Chapter 1 Approaches to human cognition
Cognitive psychology = aiming to understand human cognition by observing the behavior of
people performing various cognitive tasks.
Cognitive neuroscience = using information about behavior and the brain to understand
human cognition.
• Brain-imaging techniques (fMRI)
• Electrophysiological techniques involving the recording of electrical signals generated
by the brain.
• Study the effects of brain damage on human cognition
Four main approaches:
1. Cognitive psychology: trying to understand human cognition by using behavioral
evidence.
2. Cognitive neuropsychology: the attempt to understand human cognition by studying
brain-damaged patients.
3. Cognitive neuroscience: using evidence from behavior and the brain to understand
human cognition.
4. Computational cognitive science: developing computational models to further our
understanding of human cognition.
Cognitive psychology
Information is processed through series of processing stages. Each stage performs unique
special operations on its input information.
The major goal of information-processing approach: specify the processes and structures
involved in cognition.
The assumption of information-processing approach: processing in people resembles that in
computers.
Miyake (2000)
- The Stroop task: people name the colour in which colour words are presented and avoid
saying the color word.
o People are faster if the meaning of a color word and the color in which the
word is written are congruent than when they are incongruent.
o Independent variable = experimental conditions
§ Independent variable = congruency
§ Levels: congruent and incongruent.
o Dependent variable = what researcher measures.
§ Reaction time
§ Response accuracy
o You can also “cross the variables” = an experiment with a “two-by-two
design”, then you use large and small letters as an extra factor.
o To decide this, we need a kind of “neutral baseline”
- The anti-saccade task: a visual cue is presented. The task involves not looking at the cue
but rather inhibiting that response and looking in the opposite direction.
- The stop-signal task: participants categorize words as rapidly as possible, but must
inhibit their response when a tone sounds.
Donders “subtractive method”
A task: Light is on = press a button à RT = nervous system conduction time (NSCT)
B task:
- Blue light on = press right, Yellow light on = press left
- RT = NSCT + identification + response
C task
- Blue light on = press button, Yellow light on = no button à RT = NSCT + identification
, Strengths Limitations
Predominant influence on the People’s behavior in the laboratory may differ from that in
development of cognitive everyday life.
tasks and on task analysis.
Obtain measures of the speed and accuracy of task
performance, this measure provide only indirect evidence.
Often put forward theories in verbal terms.
Sometimes the findings are specific to that paradigm and
do not generalize other tasks.
No architecture or framework that would clarify the
interrelationships among components of the cognitive
system.
Bottom-up processing = processing that is directly influenced by environmental stimuli.
Top-down processing = stimulus processing that is influenced by factors such as the
individual’s past experience and expectations.
Parallel processing = processing in which two or more processes occur at the same time.
Serial processing = processing in which one process is completed before the next one starts.
Ecological validity = the applicability of the findings of laboratory studies to everyday
settings.
Implacable experimenter = the situation in experimental research in which the
experimenter’s behavior is uninfluenced by the participant’s behavior.
Paradigm specificity = this occurs when the findings with a given experimental task or
paradigm are not obtained even when apparently very similar tasks or paradigms are used.
Cognitive neuroscience: the brain in action
There are various ways.
1. Cerebral cortex is divided into four main divisions or lobes.
There are four lobes in every brain hemisphere: frontal, parietal,
temporal and occipital.
- Frontal lobes: divided from the parietal lobes by the central
sulcus.
Sulcus = furrow or groove.
- Temporal lobes divided from parietal and frontal lobes by the
lateral fissure.
- Occipital lobes is divided from the parietal and temporal lobes
by parieto-occipital sulcus and pre-occipital.
2. Brodmann (1868-1918): Map of brain based on Afbeelding 1
differences in the distributions of cell types across cortical Brodmann
layers.
3. Focus on the functions of different brain areas.
Bullmore and Sporns argued that two major Sulcus = a groove or furrow in the surface of the brain.
principles might determine brain Gyri = prominent elevated areas or ridges on the
organization. brain’s surface.
1. Principle of most control; costs would Dorsal = superior, or towards the top of the brain.
be minimized if the brain consisted of Ventral = inferior, or towards the bottom of the brain.
limited, short-distance connections. Rostral = anterior, or towards the front of the brain.
2. Principle of efficiency; efficiency in Posterior = towards the back of the brain.
terms of the ability to integrate Lateral = situated at the side of the brain.
information across the brain. Medial = situated in the middle of the brain.
