Cognitive Psychology PDF - PRELIM PSYM 201B

PRELIM - PSYM 201B Brain - pulls information from emotions and memory as well as Cognitive Psychology external environment - scientific investigation of human cognition – all our ment...

PRELIM - PSYM 201B Brain - pulls information from emotions and memory as well as Cognitive Psychology external environment - scientific investigation of human cognition – all our mental abilities: perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, Emotion & Memory - powerful influences on both thoughts and and understanding. behaviors - how people acquire knowledge or info - how people think Concepts - how & why we think the way we do by studying interaction - files stored in the cabinet among human thinking, emotion, creativity, language, problem - categories/ groupings of linguistic information, images, ideas, or solving, etc. memories, like life experiences - to see relationships among different elements of experiences Human Cognition - to keep information in mind organized & accessible - takes place at both conscious & unconscious - can be concrete or abstract Prototype - representation of a concept - intuitive– nobody has to be taught how to think Natural & Artificial Concepts Cognition - two categories of concept - from Latin word “cognoscere” or “to know” - thinking; it encompasses the process associated with Natural Concept perception, knowledge, problem solving, judgment, language, - created naturally through experience and memory - can be developed from direct or indirect experience Brain - endlessly perceiving, processing, planning, organizing, Artificial Concept and remembering– always active - specific set of characteristics that are always the same; like the properties of geometric shapes: squares or triangles Most Important Figures: Schemata - method of organizing information that allows the Aristotle (384-322 BCE) brain to work more efficiently - Greek Philosopher - inner workings of the mind and how it affects human Schema experience - mental construct consisting of cluster or collection of related - studies & ideas were based on empirical evidence concepts - when activated, brain makes immediate assumptions about the Descartes (1596-1650) person or object being observed - “I think therefore I am” Cogito Ergo Sum in Latin and albeit in French: act of thinking that proves that thinker exists Types of Schemata - “We cannot doubt our existence while we doubt” 1. Object Schema Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) - most basic type of cognitive schema - father of Modern Psychology - holds info about objects - first person to call himself a psychologist ex: Learning the difference between car & bus. - scientific psychology should focus on introspection, analysis of contents’ of one’s own mind and experience 2. Person Schema - important figure in study of cognition because of his - holds info about people examination of human thought processes - child’s first person schema might be about their parents ex: Learning about people’s personalities, roles, & Concepts and Prototypes preferences. Senses - interface between mind and external environment 3. Role Schema - holds info about social roles and positions of people in society Questions of sensation - focuses on the qualities of - makes assumption about how individuals in certain roles will stimulation. behave ex: Learned gender roles Questions of perception - deal with identity, form, pattern and movement. 4. Person’s Self Schema - how they perceive themselves Questions of cognition - occur as this information is used - parents and teachers spends a lot of time trying to help a young to serve further goals. person positive a positive self-schema (positive sense of self) ex: Learning about personal attributes Percept - mental representation of stimulus that is perceived 5. Event Schema (Cognitive Script) Existence of Perceptual Illusion - suggests that what we - schema about events sense (in our sensory organs) is not necessarily we perceive - cognitive script: set of behaviors that feels like a routine (in our minds) ex: Differentiating holidays The Duck and Rabbit Illusion: Ambiguous Images and From Sensation to Perception Mid-level Vision Perception - set of processes which recognized, organized and Duck or Rabbit Conundrum - how we perceive ambiguous make sense of sensations we receive from environmental stimuli images and processes of mid-level vision Perceptions are built from sensation but not all sensation Mid-Level Vision - point at which our brains group visual results in perception. information based on its ability to find edges in the image James Gibson Bottom-Up Theory vs Top-Down Theory Distal - object in external world Bottom-Up Theory - focuses on role of sensory information Informational Medium - pattern of which event are happening Initiation: Perception begins with specific elements of Proximal Stimulation - event when info comes stimulus then combined to form complete perception. into contact with appropriate sensory receptors Processing: Focuses on sensory input in shaping Perceptual Object - object reflecting properties of perception. external world Control: Driven by external stimuli. Flexibility: Adaptable to new infos & changes. Perception occurs when: Top-Down Theory - perception is guided by higher-level Informational medium carries information about a distal cognitive processes: expectations, beliefs and prior object to a person. When the person’s sense receptors pick knowledge up on the information, proximal stimulation occurs, which - highlights impact of cognitive processes on perception results in the person’s perceiving the object. Initiation: General understanding to break down into specific details. Where do we draw the line between sensation, Processing: Relies on pre-existing knowledge & perception and cognition? expectations. Control: Driven by internal