The mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking and reasoning (def. are compatible)/The mind is a system that creates representations of the world
so that we can act w/in it to achieve our goals. Associated w/ normal functioning. How mind operates and its functions. Cognition: mental processes, such as perception, attention, and memory, that are what the mind does.
Franciscus Donders: First CP Experiment in 1868: How long it takes for a person to make a decision? Found out that mental responses must be inferred from behaviour (cannot be measured directly). Measuring reaction
time: how long it takes to respond to presentation of a stimulus. (Reaction time = time between presenting stimulus and behavioural response)Simple reaction time: asking subjects to push a button as rapidly as possible when
they saw a light goes on. Choice reaction time: using two lights and ask subjects to push the left button when they saw the left light go on and right button when they saw right light go on. Wilhelm Wundt: Structuralism: our
overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience the structuralists called sensations. Empiricist approach relies on experiments to gain knowledge about the human mind. Analytic introspection:
trained subjects described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli (e. g. hearing 5 note chord, can they hear each chord. Ebbinghaus: Savings: determine how much was forgotten after a particular delay:
Savings = (Original time to learn the list)-(Time to relearn the list after the delay). The more delay, the less savings. Savings curve: memory drops rapidly for the first 2 days after initial learning, then levels off. Donders and
Ebbinghaus can be considered CP-ists because they conducted research and made significant contributions to understanding cognitive processes. John Watson: Founds Behaviourism around 1913: focused on observable
behavior as the primary subject of study, rejecting the study of mental processes that could not be directly observed. Classical conditioning: how pairing one stimulus (e. g loud noise presented) w/ another, previously neutral
stimulus (e. g rat) causes changes in the response to the neutral stimulus. B. F. Skinner: another tool for studying relation stimulus and response: Operand conditioning: how behaviour is strengthened by the presentation of
positive reinforcers (e. g food/social approval) or withdrawal of negative reinforces (e. g shock/social rejection)Tolman: Used behaviour to infer mental processes. 1)Place rat in maze. Rat explores maze 2)Place at at A. Place food
at B. Rat turns right to obtain food 3)Place rat at C. Rat turns left for food. Cognitive map: conception w/in the rat’s mind of maze’s layout. Noam Chomsky: language development not by imitation or reinforcement, but by an
inborn biological program that holds across culture. Cognitive revolution (1950s): Shift in psychology from behaviourist’s stimulus > the goal of understanding the operation of the mind. Influenced by the PC > human=Inf. Proc
w/ lim capacity. CP>model analogy>testing formdata>evaluating>change model. Ulrich Neisser: Information-processing approach: the human mind=system that processes information same as a PC. mental processes are
seen as sequential and systematic, involving the encoding, storage, retrieval, and manipulation of information. Relevant for CP: provides a structured and systematic framework for studying cognitive procesGeorgeMiller:
processing of human mind is limited 7 items. Logic theorist: computer program that used humanlike reasoning processes to create proofs of mathematical theorems, showcasing early artificial intelligence capabilities. Models help
us visualize or explain the structure or process. 1)Structural models: representation of a physical structure. Can mimic appearance of an object. Purpose: simplify: easier to study & understand the system (e. g. brain model)2)
Process models: represent the processes that are involved in cognitive mechanisms (e. g. Broadbent’s filter model of attention). 3) Resource models focus on the mental effort that the processes require. Multiple resource
model: consists of three dimensions and can therefore be expressed as a cube (e. g. combining stages, responses, etc. )Research suggests that intermixing different topics w/in a particular domain (interleaving) will not
deteriorate but actually improve performanceRetrieval based learning: testing yourself w/ the information you just read instead of just rereading. (recall after reading texts: SSSSS performed well immediately but had significant
forgetting after a week. STTT initially had lower recall but retained more information. ) Situations important to understand how we process information/take decisions: Interrogation, cockpit for pilots, Road safety (street signs), jury
trials (jury need to process lots of info, and make decisions. Perception: experiences resulting from stimulation of the senses, Can be changed based on added info, and occur rapidly and effortlessly. (Interpretation and
Ambiguity. Inverse projection problem: task of determining the object responsible for a particular image on the retina. rays can be created by infinite number of objects, so the image on retina is ambiguous. Viewpoint
invariance: The ability to recognize an object seen from different viewpoints. Relation between experience and the principles of perceptual organization: Bottom-up processing: sequence of events from eye to brain
(light entering the eye and electrical signals in brain), environmental energy stimulate receptors. Top-down processing: originates in the brain. Perception needs more information, like a persons knowledge of the environment,
