Cognitive Psychology Exam 1 Review

Chapter 1:

 Cognition: Mental activity. Acquisition, storage, and use of information. The mental
processes that give rise to our perceptions and interpretations of the world
 Cognitive Psychology: Can mean one of two things:
o Synonym for cognition, refers to the mental activities listed above
o Refers to particular theoretical approach to psychology. Specifically, the cognitive
approach
 Cognitive Approach: Theoretical orientation that emphasizes thought process and
knowledge
 Three reasons to study cognition:
o Cognition occupies major portion of human psychology, you are constantly using
it
o Cognitive approach has widespread influence on other areas of psychology,
including clinical, educational, and social psychology. Understanding of cognition
allows one to make conclusions about thought process during study of other areas
of psychology
o Understanding cognition allows a greater understanding of the abilities that
provide you with rich internal mental life.
 Empirical evidence: Scientific evidence obtained by careful observation and
experimentation. Aristotle focused on it
 Aristotle: Greek philosopher who examined topics of perception, memory, and mental
imagery.
o Wax tablet metaphor: Compared brain to wax tablet which is shaped through
experience/observation
o Aviary metaphor: Plato’s idea that the brain can be compared to an aviary which
starts empty but is filled with birds (knowledge), some of which stay in groups
and some stay single. Also touches on working memory with idea that having the
bird in the cage is not the same as having it in your hand.
 William Wundt: One of first psychologists, founder of experimental psychology.
Proposed that psychology should study mental processes through introspection.
o Introspection: carefully trained observers systematically analyze own sensations
and report them as objectively as possible under standardized conditions.
o Structuralism: Study of what underlying structure of brain was, as comparable to
period table or fundamental laws of physics. Psychology should be able to break
brain down into fundamental building blocks
 Herman Ebbinghaus: First to scientifically study human memory and factors that affect
memory performance. Took careful, systematic approach to memory using himself as the
primary text subject.
 o Studied memory of long lists of nonsense syllables (changing and testing
variables such as time) so memory would be uninfluenced by previous learning.
o Forgetting Curve: Curve of memory retention over time, showing that memory
retention plummets to nearly 20% over the course of about 10 hours, and then
stays around there.
 William James: Focused on theorizing about everyday psychological experiences. Best
known for textbook Principles of Psychology.
o Functionalism: the focus on everyday psychological experiences, the “wholeness
of events.” Emphasis on how and why of the mind, the purpose (function) of the
mind, as opposed to the structure (structuralism)
o Principles of Psychology: provides clear, detailed descriptions about everyday
experiences. Emphasizes the mind as active and inquiring. Extremely ahead of its
time.
o Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: One of the things described in the book, the idea
that something barely remembered leaves a sort of hole in our consciousness. This
was the kind of thing detailed in the book – everyday psychological experiences.
 Gestalt Psychology:
o Emphasizes that humans have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see,
and furthermore, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
o Demo 1.2 – Circle with two horizontal lines which we approximate into a human
face, a gestalt
o Gestalt: Overall quality that transcends individual elements
o Kanizsa triangle: Another gestalt, where three pacman shapes make a sort of
implied triangle – we see a triangle but it’s not really there
 Behaviorism:
o Emphasized on objective, observable reactions to stimuli in environment
o Did not study more subjective, internal things such as introspection. Did not
recognize cognition/mental representations.
o John Watson: One of the first behaviorists, studied animals. Quantified the
manner in which changes in organism’s environment produced changes in its
behavior
o Operational Definition: Precise definition that specifies exactly how concept is to
be measured.
o Lasting impact exists through continued use of operational definition and the
tradition of carefully controlled research. Also, learning principles from the
movement are still used in modern day psychology
 Cognitive Revolution: Growing support for cognitive approach for psychology. Strong
shift from behaviorist approach to study of human behavior from internal, cognitive
perspective. Occurred around 1940s and 1950s
o Factors that influenced it included:
  Disappointment in field with behaviorist outlook being unable to explain
major psychological factors
 Research on children’s thought processes by Jean Piaget caused more
attention to be payed to cognition in developing children
 Research and theory from other academic and intellectual fields, such as
development in linguistics by Noam Chomsky.
