Cognitive Psychology L1 - Introduction & Cognitive Neuroscience - 2024/25

SS3712 – COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY L1 – INTRODUCTION & COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE GILBERT LAU 2024/25 Sem A ver. PLEASE DON’T CALL ME PROFESSOR, PROF. OR DR. … WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TO LEARN FROM THE COURSE? IN THIS COURSE…  Learn about how the brain acquire, processe...

SS3712 – COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY L1 – INTRODUCTION & COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE GILBERT LAU 2024/25 Sem A ver. PLEASE DON’T CALL ME PROFESSOR, PROF. OR DR. … WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TO LEARN FROM THE COURSE? IN THIS COURSE…  Learn about how the brain acquire, processes and output information  What affects our cognitive processes  Learn about cognitive psychological research Week Date Topic Readings Activities/Remarks 1 4 Sep Introduction Ch. 1 Cognitive Neuroscience Ch. 2 2 11 Sep Perception Ch. 3 Attention Ch. 4 3 18 Sep Public Holiday 4 25 Sep Short-term & Working Memory Ch. 5 Submission of group lists Long-term Memory I Ch. 6 By 10 pm 25 Sep 5 2 Oct Long-term Memory II Ch. 7 Experiment raffle Memory Errors Ch. 8 6 9 Oct Quiz 1 -- (Covers week 1 to 4) 7 16 Oct Laboratory Session 1 -- Experimental design 8 23 Oct Language Ch. 11 9 30 Oct Knowledge Ch. 9 10 6 Nov Laboratory Session 2 -- Data collection & Analysis 11 13 Nov Problem Solving Ch. 12 12 20 Nov Decision Making Ch. 13 Submission of presentation video by noon 20 Nov 13 27 Nov Quiz 2 -- (Covers week 5 to 12) TOPICS TO BE COVERED THIS SEMESTER  The Brain  Language  Perception  Knowledge  Attention  Problem Solving  Short Term Memory  Decision Making  Long Term Memory  Memory Errors TEXTBOOK  Goldstein, E. B. (2019). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (5th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. ASSESSMENTS – QUIZZES (50%)  Quiz 1 (25%) – Weeks 1 to 4  Quiz 2 (25%) – Weeks 5 to 12  No make-up quiz will be arranged except extenuating circumstances  Multiple Choice & Short Answer Questions  Materials from the lectures and textbook will be covered in the quiz ASSESSMENTS – GROUP PROJECT (20% IN TOTAL)  Research Project & Participation (5%)  As a group, create and conduct experiment using PsychoPy (3%)  Collect at least 4 samples per group member  Each student should participate in 2 different experiments conducted by other groups (2%; 1% each)  Make sure you enter your Student ID (e.g. 5XXXXXXX) as participant ID when participating in experiments  Group Presentation (15%)  Video presentation in English, around 20 minutes  Content  Review literature of your experiment  Present the experiment and results  Discuss its implications  There is no requirement for all members to be in the presentation ASSESSMENTS – GROUP PROJECT (20%) (CONT’D)  Submissions  As a group  Video recording, presentation slides, PsychoPy experiment, & all participants’ raw data files  As an individual  Peer evaluation form  Due at noon on 20 November 2024 ASSESSMENTS – EXPERIMENTAL REPORT (30%)  Based on the experiment conducted for your group presentation  Written and submitted individually  Within 7 pages (12-pt font, double-line spacing), excluding title page, abstract, references, tables, and figures  Due at noon 7 Dec 2024 LATE SUBMISSION POLICY  One sub-grade deducted per calendar day (NOT WORKING DAY)  Submission after 7 days will be given zero mark ACADEMIC HONESTY & AVOID PLAGIARISM  Rules of thumb  Present your own work  Give proper acknowledgement of other’s work  Honestly report findings  When reporting others’ ideas and/or findings (including generative AI tools):  Put it in your own words  Don’t merely copy sentences or parts of sentences  Acknowledge the source  University Rules on Academic Honesty link: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/provost/academic_honesty/rules_on_academic_honesty.htm  For citations and references, please use APA formatting and citation style for this course IF YOU EVER NEED TO CONTACT ME…  Office: LI-5601  Email: [email protected]  Phone: +852 3442 9553 (WhatsApp available)  Office hours: By appointment MY HOPE BY THE END OF THE COURSE..  Learn the material (obviously)  Stimulate ideas to formulate new strategies for  Learning  Processing of information  Making decisions  …etc. ANY QUESTIONS? WHAT IS THIS WHAT IS THIS ? WHY IS COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY IMPORTANT?  Understand what’s going on in the brain  How do we know that thing is a dog instead of a wolf?  How are we able to recognize a face?  What goes on in your brain when you try to calculate 1 + 1?  Why some people can do it with ease?  Hacking the brain to  Improve functional efficiency such as education, marketing campaigns  Treat issues such as Alzheimer’s, speech issues, memory loss, etc. COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY  The study of mental processes  The Mind  Creates and controls mental functions  A system that creates representations of the world A BIT OF HISTORY  Donder’s reaction time experiment (1868)  Measure how long it takes for a person to make a decision with Reaction Time  Simple reaction time vs Choice reaction time  Why?  