Applied Cognitive Psychology
- Problem solving and improving quality in the following areas; education,
work space, industry, transportation, military, justice, care and cure,
health, sports
- How to improve everyday modern life?
- Critically evaluating research, analysing real-world problems, providing
practical solutions based on theoretical knowledge
ACP model;
Outcome = Cognition x Environment
Core
- Cognition: memory, attention, flexibility, inhibition, motivation,
enjoyment
- Environment: organisation, product, website, tools
- The cognition and the environment interact to achieve a certain outcome
or goal, such as performance or safety
Indicators
- Measurable progress in the process of improving the cognition or the
environment; errors, accidents, speed, accuracy, understanding,
enjoyment
Factors
- Factors are the elements we can change in the environment (design,
lay-out, responsiveness) or the cognition (brain training, operating
instructions, situational awareness)
Fundamentals of Cognitions;
Human Information Processing, Central Processing, Responding
Human Information Processing
- Perception; hering grid (lateral inhibition in retina), motion-after-effect
(adaptation to motion), color-after-effect (adaptation to colors)
- Bottom up processing; visual performance is the result of physical
features of the stimuli: saliency (brightness, contrast, pop out effect)
, - Top down processing; how we interpret the stimuli changes the visual
perception (two-faced figures)
- Information quality = ↓, then top down influence = ↑
- Limitations; Broadbent’s Attentional Filter: early selection on attended
channel and physical properties
Attention;
Some semantic processing must be taking place
even when the Broadbent’s Attentional Filter takes place
- Two roles; selective agent (filtering process) and task management agent
- Three modes; selective, focused and divided
- Selective attention; influenced by four factors: salience, effort,
expectancy and value - attention model called SEEV
- Overt/Covert attention; out of focus/in the focused point
- Endogenous attention (from the inside) is intentional, controlled
(executive control), conscious and top down (concept driven)
- Exogenous attention (from the outside) is automatic, attracted by external
stimuli, unintentional and bottom up (stimulus driven)
- Visual search; pop-out (search for a stimulus with one different feature)
or a conjunction (search for stimuli with more differentiating features)
- Attentional control; disadvantage of automatic tasks - certain processes
are automatic and explaining how a process like that can be difficult
Memory;
Working memory, Long term memory, Decision Making
Working memory
- Short term memory; small capacity but also short duration, Murphy’s law
- Primacy/Recency effect; remembering information if it comes first and if
the event happened more recently
- Chunking (encoding letters with meaning)
- Interference (Stroop task)
- Working memory is a ‘mental workspace’ for complex tasks, control or
behavior: central executive, phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad
- Phonological loop; capacity of the loop is fixed duration of speech sounds
(2.5 seconds)
, - Visuospatial sketchpad; maintaining and manipulating visual information,
spatial insight, mental rotation
- Central executive; complex and least understood, coordinates, controls, it
is in charge of three different interlaced processes (inhibition, shifting,
updating)
- Inhibition; simon effect (incongruent response-stimulus location - if the
response and the result of the action are inconsistent one will perform
more slowly), stroop effect and stop signal
- Shifting; switching cost (longer reaction time and lower accuracy when
one has to switch from one behavior to another) - reduction of shared
resources of inhibition and updating
- Updating; replacing old information with new information
Long term memory
- Episodic (experiences) or semantic (general knowledge) memory
- Explicit (conscious recall) or implicit (unconscious, procedural) memory
- Three stages of long term memory; encoding, storage, retrieval
- Encoding; existing schemas help encoding information, Yerkes Dodson
Law (a low, medium or a high level of arousal can affect performance)
- Storage; decay (loss of memory, often and normal), interference (other
information coming in the way of remembering the information we want)
- Retrieval; spontaneous recall (hardest, 57%), cued recall (67%),
recognition (easiest, 83%)
- Forgetting; insufficient encoding, no focus on the information that is
being received
- Induced forgetting; focus on certain details in a story that makes it more
difficult to remember the other important information
- The Google effect; we are less able to memorize information, because of
extreme amounts of information surrounding us
Information Processing
Interacting with systems, perceiving information, transforming that information
into different forms, taking actions on the basis of the information, processing
the feedback from that action, assessing its effect on the environment
- Two types; there is the open-loop information processing or the closed
loop information processing
- Problem solving and improving quality in the following areas; education,
work space, industry, transportation, military, justice, care and cure,
health, sports
- How to improve everyday modern life?