The human brain has a trade-off between cost and efficiency.
, Cognitive neuropsychology
Assumption 1) Modularity, the cognitive system consists of numerous modules operate fairly
independently. It is assumed that these modules exhibit domain specificity.
Assumption 2) Anatomical modularity: each module is located in a specific brain area. It is
often handig that patients are damaged in a single module.
Assumption 3) “uniformity of functional architecture across people”; if it is false we would not
be able to use findings from individual patients to draw conclusions about other people’s
functional architecture.
Assumption 4) Substractivity; brain damage impairs one or more modules but does not
change or add anything. (Sometimes incorrect, often partial recovery of the processes.)
Modularity = the assumption that the cognitive system consists of many fairly independent
or separate modules or processors, each specialized for a given type of processing.
Domain specificity = the notion that a given module responds selectively to certain types of
stimuli but not others.
How do neuropsychologists set about understanding the cognitive system? Of major
importance is the search for dissociations, which occur when a patient performs normally
on one task but is impaired in a second one.
Dissociation = as applied to brain-damaged patients, intact performance on one task but
severely impaired performance on a different tasks.
It can be that a patient performs well on one task but poorly on a second one simply because
the second task is more complex. Thus, dissociations may reflect task differences in
complexity rather than the use of different modules.
à Double dissociation: person 1 asks normally on task X and impaired on task Y, while
another person acts the opposite.
- Classical example:
o Broca aphasia = language production impaired, understanding not.
o Wernicke aphasia = understanding impaired, production not.
Strengths Limitations
Double-dissociations provides strong Patients often develop compensatory
evidence for a certain brain region being strategies.
specialized for a specific function.
Causal links can be shown between brain De-emphasizes the interconnection
damage and cognitive performance. between cognitive processes
Proven especially important in the study of Individual differences make it hard to
language and memory. generalize.
Bridges cognitive psychology and cognitive Insufficient emphasis on general cognitive
neuroscience. function.
Double dissociation = the finding that some brain-damaged individuals have intact
performance on one task but poor performance on another task, whereas other individuals
exhibit the opposite pattern.
Association = the finding that certain symptoms or performance impairments are
consistently found together in numerous brain-damaged patients.
Syndrome = the notion that symptoms that often co-occur have a common origin.
Cognitive psychology = aiming to understand human cognition by observing the behavior of
people performing various cognitive tasks.
Cognitive neuroscience = using information about behavior and the brain to understand
human cognition.
• Brain-imaging techniques (fMRI)
• Electrophysiological techniques involving the recording of electrical signals generated
by the brain.
• Study the effects of brain damage on human cognition
Four main approaches:
1. Cognitive psychology: trying to understand human cognition by using behavioral
evidence.
2. Cognitive neuropsychology: the attempt to understand human cognition by studying
brain-damaged patients.
3. Cognitive neuroscience: using evidence from behavior and the brain to understand
human cognition.
4. Computational cognitive science: developing computational models to further our
understanding of human cognition.
Cognitive psychology
Information is processed through series of processing stages. Each stage performs unique
special operations on its input information.
The major goal of information-processing approach: specify the processes and structures
involved in cognition.
The assumption of information-processing approach: processing in people resembles that in
computers.
Miyake (2000)
- The Stroop task: people name the colour in which colour words are presented and avoid
saying the color word.
o People are faster if the meaning of a color word and the color in which the
word is written are congruent than when they are incongruent.
o Independent variable = experimental conditions
§ Independent variable = congruency
§ Levels: congruent and incongruent.
o Dependent variable = what researcher measures.
§ Reaction time
§ Response accuracy
o You can also “cross the variables” = an experiment with a “two-by-two
design”, then you use large and small letters as an extra factor.
o To decide this, we need a kind of “neutral baseline”
- The anti-saccade task: a visual cue is presented. The task involves not looking at the cue
but rather inhibiting that response and looking in the opposite direction.
- The stop-signal task: participants categorize words as rapidly as possible, but must
inhibit their response when a tone sounds.
Donders “subtractive method”
A task: Light is on = press a button à RT = nervous system conduction time (NSCT)
B task:
- Blue light on = press right, Yellow light on = press left
- RT = NSCT + identification + response
C task
- Blue light on = press button, Yellow light on = no button à RT = NSCT + identification
, Strengths Limitations
Predominant influence on the People’s behavior in the laboratory may differ from that in
development of cognitive everyday life.
tasks and on task analysis.
