COGNITIVE SCIENCE FINAL EXAM REVISION. ALL EXAM REVISION
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT ANSWERS (ALREADY GRADED A+) (2024
UPDATE)
Cognitive Science Goals - ANSWER- Cognitive science as an empirical science is interested
in DESCRIBING, EXPLAINING & PREDICTING psychological phenomena.
- Human (and animal) perception, action, memory, learning, decision-making and problem-
solving.
Boyle's Law - ANSWER- Boyle poured mercury into the column, and measured the level in
the shorter leg, to relate pressure an volume.
-Mercury column increased by pouring mercury in at "T", shorter leg with scale.
Mental Rotation - ANSWER- Shepard & Metzler had subjects look at stimulus pairs, decide
whether or not one object was a spatial rotation of the other, and measure their response time.
Goals of Models in Cognitive Science - ANSWER- What happens inside the "black box."
Describe, explain, and predict the relationship between input and output.
-DESCRIBE: It takes longer to detect a math when the rotation angle is larger.
-EXPLAIN: People must "mentally rotate" an imagine to check for the match.
-PREDICT: If the angle of rotation is doubled, the response time will also double.
Immaturity of Psychological Understanding - ANSWER- Cognitive science does not have the
body of established results of many of the empirical sciences.
,Challenges in Understanding Cognitive Phenomena - ANSWER- -Hard to measure relevant
variables accurately or directly.
-Often expensive or impossible to collect extensive relevant.
*Analogous to determining the physical layout of a library.
-Based on simple surveys about book searches and successes, given to students entering and
exiting the main doors.
Gaining Knowledge About Phenomena - ANSWER- -Laboratory, through careful controlled
experimentation
--Allows control of extraneous or nuisance variables.
--Permits possibility of developing critical tests.
-Field, through observations of things happening in the real world
--forces our understanding to have genuine application and be broad
*One of the contributions of statistics, computer science and machine learning fields to cognitive
science is a focus on analyzing corporations.
--Large data-bases of real-world behavior
Cognitive Science Applications - ANSWER- Any area benefiting from
understanding/predicting how people perceive info * make decisions has the potential to apply
knowledge from cognitive science.
,Four Broad Areas of Cognitive Science Applications - ANSWER- ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE: search engines, decision-support systems
HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: Information visualization, interface design.
PSYCHOMETRIC: Measurement of cognitive abilities, detection and diagnosis of impairment.
SOCIAL COGNITION: Marketing, collaboration.
Two Big Issues - ANSWER- COGNITIVE: (Top-down, apperceptual) sources of information
coming from memory, knowledge and experience.
PERCEPTUAL: (bottom-up) sources of information coming from current sensory data in the
environment.
-The balance between the extent to which people:
- are the SAME, showing invariance in cognition, and
- are DIFFERENT, showing structured and meaningful individual differences.
Birth & Growth of Cognitive Science - ANSWER- -Spurred by rapid growth in computing
technology.
-The metaphor of the mind as a computer led to: information processing view of cognition, creation
of the field of Artificial Intelligence.
*The metaphor of the mind as a parallel network of neuron-like computing elements: leading to
neural network or CONNECTIONIST approaches.
*Most recent has been the rise of: Modern machine learning & statistical methods, especially
BAYESIAN methods, cognitive neuroscience based on brain imagining.
, Marr's Levels of Analysis - ANSWER- *Computational
-WHY does the cognitive capability behave like it does? What is its goal of purpose?
--Often this is the focus of artificial intelligence or machine learning.
*Algorithmic
-WHAT processing steps are made to make a decision, or produce behavior, or so on?
--Often this is the focus of cognitive psychology.
*Implementation
-HOW is perceptual and cognitive processing, the remembering of
information, and so on, actually done with neural hardware in the
brain?
--Often this is the focus of cognitive neuroscience
Levels of Analysis for Psychological Generalization - ANSWER- Generalization is the act of
treating two stimuli as if they were the
same, despite the ability to distinguish the two (Shepard 1987)
- e.g., a red berry eaten the day before was poisonous, so a
different red berry the next day is not eaten
Computational: Use what was learned in past to guide adaptive
behavior in the present
QUESTIONS AND CORRECT ANSWERS (ALREADY GRADED A+) (2024
UPDATE)
Cognitive Science Goals - ANSWER- Cognitive science as an empirical science is interested
in DESCRIBING, EXPLAINING & PREDICTING psychological phenomena.