o Noam Chomsky: Emphasized that structure of language was too complex to be
explained in behaviorist terms, took nativist view to language which contradicted
behaviorists
o Ulric Neisser: Published book called Cognitive Psychology, served as one of the
first comprehensive treatments of cognitive processing. Majorly contributed to
emergence of cognitive psychology as a field. Neisser known as father of
cognitive psychology because of it
o Ecological validity: Conditions in which the research is conducted are similar o
natural setting where results will be applied. Current cognitive psychological
research emphasizes it. Allows more accurate findings but does not allow as much
variation of variables as lab research.
 Cognitive Science: Interdisciplinary field that tries to answer questions about mind, with
contributions from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy,
and linguistics. Argues that thinking requires us to manipulate internal representations of
external world
 Artificial Intelligence: Branch of computer science that seeks to explore cognitive
processes by creating computer models that show intelligent behavior and accomplish
same tasks humans do.
o Pure Artificial Intelligence: Approach that designs program to accomplish
cognitive task as efficiently possible, even if it’s different from how humans
process it
o Computer simulation/modeling: Attempts to take human limitations into account
for AI design
 Computer Metaphor: Cognitive processes work like a computer – both examples of
complex, multipurpose machinery that processes information quickly, accurately, and in
similar fashion.
 Information-processing approach: Argued that mental processes are similar to the
operations of a computer, and information progresses through cognitive system in series
of stages, one step at a time. General assumptions:
o Information about stimuli in environment travel to sensory receptors through
physical medium. Receptors process information and makes sure info gets to
brain
 o Information which makes it to brain is processed and decoded over multiple
processing stages (i.e. recognizing features, features get bound together,
eventually info gets processed enough for object recognition).
o Decision is made on how to respond to stimulus
o Motor command sent to parts of system to tell body how to move
 Serial Processing: System must complete one step/processing stage before information
can proceed to next step in flow-chart.
 Connectionist approach: Cognition understood in terms of networks that link together
neuron-like processing units. Claims many operations proceed simultaneously.
o Parallel Distributed Processing Approach and Neural Network Approach: other
names for connectionist approach
o Parallel processing: idea that human stages of human cognition are at the same
time rather than strictly linearly
 Cognitive neuroscience: Combines research techniques with various methods for
assessing structure and function of brain
 Phrenology: idea that shape of skull is indicative of certain traits, now completely
discredited, but idea that different parts of brain control different functions was correct
o Franz Gall & Johann Spurzheim: founders of phrenology
 Brain Lesion Studies: Studies on behavior of people with brain damage allows us to
examine relationship between areas of brain and behavior
 ERP Technique: Event-Related Potential: records brief fluctuations in brain’s electrical
activity, in response to stimulus.
 Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan: Researchers measure blood flow in brain by
injecting participation with low dose of radioactive chemical just before person works on
cognitive task. Chemical travels through bloodstream and we can view where it goes,
showing
 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI):
o Based on principle that oxygen-rich blood is indication of brain activity. A large
magnet produces changes in oxygen atoms and scanning device takes photo of
oxygen atoms while participant is performing cognitive tasks. Less invasive and
measures brain activity more quickly than PET scan
 Cognitive Psychology Themes:
o Cognitive processes are active rather than passive
o Cognitive processes are remarkably efficient and accurate
o They handle positive information better than negative
o They are interrelated with each other, they do not operate in isolation
o Many cognitive processes rely on both bottom up (low level sensory analysis of
stimulus) and top down (higher level cognition) processing

Chapter 2:
 Perception: Uses previous knowledge to gather and interpret stimuli registered by senses
 Visual System:
o Distal Stimulus: the object that is “out there” in your environment, objectively
o Proximal Stimulus: Information registered on your sensory receptors.
o Primary Visual Cortex: Located in occipital lobe of brain, portion of cerebral
cortex concerned with basic processing of visual stimuli. First place where info
from two ices is combined
 Organization in Visual Perception:
o Causes the effect from gestalts, separates figure (distinct shape with clearly
defined ages) and ground (area left over).
o Ambiguous figure-ground relationship: Figure and ground reverse from time to
time, vase-faces effect
o Illusory contours (subjective contours): We see edges even though they are not
physically present in stimulus. Causes gestalts
 Theories of physical object recognition:
o Template matching: Visual system matches templates (specific patterns you have
stored in memory) with stimulus
o Feature-Analysis Theory: Proposes relatively flexible approach in which visual
system is composed of small number of characteristics. Each visual component
called a distinct feature.
