PSY 108 Notes PDF

Intro to Cog Psych - Cognitive Psych - The empirical investigation of mental processes and brain structures involved in acquiring, encoding, using, and storing information - History of the scientific study of thought - Zeitgeist - Time Spirit -...

Intro to Cog Psych - Cognitive Psych - The empirical investigation of mental processes and brain structures involved in acquiring, encoding, using, and storing information - History of the scientific study of thought - Zeitgeist - Time Spirit - The ideas prevalent in a period and place - Examples of Zeitgeists in popular culture - Fashion - decades (60’s) - generations - Mental Set - A perspective and/or set of assumptions that define how people view a problem, often constraining alternative approaches in some fundamental manner - Bruner Potter paradigm - Out of focus images more difficult to recognize if they are initially presented in a very out of focus level - Very out of focus level creates a mental set that impairs identification - Insight Problems - Problems that require overcoming some sort of mental set in order to solve - Typically associated with an “aha” experience - Mental set defines how you see the problem and what type of solutions you attempt - Applies to the history of psychology - Mental sets define the zeitgeist of different schools of psychology, driving what researchers focused on and what they overlooked - What are some examples of Zeitgeists in Psychology? - Structuralism - Functionalism - Behaviorism - Cognitive Psychology - Cognitive Neuroscience - Provides a mental set that defines how people see the issues - Structuralism - Mental Set - The mind and its perceptions can be understood by analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components - Method - Introspection – looking inward at pieces of information passing through consciousness; the process of examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and mental processes - Main Proponent - Wilhelm Wundt - Problems With Introspection - introspections can be wrong  - Cannot introspect on all processes - Different people get different results - Problems with reducing mind to structure - Overlooks dynamic processes - Functionalism - Mental set - The mind is best understood by examining the processes of mind rather than its contents - Focus on the functional value of psychological processes - Method - Various methods – introspection, observation, experiment - Proponents - William James - American philosopher/psychologist at the turn of the century - Master of characterizing subjective experiences - Coined the term “stream of consciousness” to emphasize that it is a process and not discrete elements - “Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself be chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.” - Problem: Heavy reliance on introspection - Associationism (e.g., Behaviorism) - Mental Set: Three basic principles - Connectionistic - Learning results from the co-occurrence of events or actions that occur at the same time - Reductionistic - Complex behavior can be explained by understanding the simple associations on which it is based. - Environmental - Assumes all aspects of behavior are learned - Proponents - Locke, Ebbinghaus, Thorndike, Skinner - Early Example of Associationism: Ebbinghaus- 1885 - Mental Set - Reductionistic: Believed that an understanding of memory could be reduced to the formation of simple associations among nonsense syllables: - E.g., of nonsense syllables: WUG SAR LEB - Procedure - careful experimentation  - developed first experimental examination of memory - quantified his results - demonstrated the viability of an experimental examination of memory - Nonsense syllable procedure - Keep studying until two perfect reproductions - Measures of retention (testing his memory) - Recall: try to remember studied items - Free Recall: order not important - Serial Recall: recall in order studied - Recollection (recognition): Try to distinguish studied from non-studied items - Savings: Number of repetitions required to re-memorize a list - Ebbinghaus Findings - Serial Position Curve - Tend to remember the first and last items studied the best - Forgetting - Forgetting curve; initially rapid, then slows down - Overlearning - Additional rehearsals past mastery results in - Slower forgetting - Greater savings in relearning - More Recent Example ofAssociationism: Behaviorism - Mental Set - Exclusive focus on behavior - Believed that internal representations were beyond the scope of science - Limited to operationally defined behaviors - For instance, pulling a slot-machine lever - All behavior can be understood in terms of a set of relatively basic learning principles - All behaviors are learned - Primary Principles - Classical conditioning - Associating a biological responses to la earned stimulus - Bell causes salivary response - Operant Conditioning - Associating a learned response to a learned stimulus - Uses rewards & punishment to influence behavior - E.g., Learn to clean your room for money - Behaviorism: The theory that behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning (classical and operant), without appeal to thoughts or feelings - Problems with Behaviorism - Not all associations are equally learnable - There’s more to behavior than simple paired associations  - Learning is possible even if not personally reinforced - Does not account for information processing - Can think of information flowing through the mind like information flowing through a computer or a telephone system - Channel capacity: upper limit on the amount of information that can be transmitted - Led to the notion of capacity in human memory - 7 plus or minus 2 - Chunking: - group input events - apply new name - remember name rather