Core Concepts
Name an ethical consideration in research
Informed Consent
Protection from harm
Confidentiality
Deception/debriefing
Coercion
Name at least two developmental changes that occur in the brain
Increase in synaptic density during infancy
Frontal lobe growth age 3-6, temporal and parietal lobes age 6-adolescence
Synaptic pruning between early childhood and 20s
Development of prefrontal cortex until mid-20s
Brain shrinkage after 20s
Explain bottom-up and top-down processing. Give one example for each
Bottom-up processing is carried out in one direction from the retina to the visual cortex, with each successive stage in the visual pathway carrying out ever more complex analysis of the input. Reading a single word.
Top-down processing refers to the use of contextual information in pattern recognition. Easy to read handwriting in a sentence (context).
Explain selective and divided attention
Selective attention: Focusing on specific aspect of experience that is relevant while ignoring others
Divided attention: Concentrating on more than one activity at a time
Why can't researchers always infer causation (even with well-designed research)?
Need experimental method, which is not always ethical or possible
Name the four lobes of the brain and a function associated with each
Frontal - voluntary movement, thinking
Temporal - auditory processing, language
Parietal - sensory information
Occipital - vision
What are dorsal and ventral streams? Which lobes are involved? How are they different?
Dorsal stream: Occipital-parietal-frontal/ "Where" stream. Focuses on the spatial features (location) of visually perceive information
Ventral stream: Occipital-temporal-frontal/"What" stream. Focuses on descriptive characteristics of visually perceive information
Explain orienting, alerting, and executive attention.
Orienting- aligns attention to a visual signal
Alerting- increases sensitivity and maintains readiness
Executive Attention- monitors for conflicts and corrects as needed
Name a well-known critique of behaviorism
Behaviorism cannot explain how children acquire language and create phrases they have never heard before
Define localization of function
The idea that specific parts of the brain are responsible for certain skills and behaviors
Explain the modularity of mind and give an example
A module – a set of automatic processes that are encapsulated from other cognitive processes and have a localized brain area
Processing of faces and speech are modular. Prosopagnosia shows the modular structure of face recognition.
Give examples of how our attention switch from controlled to automatic and vice versa.
From controlled to automatic: click ok automatically when the computer gives the same error.
From automatic to controlled: Stroop effect changes automatic attention on reading to controlled attention
Name a critique or limitation of the information processing approach to cognition
It devalues individualism and the meanings of information
Explain the difference between what is measured by ERP, MRI, and fMRI
MRI = structure of the brain
fMRI = changes in parts of brain active when performing tasks
ERP = changes in electrical activity when performing tasks
Give everyday life examples for monocular and binocular cues.
Monocular cues: Can be seen by 1 eye. Texture gradients, relative size, interposition
Binocular cues: Come from input from both eyes. Binocular convergence (depth cues)
How does the feature integration theory explain attention?
In this model, separate stages of processing contribute to focused attention.
1. Automatic identification
2. Focused attention to combining the features (glue)
3. Interpretation
How do the symbolic and connectionist models relate to serial and parallel processing?
Symbolic tends to be more serial
Connectionist tends to be more parallel
What can we learn from postmortem brain studies, and what is a limitation of this method?
We can link behaviors from patient's life to brain lesions/area of damage
Limitation - need to study living brain to understand more specific brain processes
Explain the relation of neurological structure and experience in visual perception development
The cells of the retina, the optical nerve, and the lens, develop slowly over the first few years of life through experience. Visual cortical cells are ready to receive information but if they do not receive visual information for a long time, there might be severe visual impairment
Explain the attenuation model and compare to early filter model.
Attenuation model shows that people do not totally filter the shadowing tasks if it is meaningfully related to the information in the attend-to-message.
Early filter model does not include the content of the message and claims we filter all unattended messages except the cocktail party effect.