 Eleanor Gibson: Did research in 1969 demonstrating that people require
relatively long time to decide whether one letter is different from second
letter when the two letters share large number of critical period
 Hubel and Wiesel: Focused on primary visual cortex of anesthetized
animals. Presented simple visual stimulus in front of animal’s eyes and
recorded how particular neuron in primary visual cortex responded to that
stimulus
o Recognition by Components Theory: Specific view of object can be represented
as an arrangement of simple 3-D shapes called geons.
 Geons: Simple 3-D shapes that can be combined to form meaningful
objects. Arrangement of three geons gives people enough info to classify
objects
 Viewer-centered approach: Proposes that we store small number of views
of three-dimensional, rather than just view. Allows us to see and recognize
object from unusual position
 Bottom-up processing: emphasizes that stimulus characteristics an object; physical
stimuli from environment registered by sensory receptors then passed on to higher, more
sophisticated levels of perceptual system.
 Top-down processing: emphasizes how person’s concepts, expectations, and memory.
 o Word superiority effect: Can identify single letter more accurately and rapidly
when it appears in meaningful word than alone or in meaningless letter string
 Rueckl and Oden (1986): demonstrated that both features of the stimulus and the nature
of the context influence word recognition. Both bottom-up and top-down processing play
role
o Used stimuli that were either letters or letter-like caricatures. Varied context and
how close the letters were to actual letters (independent variable) for word with
ambiguous letters to see how letters were interpreted. Graph of results showed
impact ambiguity of letters and context had
 Change Blindness: When we overuse top-down processing and fail to detect change in
object/scene.
o Stranger-and-the-door study: Stranger asks test subject for directions, is replaced
when door passes between conversation and, while passing, the person is
replaced. When conducted by Daniel Simons and Daniel Levin, only half of
bystanders reported stranger had been replaced.
o Required reading concepts:
 Flicker Paradigm: original and modified version of image flickered in
front of participants. Asked to identify changing part, found it took
participants many cycles to notice any change.
 Motion Picture Experiments: participants shown video, actor changes
midway through. Only 33% of people noticed change. Show attention
alone is not sufficient to notice change
 Stranger-and-Door concept is different because it involves real life people
rather than images; higher ecological validity
 Change Deafness: Concept of change blindness extended to hearing. Individuals
overwhelmingly fail to notice when voice of speaker changes in middle of telephone
conversation
 Inattentional Blindness: When people fail to notice that new object has appeared due to
overuse of top-down process.
o Simons and Chabris: Monkey Business Illusion study. Asked people to pay
attention to group of people playing basketball in video, count amount of times
basketball was passed. Man in gorilla suit walked into frame; people did not
notice.
 Ecological validity: How well conditions in which research is conducted are similar to
natural setting where research will be applied.
 Recognizing faces vs other objects: Face recognition is different than other stimuli
recognition, somehow special.
o Holistic recognition: Recognizing in terms of overall shape and structure, its
gestalt. How we recognize faces
 o Tanaka and Farah (1993): Found research participants were significantly more
accurate in recognizing facial feature when it appeared in context of whole face,
rather than isolation. More able to recognize house feature in isolation than facial
feature
o Prosopagnosia: Disability where you cannot recognize human faces visually,
though other object recognition is relatively normal. Feel individual parts of face
are independent of one another rather than part of whole
o Fusiform Face Area: Location most responsible for face recognition, in the
temporal cortex to the side of your brain.
o Kemp et al. (1997): Studied accuracy of supermarket cashiers who had been
instructed to make judgements about ID photos. Incorrect ID photos were rejected
only 64% of the time. This was an applied study on face recognition
o Burton et al. (1997): Asked people to compare images of professors with video of
the professors walking in. Some knew the professors, some didn’t. Those who
didn’t know the professors had significantly worse matches than those who did.