the expectations and the attention a person gives something. Pain influenced by: expectations, how attention is directed, type of distracting stimuli. Direct pathway model: Model of pain perception that proposes that pain signals
are sent directly from receptors to the brain. 1: Hemholtz: Unconscious inference: perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions /inferences that we make about the environment. We infer based on experience
Likelihood principle: we perceive object that is most likely to have caused the pattern of stimuli we received2: Gestalt psychologists: perception is based on more than just the pattern of light & dark on retina, its determined
by specific organizing principles. The mind naturally organizes sensory information to prioritize simplicity, regularity, and meaningfulness. These principles are inherent and automatic, guiding the process of perception to create
organized and coherent interpretations of the world. Principles of perceptual organization: created to explain the way elements are grouped together to create larger objects. Principle of good continuation: points that,
when connected, result in straight or smoothly curving lines are seen as belonging together, and lines tend to be seen in such a way as to follow the smoothest path. (rope). Principle of similarity: similar things appear to be
grouped together (size, shape, color, orientation). Law of pragnanz/good figure/simplicity: every stimulus pattern is seen is such a way that the resulting structure is as simple as possible. E. g Olympic symbol: 5 circles
instead of 9 separate shapes. Max Wertheimer: organising principles as “intrinsic laws”: they are built into the system experience can influence perception (minor compared to perceptual principles)3: Regularities in the
environment: characteristics of the environment that occur frequently and therefore strongly influence what we expect to see (e. g blue ~ sky, landscape ~ green & smooth) Physical regularities: regularly occurring physical
properties of environment. E. g More vertical & horizontal orientations in environment than oblique (angled) orientations. Oblique effect: can perceive horizontals and verticals more easily than other orientations. Light-from-
above assumption: assume light is coming from above (light in environment including light & sun usually comes from above). Semantic regularities: characteristics associated w/ the functions carried out in different types of
scene. Semantic: meaning of scene. Scene schema: knowledge of what a given scene typically contains4: Bayesian Inference: our estimate of probability of an outcome is determined by 2 factors: 1)Prior probability: Initial
belief about the probability of an outcome2)Likelihood: Extent to which the available evidence is consistent w/ the outcome E. g book: Prior: Books are rectangular. Likelihood: Additional evidence i. e book’s retinal image
combined w/ perception of book’s distance and angle viewing book. In the context of the inverse projection problem, Bayesian inference can be used to provide a solution that quantifies uncertainty by assigning a probability to
each possible value of the unknown parameter/input and incorporates prior information and beliefs about the unknown parameter/input. 134use data about environment(Top-down processing). 2: Bottom-up processin. Movement
helps us perceive objects in environment more accurately (not from single viewpoint)2 methods for physiological research: 1) Brain ablation: study of effect of removing parts of brain. 2) Neuropsychology: study of behaviour
of people w/ brain damage. The research suggests that the brain has two processing streams: one for perceiving objects and another for locating and taking action towards objects. What/perception pathway: pathway leading
from visual cortex to temporal lobe. Object discrimination problem: A problem in which the task is to remember an object based on its shape and choose it when presented w/ another object after a delay. Where/action
pathway: pathway leading from visual cortex to parietal lobe. Landmark discrimination problem: Problem in which the task is to remember an object’s location and to choose that location after a delay. Visual agnosia:
Inability to recognize everyday objects, familiar faces and geometrical shapes. (damage to temporal lobe)Ebbinghaus illusion: judging the central circle to be smaller compared to its actual size when surrounded by bigger circles
and vice versa. Placebo: A pill/procedure that patients believe delivers active ingredients, but which contains no active ingredient. Speech segmentation: The process of perceiving individual words w/in the continuous flow of the
speech signal. Visual masking paradigm: Paradigm used to study pre-perceptual processing by brief target presentations preceded and followed by visual masks that prevent conscious processing of the target stimuli. Attention:
The ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations. Selective attention: Attending to one thing while ignoring others. Distraction: one stimulus interfering w/ the processing of another stimulus. Divided attention: Paying
attention to more than one thing at a time. Attentional capture: Rapid shifting of attention usually caused by a stimulus (e. g loud noise, bright/sudden movement). Visual scanning: Movements of the eyes from one location or
object to another. Attention bias: The tendency to pay attention to pay attention to some things while simultaneously ignoring others. Spatial attention: A form of attention that involves directing attention to a certain location in
space. Shadowing: Focus word on one ear and repeating it. Colin Cherry found that people can shadow spoken message + report unattended message (male/female), but are not aware of info presented to unattended ear.