- Critically evaluating research, analysing real-world problems, providing
practical solutions based on theoretical knowledge
ACP model;
Outcome = Cognition x Environment
Core
- Cognition: memory, attention, flexibility, inhibition, motivation,
enjoyment
- Environment: organisation, product, website, tools
- The cognition and the environment interact to achieve a certain outcome
or goal, such as performance or safety
Indicators
- Measurable progress in the process of improving the cognition or the
environment; errors, accidents, speed, accuracy, understanding,
enjoyment
Factors
- Factors are the elements we can change in the environment (design,
lay-out, responsiveness) or the cognition (brain training, operating
instructions, situational awareness)
Fundamentals of Cognitions;
Human Information Processing, Central Processing, Responding
Human Information Processing
- Perception; hering grid (lateral inhibition in retina), motion-after-effect
(adaptation to motion), color-after-effect (adaptation to colors)
- Bottom up processing; visual performance is the result of physical
features of the stimuli: saliency (brightness, contrast, pop out effect)
, - Top down processing; how we interpret the stimuli changes the visual
perception (two-faced figures)
- Information quality = ↓, then top down influence = ↑
- Limitations; Broadbent’s Attentional Filter: early selection on attended
channel and physical properties
Attention;
Some semantic processing must be taking place
even when the Broadbent’s Attentional Filter takes place
- Two roles; selective agent (filtering process) and task management agent
- Three modes; selective, focused and divided
- Selective attention; influenced by four factors: salience, effort,
expectancy and value - attention model called SEEV
- Overt/Covert attention; out of focus/in the focused point
- Endogenous attention (from the inside) is intentional, controlled
(executive control), conscious and top down (concept driven)
- Exogenous attention (from the outside) is automatic, attracted by external
stimuli, unintentional and bottom up (stimulus driven)
- Visual search; pop-out (search for a stimulus with one different feature)
or a conjunction (search for stimuli with more differentiating features)
- Attentional control; disadvantage of automatic tasks - certain processes
are automatic and explaining how a process like that can be difficult
Memory;
Working memory, Long term memory, Decision Making
Working memory
- Short term memory; small capacity but also short duration, Murphy’s law
- Primacy/Recency effect; remembering information if it comes first and if
the event happened more recently
- Chunking (encoding letters with meaning)
- Interference (Stroop task)
- Working memory is a ‘mental workspace’ for complex tasks, control or
behavior: central executive, phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad
- Phonological loop; capacity of the loop is fixed duration of speech sounds
(2.5 seconds)
, - Visuospatial sketchpad; maintaining and manipulating visual information,
spatial insight, mental rotation
- Central executive; complex and least understood, coordinates, controls, it
is in charge of three different interlaced processes (inhibition, shifting,
updating)
- Inhibition; simon effect (incongruent response-stimulus location - if the
response and the result of the action are inconsistent one will perform
more slowly), stroop effect and stop signal
- Shifting; switching cost (longer reaction time and lower accuracy when
one has to switch from one behavior to another) - reduction of shared
resources of inhibition and updating
- Updating; replacing old information with new information
Long term memory
- Episodic (experiences) or semantic (general knowledge) memory
- Explicit (conscious recall) or implicit (unconscious, procedural) memory
- Three stages of long term memory; encoding, storage, retrieval
- Encoding; existing schemas help encoding information, Yerkes Dodson
Law (a low, medium or a high level of arousal can affect performance)
- Storage; decay (loss of memory, often and normal), interference (other
information coming in the way of remembering the information we want)
- Retrieval; spontaneous recall (hardest, 57%), cued recall (67%),
recognition (easiest, 83%)
- Forgetting; insufficient encoding, no focus on the information that is
being received
- Induced forgetting; focus on certain details in a story that makes it more
difficult to remember the other important information
- The Google effect; we are less able to memorize information, because of
extreme amounts of information surrounding us
Information Processing
Interacting with systems, perceiving information, transforming that information
into different forms, taking actions on the basis of the information, processing
the feedback from that action, assessing its effect on the environment
- Two types; there is the open-loop information processing or the closed
loop information processing