cognitive processes. These processes are part of a continuum. Information flows Flexibility: Less adaptable to new infos & changes. through the system. Different processes address different questions. Direct Perception (Ecological Perception) - info in sensory receptors including our sensory context is all we need to perceive anything - based on the direct interaction to external stimuli - sensory information is processed without the need for Perception - involves both Bottom-Up & Top-Down inferential mental processes Sensory Adaptation Template Theories - we often don’t perceive stimuli that remain relatively - brain stores myriad sets of templates in our mind based on constant over prolonged periods of time prior experiences, which we use to quickly recognize - our brains stop noticing things that don't change much over patterns and objects by matching them against these stored time, like the ticking of an old clock in a classroom; even images though the clock keeps ticking, we stop hearing it when we - implies that expertise develops as we accumulate specific focus on something else, like talking to friends chunks of knowledge in long-term memory that facilitate swift recognition and understanding Multisensory Perception - allows us to understand the world better by combining Templates - highly detailed models for patterns we information from different senses at the same time potentially might recognize - this enhances our ability to perceive and react to our environment, making our overall sensory experience richer Feature-Matching Theories and more informative - when we see something, our brain looks for small details - when we experience events, such as a car collision, our that remind us of things we've seen before, instead of trying perception integrates visual, auditory, and sometimes to remember the entire thing exactly olfactory information into a unified experience but would ex: It's like recognizing a friend by their smile or hair rather result only to one thing: perception of the car collision than trying to remember every single thing about them. Unimodal Stimuli - looking at everything around you one Local Precedence Effect sense at a time instead of noticing them all together - when brain pays more attention to small details or parts of something rather than the big picture Multimodal Perception - It's like when you're looking at a puzzle and notice - effects on the perception of events and objects in the world individual pieces instead of the completed image. that are observed when there is information from more than one sensory modality Local Features - constitute the small-scale or detailed - information is combined and treated as unitary aspects of given pattern representation of the world Global Precedence Effect Subliminal Perception - when we look at something, our brain quickly notices the - stimuli presented below threshold for awareness can overall shape or big picture before we focus on the smaller influence thoughts, feelings, or actions details - hidden signals we don't notice directly, but can still - It's like spotting a big red heart in a bunch of tiny hearts influence how we think or act first, instead of counting each little one. ex: If a quick message telling us to drink a specific soda flashes in a commercial, we might suddenly feel thirsty for Global Features - give a form its overall shape that drink, even if we didn’t see the message. Bottom-Up (Data-Driven Processing) Synesthesia - when we see an object for the first time, this allows us to - a special condition where people's senses mix together, so analyze its features directly without any previous context they might see colors when they hear music or read letters. affecting our understanding - not as rare as once thought: affecting about 4 out of every 100 people, & often runs in families. Top-Down (Conceptually-Driven Processing) ex: someone might see a number "5" as blue and a letter "A" - when reading a sentence, our understanding is not solely as red. based on the letters or words but significantly shaped by our accumulated knowledge and context Visual Perception Deficits - problems interpreting what is seen 2. Connects our past memories with present experiences, - problems in recognizing shapes & positions of letters or giving us a sense of continuity and personal identity. words 3. Allows us to plan & control our future actions based on Visual Agnosia - condition that disrupts your brain’s ability what we learn from our environment and our memories. to process and understand what you see with your eyes 4 main function of Attention: Types: Signal Detection & Vigilance: (observing) Akinetopsia - can recognize objects but can’t recognize they’re moving Search: (looking for things in a pile) Alexia - can see words but can’t make it sense or read them Selective Attention: attend stimuli and ignore others Achromatopsia (Color Agnosia) - can see colors and can Divided Attention: allocate attention to coordinate more tell them apart but can’t identify the color than one task at a time Form Agnosia - can see the parts of object but can’t Signal Detection Theory recognize the object itself - finding important stimuli in a crowd ex: can recognize the wheels, handlebars, etc. but can’t - first theory to suggest interaction between physical recognize them as part of a bicycle sensation of a stimuli and cognitive processes like decision-making Prosopagnosia - struggles to recognize faces or can’t interpret facial expressions or cues; usually happens Signal Detection Matrix - simple chart that helps us because of brain damage but some have it at birth understand how well we notice things around us. Optic Ataxia - trouble reaching for things they see, even Imagine you're playing a game where you have to spot a their eyes work fine, because their brain has a hard time hidden toy in your room. telling their hands where