than input - The Computer Metaphor - Mental processes are similar to the operations of a computer. - Information progresses through the cognitive system in a series of stages, one step at a time. - Three of stages information processing - Sensory memory: brief storage of information from each of the senses - E.g.: Briefly remembering the flash of a lightning bolt - Very large capacity - Fades very quickly (within milliseconds) - Short-term Memory: The capacity for holding, but not manipulating, a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time - E.g.: Remember a phone number that’s just been recited to you - Limited capacity (7 +/- 2 items) - Fades quickly (within about 20-30 sec) - Long-term Memory: memory responsible for the storage of information for an extended period of time. - E.g.: Remembering your sibling’s birthday - Unlimited capacity - Fades modestly (more slowly than short-term memory) Sensation & Perception - Sensation: - Detecting sensory events (e.g. experiencing light hitting our eyes) - Perception: - Interpreting sensory events (e.g. recognizing a flash of light as lightning) - Basic Perceptual Phenomena You Already Know About - Size Constancy: - Our perception of an object’s size remains relatively constant, even when we view the object from different distances - Shape Constancy: - We perceive an object as having the same shape regardless of its orientation or the angle from which we view it  - Depth Cues: - Monocular or binocular sources of information that convey information about relative distance of objects - Gestalt psychologists: Investigated the basic principles that allow us to understand which aspects of a visual scene belong together and which come from separate objects - Gestalt Psychology - Developed theories of perception based on the notion that the whole is more than the sum of its parts (this is the key idea behind their psychology) - You can’t just look at individual objects in isolation. - You must look at them in relation to each other to understand them - Gestalt Psychology: Laws of Perceptual Organization - Proximity - Objects that are near one another in space or time are perceived as belonging together - Similarity - Items that are similar tend to be grouped together - Symmetry - Objects which are symmetrical, we are more likely to group them together - Closure - The mind may experience elements it does not perceive through sensation, in order to complete a figure (that is, to increase regularity) - Figure–Ground Segregation - A type of perceptual organization in which we identify a figure from the background. - Theories of Object Recognition - Researchers have proposed many different theories of object recognition. - Template theory - A miniature copy or template of each known pattern is stored in long-term memory - For e.g., we have a template for various different forms of the letter A - Problems - Not adaptable (can’t explain how we understand new experiences) - Imposes large storage requirements - Feature Theory - Feature theories: patterns consist of a set of specific features or attributes - Pandemonium model - Advantage: - elementary features can combine to form multiple objects - Problem: - Does NOT account for top-down processes - Bottom-up process  - Process by which we construct a perception by analyzing information falling on our receptors (e.g., on our retinas). - Actual physical characteristics of stimulus drive perception (data-based perception) - Realism: We see the world as it literally is - But the world is always perceived as it truly is! - Top-down process - Knowledge, expectations, or thoughts influence perception (e.g., changing “brainstorm” to “green needle” through your thoughts). (e.g., NFTs) - “Perception is not determined simply by stimulus patterns; rather, it is a dynamic searching for the best interpretation of the available data” (Gregory, 1966) - Word Superiority Effect - We can identify a single letter more quickly and accurately when it appear in a meaningful word than when it appears alone or in a meaningless string of letters - Participants are more likely to choose the correct letter when it is in the context of a word than when it is isolated or in a non-word - Knowing what an object is can make an otherwise invisible object appear - Change Blindness - Failure to detect a change in an object or a scene - Top down processes interfere with noticing change in details - Change blindness blindness - People tend to not appreciate how vulnerable they are to change blindness - Inattentional Blindness - Inattentional Blindness: When we fail to notice when an unexpected but completely visible object suddenly appears. - Implications of Change & Inattentional Blindness - Overactive Top-Down Processing - The visual system is fairly accurate in creating the "gist" or general interpretation of a scene. - conceptual understanding interferes with noticing changes of perceptual details, even very significant ones - Importance of bottom-up processes - James Gibson's Ecological Approach to visual perception - Emphasis on how features of environment determine perception (i.e., bottom-up processes) - Invariances: aspects of the visual array that do not change (i.e., they’re “invariant,” or “don’t vary”) - Top-down theories ignore motion - Optical flow patterns: information seems to expand outward from the point towards which one is moving - The ability to stay on course involves keeping the unchanging (invariant) center of the optical flow pattern centered on the desired destination. - This “bottom-up” characteristic of the world helps us to understand how we navigate.  - And this suggests that, sometimes, understanding bottom-up processing is essential to understanding psychology - Interaction of Bottom-Up and Top-Down processes - Bottom-up processes - Motion invariances allow detection of underlying structure - Top-down processes - Knowledge influences perception - For example, previous experiences allow us to recognize human shadows in motion - Point light displays: Detect walking vs. running, and gender, weight, mood, with 10-15 lights - Depth Perception - A further illustration of interaction of bottom up and top down processing - We often use our own experiences to infer depth from multiple visual cues - Monocular depth cues: Cues that can provide depth information with one eye closed - Linear perspective - Parallel lines appear to converge as they recede into the distance. - Aerial perspective - Distant objects appear more hazy - Texture gradient - there is a gradual change in appearance of objects from coarse to fine - Interposition - overlapped object appears further away - Shadows & Shading - With a known light source shading and shadows can inform which object is closer to the light source - Familiar size - Knowledge of the size of familiar objects used to gauge depth - Motion Parallax - Closer target appears to move more quickly and in reverse direction to the observer’s movement - Further target appears to move slowly in the same direction - Binocular depth cues: Cues that require both eyes - Binocular Disparity - Images appear different to each eye as a function of object distance: This “disparity” provides depth info - Closer together - Farther apart - Binocular Convergence  - Rotation of eyes indicates object distance - Large difference in rotation = close - Small difference = far - Why study illusions? - Illusions reveal constraints/biases on perception - Constraints are perceptual assumptions that we make - Usually correct but occasionally wrong - When wrong, illusion results - Illusions come from helpful processes - Without constraints, no perception at all! - Our perceptual system is biased to emphasize important aspects - Visual Illusions created by top-down processes - The Ames Room - - Mueller-Lyer Illusion - - Left line must be farther away; this must mean it’s bigger than it appears - Shepard Table Illusion  - -Placement of the legs and table siding makes you see the table on the left as being longer than the table on the right - Hermann Grid Illusion - - Lateral Inhibition - Neighboring neurons inhibit each other - Brightness activates neurons more than darkness - Bright next to dark seems particularly bright - Dark next to bright seems particularly dark - Contrast Detection - We perceive objects relative to the other nearby objects - Color Constancy - perceived color of objects remains relatively constant under varying illumination conditions - Waterfall (M.C. Escher) - Ingenious use of monocular depth cues to produce paradoxical perceptions  - - Auditory Illusions - Shepard Tone Illusion - Auditory illusion of a tone that seems to continually ascend or descend in pitch, yet which ultimately gets no higher or lower - "a musical barber's pole” - - Phonemic Restoration Illusion - Under certain conditions, expectancies lead to hallucinations of sounds that are missing from a speech - Expectancy Effect - Expectations allow us to hear more than is specified - McGurk Effect - Demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception - We are not directly experiencing reality - Our brain uses various sophisticated inference processes to take its “best guess” of reality - We are experiencing our brain’s simulation of reality  - Gives information about our visual perception - Attention & Consciousness - Attention: The concentration of awareness on some stimulus to the exclusion of other stimuli. - Attention is narrow - We think we see the whole world but much of it is a construction - Limits of Attention - Trying to attend to everything at once is more than the cognitive processes can handle. - Instead, we selectively concentrate on important things and ignore less-important things - “Every one knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in a clear and vivid form of one, out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization and concentration of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal with others...” (James, 1890, p. 403) - Divided Attention - Attempting to pay attention to several different things at the same time - Everyday examples: - Multi-tasking: Reading and instant-messaging - People may believe that they can multi-task, but the research does not support this illusion. - People perform faster and more accurately if they work on one task at a time. - Takes time to reorient following a switch - Dichotic Listening - One message presented to left ear and a different message presented to right ear - Shadow one of the messages - People notice very little about the unattended message - Dichotic Listening Findings - People miss some info from the unattended channel - Same message, different times - Changed language - People retain some info from the unattended channel - Physical characteristics - Tone of voice - Broadbent’s Filter Theory - Broadbent's Filter theory: Early selective filter allows people to attend to one channel based on physical characteristics  - - Problems with Filter Theory - Cocktail party phenomenon: People notice their own name in the unattended channel - People follow the meaning in the unattended channel - These findings demonstrate that meaning is processed in unattended channel (not good for filter theory) - Treisman’s Filter Amplitude Theory - Filter turns down the “volume” on unattended channel - filter is not all-or-none - Deutsch & Deutsch: Late-Selection theory - All incoming stimuli are processed, however quickly forget one channel - Evidence: People show evidence of processing the semantic content of the unattended channel even if they don’t