PSYC1002 Cognitive Processes PDF

PSYC1002 Cognitive Processes PSYC1002 Lecture 1. History and Methods 2 Lecture 2. Attention 3 Lecture 3. Short Term Memory 5 Lecture 4. Structure of Memory 7 Lecture 5. Implicit & False...

PSYC1002 Cognitive Processes PSYC1002 Lecture 1. History and Methods 2 Lecture 2. Attention 3 Lecture 3. Short Term Memory 5 Lecture 4. Structure of Memory 7 Lecture 5. Implicit & False Memory 10 Lecture 6. Lifetime Memories, Effective Studying 13 1  PSYC1002 Lecture 1. History and Methods Watson (1914): objective, experimental, does not need much introspection. Behaviourism felt like a religion, consciousness was generally not accepted. Skinner: no free will, we are animals after all = no dignity. Limitations of behaviourism Attention overload also led astray from behaviourism beliefs. that led to the Cognitive Computers can be used to study mental events. Revolution “Animals don’t learn unless there’s a reward” was a common behaviourist thought. Machinery design exceeded our cognitive load. Machines should fit human needs over aesthetics. Study of rats running through mazes (Blodgett); is learning only done when there is a reward? The introduction of rewards to the rats is not consistent with the classic learning curved. The rats formed a map regardless of the reward. à thinking is like making mental images and representations of the outside world. Tolman’s perspective on internal mental representations Group I (control, solid line): run in maze once a day and found food in the goal box Group II (exp, dashed): not fed in the maze for 7 days, then rewarded Group III (exp, dotted): not fed in the maze for 3 days, then rewarded Y-axis = error score à Animals can learn without reward or punishment Mental chronometry: measuring how long it takes to have mental processes Donder’s subtraction method (lacks a lot of validity): Additive Factors method Simple reaction time: press button to any light Choice reaction time: one button to red light and another button to green light Choice RT – simple RT: estimate of stimulus evaluation time Aims of Cognitive psychology (in contrast with other fields, e.g., AI) à Memory Scanning 2  PSYC1002 Parallel vs. Serial Search in Memory Introspection is not reliable, there is no unique access to mental processes. We are not consciously aware of most tasks we do. We are also constantly subject to cognitive biases. à Certainty effect + Pseudo-Certainty Effect Why Cognitive Psychologists do not rely on Introspection as methodology Lecture 2. Attention Count the number of passes example: focused attention. Focused visual/auditory è Participants are asked to count the number of passes people wearing white do. attention = limited à Focused attention should limit and prevent participants to notice a black gorilla walking processing of other stimuli by. Focused attention: processing one input. Definitions: focused & Divided attention: processing multiple inputs at once. divided attention à can reduce processing of one element. Inattentional blindness: failing to notice something present in visual field because focused on something else Definitions: inattentional & Change blindness: failing to notice a change in visual field change blindness Very little is processed without attention. Attention is limited. 3  PSYC1002 When filming a video, what is recorded is more than what we experienced. Change blindness reveals that we aren’t aware of everything, complete perceptual awareness is an illusion. We usually perceive the gist over the details. à Stages in processing of stimulus Early = before we give meaning to the stimulus Late = after we give meaning to the stimulus, processing the meaning Evidence for early locus of selection (things that haven’t been paid attention to aren’t Locus of selection processed). à Dichotic listening task: the listener hears two messages in each ear and is asked to repeat (or “shadow”) one of them. Participants couldn’t give any meaning to the unattended ear. Evidence for late locus of selection: à Treisman, 1960: the two messages switch ears at some point; the only way the sentences would make sense would be to switch the focus on the other ear. à Cocktail party effect (Wood & Cohen, 1995): hearing your own name in a “cocktail party” situation. 35% of participants reported hearing their own name, probably because their minds were wandering away. Flexible locus of selection à Lavie, 2005, 2007. à The selection of stimuli depends on the context, we might switch to an early locus of selection or a late one. Definitions: Endogenous & Exogenous: involuntary, stimulus driven; usually startling, when stimulus happens, we Exogenous attention tend to look for it. → Capture Endogenous: voluntary, controlled. Treisman’s Feature à The role of attention is to bind everything together Integration Theory (FIT) 4  PSYC1002 Treisman’s FIT proposes we process features independently in a preattentive manner. Lecture 3. Short Term Memory Stored knowledge or active process? Types of memory: Iconic & echoic memory / sensory memory Short term memory / Working memory Long term memory Definition: Sensory Memory + evidence Be able to both list the features of (capacity, duration, format) and describe the evidence supporting the features of both kinds of sensory memory (iconic and echoic) Iconic (visual) & Echoic (auditory) Memory: How many letters could participants recall: o If asked to recall all letters? o If asked to recall just one row? What is the duration of 5  PSYC1002 Iconic memory? 