Psych 315 Final Review PDF

## FINAL REVIEW ### Visual Perception - **Converting Sensory Input into Electric Signals (Neural Impulses):** - **Transduction:** Converting sensory input into electric signals (neural impulses). - **Parts of the Eye:** - **Cornea:** Protective outer layer. - **Pupil:** Light goes...

## FINAL REVIEW ### Visual Perception - **Converting Sensory Input into Electric Signals (Neural Impulses):** - **Transduction:** Converting sensory input into electric signals (neural impulses). - **Parts of the Eye:** - **Cornea:** Protective outer layer. - **Pupil:** Light goes through. - **Iris:** Adjusts pupil for light. - **Lens:** Adjusts for distance, nearby=tighten/buge, far = relax/flatten. - **Retina:** Contains receptors. - **Fovea:** Contains rods and cones. - **Rods:** Sensitive to light, low density in retina, sensitive to color. - **Cones:** B&W, high activity in fovea, less sensitive to light. - **Ganglion cells:** Bipolar and photoreceptors and light - **Optic nerve:** Thalamus (lateral geniculate nucleus) -> visual cortex (in occipital lobe). - **Lateral Inhibition:** - Brighter stimuli = faster and suppresses neighbor (edges). - Mach band illusion. - **Functional Specialization:** Cells have unique jobs/specialized to what they respond to. - **Center-Surround:** - No light = baseline. - Light in center = faster. - Light in surround = slower. - 1/2 in both = near baseline. - **Single Cell Recording:** Helps define receptive field. - **Akinetopsia:** Losing specific functions. - **Parallel Processing:** Different stimuli processed at same time - **Binding Problem (BP):** How to put things together? - **Solve BP:** Spatial position, neural synchrony, attention synchronized for attended stimuli, overload = conjunction errors. - **What vs. Where System** - **Identification:** occipital-temporal, lesioned: visual agnosia. - **Location of objects/guide response:** occipital-parietal, lesioned: problem reaching. - **Object Recognition:** - **Visual Agnosia:** - **Apperceptive:** Doesn't know the object (recognition impaired because of processing). - **Associative:** Doesn't know the purpose (recognition impaired because of lack accessing info). - **Prosopagnosia:** Can't recognize faces. - **Frequency/Recency Effects:** We recognize faster when encountered often/recently. - **Interactive Activation Model:** - Frequent -> higher resting level -> easier to reach threshold. - Same for recency. - **Faces:** - **Double Dissociation:** Visual agnosia vs. prosopagnosia. - **Fusiform Face Area:** Part of brain responsible for face processing. - **Face Inversion Effect:** Harder to recognize (face processing is viewpoint dependent). - **Thatcher Illusion:** Holistic processing. ### Attention - **Selective:** - **Dichotic:** - **Shadowing:** Different stimuli, attended input vs. ignored inputs -> speech output. - **Cocktail party effect:** Tune out excess stimuli until familiarity/importance (ex: name, hometown, etc), notice physical properties of ignored message (ex: gender of speaker) but not semantic context. - **Early vs. Late Selection:** - **Early:** No processing of excess stimuli (blocked before meaning analysis). - **Late:** Partial processing (blocked after meaning analysis). - **Load Theory:** Only certain amount of resources, more processing capacity is left for processing unattended input if the attended input is simple (low perceptual load) rather than complex (high perceptual load). - **Pasner & Snyder Study:** - Stimulus driven priming: no resources = both. - Expectation driven: uses resources = help. - **Divided Attention:** - **Allport Study:** Multitasking easier when tasks are distinct because they use different resources. - **Task General Resources (TUR):** Multitasking only if tasks use different resources, but TUR still used (ex: texting and driving). - **Stroop Task:** Controlled task take more time, energy, resources than automatic tasks. - **Practice:** Can make tasks automatic. ### Acquisition of Memories - **Modal Model:** Encoding -> Storage-> retrieval - **Sensory Buffers:** - **Echoic:** Hearing. - **Iconic:** Seeing. - **Incoming** -> **STM** -> **LTM** - Retrieval. - Sensory. - Rehersal lost. - **Short Term vs. Long Term Memory:** - **Short term:** Limited, hippocampus. - **Long term:** Unlimited/long-lasting, basal ganglia. - **Primacy Effect:** First learned -> repeated/recalled -> remember better (working/short). - **Recency Effect:** Most Recent -> working -> easier recall (working/short). - **Double Dissociations:** Filled delay affects recency, not primacy. Slower presentations affects primacy, not recency. - **Working Memory:** - **Storage Capacity:** Space (quantity)-> 7+/- 2 chunks. - **Operation Capacity:** Cognition (quality). - **Paddeley's Model:** - **Phonological Store,** **Articulatory Rehersal,** **Central executive,** **Visuospatial Sketch Pad** - Controls flow of info between subsystems, pulls info from LTM, decide which subsystem is focus of attention. - **Interconnections Between Acquisition and Retrieval:** - **Helps with retrieval:** Number and strengths of connections, organization (mnemonics, chunking, etc), understanding (deep vs. shallow processing), context (helps neural connections). - **Encoding Specificity Principle** - We encode the stimulus with its context: - **Context/state/mood dependent:** State when learned -> same state = easier recall. - **Context Reinstatement:** Incorporating past thoughts into present mental state. - **Processing pathways:** More pathways = more connections = easier recall. - **Summation of subthreshold activation:** Individual memory traces not enough to reach threshold, combination = memory stronger. - **Semantic Priming/Facilitation:** Cue dependent, related prime/target = faster = strong connection - speed. - **Recognition:** Cue dependent vs. Recall: Cognitive pathways. - **Source memory or familiarity vs. source memory:** - **Source memory:**Know where memory came from, hippocampus. - **Familiarity:** Essence/hint of previous experience, perirninal cortex. - **Functional Dissociation:** - DF without SM: looks familiar, but idk. - SM without F: Capgras Syndrome. - **Explicit Memory:** Conscious memory, events (episodic) and facts/knowledge (semantic). - **Implicit Memory:** Unconscious memory. - **Action/Skills:** (Procedural, ex: how to ride a bike). - **Priming:** Change in perception/belief caused by previous experience. - **Perceptual Learning:** Recalibration of systems based on previous. - **Classical Conditioning:** Automatic response, association between stimuli. - **Word stem completion task** = Implicit memory. - **Source Confusion:** Familiarity without explicit memory. - **Illusion of truth study:** Repeated statements rated more true regardless of speaker. - **What is familiarity?** - **Processing fluency:** Stimulus registered as "special". - **Attribution:** - Attribution of fluency to prior event. - Illusion of familiarity. - **Remembering Complex Events:** - **El al cargo study:** Remembered footage that never existed -> memory is constructive. - **What happens:** Person's knowledge, experiences, and expectations = war of ghosts, retold story shows people remember based on own culture/society -> source monitoring. - **Knowledge:** - **Schematic knowledge (Office study):** "remembered" typical office stuff regardless if there or not, did not remember un-typical stuff. - **Understanding (Nancy study):** Given background -> remembered more proposition in and out of story. - **Inferences:** - **False Recall (DRM):** Equally likely to recall theme word and word. - **Works even if aware of DRM:** Ex: "cold" theme/ "sleep" theme. - **Power of Suggestion/False Memories (FM):** - **Car study:** "smashed" vs. "hit" changed memory of car speed, 1-week later "did you see broken glass?" - **Misleading post-event info:** Event + misleading info = misleading info becomes part of event, memory wars, lost in mall experiment. - **How to implant FM?** - **Get persons trust.** - **Plant the seed using places/people that are familiar.** - **Coax the person into imagining scene (guided imagination).** - **False vs. true memories** - No differences in terms of detail, emotion, response speed, etc. - **Eye Witness:** Elizabeth Lotus, leading questions, confidence, weapon effect, etc. -> False memories. - **Forgetting:** - **Ebbinghaus Curve:** Exponential loss. - **Decay:** Unused memory decays (bing bong). - **Interference:** Other memory takes over. - **Tip-of-the-tongue-effect:** Retrieval failure. - **Autobiographical Memory:** - **Self-relevance** - **Self-reference effect:** Better memory for information relevant to oneself. - **Self-schema:** Knowledge and beliefs about oneself. - **Emotions:** Help w/ consolidation but narrow down focus. - **Memory consolidation:** Hippocampus. - **Flash-bulb memory:** Snapshot memory triggered by stimulus -> can also be inaccurate. - **Traumatic experiences:** Remembered in detail. ### Judgment And Reasoning - **Bounded