 IV was the type of person viewing the tape (students familiar with
professors, students unfamiliar, and police unfamiliar)
 Speech Perception:
o Word Boundaries: Where words begin and end. Common in speech, but actually
quite difficult to perceive if not already familiar
 Variability in Phoneme Pronunciation: Speakers vary their pitch and tone, as well as rate
of producing phonemes. As a second variability source is that speakers often fail to
produce phonemes in a precise fashion. Makes perceiving phonemes much more
complicated
o Coarticulation: Third source of variability. When you are pronouncing particular
phoneme, mouth stays in same shape as when you pronounced previous phoneme,
and mouth is preparing to pronounce next phoneme. Makes phoneme you produce
vary slightly based on surrounding phonemes.
 Context and speech perception: people use context to help figure out words, active
listeners.
o Phonemic Restoration Effect: Can fill in missing phoneme using contextual
meaning as cue.
o Warren & Warren (1970): Showed people are skilled at using meaning of a
sentence to select correct word from several options. Used coughs to obscure a
word in a recording, people changed their perception of that word based on
context
o Visual Cues: Information from speaker’s lips and face helps resolve ambiguities
from speech signal.
 o McGurk effect: Refers to influence of visual information on speech perception.
People actually hear something different based on the mouth and face movement
they are viewing alongside it

Chapter 3:

 Attention: Concentration of mental activity that allows you to take in limited portion of
vast stream of information available from both your sensory world and your memory.
Other items not processed in detail.
o Multiple coordinated systems and processes that work together allowing you to
focus strategically on info most relevant to current goals
 Divided Attention Tasks: Try to pay attention to two or more simultaneous messages,
responding appropriately to each message.
o Multitask: Try to accomplish 2+ tasks at same time, straining limits of attention
and working/long-term memory.
o Cell phones: People believe they can multitask between cell phones and driving,
but people will perform faster and more accurately with one task at a time
o Colette et al (2009): Tested people while they talked on cell phone and driving in
simulated-driving task. Reaction times were 20% slower due to split attention
o Strayer et al (2003): People with cell phones showed form of inattentional
blindness. Attention was reduced for information that appeared in center of
vision. Also showed that people in cell phone conversation in passenger seat was
risky
 Dichotic Listening Experiments: people wear earphones, one message is presented in left
ear, one in right ear
o Dichotic Listening: One ear registers one message and other represents the other
o Shadowing: Listening to message and repeating it after the speaker. Used to see if
they are paying appropriate attention to the message
o Cocktail party effect: Even if paying close attention to one conversation, you tend
to hear your name in other conversation
o Cocktail party effect is affected by working memory capacity; lower working-
memory capacity leads to it becoming more prominent. Low working memory
capacity makes it more difficult to block out irrelevant information
 Stroop effect: People take long time to name an ink color when that color is used in
printing an incongruent word (blue vs blue)
o Congruent vs incongruent: Congruent when the automatic process of reading the
word aligns with the less automatic process of naming the ink color.
o Emotional Stroop Task: People instructed to name ink color of words that could
have strong emotional significance. i.e. people with phobias being asked to name
words matching their phobias.
 o Pringle et al (2010): Used Stroop Task to research eating disorders. Women with
eating disorders took longer to read words related to body shape
 Visual Search: Observer must find target in visual display that has numerous distractors.
o Examples: Airport security officers search travelers’ luggage for possible
weapons, and radiologists search mammogram to detect tumor that could indicate
breast cancer.
o Treisman and Gelade (1980): Found that if target differed from irrelevant items in
display with respect to simple feature such as color, observors could quickly
detect the target. (isolated-feature)
 Isolated vs combined feature search: People can typically locate isolated feature more
quickly than a combined feature
 Feature-present/feature-absent effect: People can typically locate a feature that is present
more quickly than one that is absent
 Treisman & Souther (1985): Provided evidence for feature present/feature absent effect
by having people look for a something either with something or without something.
Search time for feature present does not go up with more irrelevant items, but it does for
feature absent.