80 to 200ms o Echoic memory? Extensively 8 to 10 seconds but possibly much longer as o the information comes sequentially. Capacity is unlimited Iconic memory: everything comes at once Echoic memory is serial. Information is stored phonetically, things are stored the way they sound. Definition: Short-Term Capacity is limited à 7±2 Memory + evidence Decays within 20 secs if not rehearsed (if not practised out loud). Limit of Short-Term Memory + relief with chunking 75 70 Times word was recalled, percent 65 60 55 Immediate Recall Ten second delay 50 Definitions: Primacy & 45 Recency Effects + origins 40 35 30 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Position of word in list Primacy: information is transferred to long term memory Recency: information is “dumped” from short-term buffer o Easy to spoil, especially with retroactive interference Is he able to encode long-term memories? Does he have any long-term memories? Where does he exist? Clive does not register and store the information he processes. He’s totally lucid and “conscious” but frustrated because he can’t remember anything. He has no issue with Clive Wearing’s amnesia regular functions, but when he processes anything that happens to him, when it leaves his visual field, he forgets about it. He keeps a journal to record things but doesn’t even remember nor recognise his own handwriting, as if he records the events when he’s unconscious. Things don’t make sense. He has both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Model version of STM Consists of: Definition: Working Memory Central executive & Episodic buffer o What does it do? 6  PSYC1002 o Is working memory the basis of attentional limitations or the site of “conscious awareness” “Slave-systems” o Visual-spatial scratch pad o Phonological loop Counting demonstration o Say a sentence, ask how many words there are in that sentence, people Phonological Loop within will count on their fingers because their phonological loop is busy. working memory Speed of speech Effect of language efficiency / digit span Lecture 4. Structure of Memory Definitions: Semantic & Episodic Memory Episodic memory: memory of events that happened to you. Semantic memory: meaning of things. What they mean. Remembering how it’s acquired. Collins and Loftus’s Logical hierarchical structure with interconnected nodes Hierarchical network model Cognitive economy of memory + description, Properties stored at highest level of network assumptions, representation of meaning [superset & Spreading activation retrieves meanings 7  PSYC1002 property relationships], sentence verification method Evaluation Sentence verification task: measure time to verify sentences If two concepts are related, spreading activation from two concepts will “intercept” Time to verify sentences depends on distance between concepts How Meaning is stored in a propositional network + Complete storing, not dependent on sentence structure à pure meaning. implications for memory of specific sentence structure Definition: Parallel Distributed Processing Computational models: computer programs inspired by neural metaphor (PDP) models of memory Set of interconnected processing nodes (~neurones) that “communicate” by How memories are stored in sending activation or inhibition them, how they work, pros & A “learning rule” for adjusting connections throughout the network) cons 8  PSYC1002 Category learning: words (“birds”) emerge from overlap between all instances Exposure to a new example that shares features with known birds will allow it to “inherit” properties of other birds à generalisation Meaning is stored within patterns of activation. Generalisation is a process that happens within social media apps (YouTube, TikTok), they use stereotypes. Networks struggle with atypical examples (e.g. penguins or bats). They are unique to everyone and are thus hard to study. Experiment: War of the Native American story told to white American students. Ghosts (Bartlett, 1932) + Students asked to remember the story. findings Transformations of the story were made as they were not familiar to some concepts. How it led to proposition of Hard to interpret information was omitted. schemas Definition: Schema Schema: generalised mental representations or concepts, describing a class of objects, How they benefit memory people, scenes or events. economy but result in Schemas are sufficient for processing. distortion, omissions, false But they can also distort experiences or perception. E.g. going to a birthday party but there inclusions + other errors is no cake? Some might remember there was a cake even if there wasn’t. 9  PSYC1002 The structure of the schemas in your long-term memory governs How you perceive events happening in front of you How you encode and remember what you have experienced The expectations you have of everything: people, events, the world, yourself etc. How well you cope Stereotypes or “person schema”: racial and gender stereotypes à TV Shows and other sources of media use them because they are easy to interpret Narrative structure schema Scripts or event schema: what to do and in what order in a specific scenario (e.g. birthday, dining, weddings, university, etc.) à differs depending on the culture Definitions: Person & Event Schema à Study about video games and stereotypes à Script