Infer the time difference as time required for decision making process WUNDT (1879)  Structuralism  Overall experience is determined by “sensations”  A combination of basic elements of experience  Wundt wanted to collect data with analytic introspection  Participants describe their experience and thought process in response to stimuli  Difficult to achieve as it requires training EBBINGHAUS (1885)  Rather than analytic introspection, he used quantitative methods “savings curve”  Tested himself in a memory experiment  How rapidly learned information is lost overtime  Used nonsense syllables such as DAX, QEH, LUH, etc. WILLIAM JAMES  Taught the first psychology course in Harvard  Wrote the first psychology textbook – Principles of Psychology (1890)  Report on observations of his own experience  Attention  Receive many senses at any point in time, but are never attended to  Attention takes possession in the mind  Withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others BEHAVIORISM  Classical conditioning  Association of stimulus and involuntary response  Watson (1913)  Little Albert experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wtL5Io3sS8  Pavlov (1927)  Dog experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd7Jdug5SRc  Operant Conditioning  Association of voluntary behavior and consequence  B. F. Skinner (1931)  Shaping experiments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtfQlkGwE2U COGNITIVISM  Tolman’s rat maze (1938)  Placed rats in different spots of the same maze but they were still able to go back to the spot where food were  Rats are able to develop a cognitive map (even with precaution where they cannot determine food location with smell)  Something other than stimulus-response connections is happening in the brain INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH  Influenced by the rise of computers & artificial intelligence  Trace mental operations that are involved in cognition  Like lines of computer code, we follow a series of operations in our head STUDYING HIGHER MENTAL PROCESSES  We do more than just reacting to things  We can store memory (somehow), and take them out to use when needed Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model of memory NEUROPSYCHOLOGY  What happens physiologically in the brain?  Use brain imaging to identify regions for processing different kinds of information in the brain (EEG, fMRI scans, PET scans etc.) MODERN PSYCHOLOGY  Features more “real-world” situations  “Humans don’t just accept and store information, we make use of knowledge, to tackle issues”  Palmer’s experiment  Knowledge about the environment influence our perception BREAK NEURONS  The brain is made up of many neurons  Neurons have 3 sections  Dendrites  Soma  Axon  Terminal button (or bouton)  The gap between neurons is the Synapse  Fire impulse signals travel from Dendrites  Soma  Axon  Synapse  Dendrites …  Fun fact Why does the brain is so wrinkly? THE BRAIN  Three parts  Hindbrain  Midbrain  Forebrain  Forebrain has four lobes for different purposes  Frontal lobe  Parietal lobe  Occipital lobe  Temporal lobe FUNCTIONS OF NEURONS  Have various functions  Feature detectors respond to specific features of stimuli  Some respond to complex stimuli  Follow hierarchical processing  Gradually passing information from lower to higher areas of the brain NEURAL REPRESENTATION OF SENSES  How stimuli or environment are represented in the brain?  Specificity coding  Specialized neurons fire signals (1 specific neuron fires for each different stimuli)  Unlikely to be the way our brain works  Population coding  A large number of neurons fire signals at the same time, forming a pattern  Sparse coding  A small group of neurons firing signals, forming a pattern ACTIVITY  Need 7 volunteers LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTION  Most cognitive functions are in the cerebral cortex  At first scientists thought the brain functions as an indivisible whole  Specific functions served by specific areas of the brain  Broca’s area & Wernicke’s area  Parietal lobe is for perceptions of touch, pressure, and pain  Frontal lobe is for coordination of senses and higher functions HOW WE STUDY THE BRAIN  Take measurements while presenting stimuli to research participants (in the form of pictures, movies, physical touch, etc.) DISTRIBUTED REPRESENTATION  Experience is multi-dimensional  Similar to neural representation, we can find regional patterns for different functions Yellow = episodic memory recall Blue = semantic memory recall NEURAL PATHWAYS  Rather than the entire brain lighting up at the same time, we can trace the paths of neurons lighting up Blue = Processing sounds, producing speech, saying words Red = Comprehension of words Both involved in understanding sentences NEURAL NETWORKS  Complex structural pathways  Acts as “highways” for information transmission  Our brain is always active, even when you’re resting (“Default Mode Network”)  Your CPU is always working as long as your computer is turned on (If it is off, you’re dead)  Perhaps this is the reason why our minds wander  Also happens when you’re doing tasks that don’t require much conscious attention (e.g. driving)  Function spans from attention to memory to creativity IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT NEUROSCIENCE…  SS3711 – Biological Psychology  SS3720 – Neuropsychology  Experience it yourself!  Participate in EEG / fMRI experiments (and make some lunch money at the same time) WHAT WE’VE LEARNED TODAY  What is cognitive psychology  Different aspects of cognitive psychology  Some basic concepts of the brain