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Summary PSYC309A: Cognitive Processes Summarized Textbook Notes CA$5.02
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Summary PSYC309A: Cognitive Processes Summarized Textbook Notes
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In depth and written with examples, these textbook notes cover chapters 1-8, excluding 6 in UBC's PSYC309A course with Dr. Daniela Palombo. It also includes notes on quiz mistakes that I've made during this course.

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  • Chapters 1-8, excluding 6
  • February 5, 2024
  • 27
  • 2022/2023
  • Summary

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Ch. 1- Introduction to Cognitive Psych

What is the mind?
- Def: creates and controls mental functions like perception, attention, memory, emotions,
language, reasoning, etc.
- It creates a rep of the world so we can achieve our goals
- It’s for cognition (mental processes like memory) as well as function (achieving goals)
and operation (creates rep)
- Cog psych: study of mental processes

History
- 1800s: cannot study the mind bc the mind can’t study itself
- Donders: measures reaction time to stimulus
- 1st cog psych experiment
- Measured simple reaction time by pushing a button when it lights up
- Measured choice reaction time by using 2 lights and getting ppl to push
whichever button lights up first
- Stimulus (light flashes) causes a mental response (perceiving the light) which
leads to a behavioral response (pushing the button)
- Reaction time is the time between stimulus and behavioral response
- Interested in the length of decision making (difference between simple and
choice reaction time)
- Mental processes (perceiving the light) cannot be directly measured. Must be
inferred from observing behavior
- All research in cog psych says mental responses cannot be directly measured.
Must be inferred from observing behavior
- Takes 1/10 seconds to make a decision bc choice reaction time takes 1/10 sec
- Wundt’s lab– structuralism and analytic introspection
- 1st psych lab
- Structuralism: overall experience from sensations
- Analytic introspection: describing experiences and thought processes in
response to stimuli
- Ebbingahaus’s memory experiment
- Quantitative measurement of mental processes
- How rapidly learned info is lost over time
- Repeated lists of nonsense words (eg. DAX, ZIF, QEH) 1 at a time, constant rate
- Waited for some time (delay) then determined how long it takes to relearn the list
- Relearned it more rapidly than learning it the 1st time
- Savings: 1st time minus 2nd time
- To determine how much was forgotten after the delay
- Savings decrease for longer delays (longer delays = smaller savings
- Reduction in savings means forgetting
- Savings curve: memory drops rapidly for the 1st 2 days after initial
learning and then levels off

, - Memory can be quantified
- William James’s principles of psych
- Not based on experiments, but on observations abt his mind’s operation
- Eg. paying attention to 1 thing means withdrawing from everything else
- 1st psych textbook

Watson- Behaviorism
- Introspection problems: differing results and cannot verify results
- Watson rejects introspection
- Focus on observable behavior
- Eg. Little Albert experiment- classical conditioning (pairing a neutral stimulus and a loud
stimulus like mouse and noise)
- Against making strong conclusions abt the mind
- Paradigm shift- emphasizes observable behaviours and not the mind
- Also emphasizes role of enviro and not genetics

Skinner’s operant conditioning
- Behavior is strengthened by positive reinforcers like food and approval
- Pavlov’s dogs experiment

Reemergence of the mind
- Tolman used behavior to infer mental processes
- He used the cognitive map (a conception in the rat’s mind to know the maze’s layout)
- Rat explores the maze, rat starts at point A and learns to turn right to get food. When
placed at point C, it knows to turn left to get food. It uses smell
- Initially, they think internal processes cannot be studied. But cog map led to the
reemergence of the mind

Rebirth of the study of the mind
- Cog revolution: transition from focussing on stimulus response relationships to
understanding the mind’s operation
- Scientific revolution: shifting from 1 paradigm to another
- Paradigm: sys of ideas that dominate science at a particular time
- Shifted from behaviorism to cog approach
- New tech like the computer is a new way of describing the mind’s operation

Evolution of cog psych
- Neisser: wrote the 1st cog psych textbook (mostly vision and hearing)
- But didn’t write abt physiology (knowledge gap)

Higher mental processes
- Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model of memory
- Memory progression has 3 stages
- Sensory memory holds incoming info for a second

, - Passes info to short term memory which holds info for a few seconds (like
remembering and writing down a phone number)
- Process of rehearsal: repeat smt like the phone # to not forget it
- Some info in STM can be transferred to long term memory which is high capacity
and can hold info for a long time
- Some info in LTM can be returned to STM
- LTM
- Episodic memory: events in your life (eg. what you did last weekend)
- Semantic memory: facts (capitals of the provinces)
- Procedural memory: physical action (riding a bike)

Physiology of cog
- Neuropsych: how ppl w/ brain damage behave. Study functioning of diff parts of the brain
- Electrophysiology: measures electrical responses of the nervous sys. Listens to singular
neuron activity
- PET scans: can activate areas of the brain during cog activity, but it’s expensive and
injects tracers into the bloodstream
- fMRI: don’t need to inject and is higher resolution

Palmer
- Knowledge abt the enviro influences our perception
- Eg. kitchen scene on the left and showed target pictures on the right
- Ppl identified bread more than mailbox or drum

Ch. 2- Cog Neuroscience

Levels of analysis
- Def: a topic can be studied many different ways
- Eg. car performance (acceleration, braking), under a car hood, how the car engine works
- Physiological levels of analysis
- Perception: chem processes→ neurons activated→ brain structures activated→
group of brain structures activated
- Memory: chem processes→ neurons activated→ brain storage→ storage
activated

Neurons: basic principles
- Neurons: create and transmit info abt what we experience and know
- Nerve net: signals can be transmitted throughout the net in all directions
- Used the staining technique (thin slice of brian tissue in silver nitrate) to see this
- Neuron doctrine: indiv cells transmit signals in nervous sys
- Cell body: center of the neuron. Keeps cell alive
- Dendrites: receives signals from other neurons
- Axons: transmits signals to other neurons
- Synapse: gap between end of neuron 1’s axon and neuron’s 2 dendrites

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