Rationality Framework:** We try to make rational decisions, but have cognitive limitation. - **Heuristics:** Mental shortcuts. - **Representative Heuristic:** - Generalizing from single case to the population. - Prison guard study: Given an example, assumed to be a typical case even when told example is outlier. - "Man who" argument: "Who did that... but I know someone who did that..." - **Availability Heuristic:** - Frequency/how easily example comes to mind. - Letter K problem: People believe more words have K as first letter, rather than third. - **Illusory Correlation:** Perceived relationship that doesn't necessarily have basis. - Draw-a-Person Study: Experts and college students drew the same conclusions of associating traits to kids based on their drawings. - **Framing Effect:** Wording matters - **Disease Problem:** - Risk-averse with gains. - Risk-seeking with losses. - **Reason-Based Choice:** Make decisions we feel good about. - **Restricted by cognitive abilities:** Can't be purely logical. - **Based on which outcome ends with least regret.** - **Emotions in Decision-Making:** - **Orbitofrontal cortex:** - If lesioned: - **Predicting emotions:** We widely over-estimate our emotional response. - How much regret, and how long emotions last. ### Problem Solving - **Ill-Defined vs. Well-Defined:** - **Well:** Clear goals, solution paths, one right answer. - **Gestalt Psychology Approach:** - **Restructuring:** Reorganization of problem's representation, circle problem. - **Insight:** Sudden realization of a solution, not a premonition, insight solution can be wrong, 9-dot problem, triangle problem. - **Metcalfe & Wiebe Study:** Insight, not faster than step-by-step solving. - **4 Stages of Problem Solving:** - **Preparation:** - **Incubation:** - **Illumination:** - **Verification:** - **Incubation effect:** Stepping away from problem and coming back helps w/ PS (not always). - Helps forget incorrect solutions, timing, gets rid of mind wandering, fatigue, frustration. - **Study:** Task during incubation matter -> dissimilar to the original problem. - **Obstacles:** - **Functional Fixedness:** Inability to look past actual use/purpose of object, candle problem, steel rings problem. - **Problem-Solving Set:** Inability to try different approaches, different than the pre-existing ideas/steps, attitude (Einstellung), assumption made about problem, water jug study. - **Information-Processing Approach:** Search for solution. - **Initial state** -> **Goal State:** (i.e. problem). - **Intermediate states:** Steps in between to get to goal, from initial. - **Problem space:** All possible steps that can be taken. - **Operators:** Actions one can take. - **Path Constraints:** Rules/obstacles. - **Tower of Hanoi, Mutilated Checker Board Study:** - **Strategies.** - **Means-end analysis:** Create sub goals (IS) to reduce difference between initial and goal states. - **Hill climbing:** (River-crossing prob), pick what appears to be most direct route to goal state. - **Mental imagery:** (Bookworm problem), pictures/visuals help w/ problem solving. - **Analogical transfer:** Applying another problem's solution to a problem, radiation/fortress problem, Target vs. source problem, trying to solve vs. solve in the past already. Surface features vs. deep structure, explicit, observable vs. hidden patterns/principles (core function). - **3 Steps of Analogical Problem Solving:** - **Noticing:** (Most difficult, usually needs explicit). - **Mapping:** - **Applying:** - **How to increase AT:** Tell analogy to problem solver/actively encourage identifying similarities. - **Experts vs. Novices:** - **Experts:** Have more knowledge to apply, organize info differently, look at deeper structure, novice looks at surface features, experts use AT, experts spend more time analyzing the problem. - **Creativity:** - **Divergent Thinking:** Thinking "outside of the box", open ended, large number of potential "solutions". - **Creative Minds Commonalities:** - Great knowledge/skill in their domain. - Personality traits (ex: being willing to take risks). - Internal motivation. - A bit of luck. - **Life-form Generation Study:** Generating creative ideas inhibited by examples/prototypes/preexisting ideas (mental set). - **Group vs. Individual Brainstorming:** Individual works better. - **Mental illness ≠ More creative.