transference High School script: teacher gives work, do work, do well. University script: plan everything on your own, less help from professors. Applying High School script to University = Disaster 1. Work not spaced out because no plans are made 2. Voluntary or self-guided components completely missed Script Misapplication 3. Collection or ‘hoarding’ of materials (lecture recordings, notes) instead of a plan to actually learn it 4. Lack of exploration, consolidation, or application of knowledge – “Do we have to read this?!” 5. (after having paid for a course at an expensive university with live lectures) “Do I have to attend?” University is closer to cinemas than to high schools. Lecture 5. Implicit & False Memory Unconscious associations between stimuli How priming works in o Dentist’s drill = pain = anxiety reference to spreading Priming 10  PSYC1002 activation on an associational o Display or mention of one concept leads to “spreading activation” to network. other related concepts Example: “money, withdraw, robbery” // “river, flow, boat” Probe: He walked towards the bank à Semantic prime. Getting “money, withdraw, robbery” as primes might influence interpretation or reaction to the probe. Declarative memory: Semantic memory Episodic memory Define and give examples of Procedural memory: Procedural Memory + 3 Memory for how to do things (e.g. riding a bike, driving a car, surgery, kissing…) possible reasons why it is difficult to verbalise Not verbalizable, not available to conscious awareness → Procedural memory cannot be accessed. It is not verbalizable, and you cannot have insight into your procedural memory. Learnt through gradual & incremental experience → not “one-trial” learning Define explicit memory test Explicit memory task: recalling task vs implicit memory test + Implicit memory task (you don’t know your memory is being tested): identify this, finish examples this with the first thing you think about Stem completion: Study Phase: Participants are presented with a list of words (e.g., "brother", "apple", "window") that they are asked to study. They might be instructed to remember these words or might be engaged in a task that doesn't require them to focus on memorization. Describe how the stem Test Phase (Stem Completion): Later, participants are given a list of word stems completion form of an (e.g., "bro___", "app___", "win___") and asked to complete them with the first word implicit memory task is used that comes to mind. to establish implicit memory Implicit Memory Assessment: The key measurement is how often participants complete the stems with words they were exposed to during the study phase compared to new words (e.g., "brother" for "bro___" instead of a less common word like "broom"). If they more frequently complete the stems with the previously studied words, it indicates implicit memory, as they are influenced by past exposure even if they aren't consciously trying to recall the word. Dissociation: implicit memory performance is different from explicit memory Differences: Describe the distinct features Levels of processing (e.g. Do you find these in a city? Trucks → deep level of of implicit memory when processing due to recognition of meaning = much higher level of recognition) compared to explicit memory Modality or Format (e.g. case, font) à effect on implicit memory, if letters were (dissociations) regarding shown as uppercase in a different font, the effect would have never been the duration, modality/format same; doesn’t affect explicit memory change, and impact of level of Delay/Retention interval à steep for explicit memory, can last for much longer for processing. implicit memory. Amnesic patients cannot be detected from implicit memory tests False memory: Misleading post-event information o Eyewitness “misinformation paradigm” Loftus (1974) DRM (Deese, Roediger & o Leading questions and wording of questions McDermott) false memory o “Did the cars bump/crash/etc.” à more likely to say yes according to the paradigm in relation to words severity of the word used. presented and words not Social pressure (lost in a shopping mall) à Loftus gathered therapists and presented, and the usual parents to “implement” false memories of getting lost in a shopping mall as a kid, findings. to their adult children. 29% actually believed the false memories implemented Fitting memory to schemas and scripts Source confusion à episodic memory that might be true but didn’t happen to another family member. 11  PSYC1002 Does hypnosis improve memory? No but it improves confidence in memory by shifting the criteria and lower the threshold for memories. Just as much false memories will be remembered as real memories. Kim Peek’s unique memory No ability to form schema or impose meaning or structure. Perfect memory, but no filter ability in conjunction with his nor interpretation. unique conceptual memory He isn’t capable of conceptual processing. When given a list of words to remember and flaw and understand in purposefully misled to believe words conceptually close to actual words on the list were relation to the DRM evidence there, he was still able to perfectly remember the entire list of words. Majority of people what may have been would’ve been misled because of conceptual processing. occurring in his case. Also takes metaphors literally, no encoding. Define flashbulb memories + Memories of personal circumstances when an event happened (not the global event, examples which is just the flashbulb). explain why psychologists use E.g. what I was doing when le RN est pas passé au second tour ptdrrr such events to study People have very vivid and detailed memories surrounding dramatic world events emotional memory. Evidence regarding flashbulb Neisser’s (1982) Pearl Harbour experience memories + explain and à Neisser’s memories of baseball became much clearer when the Pearl Harbour attack argue about differences and happened. But it wasn’t baseball season. similarities with ordinary memories and their Recent research suggests we are more confident about flashbulb memories, but they significance decay like other memories. 