Cocktail party effect: Ability to focus on one stimulus while filtering out other stimuli. Donald Broadbent: Filter Model of Attention: how it is possible to focus on one message and why info isn’t taken in from other message.
Sensory memory: Holds all incoming information (fraction of second) then passes to Filter. Filter: Identifies message being attended to based on physical characteristics (e. g tone of voice, pitch, speed of talking, accent etc)
Detector: Processes info from attended message to determine higher-level characteristics of message (i. e meaning) - only important, attended info is let through filter STM: Holds info for 10~15 seconds, then transfers info into
LTM. It is a bottleneck model: Model of attention that proposes that incoming information is restricted at some point in processing, so only a portion of the information gets through to consciousness. It is also an early
selection model: Model of attention that explains selective attention by early filtering out of the unattended message. In Broadbent’s early selection model, the filtering step occurs before the message is analyzed to determine its
meaning. Anne Treisman: Attenuation model of attention (Leaky filter model): language and meaning can also be used to separate messages. Attenuator (process): Analyzes incoming message in terms of: Physical
characteristics (High/low-pitched, fast/slow), Language(how message groups into syllables/words), Meaning (sequences of words create meaningful phrases). Attended message: full strength;Unattended message: still
presented but weaker. Dictionary unit: contains words, stored in memory, has threshold for being activated. Words that are common/especially important>low thresholds. Donald MacKay: Late selection models of attention:
most of incoming info is processed to level of meaning before message to be further processed is selected. Processing capacity: Amount of information people can handle and sets limit on their ability to process incoming
information. Perceptual load: Difficulty of a task (Low-load tasks: easy, use small amount of person’s processing capacity. High-load tasks: difficult, use more processing capacity)Load theory of attention: w/ a low-load
task, there is still processing capacity left. Which means that there are resources available to process task-irrelevant stimulus. This slows down responding. Stroop effect: situation in which task-irrelevant stimuli are difficult to
ignore, (Identify color of shapes vs. color of printed color words). Emotional ST: emotional and non-emotional words are presented in different colour ink. Anxious people tend to respond slower to negative emotion words as
compared to neutral words. The frontal lobe is involved in cognitive control processes, WM, and dual task coordination. Frontal lobe damage can result in difficulties maintaining focus and ignoring irrelevant distractors. Overt
attention: Shifting attention from one place to another by moving eyes. Covert attention: Shifting attention from one place to another while keeping eyes stationary. Central vision: area you are looking at. Objects in fovea.
Peripheral vision: everything off to the side. Fixation: Briefly paused on one target. Saccadic eye movement: rapid, jerky movement from one fixation to the next. This is bottom-up processing: depends solely on pattern of
light & dark, color & contrast - w/out meaning. Stimulus salience: physical properties of stimulus (e. g color, contrast, movement). Saliency map: map of a scene that indicates the stimulus salience of areas and objects in the
scene. Our eye movements are also determined top-down processes associated w/ personal interests and scene schemas: an observer’s knowledge about what is contained in typical scenes. Posner: two types cueing procedures:
Endogenous cues: always appear in the centre of the computer screen and indicate where the participant can expect the subsequent target. Exogenous cues: appear at one of the locations where the subsequent target could
appear. Divided attention: distribution of attention among two or more tasks Practice made it possible to divide attention. Divided attention becomes more difficult when tasks are harder Automatic processing: type of
processing that occurs (1)w/o intention and (2)cost only some of person’s cognitive resources (e. g Locking door). Inattentional blindness: not attending to something that is clearly visible. Look at display on window and fail to
notice reflections on surface of window. Arien Mack & Irvin Rock: subjects can be unaware of clearly visible stimuli if they aren’t directing their attention to them. Daniel Simons & Christopher Chabris: Attention can affect perception
w/in a dynamic scene. Observers attending to one sequence of events, can fail to notice other events when when right in front of them (basketball match, gorilla suit walking trough) Change blindness: Difficulty in detecting
changes in scenes. Binding: Process by which features such as color, form, motion, and location are combined to create our perception of a coherent object. Binding problem: how object’s individual features become bound
together. Anne Treisman’s Feature integration theory: how we perceive individual features as part of same object. 1) Preattentive stage: objects are analyzed into separate features (Features exist independently of one
another, Occurs early in perceptual process - before we become conscious of the object, Independent features - “free floating” > incorrectly combined if there is more than one object. ) Illusory conjunctions: a phenomenon in
