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Cognitive Psychology - Full Module Lecture Notes
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- Cognitive Psychology
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- Swansea University (SWAN)
Cognitive Psychology - Full Module Lecture Notes
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Cognition II: Irene Reppa 3-2-16Synaesthesia: abnormal Union of the senses.
Questions: ..
Synaesthesia terminology: a stimulus like a word or sound, usually some type of linguistic
stimulus induces the perception of something else e.g. A taste or colour. Concurrent is
generated in the persons mind and is it really there. Concurrent could also be auditory.
Key facts: no two synaesthetes have the same experiences. Genetic component. Hard to
test for.
Study: all synaesthetes, majority perceived letter a as red. Tend to associate high frequency
letters with high frequency colour name. The name red is a high frequency word and so is a.
Facts: typically higher prevalence in females though this may be as a result of females being
more likely to report.
Consistency within person can show Synaesthesia.
Not making it up: self report – witthoft and win 2006 – correspondence between colours
seen with letters and the colours of alphabetical fridge magnets seen in childhood.
If you have graphemes to colour Synaesthesia it is tended to be called photism?
Synaesthesia is automatic and so would cause disturbance in tests such as strop task. Have
to name font and the meaning of the word interferes with the processing of the colour.
When congruent faster response. When synaesthetes – made on individidual basis to
specific type of Synaesthesia. Congruent condition – colour of font made consistent with
colour of photism for that letter. Incongruent condition – not consistent. Large impact on
performance.
Projectors and associators: projectors – those who are perceiving the concurrent stimulus as
if it is really there in front of them, they can see it outside of their mind. Associators –
different mechanism, can see the correct colour but make close association internally, in
their mind.
Dixon: black lines – ignore photism and to name the actual colour, projectors had large
difference and greater interference between congruent and incongruent whereas associates
had a lower interference between colour and photism when congruent and incongruent.
Dashed – had to name their photism and ignore font colour, projectors found it a lot easier
to focus on photism whereas associators struggled to ignore the actual colour of the letter.
Visual search: synaesthetes response faster on visual search task.
Palmeri: two difficult searches, two was orange and five was green, performance much
faster than controls as the numbers were two different colours but when eight and six
shown as both were same colours he took as long as the controls.
,Brain imaging: synaesthetes with closed eyes and word told to them. Auditory and visual
cortex both activated even though they are not receiving visual input.
Constructive nature of perception.
Cross activation: Find a lot of Synaesthesia in babies as their brains are very interconnected
but once it is not used then corresponding areas die back. Pruning. Because regions are
close they are very week interconnected and so cross activation occurs.
Disinhibition: from senses information goes to the brain to primary sensory centres. Feed
forward – from primary cortex to cognitive areas of the brain. Information also travels back
from parietal lobe to the primary sensory areas – feedback connections. In Synaesthesia the
feedback connection is stronger than what they should be according to this theory.
Inhibitory controls of feedback connections are not fully functioning.
Projectors may be more explained by disinhibition and associators with cross activation.
Do we all: …
Synaesthesia is an example of how perception is constructive.
Cognition: Cris. 15-4-16
Cognition exam: Three sections that correspond to each lecturer. Each section will have
three questions in which you select one. Essay questions. One question from each section.
About 40minutes per question.
The way in which we memorise words is different to the way we memorise other things
such as maths.
Approaches: Classic debate that is still continuing today. Opposing views, started in the
fifties by skinner and ?
Behaviourism: born as blank slate tabula rasa? Operant conditioning, reinforcement, sounds
reinforced by baby will be repeated and those not reinforced will stop being used. Relies
heavily on positive feedback.
Nativist: not everything the baby produces is reinforced. There is actually very little
reinforcement and this declines when they age, may reinforce incorrect language maybe if
they produce something that is funny and parent laughs. Still masters the language even
when others make mistakes in language use. When baby born, they seem to know some
things about language, often have preference for mum when she talks which can be
soothing to baby, also seem to have preference for the language of the parents even when
spoken by some else. Even show preference at age of two days
Thus..: suggested some form of language organ within the brain, LAD enables absorption of
language.
There might be something innate but it is difficult to believe that there is a gene for a
particular language.
2
, The fact that babies know some things about language when they are born, it doesn't mean
that the knowledge is innate because experience and learning can take place before birth.
Before birth: GA – gestational age.
Meg: it records the BOLD response or location of brain that is active by measuring the
oxygenation if the blood. Also good at recording time,more cording electrical activity.
Combines outcomes of fmri and eeg.
Std – standard sound, Dev – deviant sound. Able to discriminate between sounds as brain
responds differently.
Heart: measures heart rate. Basal heart rate of baby but changes when something changes.
Between voice onset to offset reflects change in heart rate when mother spoke compared to
below graph or when a third woman spoke. Basal caused by second woman speaking. 30-32
GA.
One of the questions to ask is that if learning before birth is so important, what happens to
those babies who are deaf? Down's syndrome? Are they at a disadvantage? Do they learn at
a different rate to normal babies?
Phonetic: relies on the sucking response of babies, the strength and frequency of sucking
increases when something novel is presented.
Eimas: sounds for the language, difference between b and p is the time of vibration in the
vocal cords.
Babies as soon as they are born they are able to discriminate sounds within a categorical
way. They do this in the same way as adults. Supports idea that there may be some innate
aspect to the acquisition of language. Any VOT below 60 will perceive b, even when sound
manipulated. With d or p, the VOT will be 90 or later. VOT – voice onset time. Ms. A bigger
difference, is not perceived differently if they are between VOT for two different sounds,
e.g. If the different VOT are for a b and for a d, regardless of the difference between them
they will be perceived in the same way as b and d.
Many animals also seem to have this discrimination mechanism.
Citizens: able to discriminate the phonemes of any language in the world at six months. Use
head turn preference method – rely on turning of baby head.
Head turn: video – babies are interested in new information, interest can be measures
throug sucking or through looking time or through head turn. They are trained to turn their
head when there is a difference. Can discriminate between phonemes of languages that are
not of the language of their parents and can even discriminate between those they have not
ever heard or been exposed to. By twelve months they lose this ability to discriminate
between all phonemes.
Graph shows that at six months able to discriminate any sound, as they age they lose ability
and focus and become specialised in discriminating between sounds of own language
(language of parents). Ra and la, Japanese participants find it difficult to discriminate
between these two. Discrimination in American increases with age in percentage correct but
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