Obtain measures of the speed and accuracy of task
performance, this measure provide only indirect evidence.
Often put forward theories in verbal terms.
Sometimes the findings are specific to that paradigm and
do not generalize other tasks.
No architecture or framework that would clarify the
interrelationships among components of the cognitive
system.
Bottom-up processing = processing that is directly influenced by environmental stimuli.
Top-down processing = stimulus processing that is influenced by factors such as the
individual’s past experience and expectations.
Parallel processing = processing in which two or more processes occur at the same time.
Serial processing = processing in which one process is completed before the next one starts.
Ecological validity = the applicability of the findings of laboratory studies to everyday
settings.
Implacable experimenter = the situation in experimental research in which the
experimenter’s behavior is uninfluenced by the participant’s behavior.
Paradigm specificity = this occurs when the findings with a given experimental task or
paradigm are not obtained even when apparently very similar tasks or paradigms are used.
Cognitive neuroscience: the brain in action
There are various ways.
1. Cerebral cortex is divided into four main divisions or lobes.
There are four lobes in every brain hemisphere: frontal, parietal,
temporal and occipital.
- Frontal lobes: divided from the parietal lobes by the central
sulcus.
Sulcus = furrow or groove.
- Temporal lobes divided from parietal and frontal lobes by the
lateral fissure.
- Occipital lobes is divided from the parietal and temporal lobes
by parieto-occipital sulcus and pre-occipital.
2. Brodmann (1868-1918): Map of brain based on Afbeelding 1
differences in the distributions of cell types across cortical Brodmann
layers.
3. Focus on the functions of different brain areas.
Bullmore and Sporns argued that two major Sulcus = a groove or furrow in the surface of the brain.
principles might determine brain Gyri = prominent elevated areas or ridges on the
organization. brain’s surface.
1. Principle of most control; costs would Dorsal = superior, or towards the top of the brain.
be minimized if the brain consisted of Ventral = inferior, or towards the bottom of the brain.
limited, short-distance connections. Rostral = anterior, or towards the front of the brain.
2. Principle of efficiency; efficiency in Posterior = towards the back of the brain.
terms of the ability to integrate Lateral = situated at the side of the brain.
information across the brain. Medial = situated in the middle of the brain.
The human brain has a trade-off between cost and efficiency.
, Cognitive neuropsychology
Assumption 1) Modularity, the cognitive system consists of numerous modules operate fairly
independently. It is assumed that these modules exhibit domain specificity.
Assumption 2) Anatomical modularity: each module is located in a specific brain area. It is
often handig that patients are damaged in a single module.
Assumption 3) “uniformity of functional architecture across people”; if it is false we would not
be able to use findings from individual patients to draw conclusions about other people’s
functional architecture.
Assumption 4) Substractivity; brain damage impairs one or more modules but does not
change or add anything. (Sometimes incorrect, often partial recovery of the processes.)
Modularity = the assumption that the cognitive system consists of many fairly independent
or separate modules or processors, each specialized for a given type of processing.
Domain specificity = the notion that a given module responds selectively to certain types of
stimuli but not others.
How do neuropsychologists set about understanding the cognitive system? Of major
importance is the search for dissociations, which occur when a patient performs normally
on one task but is impaired in a second one.
Dissociation = as applied to brain-damaged patients, intact performance on one task but
severely impaired performance on a different tasks.
It can be that a patient performs well on one task but poorly on a second one simply because
the second task is more complex. Thus, dissociations may reflect task differences in
complexity rather than the use of different modules.
à Double dissociation: person 1 asks normally on task X and impaired on task Y, while
another person acts the opposite.
- Classical example:
o Broca aphasia = language production impaired, understanding not.
o Wernicke aphasia = understanding impaired, production not.
Strengths Limitations
Double-dissociations provides strong Patients often develop compensatory
evidence for a certain brain region being strategies.
specialized for a specific function.
Causal links can be shown between brain De-emphasizes the interconnection
damage and cognitive performance. between cognitive processes
Proven especially important in the study of Individual differences make it hard to
language and memory. generalize.
Bridges cognitive psychology and cognitive Insufficient emphasis on general cognitive
neuroscience. function.
Double dissociation = the finding that some brain-damaged individuals have intact
performance on one task but poor performance on another task, whereas other individuals
exhibit the opposite pattern.
Association = the finding that certain symptoms or performance impairments are
consistently found together in numerous brain-damaged patients.
Syndrome = the notion that symptoms that often co-occur have a common origin.
