina 2. Role of experience is minor compared to these intrinsic, "built in" principles 3. Experience can influence perception but is NOT the key driver a. Bottom-Up Approach: assumes hard-wired structural predisposition for processing stimuli Apparent Movement: an illusion of movement perception that occurs when stimuli in different locations are flashed one after another with the proper timing Principles of Perceptual Organization: rules proposed by the Gestalt psychologists to explain how small elements of a scene or a display become perceptually grouped to form larger units, Principles of Good Continuation: lines tend to be seen as following the smoothest path. Points that connected, result in straight or smoothly curving lines are seen belonging together Law of Pragnanz or Principle of Simplicity: states that every stimulus pattern is seen in such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible Principle of Similarity: similar things appear to be grouped together Top Down Processing Approaches: work to resolve ambiguity in bottom up inpurt used previously learned expectations ○ Unconscious inference ○ Environmental regularities/scene schema ○ Bayesian inference Bottom Up Processing Approaches: respond to stimulus structure alone ○ Gestalt (built in) principles ○ Environmental regularities Regularities in the Environment: characteristics of the environment that occur frequently Ex: blue is associated with sky, landscapes are often green and smooth Two Types of Regularities: 1. Physical Regularities: regularly occurring physical properties of the environment (ex: there are more vertical and horizontal orientations in the environment than oblique orientations) a. Oblique Effect: finding that vertical and horizontal orientations can be perceived more easily than other (slanted) orientations b. Light-from-Above Assumption: we usually assume light is coming from above because light in our environment, including the sun and most artificial light, usually comes from above 2. Semantic Regularities: characteristics associated with the functions carried out in different types of scene (ex: office having desk with computer, chair) a. Scene Schema: knowledge of what a given scene typically contains Closure: brain fills in gaps (missing information) to perceive complete forms Bayesian Inference: named after Thomas Bayes - idea that our estimate of the probability of an outcome is determined by the prior probability (our initial belief) and the likelihood (the extent to which the available evidence is consistent with the outcome) ○ Prior Probability: intial belief about the probability of an outcome ○ Extent to which available evidence is consistent with the outcome ○ Likelihood: the extent to which the available evidence is consistent with the outcome Experience-Dependent Plasticity: provides evidence that experience can shape the nervous system. Perception and Action Perception Pathway: from visual cortext to temporal love Corresponds to what (ventral) pathway Action Pathway: from visual cortext to parietal lobe ○ Corrsponds to where (dorsal) pathway ○ Sometimes called how pathway Mirro neurons: neurons respond while a subject watches an action being performed in the same way as if the subject was performing the action ○ fMRI research evidence of mirror neurons system in brain