11th September memories: In 2001 678 people completed a survey between September and October In 2002 half were retested before the anniversary and half were tested after In 2003 a final survey was given (to the remaining 319 participants) o Each survey asked for recollections and confidence ratings for each Key findings of Conway’s et al’s flashbulb memory study What are the best and worst remembered kinds of memory? Memories were rather inconsistent. Confidence rating was high. Discontinuity of memories, memories before the age of 4 are flawed or inexistant. define infantile amnesia + 3 Possible explanations: possible explanations Brains aren’t fully formed yet No schema developed 12  PSYC1002 No detailed episodic memory Nature of the reminiscence bump and the evidence which established it as a phenomenon Reminiscence bump: memories from 15-25 will be the clearest in lifetime memories. Lecture 6. Lifetime Memories, Effective Studying What happens to neurons across lifespan? à They lose myelin = slower neurotransmission But neurons aren’t as important. Old people don’t try as hard (Rahal, Hasher & Colcombe, 2001: stereotyping may negatively affect attitudes). Impact of aging on memory + how attitudes and effort distort the impact further Recall performance (blank sheet test) deteriorates as people age, recognition performance stays relatively intact. Aka memory journey, memory palace, mind palace à memory from spatial relationships Method of Loci + how it may have been used in ancient cultures 13  PSYC1002 Free recall task: report items from earlier study episode Recognition task: Select previously studied items from mixture of old and new items Key differences between recall and recognition tests + impact on advice for studying Weiten, 2012 Evidence suggesting Cognitive offloading: taking a picture of something makes us forget the content technology reduces the photographed, rather than just looking at it. Same for lecture recordings, relying on amount of material recording makes us less present during the actual lecture. 14  PSYC1002 committed to organic memory Participants either learned word lists underwater or on land. à Context is the retrieval cue Adapted from Godden & Baddeley (1975) 14 13 Mean words recalled 12 Wet learning environment 11 Dry learning environment 10 9 8 Dry Wet Godden and Baddeley’s Recall environment (1975) swimming pool study + differences found between à Consistent environment = better recall (if learned underwater, better recall underwater) recall and recognition data But when asked to recognise (instead of recalling): Adapted from Godden & Baddeley (1980) 77 76 Percentage recognized 75 74 Wet learning 73 environment 72 Dry learning environment 71 70 69 68 Dry Wet Recognition environment (because recognition has nothing to do with context) Retroactive interference: something happening after being done studying → new material affects old material à study right before going to bed Proactive interference: something happening before studying → old material affects new Proactive & Retroactive material à study right after waking up Interference Avoid interference: Competition from other material Similarity is important Deep processing: Asking questions or elaborating material Structuring material semantically “Levels of processing” + Self-referent encoding (refraining content as relevant to you) don’t self-diagnose impact on memory & importance of defining depth Reading the same information from different sources or authors to avoid circular logic Is the logic circular? Is deep processing effective? → semantic structuring of information allows for more effective chunking, which allows you to relate the information you are trying to learn to what you already know Neuroscience example: 15  PSYC1002 No structure: learn parts of the brain and their function Structure: learning lobes, what each one does, then their sections Bransford and Johnston’s (1972) balloon study Some participants were shown an image before the text, the image shows the context of the text à their performance doubled. Findings of Dunlosky et al. Summarisation: low utility (2013) on effective study Highlighting and underlining: low utility techniques on rereading, Rereading: low utility practice testing, distributed Practice testing: high utility (blurting?) practice Distributed practice: high utility People read prose passages à Participants: – Studied for 7 minutes; then Studied for 7 minutes OR – Studied for 7 minutes; then ‘tested’ for 7 minutes → the recall ‘test’ was just a blank page with the title of the passage – Recall test: 5 minutes, 2 days, 7 days after Roediger and Karpicke’s (2006) test enhanced learning study + implications on study and memorisation 16