B&E3: Cognition, Attitude, and Motivation
Lecture 1: Thinking before doing? Impulsive and reflective processes in
behavioural control
Mental representations
Thinking before doing?
- Environment activates all kinds of mental representations, and these mental
representations affect our behaviour
- Mental representation: any mental content or operation that stands for something
else in the world
o Examples: categories, exemplars, symbols, mental images, memories, truth
values, probabilities, schemas, etc.
Functions of mental representation:
- For the most part we do not first see and then define, but define first and then see
(Lippman, 1992)
o We don’t see the world objectively, but we use the mental representations we
have to interpret the world around us
Classification
Additional attributes
Steering attention and interpretation
Communication
Thinking
,Availability & accessibility of mental representations:
- We have way more information available than accessible (at hand)
- Accessibility: the activation potential of available knowledge
o Not all information is accessible at every moment in time
Activation of mental representation:
- In this lexical decision task, participants were asked to view a makeup or chopstick
video clip and after that they had to categorise words related to women or Chinese
culture as words or non-words
- Once a category is activated, there is a heightened accessibility and participants are
therefore faster in responding (word or non-word)
How is knowledge stored in our mind?
How is knowledge stored?
Associative network models
Schema models
(Predictive coding)
Connectionist models
Multiple format models
, Embodied cognition
Situated cognition
Associative network models:
- Nodes contain information and are related to one and other
- Some associations are stronger than others
- Once something is activated, it spreads activation over the other nodes
Schema models:
- Our knowledge is stored in schemas
- Perceivers ‘go beyond the information given’ (Bruner, 1957)
- Schemas operate as a lens which with we see the world around us
- We have different schemas for different situations
- Directs attention, memory, and judgement
Predictive coding:
- Bayesian processes
o Priors (expectancies) affect perception
o Prior might be different in different situations (e.g., less certain about prior
that you have about apples)
o Posterior (comparison between perception and prior)
o If the perception is different from the prior → correct prior based on what you
have experienced
Lecture 1: Thinking before doing? Impulsive and reflective processes in
behavioural control
Mental representations
Thinking before doing?
- Environment activates all kinds of mental representations, and these mental
representations affect our behaviour
- Mental representation: any mental content or operation that stands for something
else in the world
o Examples: categories, exemplars, symbols, mental images, memories, truth
values, probabilities, schemas, etc.
Functions of mental representation:
- For the most part we do not first see and then define, but define first and then see
(Lippman, 1992)
o We don’t see the world objectively, but we use the mental representations we
have to interpret the world around us
Classification
Additional attributes
Steering attention and interpretation
Communication
Thinking
,Availability & accessibility of mental representations:
- We have way more information available than accessible (at hand)
- Accessibility: the activation potential of available knowledge
o Not all information is accessible at every moment in time
Activation of mental representation:
- In this lexical decision task, participants were asked to view a makeup or chopstick
video clip and after that they had to categorise words related to women or Chinese
culture as words or non-words
- Once a category is activated, there is a heightened accessibility and participants are
therefore faster in responding (word or non-word)
How is knowledge stored in our mind?
How is knowledge stored?
Associative network models
Schema models
(Predictive coding)
Connectionist models
Multiple format models
, Embodied cognition
Situated cognition
Associative network models:
- Nodes contain information and are related to one and other
- Some associations are stronger than others
- Once something is activated, it spreads activation over the other nodes
Schema models:
- Our knowledge is stored in schemas
- Perceivers ‘go beyond the information given’ (Bruner, 1957)
- Schemas operate as a lens which with we see the world around us
- We have different schemas for different situations
- Directs attention, memory, and judgement
Predictive coding:
- Bayesian processes
o Priors (expectancies) affect perception
o Prior might be different in different situations (e.g., less certain about prior
that you have about apples)
o Posterior (comparison between perception and prior)
o If the perception is different from the prior → correct prior based on what you
have experienced