 Royden et al (2001): Found that people can quickly locate one moving object when it
appears in group of stationery distractors than vice versa. Another manifestation of the
feature-present/feature-absent effect.
 Saccadic Eye Movements: Very rapid movement of eyes from one spot to next. Purpose
during reading is to bring center of retina into position over words you want to read.
Center of retina (fovea) has better acuity than other retinal regions, so new words must be
placed there.
 Fixation: Visual system pauses briefly to acquire info useful for comprehending written
text.
 Perceptual span: number of letters/spaces we perceive during fixation. Large individual
differences in size. Better for letters to the right of the one we are viewing than the left.
 Good readers make larger jumps with saccadic movements than poor readers and are also
less likely to make regressions. Also has shorter pauses before moving onward.
 Regressions: Moving eyes backwards to earlier material in sentence, used when we
realize we have not understood the reading.
 Orienting Attention Network: Generally responsible for kind of attention required for
visual search. Used when selecting info from sensory input.
o Located in parietal lobe in two separate spots
o Unilateral spatial neglect: when person ignores part of visual field due to damage
of the opposite side of the brain
 Clock task: Person with lesion in right parietal lobe only draws half of
clock despite being shown whole clock
 o PET Scans: Researchers measure blood throw through injected radioactive
chemical. Used in recent orienting attention network studies
 Executive Attention Network: Responsible for kind of attention we use when task focuses
on conflict. Primarily involved in top-down control of attention. Used for academic skills
and learning new ideas.
 Bottleneck Theories: propose that there is a limited flow of quantity of info to which we
can pay attention. So when one message is currently coming, others must be left behind
 Feature-Integration Theory (Anne Treisman): Use two types of processing for different
occasions:
o Distributed Attention: Register features automatically, using parallel processing
across field and registering all features simultaneously
o Focused attention: Slower serial processing to identify one object at a time.
Necessary when objects more complex.
o Illusory Conjunctions: Inappropriate combination of features, perhaps combining
one object’s shape with another’s color. Occurs when we are overwhelmed with
too many simultaneous visual tasks. Often happens when using distributed
attention
 Consciousness: Awareness that people have about outside world and their perceptions,
thoughts, memories, images, and feelings
 Mindless Reading: Eyes move forward but you do not process meaning of material
 Mind wandering: When thoughts from external environment in favor of internal
processing
 Thought Suppression: People try to eliminate thoughts, ideas, and images related to
undesirable stimulus
o Ironic effects: Describe how efforts can backfire, make us think more of stimulus.
o Wegner’s White Bear Study (1997): Asked students not to think about white bear
for 5 minutes and then to think about it as much as they wanted to for 5 minutes.
Second phase students thought much more about white bear than control group –
thought suppression had rebound effect.
 Blindsight: Condition where individual with damaged visual cortex claims not to see
object but can accurately report some elements of object, such as location.
o Explained by the idea that some retinal information goes to other locations in
cerebral cortex than visual cortex, so people can’t consciously see the obstacles,
but they do register them
o Relevant because it suggests visual info must pass through primary visual cortex
to be registered in consciousness, but some of it skips that stage entirely
o Weiskrantz experiments: Showed test light in left visual field for someone who
had a damaged right visual cortex. Subject said he couldn’t see it, but guessed
remarkably accurately about its location
o Perform in visual task remarkably better than actually fully blind people
 o Patient TN: Had no vision in either visual cortex but accurately guessed location
of objects littering hall and walked around them

Chapter 4:

 Short term memory: Refers to small amount of info recently taken in from environment.
Has limited capacity both in terms of how long short-term memory system can hold onto
info and how much info it can hold.
o Colloquially used differently as “recent memory.” It’s really the memory actively
being used/adjusted
 Miller (1956): Proposed we can only hold limited number of items in short term memory
o Magical number 7: can hold about 7 items, give or take two
o Chunk: memory unit that consists of several components strongly associated with
each other. Short-term memory contains about 7 chunks.