- Human (and animal) perception, action, memory, learning, decision-making and problem-
solving.
Boyle's Law - ANSWER- Boyle poured mercury into the column, and measured the level in
the shorter leg, to relate pressure an volume.
-Mercury column increased by pouring mercury in at "T", shorter leg with scale.
Mental Rotation - ANSWER- Shepard & Metzler had subjects look at stimulus pairs, decide
whether or not one object was a spatial rotation of the other, and measure their response time.
Goals of Models in Cognitive Science - ANSWER- What happens inside the "black box."
Describe, explain, and predict the relationship between input and output.
-DESCRIBE: It takes longer to detect a math when the rotation angle is larger.
-EXPLAIN: People must "mentally rotate" an imagine to check for the match.
-PREDICT: If the angle of rotation is doubled, the response time will also double.
Immaturity of Psychological Understanding - ANSWER- Cognitive science does not have the
body of established results of many of the empirical sciences.
,Challenges in Understanding Cognitive Phenomena - ANSWER- -Hard to measure relevant
variables accurately or directly.
-Often expensive or impossible to collect extensive relevant.
*Analogous to determining the physical layout of a library.
-Based on simple surveys about book searches and successes, given to students entering and
exiting the main doors.
Gaining Knowledge About Phenomena - ANSWER- -Laboratory, through careful controlled
experimentation
--Allows control of extraneous or nuisance variables.
--Permits possibility of developing critical tests.
-Field, through observations of things happening in the real world
--forces our understanding to have genuine application and be broad
*One of the contributions of statistics, computer science and machine learning fields to cognitive
science is a focus on analyzing corporations.
--Large data-bases of real-world behavior
Cognitive Science Applications - ANSWER- Any area benefiting from
understanding/predicting how people perceive info * make decisions has the potential to apply
knowledge from cognitive science.
,Four Broad Areas of Cognitive Science Applications - ANSWER- ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE: search engines, decision-support systems
HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: Information visualization, interface design.
PSYCHOMETRIC: Measurement of cognitive abilities, detection and diagnosis of impairment.
SOCIAL COGNITION: Marketing, collaboration.
Two Big Issues - ANSWER- COGNITIVE: (Top-down, apperceptual) sources of information
coming from memory, knowledge and experience.
PERCEPTUAL: (bottom-up) sources of information coming from current sensory data in the
environment.
-The balance between the extent to which people:
- are the SAME, showing invariance in cognition, and
- are DIFFERENT, showing structured and meaningful individual differences.
Birth & Growth of Cognitive Science - ANSWER- -Spurred by rapid growth in computing
technology.
-The metaphor of the mind as a computer led to: information processing view of cognition, creation
of the field of Artificial Intelligence.
*The metaphor of the mind as a parallel network of neuron-like computing elements: leading to
neural network or CONNECTIONIST approaches.
*Most recent has been the rise of: Modern machine learning & statistical methods, especially
BAYESIAN methods, cognitive neuroscience based on brain imagining.
, Marr's Levels of Analysis - ANSWER- *Computational
-WHY does the cognitive capability behave like it does? What is its goal of purpose?
--Often this is the focus of artificial intelligence or machine learning.
*Algorithmic
-WHAT processing steps are made to make a decision, or produce behavior, or so on?
--Often this is the focus of cognitive psychology.
*Implementation
-HOW is perceptual and cognitive processing, the remembering of
information, and so on, actually done with neural hardware in the
brain?
--Often this is the focus of cognitive neuroscience
Levels of Analysis for Psychological Generalization - ANSWER- Generalization is the act of
treating two stimuli as if they were the
same, despite the ability to distinguish the two (Shepard 1987)
- e.g., a red berry eaten the day before was poisonous, so a
different red berry the next day is not eaten
Computational: Use what was learned in past to guide adaptive
behavior in the present