to go Hit (true positive) Attention & Consciousness - correctly identifying presence of the target :You find the toy when it’s actually there. Attention - we actively process a limited amount of information from False Alarm (false positive) the vast amount of information available through our senses, - incorrectly identifying presence of the target that’s absent our stored memories and our other cognitive processes that :You think you found the toy, but it’s not there. helps us respond quickly and accurately to things that matter to us, both consciously and unconsciously Miss (false negative) - helps us manage our mental resources by tuning out - failure to observe the presence of target distractions and highlighting what's important :You don't find the toy when it is really there. Consciousness Correct Rejection (true negative) - both feeling of awareness and content of awareness - correctly identifies the absence of target :You don’t find the toy when it is actually not there. Conscious Attention serves 3 purposes in playing causal role in cognition: Vigilance - to attend field of stimulation over prolonged period, during which person seeks to detect appearance of 1. ​Conscious attention helps us monitor of how we interact particular stimulus of interest with our surroundings and adapt to different situations.​ Search - actively looking for something even are not sure Treisman’s Attenuation Model where if it will appear - starts at physical/ perceptual level, unattended info is not blocked completely but just weakened/ attenuated and in Distracters - non target stimuli that diverts our attention unattended ear and the important info will get through filter to away from target stimulus process its meaning ex: if someone mentions your name, you can suddenly shift Theories about Search Processes your attention as that word stands out as important, even if you weren’t actively listening to that conversation. This Display Size Effect means that the unattended information is not completely - describes having more items to look through in a visual ignored; it is just “turned down” in volume. area slows down the search process regardless of actual size of the items or the space they occupy. - the more items there are, the longer it takes for your brain to process and locate one specific item Feature Search - scanning environment for an item with a distinct feature like color or shape Late Selection Model - Deutsch & Deutsch (1963) Featural Singletons - items with distinctive features that - all information in the unattended ear is processed on the stand out in the display basis of meaning, not just the selected or highly pertinent info Similarity Theory - as similarity between target and - don’t have to be aware of or attending a message for it to distracter stimuli increases: the difficulty in detecting target be fully process for meaning stimuli ex: imagine you're playing a video game in a crowded room with lots of people talking. Brain processes all the noises Guided Search Theory around you, and when someone yells out something suggests all searches has 2 stages: relevant, like "Watch out!" you become aware of it because Parallel Stage - looks for all potential items at once (like a your brain has already analyzed what was happening in the mental map) to see which ones match what we're looking for background. This model implies that your brain understands Serial Stage - checks each item one by one to see if they everything before deciding what is important for you to really fit notice. this effect now known as: Stroop Effect - showing that our brain can slow down when faced with confusing information, like when the word "red" is written in blue ink Information-Processing and Filter Model of Attention Selective Attention - cognitive process of focusing on - refers to the way our brain acquires, stores, retrieves, and specific stimuli in the environment while disregarding utilizes information, much like a computer distractions, allowing us to prioritize what matters most Cognitive psychology, often referred to as human Models: information processing. Donald Broadbent Filter Model (Dichotic Listening) Stages: - psychological test that involves hearing different sounds or Sensory Store: brief storage for infos in original sensory messages in each ear at the same time, helping researchers form study how we pay attention and process auditory information Filter: where attention determines what is recognized Pattern Recognition: stages which stimulus is recognized Selection: determines what info a person will try to remember Short-Term Memory - lasts 20-30 seconds Long-Term Memory - can last a lifetime with no capacity limit ‘ Divided Attention and Multitasking Divided Attention - attend to two different stimuli at the same time, and respond to the multiple demands of your surroundings Multitasking - performance of more than one task at the same time but has its limits (not effective) Interference - when a person’s having a hard time attending to two stimulus at a time - when brain is only able to process certain amount of info Unless a task is fully automated, some researchers suggest that “multi-tasking” doesn’t really exist; you are just rapidly switching your attention back and forth between tasks. Disorders or pathologies associated with divided attention: For someone with poor divided attention, any interference may alter the task that they are doing simultaneously. Divided attention will likely be affected in any disorder that alters attention processes. If a patient suffers from a: Contralateral Heminegligence (inability to attend to the visual field opposite the injury); Hypoprosexia (distractability); Hyperprosexia (intense concentration on a single stimuli); Aprosexia (inability to concentrate) it will be difficult, or nearly impossible, for the patient to do tasks that require divided attention.