 Brown, Peterson & Peterson (1959):
o Technique for measuring short-term memory: Involves presenting participants
with items they are instructed to remember, then have them perform distracting
task. They are then asked to recall original items.
o Rehearsal: Repeating items silently. Not allowed during study
o After 5 seconds, about 20% of memory is lost. After 20, almost all of it is lost.
 Serial Position Effect: Refers to U-shaped relationship between word’s position in a list
and its probability to be recalled. First and last words more likely to be remembered than
middle ones.
o Typical experiment: First have learning phase, with list of words presented, then
test phase, where listener recites words in any order that they remember
o Recency effect: better recall for recently learned info. Possibly means that items
were still in STM
o Primacy effect: First items remembered better, because they were more rehearsed,
and entered LTM
 Semantic Similarity of Items in Short-Term Memory:
o Semantics: meaning of words and sentences
o Proactive Interference: People have trouble learning new material because
previously learned material keeps interfering with new learning.
o Release from PI: When category of learning is shifted and your performance will
increase again because the PI is no longer present
o Semantic category shift: Changing category of the meaning of what someone is
learning can also cause release from PI (going from learning about meats to
learning about flowers can release you from PI)
o Wickens et al (1976): Found out about semantic category shift by giving subjects
info to learn about from three different sequential categories
 Atkinson & Shiffrin Model of Memory: Proposed that memory involves sequence of
separate steps. In each step, info is transferred from one storage to another
o Information-processing approach: argues that mental processes are similar to
operations of computer, and information progresses through system in series of
stages one step at a time
o Goes from sensory memory to STM to LTM. Info is lost at every step
 Working Memory: Brief, immediate memory for limited amount of material you are
currently processing. Some also actively coordinates your ongoing mental activities. We
have shifted to this from the notion of STM
o Limits: Having to store more information stretches effectiveness of working
memory
o Workbench metaphor: described working-memory approach proposed by
Baddely. Idea that working memory is a workbench that holds both new material
and old material you have retrieved from storage (long-term memory)
 4 components of Baddely’s WM system: All link back to long-term memory, the central
executive through the other three
o Phonological Loop
o Episodic buffer
o Visuospatial sketchpad
o Central Executive
 Phonological loop: Can process a limited amount of sounds for short period of time.
Processes language and other sounds you hear, as well as sounds you make.
o Acoustic confusions: people are likely to confuse similar-sounding stimuli
o Phonological similarity effect: Easier to remember letters/words when they sound
the same (C T V vs Q A L)
o Word length effect: lists of short words easier to remember than long words
o Uses of phonological loops:
 Simple counting tasks
 Information can go from phonological loop into long-term memory
 Can use it during self-instruction to silently remind yourself to do
something. Talking to self is useful cognitive self
 Can use it when you learn new words in your first language
 Mathematical calculations and problem-solving tasks
 Visuospatial Sketchpad: Processes visual and spatial info. Allows you to look at complex
scene and gather visual info about objects/landmarks.
o Baddely & Hitch (1974): Can work simultaneously on one phonological task and
one visuospatial task without significant alteration to performance. Provide
evidence that working memory contains different components which can work on
different types of input
 o Block tapping task: Participants view blocks that flash in particular order, must
repeat sequence. Tests visuospatial sketchpad
 Central Executive: Integrates info from phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad,
episodic buffer and long-term memory. Plays major role in focusing attention, selecting
strategies, transforming info, and coordinating behavior.
o Characteristics: plans and coordinates, but does not store info
 Episodic Buffer: Serves as temporary storehouse that can hold and combine info from
phonological loop, your visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term
 Three findings on WM and academic performance:
o Scores on working-memory tasks are correlated with overall intelligence/grades
in school
o Scores on tests of working memory (especially phonological loop) are usually
correlated with reading ability
o Scores on central-executive tasks are correlated with verbal fluency, reading,
comprehension, reasoning ability, and note-taking skills
 WM and depression:
o Christopher and Macdonald (2005): Examined three major components of
Baddely’s WM model. People with major depression have difficulty with some
WM tasks but not others. Tend to have ruminative style; may worry about all the
things wrong in their life.
 WM and ADHD:
o People with ADHD have deficits in central-executive components of working
memory system. Have more difficulty on central-executive tasks.