Cog Psych (Ch. 1)
Cognitive Psychology Definition
What is how we take in information, manipulate it, and then use it?
Top-Down vs Bottom-Up Processing
Top-down = driven by context, expectations, and knowledge
Bottom-up = sense basic features of the stimulus and then integrate them
Selective Attention
The ability to focus on one message and ignore the others
Mental Image Definition
A mental image is an image that needs no physical sensation to see it
Is a study between or within?
Within = All participants do one condition
Between = All participants do all the conditions
Information-Processing
What is the Computer Metaphor? Cognitive psychologists tried to envision humans as information processing systems that have limited capacity processor
Template Matching VS Feature Theories
Template Matching = The Current image is compared to templates stored in the brain - must have a perfect match to be able to identify
Feature Theories = Detects objects by the presence of their features - each object is broken down into features. (individual features are detected in the brain and other areas and put it all together and tell us what we are looking at)
Attention Spotlight
Our attention moves and lights up an area and that's what we are focusing on
Epiphenomonal Evidence
Mental images exist but are a representation of information and not a true copy, they can be rotated, changed, etc.
IV vs DV
Independent Variable = what you're manipulating
Depenedent Variable = Result you're measuring
Contributions to the Cognitive Revolution
What is, discontent with behaviorism, the connection between person and machine, and the Information-Processing system?
Face Processing (Active Area, Inversion, Prospagonia)
Active Area = FFA (Fusiform Face Area)
Inversion = Harder time recognizing faces when they're upside down
Prospagonia = Face Blindness
Dichotic listening experiments
Process and remember the information we pay attention to, no meaningful information of the unattended message, only superficial aspects (gender or voice) - suggests that info not in the spotlight is completely filtered out
Visual Imagers vs Non-visual Imagers
Visual Imagers = better to identify a picture from a blurred image, a bit better on degraded images tasks
Non-visual Imagers = does better on the paper folding task
Standard Error Bar
The range of what the mean could be depending on how much error was used
Areas of the brain
What are the frontal lobe, motor cortex, sensory cortex, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, temporal lobe, and cerebellum?
Face Processing isn't special
Brains act differently based on experience
PPA
What is the Parahippocampalarea?
Mental Rotation Study
We can mentally rotate images - not static images
Components for a graph
Title, labels, Standard Error Bars
Cognitive VS Behavioral Psychology
Behaviorism = dogs response to stimulus
Cognitive = what the dog was thinking
ASD & Face Recognition
Individuals diagnosed as being on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) significantly reduced activation of the fusiform face area (fusiform gyrus)
Automatic VS Effortful Processing
Automatic = It occurs without intention, no conscious awareness, no or little interference with mental activities, and it takes up little of your spotlight or pool of attention
Effortful = Performance is intentional, conscious awareness, it interferes with mental activities, it requires attentional control and it takes up a lot of your spotlight or pool of attention
Ambigious Figures Study
Rabbit VS Duck
Scale VS Nominal VS Ordinal Label
Scale = Numbers
Nominal = Names
Ordinal = "Categories whose order has meaning; differences between categories is not always equal"