Cognitive Psychology Exam 1 Final exam

Cognitive psychology - ANSWERSthe branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind mind - ANSWERSthe mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning the mind is a system that creates representations of the world so that we an act within it to achieve our goals cognition - ANSWERSthe mental processes such as perception, attention, and memory, that are what the mind does reaction time - ANSWERShow long it takes to respond to presentation of a stimulus simple reaction time vs choice reaction time - ANSWERSsimple: push a button when a light goes on choice: two lights and asked to push the right button when the right light comes on and left when the left light comes on structuralism - ANSWERSan approach to psychology that explained perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations analytic introspection - ANSWERSa procedure used by early psychologist in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli savings - ANSWERSmeasure used by Ebbinghaus to determine the magnitude of memory left from initial learning. Higher savings indicate greater memory savings curve - ANSWERSplot of savings versus time after original learning behaviorism - ANSWERSthe approach to psychology, founded by John B. Watson, which states that observable behavior provides the only valid data for psychology. A consequence of this idea is that consciousness and unobservable mental processes are not considered worthy of study by psychologist. classical conditioning - ANSWERSa procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response operant conditioning - ANSWERStype of conditioning championed by B. F. Skinner, which focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection cognitive map - ANSWERSmental conception of a spatial layout cognitive revolution - ANSWERSa shift in psychology, beginning in the 1950s, from the behaviorist approach to an approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in terms of the mind. One of the outcomes of the cognitive psychology is concerned with the scientific study of the mind and mental processes information-processing approach - ANSWERSthe approach to psychology, developed beginning in the 1950s, in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages artificial intelligence - ANSWERSthe ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human intelligence logic theorist - ANSWERScomputer program devised by Alan Newell and Herbert Simon that was able to solve logic problems structural models - ANSWERSrepresentation of a physical structure. and example is a model of the brain or structures within the brain and their connections process models - ANSWERSa model that represents the processes involved in cognition. an example is the flow diagram for Broadbent's filter model of attention Why could we say that Donder's and Ebbinghaus were cognitive psychologist, why even though in the 19th century there was no field called cognitive psychology? describe Donder's experiment and the rationale behind it, and Ebbinghaus memory experiment. What do Donders and Ebbinghaus experiments have in common? - ANSWERSthe term "cognitive psychology" was not coined until 1967 but the early experiments we are going to describe qualify as cognitive psychology experiments. Donders (simple v. choice reaction time)wanted to know how long it takes for a person to respond to a presentation of a stimulus. He determined this by measuring reaction time. presenting the stimulus causes a mental response, which leads to behavioral response (pushing the button). it was one of the first cognitive experiments but it is important because it shows that mental responses cannot be measured directly, but can be inferred by behavior. Ebbinghaus (forgetting curve for nonsense variables) was interested in determining the nature of memory and forgetting and how fast information can be lost over time. He used himself in his studies, he repeated lists of 13 nonsense syllables such as DAX, QEH, LUH, and ZIF to himself one at a time at a constant rate. he used nonsense syllables so he was not influenced by the meaning of the word. he determined how long it took to learn a list then waited to see if he remembered it then determined how long it took to relearn it. both studies are similar because they both use behavior to measure certain property of the mind. Who founded the first laboratory of scientific psychology? Describe the method of analytic introspection that was used in this laboratory. - ANSWERSWilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory of scientific psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Structuralism was the dominant theoretical approach of this lab and analytic introspection was on of the major used to collect data What method did William James use to study the mind? - ANSWERSno experiments, reported observations of his own experience. descriptions of a wide range of experiences James observation was the nature of attention. the observation that paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things still rings true today and had been the topic of many modern studies of attention Describe the rise of behaviorism, especially the influence of Watson and Skinner. How did behaviorism affect research on the mind? - ANSWERSWatson became dissatisfied with the method of analytic introspection. he proposed a new approach called behaviorism. Watson did an experiment called "little albert" he subjected a loud noise with a rat which was classical conditioning. Skinner introduced operant conditioning by showing that reinforcing a rat with food for pressing a bar maintained or increased the rat's rate of bar pressing. Watson was interested in what was happening in the mind and Skinner was focused on determining how behavior was controlled by stimuli. Although Behaviorism was dominating psychology there were other things happening that influenced the rebirth of psychology like how the brain operates. Describe the events that helped lead to the decline in importance of behaviorism in psychology and the events that led to the "cognitive revolution." Be sure you understand what the information-processing approach is. - ANSWERS1) Chomsky's critique of Skinners book Verbal Behavior and his idea that it is necessary not only to measure observable behavior but also to consider what this behavior tells us about how the mind works 2) Cherry's attention experiment 3) the first digital computer 4) Dartmouth and MIT conferences 5)Broadbent's Flow Diagram Describe the research in choking under the pressure. How does this example illustrate how research progresses from one question to another, and how behavior is used to infer what is going on in the mind - ANSWERSlow pressure conditions "heres a question" and high pressure conditions "you are going to be vaped and need to do well to win a cash prize" performance decreased when the task was more difficult this leads to question about question for further understanding and research behavior infers what is going on in the mind because we cannot directly measure what is going on in the brain so we go through behavior like pressing a button and then calculating the time it took to do that behavior Retrieving vs Encoding - ANSWERSRetrieving is what happens when you are remembering the material and encoding is what happens when you are learning the material action potential - ANSWERSpropagated electrical potential responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons. action potentials typically travel down the neurons axon. axon - ANSWERSpart of the neuron that transmits signals from the cell body to the synapse at the end of the axon broca's area - ANSWERSan area in the frontal lobe associated with the production of language. damage to this area causes Broca's aphasia cell body - ANSWERSpart of the cell that contains mechanisms that keep the cell alive. in some neurons, the cell body and the dendrites associated with it receive information from other neurons cerebral cortex - ANSWERSthe 3mm thick outer layer of the brain that contains the mechanisms responsible for higher mental functions such as perception, language, thinking, and problem solving cognitive neuroscience - ANSWERSfield concerned with studying the neural basis of cognition dendrites - ANSWERSstructures that branch out from the cell body to receive electrical signals from other neurons diffusion tensor imaging DTI - ANSWERSa technique based on detection of how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers, for tracing nerve pathways and determining connections distributed representation - ANSWERSoccurs when a specific cognition activates many areas of the brain double dissociation - ANSWERSa situation in which a single dissociation can be demonstrated in one person and the opposite type of single dissociation can be demonstrated in the other person extra striate body area EBA - ANSWERSan area in the temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of the bodies but not by faces or other objects feature detectors - ANSWERSneurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli frontal lobe - ANSWERSlanguage, thought, memory, and motor functions functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) - ANSWERSa brain imaging technique that measures how blood flow changes in response to cognitive activity fusiform face area (FFA) - ANSWERSan area in the temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces hierarchical processing - ANSWERSprocess that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain level of analysis - ANSWERSa topic that can be understood by studying it at a number of different levels of a system localization of function - ANSWERSlocation of specific functions in specific areas of the brain. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) - ANSWERSbrain imaging technique that creates images of structures within the brain micro electrode - ANSWERSsmall wires that are used to record electrical signals from single neurons nerve net - ANSWERSa network of continuously interconnected nerve fibers neural circuit - ANSWERSgroup of interconnected neurons that are responsible for neural processing neural network - ANSWERSgroup of neurons or structures that are connected together neural representation - ANSWERSeverything a person experiences is based on representations in the persons nervous system neuron - ANSWERScell that is specialized to receive and transmit information in the nervous system neuron doctrine - ANSWERSthe idea that individual cells called neurons transmit signals in the nervous system and that these cells are not continuous with other cells as proposed by nerve net theory neuropsychology - ANSWERSthe study of behavioral effects of brain damage in humans neurotransmitter - ANSWERSchemical that is released at the synapse in response to incoming action potential occipital lobe - ANSWERSthe lobe at the back of the brain that is devoted primarily to analyzing incoming visual information parahippocampal place area (PPA) - ANSWERSan area in the temporal lobe that contains neurons that are selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes parietal lobe - ANSWERSthe lobe at the top of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for sensations cause by stimulation of the skin and also some aspects of visual information population coding - ANSWERSneural representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons prosopagnosia - ANSWERScondition cause by damage to the temporal lobe that is characterized by an inability to recognize faces receptors - ANSWERSspecialized neural structures that respond to environment stimuli such as light, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli recording electrode - ANSWERSwhen used to study neural functioning a very thin glass or metal probe that can pick up electrical signals from single neurons reference electrode - ANSWERSused in conjuction with a recording elected to measure the difference in charge between the two. reference electrodes are generally placed where the electrical signal remains constant, so any change in charge between the recording and reference electrodes reflect events happening near the tip of the recording electrode resting potential - ANSWERSdifference in charge between the inside and outside of a nerve fiber when the fiber is at rest (no other electrical signals are present) retina - ANSWERSa network of neurons that lines the back of the eye. the transformation of light into electrical signals and the initial processing of visual information occur in the retina. sensory code - ANSWERShow neural firing represents various characteristics of the enviroment sparse coding - ANSWERSneural coding based on the pattern of activity in small groups of neurons specificity coding - ANSWERSthe representation of a specific stimulus by the firing of neurons that respond only to that stimulus. and example would be the signaling of a persons face by the firing of a neuron that responds only to that persons face synapse - ANSWERSspace between the end of an axon and the cell body or dendrite of the next axon temporal lobe - ANSWERSthe lobe on the side of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for language, memory, hearing and vision visual cortex - ANSWERSarea in the occipital that receives signals from the eyes voxel - ANSWERSsmall cube shaped areas in the brain used in the analysis of data from brain scanning experiments Wernicke's area - ANSWERSarea in the temporal lobe associated with understanding language. Damage to this area causes Wernicke's aphasia. perception - ANSWERSexperiences resulting from stimulation of the senses inverse projection problem - ANSWERSthe task of determining an object responsible for a particular image on the retina bottom-up processing - ANSWERSstarts from the bottom or beginning of the system when environmental energy stimulates the receptors top-down processing - ANSWERSprocessing that originates in the brain, at the top of the perceptual system speech segmentation - ANSWERSbeing able to tell when one word begins and ends direct pathway model - ANSWERSmodel of pain perception that proposes that pain signals are sent directly from receptors to the brain placebo - ANSWERSa pill that they believe contains medicine but in fact it contains no active ingredients likeihood principle - ANSWERSwe perceive the objects that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we have recieved unconscious inference - ANSWERSour perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions or inferences that we make about the enviroment Gestalt psychologist - ANSWERSa group of psychologist who proposed principles governing perception such as laws of organization and a perceptual approach to problem solving involving restructuring