which features from different stimuli are combined incorrectly, leading to the perception of objects that possess a combination of features from two or more different stimuli. Focused attention stage: “Free-floating” features are
combined. Once the features have been combined in this stage, we consciously perceive the object. Patient R. M (damaged parietal lobe): Balint’s syndrome: inability to focus attention on individual objects. Difficult to combine
features correctly - reported illusory conjunctions 23% of trials, Cannot perform conjunction search. Mostly bottom-up processing (knowledge usually not involved)Visual search: something we do when we look for an object
among a number of other objects (e. g Where’s Waldo). Feature search: searching for a particular feature in stimulus, then add more features (like a horizontal line). Conjunction search: search for a combination of two or more
features in the same stimulus: (like A horizontal line that's green)Cueing: A procedure for testing memory in which a participant is presented w/ cues, such as words or phrases, to aid recall of previously experienced stimuli. Dot
probe task: Task or paradigm in which two pictures (or words) are briefly presented left-right or above-below a fixation point. Next, one of them is replaced by a target, to which participants have to respond to as quickly as
possible. Flanker compatibility task: This task measures interference and inhibition of prepotent responses. There are several variations but the most common one is the one in which participants have to respond to a central
target stimulus, which is flanked by other stimuli on each side. The flanker stimuli can be either congruent (>>>>)to the target stimulus, requiring the same type of response, or incongruent (>><>>) to the target, requiring
another or opposite response. Memory: Process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present. Memory: Memory is active
any time some past experience has an effect on the way you think/behave now or in the future. Richard Atkinson & Richard Shiffrin: Modal model of memory: Sensory memory, STM, LTM, Boxes: structural features.
Control processes: Dynamic processes associated w/ the structural features that can be controlled by the person and may differ from one task to another. Sensory memory: the retention, for brief periods of time, of the effects
of sensory stimulation. Persistence of vision: continued perception of a visual stimulus even after it is not longer present. E. g Sparkler: Retention of perception of light in your mind. E. g Film: Transition of still images. Whole
report method: Subjects were asked to report as many letters as possible from the entire 12-letter display. Flashed 12 letters for 50millisec: Report as many letters as possible. Partial report tone method: Subjects were told
to report letters in a single 4-letter row. Immediate: 3. 3/4 Delayed: ¼. Iconic memory: sensory memory stage of Atkinson & Shiffrin’s modal mode: Retains information for only a second or fraction of a second. Echoic
memory: persistence of sound (lasts for a few seconds after presentation of stimulus)Short term memory: System involved in storing small amounts of information for a brief period of time. Most of it lost, some goes to LTM.
John Brown & Lloyd Peterson & Margaret Peterson: Recall: Subjects are presented w/ stimuli and, after a delay, asked to report back as many of stimuli as possible Results: 3 seconds count - remember 80% of three-letter groups;
18 seconds - 12%. Memory traced vanished because of decay that occurred during the passage of time after hearing the letters. Digit span: number of digit a person can remember. Chunking: small units can be combined into
larger meaningful units. Chunk: Collection of elements that are strongly associated w/ one another but are weakly associated w/ elements in other chunks (like 2003 in a phone number) George Alvarez & Patrick Cavanagh:
Change detection: Detecting differences between pictures or displays that are presented one after another. Using complex stimuli (e. g coloured squares) Result: Memory capacity ~ Colored squares: 4. 4; Shaded cubes: 1. 6
Conclusion: Greater the amount of information, fewer items can be held in visual STM. Decay: Process by which information is lost from memory due to the passage of time. Proactive interference: interference that occurs
when information that was learnt previously interfere w/ learning new information. Retroactive interference: learning new information interfere w/ remembering old learning. Working memory: Limited-capacity system for
temporary storage and manipulation of information for complex tasks such as comprehension, learning and reasoning. STM: is concerned mainly w/ storing information for a brief period of time. WM: is concerned w/ the
manipulation of information that occurs during complex cognition. Measure event-related potential (ERP): how much space was used in WM as they carried out the task. WM: Dynamic & consist of components that function
separately: Phenological loop (has 2 components) Phenological store: has a limited capacity & holds information for only a few seconds, Holds verbal & auditory information. Articulatory rehearsal process: responsible for
rehearsal that keep items in phenological store from decaying. Visuospatial sketch pad: holds visual & spatial information. E. g forming picture in mind. Connected to Central Executive: pulls information from LTM and
