Chapter 2 Notes – Cognition

1.       Perception – uses previous knowledge to gether and interpret the stimuli registered by the senses.

2.       Oject or
Pattern Recognition – you identify a complex arrangement of sensory
stimuli.

3.       Distal
Stimulus – is the actual object that is “out there” in the environment - for example, the
telephone sitting on your desk.

4.       Proximal
Stimulus – is the information registered on your sensory receptors – for
example, the image on your retina created by the telephone.

5.       Iconic
Memory – visual sensory memory, allow an image of a visual stimulus to
persist for about 200 to 400 milliseconds after the stimulus has disappeared.

6.       Primary
Visual Cortex – located in the occipital lobe of the brain; the portion of
the cerebral cortex that is concerned with the basic processing of visual
stimuli.

7.       Illusory
contours – we see edges even though they are not physically present in
stimulus.

8.       Template
Matching Theory

a.       You compare a stimulus with a set of templates,
or specific patterns that you have stored in memory. This theory is too simplified and only
applicable in very few cases.

9.       Feature Analysis Theory

a.       Propose that a visual stimulus is composed of a
small number of characteristics or components.

10.   Recognition by Components Theory

a.       A given view of an object can be represented as
an arrangement of simple 3D shapes called geons.

11.   Viewer centered approach

a.       Proposes that we store a small number of views
of 3-D objects, rather than just one view.

12.   Difference Between Bottom-Up Processing and
Top-Down Processing

a.       Bottom up processing

                                                               i.      Emphasizes the importance of the stimulus in
object recognition. The image is “built up” from its components.

b.      Top Down Processing

                                                               i.      Emphasizes how a person’s concepts and
higher-level mental processes influence object recognition. Using all of our brains to come in from the
top, from the big picture to the actual object.

Chapter 1 Notes – Cognition

1.       Cognition – or mental activity, describes the acquisition, storage, transformation and
use of knowledge.

2.       Cognitive Psychology

a.       Sometimes it is a synonym for the word cognition, and so it refers to the
variety of mental activities such as perception, memory, imagery, language,
problem solving, reasoning and decision making

b.      Sometimes it refers to a particular theoretical
approach to psychology. Specifically, the cognitive
approach is a theoretical orientation that emphasizes people’s knowledge
and their mental processes.

3.       History of Cognitive Psychology

a.       Wilhelm
Wundt – 1879

                                                               i.      Introspection, in this case, means that
carefully trained observers would systematically analyze their own sensations
and report them as objectively as possible.

b.      Herman
Ebbinghaus – 1885, 1913

                                                               i.      Devised his own methods for studying human
memory. Nonsense syllables (like DAK) to learn and test his performance.

c.       Mary
Calkins – 1894

                                                               i.      Reported the recency effect, which refers to the observation that our recall is
especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli.

d.      William
James –

                                                               i.      Wrote Principles of Psychology in 1890, which
predicted a lot of different mental processes.

e.      Behaviorism

                                                               i.      Psychology must focus only on objective,
observable reactions; emphasizes the environmental stimuli that determine
behavior.

                                                             ii.      Operational
definition – a precise definition that specifies exactly how a concept is
to be measured in an experiment.

f.        Gestalt
Psychology-

                                                               i.      Emphasizes that humans have basic tendencies to
organize what they see and that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Overall quality that transcends the individual elements.

g.       Frederick Bartlett – early 1900s

                                                               i.      Conducted research on memory. Proposed that human memory is a constructive
process in which we interpret and transform the original material, often making
gthis material more consistent with our own personal experiences.

4.       Jean Piaget

a.       Did research with children to show that infants
develop object permanence, the
knowledge that an object exists, even when it is temporarily out of sight.

5.       Information-processing approach

a.       Mental process can best be understood by
comparing it with the operations of a computer, and

b.      A mental process can be interpreted as
information progressing through the system in a series of stages, one step at a
time.

6.       Atkinson-Shiffrin model

a.       Proposed that memory can be understood as a
sequence of discrete steps, in which information is tranferred from one storage
area to another.

b.      Sensory memory

                                                               i.      A large-capacity storage system that records
information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy. Lost in 2 seconds or less.

c.       Short-term
memory – now called working memory

                                                               i.      Contains only the small amount of information
that we are actively using. Lost in 30 seconds or less, unless they are somehow
repeated.

d.      Long-term
memory –

                                                               i.      Long term memory has an enormous capacity
because it contains memories that are decades old, in addition to memories that
arrived several minutes ago. This memory is relatively permanent.

7.       Ecological Validity

a.       Studies have ecological validity if the conditions in which the research is
conducted are similar to the natural settings to which the results will be
applied.

8.       Cognitive Neuroscience

a.       Combines the research techniques of cognitive
psychology with various methods for assessing the structure and function of the
brain.

9.       Brain Lesions

a.       Refers to the destruction of tissue, most often
by strokes, tumors or accidents.

10.   Positron Emission Tomography – PET

a.       Researchers measure
blood flow by injecting the participant with a radioactive chemical just before
this person performs a task. Can be used
to study attention, memory and language.

11.   Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging – fMRI

a.       Based on the principle that oxygen-rich blood is
an index of brain activity. This magnetic field produces changes in the oxygen
atoms. A scanning device takes a “photo” of these oxygen atoms while the
participant performs a cognitive task.

12.   Event-Related Potential technique- ERP

a.       Records the tiny fluctuations (lasting just a
fraction of a second) in the brain’s electrical activity, in response to a
stimulus.

13.   Single-cell recording technique

a.       Researchers study characteristics of an animal’s
brain and nervous system by inserting a thin electrode next to a single neuron,
then measure the electric activity generated by that cell.

14.   Artificial Intelligence (AI)

a.       A branch of computer science, seeks to explore
human cognitive processes by creating computer models that exhibit
“intelligent” behavior.

15.   Computer metaphor

a.       Our cognitive processes work like a computer,
that is, a complex, multipurpose machine that processes information quickly and
accurately.

16.   Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)

a.       The PDP approach argues that cognitive processes
can be understood in terms of networks that link together neuron-like units; in
addition, many operations can proceed simultaneously – rather than one step at
a time.

b.      Also called connectionism or neural networks.

c.       Cerebral
cortex – the outer layer of the brain that is responsible for cognitive
processes.

d.      Parallel
processing – where many singals handled at the same time, rather than
serial processing.

e.      Five
principles of PDP processing

                                                               i.      Parallel processing - many cognitive
processes are based on parallel
operations, not serial operations

                                                             ii.      Nodes - The neural activity
underlying a particular cognitive procedure is typically distributed across a
relatively broad area of the cerebral cortex, rather than being limited to a
single, pinpoin-sized location. Each location of neural activity is called a node, and the nodes are interconnected
in a complex fashion with many other nodes.

                                                            iii.      Strengthening of connection – when
two nodes are activated at the same time, the connection between the nodes is
strengthened. Thus, learning is defined as a strengthening of connections.

                                                           iv.      Conpensation for incomplete information –
if information is incomplete of faulty, you can still carry out most cognitive
processes. Our pattern recognition, memory, and other cognitive processes are
extremely flexible.

f.        Serial
processing –

                                                               i.      In which only one item is handled at a given
time, and one step must be completed before the system can proceed to the next
step in the flowchart.

17.   Cognitive science

a.       A contemporary field that tries to answer
questions about the mind. Includes cognitive psychology, neuroscience, computer
science, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and economics.