Behavior and Environment 3
Lecture 1
Thinking before doing; impulsive and reflective processes in behavioral control
Mental representations; any mental content or operation that stand for something else in the world.
- Categories, symbols, memories, schemas, values
- Can affect the world that we see (stereotypes)
Purposes of mental representation;
- Classification of object or people
- Additional attributes
- Steering attention and interpretation
- Communication
- Thinking
Environment -> mental representations -> behavior
Availability of mental representations; amount of knowledge available, are stored somewhere
Accessibility of mental representations; thing that you are working on determines whether a mental
representation is accessible in a specific moment. The activation potential of available knowledge.
How is knowledge stored?
Associative network models; work like a computer. Different notes and relationships between the
notes that can become active, this makes a mental representation. Some relationships/ links are
stronger than others.
- Parallel search model; implicit -> implicit representations can become explicit by spreading
activation that crosses a threshold (quantitative)
- Serial search model; explicit -> implicit representations can become explicit by intentionally
performing a serial search (qualitative)
- Bottom-up approach
Schema models; schemas operate as a lens. Direct attention, memory and judgment. Abstract forms of
mental representation knowledge and might steer our behavior. Associations relating to a certain
behavior.
- Top-down approach
Predictive coding; tend to behave similar to schemas. Knowledge is called priors (what we expect),
they influence how we perceive the world around us. Priors affect perception. Posterior; comparison
between perception and prior (updating the prior).
Connectionist models; connectionism; parallel distribution processing. Facilitative links and
inhibitive links between nodes. Concepts exist by means of dynamic interplay of distributed elements.
Don’t have information in itself. Only the activation of sets of nodes represent a mental representation,
not one node in itself.
- Mimic the network structure of the human neurons.
- Do not assume the specific nodes have semantic meaning. Representations are seen as
emergent patterns of connected nodes. Different representations are only different
recombinations of the same set of nodes.
, - Localist connectionist models; single nodes can have semantic meaning; one neuron can
represent specific things. Much like associative network models.
Multiple format models; memory system model. Not every kind of knowledge is stored in the same
way and brain area. Because we learn differently in situations it is stored in a different way and area
and will produce different behavior. Memory system; affective, semantic and procedural systems.
Embodied cognition models; we represent our mental representation not only in our mind, but also in
our bodies, or even outside of the body. Representations are modality-specific. Partial re-experience.
By thinking of coffee, you could already taste it, smell it, etc. Not happening just in the brain, but also
in other modalities.
- A-modal models; abstract representations that do not retain the sensory components from the
original experience
- Modal models; are constituted by sensory experiences. Effortful process, more explicit.
Situated cognition models; mental representations result from dynamic interactions between the
brain, body and environment. There can be mental representations outside of the body. You don’t have
to store everything in your own mind, store it somewhere else and know where to look it up.
Not just one right model, just different way you can think about how knowledge is stored in
our mind. Some more experimental evidence then others.
All models agree on the concept of temporary explicitness; representations can become
conscious under the right circumstances.
Behavior regulation
Impulsive versus reflective behavior
- Levels of automaticity; dimensions (low – high)
o Level of consciousness; limited accessibility to reasons for own behavior
Subliminal priming
o Level of intentionality; if you perform behavior without intending it, it is more
automatic then when you intend to do it. (habits)
o Level of controllability; (holding your breath)
o Level of efficiency; behavior can be difficult to learn (driving). Behavior gets so
efficient, it doesn’t need all of your attention anymore.
Reflective impulsive system; dual process model
People do not always behave in line with their values; akrasia.
Homeostatic dysregulation; deprivation of basic needs will lead to an activation of those
behavioral schemata that in the past frequently led to the satisfaction of those needs.
Two systems; work in parallel
- Impulsive; always activated, approach or avoidance
o Knowledge representation; based on associations
Behavior is based on spreading activation of knowledge to motor
representations according to ideo-motor processes;
Thinking about behavior is enough to trigger behavior
Long-term memory
Behavioral schemata in impulsive systems can be seen as habits
- Reflective; needs motivation and opportunity to be activated, assigning truth-values
, o Knowledge representation; based on propositions (based on associations)
Behavior is based on choices. Choices may, by means of intentions, activate
motor-representations in the impulsive system.
Choice -> intention -> behavioral schemata -> behavior
Choices can be based on full consideration of pros and cons, intuition or
anything in between.
Rule-based processing
Noetic state of awareness; knowing that something is or is not the case
Negations can only be executed in the reflective system (not difficult vs easy)
Synergistic interplay; if the reflective and the impulsive system contribute to an activation of the
same schema, the behavior will be facilitated. Has a positive hedonic quality, feeling of fluency.
Antagonistic interplay; two systems may compete if they activate incompatible schemata. Feeling of
conflict and temptation. When processes are in conflict; the process with the strongest activation will
lead to that behavioral outcome.
Understanding priming effects; prime activates mental representations and lead to behavior.
- Empirical inconsistency in findings; conceptual priming seems a very robust phenomenon,
easy to replicate. Behavioral priming effects seem difficult to replicate. The process of the
prime is critical and the context in which the prime is used, not just the prime itself.
- Moderators; content of specific stereotypes (value, self-relevance)
Situated inference model;
- Prime exposure
o Primes produce general construct accessibility which is used flexibly. Primes increase
the accessibility of related information.
- Misattribution
o Accessible content is misattributed to one’s own response
o If the misattribution does not happen, no priming effects will occur
o Primes that are especially extinct are unlikely to be misattributed to alternative targets,
these primes often produce contrast effects, they highlight how different the target is
from the accessible construct.
o Primes that are highly ambiguous are more likely to show priming effects
- Afforded questions
o Misattributed content is used to answer the question afforded by the focal target.
People tend to use accessible thoughts to guide responses to situations.
Construal priming; who/what is that?; judgment of a person, object or event
High cognitive load can increase the impact of primes.
High levels of self-consciousness can prevent primes form impacting behavior
Positive affect is seen as a cue that one should use mental content, whereas negative affect is
seen as a cue that current thoughts can not be trusted
Individuals who are given the mindset to make decisions based on their intuitive gut feelings
are more affected by subliminal primes
Availability is every knowledge stored somewhere.
Modal models; sensory components in mental representations
- Embodied cognition models