coordinates activity of phonological loop & visual spatial sketch pad (by focusing on specific parts of task & divides attention) E. g driving: Phenological loop: taking in verbal directions; sketch pad: visualizing a map of streets. Also
described as an attention controller: how is attention divided, how it is switched between tasks. Phonological similarity effect: confusion of letters or words that sound similar. E. g “F” misidentified as “S” or “X”. Word length
effect: memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words. Articulatory suppression: Repetition of an irrelevant sound which reduces memory because speaking interferes w/ rehearsal (Baddeley: repeating
“the, the, the…” when remember list of words, Results: Reduce ability to remember list of words + eliminates word length effect). Operation span: Refers to the score obtained in an operation span task in which participants are
required to perform a series of simple arithmetic operations and indicate whether the given answer is correct. Each sum is followed by a single word which needs to be memorized. After a series of two to seven sums, the number of
correct recalled words is determined and this is taken as a measure of WM capacity. Reading span: Refers to the score obtained in a reading span task in which participants read aloud two to seven sentences, each of which is
followed by an unrelated word. After the last sentence, participants are asked to recall the unrelated words. The number of correct words recalled is taken as someone’s WM capacity. Visual imagery: creation of visual images in
mind in the the absence of a physical visual stimulus. Mental rotation: Subjects were solving problem by rotating an image of one of the objects in mind. Perseveration : Difficulty in switching from one behaviour to another,
which can hinder a person’s ability to solve problems that require flexible thinking. Perseveration is observed in cases in which the prefrontal cortex has been damaged. Embedded processes model: explains WM as cognitive
processes responsible for temporarily retaining information in an enhanced accessible state. Activation may occur for information stored in LTM, but it quickly fades unless given continued or focused attention. Focused attention is a
function of the central executive in this model. According to Cowan, the central executive has a limit of four items or chunks. Episodic buffer: store information (providing extra capacity) and is connected to LTM (making
interchange between WM & LTM). Division: distinguishing between different types of memory E. g Short-term, long-term, episodic memory; semantic memory; procedural memory. Interaction: Different types of memory can
interact and share mechanisms. Long-term memory (LTM): system responsible for storing information for long periods of time. “Archive” of information about past events in our lives & knowledge we have learnt. Serial position
curve: Percentage of subjects recalling each word versus its position in the list. Memory is better for words at the beginning of list and end of list than words in the middle. Primacy effect: subjects are more likely to remember
words presented at beginning of sequence (More time to rehearse words and put into LTM). Recency effect: Better memory for the stimuli presented at the end of sequence (Most recently presented words are still in STM - easier
for subjects to remember) Visual coding: coding in mind in form of visual image. STM: Image in mind to reproduce visual pattern just seen. LTM: Visualizing what the Eiffel tower looked like when you visited in the summer.
Auditory coding: coding in mind in form of sound (STM)STM: Representing sounds of letters in the mind after hearing them. LTM: Song in your head repeating. Semantic coding: coding in mind in terms of meaning (LTM). STM:
Placing words in stm task into categories based on meaning. LTM: Recalling general plot of novel you read last week. Coding: form in which stimuli are represented. Physiological approach to coding: determining how stimulus
is represented by firing of neurons. Mental approach to coding: how stimulus/experience is represented in mind. (Conrad: Phonological similarity effect: E. g Play songs - listened to playlist many times, can “hear” beginning
of next song during silence (STM: Wickens Experiment: Participants remembered and recalled words better when they belonged to different categories, demonstrating the advantage of semantic coding in STM. ) (LTM:
Recognition memory: identification of stimulus that was encountered earlier. Present stimulus during study period, then present same stimulus + others that were not presented. The subjects indicate then whether word was
presented previously or not (yes/no). K. F: Damage parietal lobe, impaired STM, functioning LTM. H. M. functioning STM, impaired LTm. Create a double dissociation: are caused by different mechanisms - act independently. K. F.
pose a serious problem for the modal model of memory. possible that phonological loop was impaired but visuospatial sketchpad intact. some LTM storage could have occurred via a more visual or semantic route instead of an
auditory/phonological. Ranganath and Blumenfeld (2005): caution against drawing inferences about dissociations between STM and LTM due to differences in assessment tasks and study materials. Hippocampus: A subcortical
