Psychology part two
,Chapter 9: memory, attention and consciousness
Consciousness = experiencing of one's own mental events in such manner that one can report on them to others
Provides an objective criterion identifying conscious experiences.
Overview: an information-processing model of the mind
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Individual has limited mental resources in processing information.
Assumptions.
Info moves through a system of stores
Info brought into the mind by sensory systems →
manipulated in various ways, placed in long-term storage
and retrieved when solving problems.
Three types of memory stores: 1) sensory memory, 2) short-term (working), 3) long-term = general framework
→ characterized by function, capacity and duration.
Also set of control processes = attention, rehearsal, encoding and retrieving.
9.1. Sensory memory: the brief prolongation of sensory experience
Some trace of sensory input stays in your info-processing system for a brief period when not paying attention = sensory memory.
Separate sensory memory for each sensory system. → hold on to sensory info in its original sensory form to be analysed by unconscious mental processes.
→ also for decision to bring it to the short-memory store.
9.2. The short-term store: conscious perception and thought
= working memory. → process of storing and transforming info. = also seat of conscious thought
= perceiving, feeling, comparing, computing and reasoning.
Metaphor of computer: info can come from keyboard (= sensory store) or from hard drive (long-term)
m Contribute to continuous flow of thought Only few items perceived at once but total amount of info through short-term is enormous.
9.3. Long-term memory: the mind's library of information
= stored representation of all a person knows. → capacity is enormous.
Not conscious of info items except when they are activated and moved to short-term
9.4. Control processes: The mind's information transportation systems.
Movement of info between stores by attention, encoding and retrieval.
Attention = controls flow from sensory to short-term → restrict flow from 1st to 2nd
Encoding = short-term to long-term. Most coding is not deliberate. → it occurs incidentally. If you become interested you will encode from short to long.
Retrieval = from long-term into short-term = remembering or recalling → can be deliberate or automatic
Short-term has limited capacity → can only process so much info at a time.
Control process = requiring a certain proportion of a system's limited capacity for its execution. (How much mental energy does it take.
,Effortful processes = use of mental resources to successful completion
1) available to consciousness 2) interfere with execution 3) improve with practice 4) influenced by individual differences in intelligence, motivation, education
Automatic processes = require little too short-term limited capacity.
1) occur without intention/conscious awareness 2) not to interfere with executions other processes. 3) not to improve with practice
4) not influenced by individual differences in intelligence, motivation and education.
9.5. "Fast" and "slow" thinking: dual-processing theories of cognition
Dual-processing theories = automatic (processing = fast, automatic and unconscious) - effortful (slow effortful and conscious)
= implicit/explicit, heuristic/analytic, associative /rule-based
"Fast" = intuitive, no voluntary control. = in exact, fuzzy memory. "Slow" = conscious self deciding which part of a problem to attend.
e.g. 2+2 ....? e.g. 14x39=...?
Also visual illusions
You cannot shut off the "fast" thinking system even when interfering with the "slow" thinking = stroop interference effect J. Ridley stroop
Attention: the portal to consciousness
Two competing needs: focus mental resources on the task and no distraction vs to monitor stimuli irrelevant to the task + shift attention when danger or other benefits
General model of attention. → attention depicted as gate
Analysis of info picked up by senses for relevance = unconscious = preattentive processing.
Comparison with already stored info in short-term store.
9.6. The ability to focus attention and ignore the irrelevant
9.6.1. Selective listening
Cocktail-party phenomenon. = pick-up important info while focusing on other info.
Info unconsciously processed while consciously processing other info e.g. Experiment with recordings of two spoken messages. → works when physical difference
9.6.2. Selective viewing
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Overlapping shapes in different colors → afterwards saying which one you recognize
Recognize most shapes in attended color but not in other color.
e.g. Video with three player passing a ball → need to count the amount of passes → 50% did not notice the gorilla
Magicians: use inattentional blindness = release dove from right hand while grabbing something with left. → all attention is on the right hand.
9.6.3. The ability to shift attention to significant stimuli.
We are good at shifting attention to stimuli that signal danger e.g. no inattentional blindness with spiders.
Major function is to hold on to fleeting, unattended stimuli to allow us to turn our attention to them.
,9.6.4. Shifting attention to meaningful information in auditory sensory memory.
= echoic memory: brief memory trace of a specific sound is an echo. Echo fades over a period of seconds.
e.g. reading message while hearing spoken words → when signal, repeat last sequence of words they heard. When signal is delayed performance drops.
9.6.5. Shifting attention to meaningful information in visual sensory memory
= iconic memory: brief memory trace of specific stimulus is the icon George Sperling (1960)
e.g. Images with letters flashes very short → people could still read it Memory holds info for short period of time.
9.7. Unconscious, automatic processing of stimulus input
9.7.1. Unconscious priming of mental concepts.
Priming = activation, by sensory input, of info already stored in long-term memory.
Info becomes available → alters perception or chain of thought
e.g. Tree with or without duck → flashes image, asked to draw nature scene. Ones who saw pic with duck would draw duck
Priming can help by providing means by which contextual info we are not attending to can help us to make sense of the attended info.
9.7.2. Automatic, obligatory processing of stimuli
Automatization depends on ability to process stimuli preattentively + uses results of that processing to guide behavior.
e.g. Driving a car: first attention to lots of things, after a while the tasks become automatic.
e.g. Reading: you read automatically, but getting what you read requires mental effort.
9.8. Brain mechanisms of preattentive processing and attention
1. Stimuli that are not attended to nevertheless activate sensory and perceptual areas of the brain: especially in primary sensory areas. → when words
flashed on a screen: neurons activated that are involved with reading.
2. Attention magnifies the activity that task-relevant stimuli produce in sensory and perceptual areas of the brain, and it diminishes the activity that task-irrelevant stimuli
produce: attention seems to sensitive neurons and increasing their responsiveness to stimuli to analyse. Opposite effect on neurons whose response is irrelevant.
3. Neural mechanisms in anterior (forward) portions of cortex are responsible for control of attention: areas in frontal lobe and other parts become active when shift in
attention occurs. Prefrontal cortex is active during tasks that require intense concentration. → anterior regions control attention top-down.
Spatial neglect: unable to see things in contra lateral visual field (opposite side of brain injury) e.g. Don't see right side of plate
e.g. Timeline: without brain lesions → recognize features past and future equally. When left spatial neglect: remember future normally but past events poorly.
Suggests that spatial representations are related to same brain areas as some types of temporal representations.
More resources devoted to analyse certain selected stimuli and less to analyze stimuli picked-up by senses.
The more neural activity → more conscious experience of stimuli.