** - **Latent Inhibition:** - Lower LI = Higher creativity = mental illness: - Those with mental illness in family correlated with more creative jobs. - **Swedish Study:** - **Carson et al Study:** Low latent inhibition = Higher creativity. - Strong association for those with high IQ. ### Concepts And Generic Language - **Concepts as Definition:** All or none membership, problem because definitions can be hard to close off (borderline members). - **Typicality:** - **What makes typical?** - Frequency (item/feature). - Definition. - **Effects (typical items):** - Judged as category members more, categorized faster, learned first, understood easier. - **Family Resemblance:** Those in a family said to look alike/share traits: - Those who are different = more distant relative (membership is a matter of degree). - **Prototype Theory:** Category has an "ideal" prototype and membership depends on similarity to ideal: - **Problems:** - Fails to capture boundaries of concepts - Typicality is context-dependent. - Typicality and category membership don't always go together. - **Exemplar-based Reasoning:** Individual instances (exemplars) are stored in memory, new instance compared to a (typicality effects). - **Category Hierarchies:** - **Superordinate:** Vague (mammal). - **Basic:** Default (dog). - Privileged level: Easy-to-explain commonalities, preferred level for naming objects, recognized faster, first learned by children, cultural/individual differences. - **Subordinate:** Specific (terrier). - **Typicality vs. Category Membership:** - Don't always go hand-in-hand. - Resemblance is independent of category membership. - **Knowledge-based Approach:** - **Donker vs. Blegdav:** When we learn new knowledge, we try to connect them to knowledge we already have. - **Psychological Essentialism:** Essence of object remains regardless of exterior/what it looks like (racoon study). - **Concepts as Theories:** Describe facts/beliefs about categories and why their members cohere. - Inferences based on theories: guided by typicality and background knowledge relating to concepts. - **Semantic Network:** - **Hierarchical Model:** - High = broadest, concepts below. - **Cognitive Economy:** Properties stored at highest possible level and inherit it below, avoids redundant storage. - **Sentence Verification Task:** More levels = more time taken, properties take longer than categories. - **Problematic Findings:** Typicality effects, hierarchical structure, association effects, non-redundancy may not hold. ### Language - **Language vs. Communication System (CS):** - **CS:** Transmission of signal that conveys info. - **Humans:** Can talk about anything, hardwired for parents' language, productivity, and hot. - **Productivity:** Ability to communicate own/abstract thoughts: - Language allows for self-creation. - **Hierarchical Structure of Linguistic Units:** - **Phoneme:** Independent sound. - **Morpheme:** Smallest type of sound that has meaning. - **Animals Learning Language:** - **Kanzi:** Learned basic convos (toddler level), used lexigrams. - **Lexigram:** Visual symbol representing word/concept, think pet button, speaking tik-toks. - **Language Acquisition in Humans vs. Apes:** Universal acquisition in kids, variable acquisition in apes, differ in ease of learning and usage. - **Children Experiment:** Apes copy. - **Biological Roots of Language:** - **Nativists:** Innate language learning device. - **Anti-nativists:** General purpose learning device. - **Broca's Aphasia:** Comprehend language but can't form it (grammar issues). - **Wernicke's Aphasia:** Form language, can't comprehend it. - **Williams Syndrome:** Generic condition with strong verbal/social skills, weakness in other cognitive skills abilities. - **Specific Language Impairment:** This regarding language at all levels, born with it. - **Statistical Learning:** Using patterns, artificial language learning paradigm. - **Transitional Probability:** Sequence of syllables occur more often together with words than across words. - **Mental Lexicon:** - **Lexical Competition:** Multiple words that sound similar are activated simultaneously. - **Visual-Word Paradigm:** Observing where people look on visual display while hearing words/sentences. - **Cohort & rhyme competition effects:** - **Cohort:** Similar initial sound compete for activation causing delay. - **Rhyme:** I but less strong. - **Bilinguals and cross-language cohort competition:** words from both languages can compete for recognition even when just listening to one language. - **Cognitive Control in Bilinguals:** Flanker task, age-related cognitive decline is less in bilinguals.