Aantekeningen
College 1
H.M. was unable to form new memories. He could not grieve for a dead uncle and had little sense
of himself.
Wundt and his student Titchener began the study of experimental psychology in the late 1800s.
Introspection = observing your own thoughts. The problem is that thought are not directly
observable and impossible to test objectively. Behaviorism overcame the limitations posed by
introspection. It focused on observable behaviors. Behaviorism uncovered principles of how
behavior changes in response to stimuli, such as rewards and punishments. The problem was that
stimulus-response accounts are not enough and that behavior has a mental cause. From
introspection and behaviorism, experimental psychologist learned that introspective methods for
studying mental events are not scientific. However, we need to study mental events in order to
understand behavior.
Transcedental method of Immanuel Kant: Work backward from observation to determine cause.
Cognitive psychologists study mental events, but do so indirectly. They measure stimuli and
responses, develop hypotheses about mental events and design new experiments.
Working memory is temporary memory storage. The span test measures working memory (WM)
capacity. Working memory is not unitary. System composed of a central executive (assistant
components). Working memory is more than just the span task. It is involved in many of the
activities we perform on a daily basis. It is also important for learning.
Deaf people confuse words with similar hand shapes, not similar sounds.
Multiple lines of evidence must be used when hypothesizing mechanisms used to explain
observable data. Often a single piece of data can be explained by a variety of hypotheses.
Experiments allow cognitive psychologists to understand internal complex mechanisms in a
simpler, more constrained manner.
,College 2 - Perception & Object recognition
Perceptie gaat over het binnen krijgen van sensorische informatie. Het boek gaat eigenlijk alleen
maar over bewuste waarneming. Hoofdstuk 3 gaat over proces van bewust worden en
interpreteren van sensorische informatie (vision, hearing, touch, pain & proprioception, smell &
taste, time).
Why is object recognition important? Crucial for applying your knowledge, crucial for learning (and
recognizing). Er zijn twee processen die hiervoor van cruciaal belang zijn: Form perception (shape
and size) & object recognition (identification). Maar hoe werkt dit proces nou? Al die kennis die
hierbij komt kijken noemen we perceptual intelligence: the knowledge that we bring to certain
situation plays an important role in perception.
Form perception: simple visual features —> object recognition —> knowledge. Knowledge wordt
weert teruggekoppeld naar object recognition. Dit process is paralel, je doet niet eerst dan dat,
maar alles gebeurd tegelijkertijd.
Two sources of information. Perception is determined by the energy that reaches a person’s
receptors (bottom-up processing) and the knowledge that the person brings to a situation (top-
down processing). As stimuli become more complex, the role of top-down processing increases.
Very often, a combination of both types of information guide perception. Een belangrijke theory
hierbij is theory of unconscious inference (Helmholtz 1821-1894): Some of our perceptions are the
result of unconscious assumptions that we make about the environment.
Recognition begins with features - the small elements that result tom the organized perception of
form. Features are the building blocks, commonalities for variable objects, play a role in visual
search. Kleur is dominant over orientate bij de meeste mensen.
, College 3
Recent firing = higher starting activation level. Frequency leads to higher activation en repetition
increases activations. Explains the ear lies discussed effects of word frequency and repetition
priming.
Knowledge is not locally represented, but rather distributed knowledge. However, nodes are still
clearly encoding for a particular feature whereas in humans it’s unlikely that we have neurons like
that (grandmother cell). Errors (CQRN) arise from the networks ability to deal with ambiguous
inputs and to recover from errors. Accuracy sacrifices for efficiency. A much more complex feature
net with feedforward and feedback loops. More like a brain.
Marr (1982): vision can be understood as an information processing task which converts a
numerical image representation into a symbolic shape-oriented representation. From photons to
objects: Primary sketch provides a 2D description of the low-level changes in light intensity. Gives
information about edges, counters and blobs. Observer’s perspective. 2,5 D sketch adds
information about depth and orientation surfaces. Uses shadows, textures, movement, binocular
disparity etc. Observer’s perspective. 3D model representation; 3D objects, relative positions,
viewpoint invariant.
Biederman’s recognition by components: objects are combinations of geons. Geometric icons and
36 basic shapes. Recognition is independent from viewpoint, emphasis on bottom-up processing.
Viewpoint dependence appears when: interpreting faces, expertise is high, specific individuals
have to be recognized, configuration of component parts are important.