Cognitive Psychology
Keywords and definitions
Introspection: looking within, limits: not testable, reliable and subjective, unconscious thoughts not taken into
account
Behaviourism: the mind is a black box, focus on input (stimulus) and output (behaviour): is testable, objective
and observable.
Transcendental method: solve the problem that introspection is unreliable, untestable and subjective and that
behaviourism does not look into the mind at all by starting at the observable behaviour and working back
trying to find the cause
Working memory: memory used when actively working on a particular piece of information
Central executive: part of the working memory that controls voluntary behaviour, helps you focus on one thing
at a time, set goals and subgoals
Articulatory rehearsal loop: part of the working memory that stores information by rehearsing it. Makes the
central executive clear in order to do other processing
Phonological buffer: inner ear, rehearsal of auditory information in working memory
Visuospatial buffer: storage for visual images in working memory
Episodic buffer: chronological storage of events in working memory
Subvocal speech: inner voice, rehearsal of verbal information in working memory
Articulatory suppression: suppresses subvocalization and thus the articulatory rehearsal loop, storage more
difficult (saying tahtahtah)
Span test: test to measure working memory capacity
Anarthria: inability to speak
Capras syndrome: amygdala damaged, so no loving feeling towards loved ones and prefrontal cortex damaged,
no filter for illogical thoughts (killing father because thinking it in an intruder)
Neuroimaging: 3D pictures of the brain (scans)
Occipital lobe: lobe that has mechanisms for processing of visual information
Amygdala: regulates and analyses emotions and illogical thoughts
Prefrontal cortex: has hindbrain, forebrain and midbrain in it
Hindbrain: contains cerebellum (balance), regulates rhythms of heartbeat and breathing
Midbrain: coordinates precise movement (eyes)
Forebrain: contains cerebral cortex
Cerebral cortex: outer, folded layer of brain, contains motor areas, sensory areas and association areas
Thalamus: relay station for all sensory information going to the cortex
Hypothalamus: hormone regulation, under thalamus
Limbic system: around thalamus and hypothalamus, contains the amygdala and hippocampus
,Hippocampus: memory, in limbic system
Lateralization: all brain lobes come in pairs, for left and right brain half. The two halves work together, are both
specialized in slightly different things.
Split-brain: left and right brain half do not work together properly
Commissures: communication lines between brain halves
Neuropsychology: study of brain areas and functions and how those relate to one another
Clinical neuropsychology: examining legions or using TMS to find the functions of undamaged brains (see what
is no longer working without specific brain area)
Legions: damaged brain areas
Alpha rhythm: rhythm of brain activity when awake, but relaxed (shower)
Delta rhythm: rhythm of brain activity when deeply asleep
Event-related potential: brain activity while reacting to an event
TMS: temporarily ‘shutting off’ particular brain areas to do research on brain function
Apraxis: damage in association area, organization and initialization of actions disturbed
Agnosia: damage in association area, identifying objects disturbed
Neglect syndrome: damage in association area, neglecting half of the visual world while perceiving and imaging
(left half)
Aphasia: damage in association area, language capacities disturbed: unable to speak
Axon: outputs neurotransmitters out of presynaptic membrane
Dendrite: takes neurotransmitters as input through postsynaptic membrane (tree-like)
All-or-none law: neurons need to pass an action potential (certain threshold of activity) in order to fire. They
either fire or not, no in between (1-0)
Photoreceptors: rods (brightness, sensitive) and cones (colour, details, less sensitive to brightness)
Fovea: the centre of the retina, cones are here. Cones find detail, that is why you face directly toward an
object when you want to look at it more closely. Rods are on the outside of the retina, that is why you can see
stars (dim light) better from the corner of your eye.
Lateral inhibition: detector cells inhibit surrounding cells, making the edges of objects more prominent
Receptive fields: detector cells have different receptive fields (lines, curves, motion, light, etc)
Centre-surround cells: when light falls in the middle of receptive field, it has a certain effect. When light falls on
the outside of the receptive field, that effect is the opposite
What system: object recognition, occipital - temporal
Where system: object location, occipital - parietal
Binding problem: after detectors found their own type of information and processed it, input needs to be put
together again into one bigger picture
Neural synchrony: when neurons fire at the same type, the input they detected is put together when binding
Gestalt principles: principles that help understand the way we perceive forms of objects
, Perceptual constancy: when a car is driving towards us, we perceive the size of the car as constant even
though the car is becoming bigger on our retina
Unconscious inference: unconscious calculation to allow perceptual constancy ( size constancy: retina size x
distance = real size)
Contrast effect: when something light is close to something dark, it looks even lighter because of contrast
Apperceptive agnosia: unable to link elements into one object
Associative agnosia: unable to link object to knowledge (find verbal label)
Bottom-up processing: starting at input features, building up toward image, data-driven
Top-down processing: starting at knowledge of concepts and the world, interpreting input accordingly,
concept-driven
Integrative agnosia: unable to put separate features of input together into one object or image
Frequency effect: when a stimulus is encountered often, the detector cells are already warmed up (primed).
Next detection goes faster and recall is easier
Recency effect: when a stimulus has just been encountered, the detector cells are still warmed up (primed).
Next detection goes faster and recall is easier
Primacy effect: the first stimuli in a series can be rehearsed more often, so recall is easier
Priming: warming up detector cells
Word-superiority effect: letters are more easily found in existing words, because participant knows in one
glimpse which letters are in there instead of having to read all of them
Well-formed words: words that are formed according to the unwritten rules about possible letter
combinations (does not have to be existing word). Letters in well-formed words are also easier found.
Feature net: net of detectors
Bigram detectors: detect sets of two
Distributed knowledge: knowledge is about the combination paths of activation when a certain stimulus is
given
Geons: building blocks for objects
Propagnosia: unable to recognize faces
Inversion effect: recognizing objects is more difficult when they are presented upside down (this effect is
strongest for face recognition)
Fusiform face area: brain area specialized in face recognition
Holistic perception: perceiving faces as one whole
Composite effect: perceiving parts of different faces as one whole when presented in a compatible way
Selective attention: focus the beam of attention on one thing
Dichotic listening: listening to an attended channel while ignoring the unattended channel
Shadowing: repeating exactly what you have just heard
Inattentional blindness: when so focused on one thing, miss something else that can be right in front of you