remember it - A Hybrid: Perceptual Load Theory - Everyone has limited attentional capacity - The amount of attentional capacity allocated to the main task (attended channel) depends on the perceptual load of the main task. - Low perceptual load: hearing the numbers 1-10 - High perceptual load: listening to a lecture on quantum mechanics - Early selection occurs when load is high; late selection occurs when load is low - Bottom Line: - We seem to process information from the unattended channel (though relatively rarely) - Whether we do this depends on: - The relevance of the unattended info - The demands of processing the attended info - Visual Search - Find a target in a visual display with numerous distractors (e.g., Where’s Waldo) - Variables Influencing Visual Search - The isolated-feature/combined-feature effect - Isolated: If the target differed from “distractors” with respect to a simple feature such as color, observers can quickly detect the target  - Combined: When the distractor items force you to search for a combination of features (both green and T), visual search takes longer - The feature-present/feature-absent effect. - People can typically locate a feature that is present more quickly than a feature that is absent - Automaticity - Characteristics of automatic processes - Occur without intention - Relatively unconscious - Consume no conscious resources - The Stroop Effect - Say out loud the names of the ink colors, ignoring the meaning of the words. Measure the amount of time it takes to go through this list five times. Record that time. - Controlled processes - Require intention - Conscious - Consume resources - Conscious Awareness - People have relatively complete access to some thought processes, but only limited access to other thought processes - Three Levels of Consciousness - Non-conscious - Information that is below the surface of awareness - Experiential conscious - Ongoing experience - Meta-conscious/ meta-awareness - One’s explicit understanding of the current contents of experience - Mind wandering - Non-conscious - The activation of associates of read words (priming) - Experiential conscious - What one is mind wandering about - Meta-conscious/ meta-awareness - Recognition that one has been mind wandering instead of reading - Why do we mind-wander while reading? - Schooler suggests that we do this because we don’t know we’re mind wandering (that is, we lack meta-conscious awareness of our thoughts) - Lucid Dreaming: a type of dream wherein the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming - Subliminal perception - The effects of stimuli that are presented below the threshold of awareness - Priming: Presentation of a priming word/object just before another word/object leads to facilitated processing of the second word/object if they are related - Unconscious Priming - Automatic priming from one object to the next - Experiential Consciousness - The current contents of experience - Can we control the contents of consciousness? - Thought Suppression: The attempt to keep thoughts and/or images out of consciousness - Rebound Effect: Initial suppression of specific thoughts can produce an emergence of those thoughts after we stop trying to suppress them. - White Bear: Two Processes in “Suppress” Condition - Process 1: Think about anything BUT a white bear (x) - Process 2: Monitor for white bears entering consciousness (so you can suppress them) - Dissociations of Experience and Meta-Awareness - Translation Dissociations: Meta-awareness misrepresents the contents of experience - Occurs when, in the process or reflection, individuals embellish, distort, or neglect aspects of their experience - Example: Shouting “I’m not angry” - Temporal dissociations: Experiences we have in the absence of meta-awareness - Occurs when individuals temporarily fail to take stock of their experience - Example: Mind wandering while reading - Components of Model of Meta-awareness - Unconscious tacit monitoring of cognitions - Occur continuously - Example: Eye movements during reading track word frequency - Conscious experience - Continues continuously through waking hours - Meta-awareness only occurs intermittently - Spontaneously noticing lapses - Request of self-report - Natural introspection - Two types of Mind-Wandering Measures - Self-Caught Mind Wandering - Reported mind wandering every time they noticed it - Mind wandering with meta-awareness - Probe-Caught Mind Wandering - Periodically pinged and asked “just now, were you mind wandering?” - Mind wandering without meta-awareness - Do people mind-wander without awareness? - Results: - Yup! We know this because sometimes the probe (or “ping”) caught them. - If they had awareness, they’d have stopped mind wandering and reported no mind wandering when probed. - Do mind wandering with and without awareness differentially predict reading comprehension? - Results: - Frequency of probe-caught mind wandering predicts poorer reading comprehension - Frequency of self-caught mind wandering had no relation to reading comprehension - Suggests mind wandering without meta-awareness is especially disruptive - Effects of alcohol - Replicated reading study with alcohol condition - Results - Alcohol increased unaware mind-wandering: Doubled the frequency of probe caught mind wandering - Reduced meta-awareness (less self-caught mind wandering) - Increases lapses - Reduces awareness of lapses - Fridge light - Always seems like it is on - Illusion because we don’t see it when it is off - Consciousness is similar - Seems as if it provides us with a complete representation of perception - but remember the chicken bits - Seems as if we always know what is going on in our minds - But remember mind-wandering while reading - Consciousness is much spottier than it seems