Final Exam

mental activity, describes the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge.

Synonym for cognition, it refers to the variety of mental activities such as: perception, memory, imagery, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision making.

Also refers to a particular theoretical approach to psychology

a theoretical orientation that emphasizes people's mental processes and their knowledge.

• carefully trained observers would systematically analyze their own sensations and report them as objectively as possible.
• analyzing experiences into separate components.

• observations that our regall is sepecially accurate for the final itmes in a series of stimuli.
• Mary Whiton Calkins

Psychology focuses on the objective, observable reactions to stimuli in the environment.

Behaviorist emphasize it and it is a precise definition that specifies exactly how a concept is to be measured.

we humans have basic tendencies to actely organize what we see. We see patterns rather than random arrangements.

The oval with two straight lines equalled a face.

• The Insight of Problem solving.
• You gain a sudden flash of insight then solve the problem.

When a baby learns that an object still exist even when it is out of sight.

• linguistics
• memory
• developmental

similar to the operations of a computer and information progressing through the system of stages.

memory is understoon as a series of steps, where information is transformed form one storage area to the next.

The part of your brain that store memories of senses.

Visual Sensory that preserves an image of a visual stimu.us for a brief period after the stimulus has disappeared.

Auditory Sensory

can be understood in terms of networks that link together neuron like units and the operations can proceed simultaneously.

The outer layer of the brain that is responsible for cognitive processes.

The system handles only on item at a given time; furthermore, the system must complete one step before it can proceed to the next step.

Begins with conscious ORGANIZED and INTERPRETATION

emphasizes how a person's concepts and mental processes influence object recognition.

Exp: knowing what a baby looks like; expereince = having seen a picture of a new born baby.

Bottom up Processing

Begins with automatic SENSORY DETECTION AND ENCODING

emphasizes the importance of the environment and the stimulus in object recognition (what our sensory receptors actually register)

Exp: see the shape of the branches

uses previouse knowledge to gather and interpret the stimuli registered by the senses by the sense.

is when you identify a complex arrangement of sensory stimuli, and you perceice that this pattern is separate from its background

distal stimulus and proximal stimulus

• the information registered on your sensory receptors.
• Exp: the image a cell phone will leave on your retina

• the actual object that is in the environment.
• Exp: a cell phone sitting on a desk

Exp: you can recognize your cell phone even when it is in an unusual angle or partially hidden by your bookbag.

in the occipital lobe of the brain

we see edges even though they are not physically present in the stimulus

You can compare a stimulus with a set of templates, or specific patterns that you have stored in memory.

propose a more flexigle approach, in which a visual stimulus is coposed of a small number of characteristics or components

are features of an object that need to be present in order for it to be considered that object

is that a specific view of an oject can be represented as an arrangement of simple 3-D shapes called geons.

are basic shapes that can be formed and combined to create objects.

He emphasized geons

failing to see a change in a visible object when our attention is directed somewhere else.

• A concentration of mental activity using several cognitive processes.
• Allows you to process SELECTIVE ASPECTS of your sensory world.
• Exp: Spot light

Narrow Passageway limits amount of information we can attend to

easy and familiar and often parallel

• we store a different views on three-dimentional objects rather than one view.
• We mentally rotate the object until we recognize it.

When the conditions of research are similar to nature.

trying to attend to two or more stimuli at one time

trying to attend to one stimuli and ignoring all others

Experiment: dichotic listening tasks; visual search task

Distinctiveness is key in selective attention

deals with font-color and word-name relationship and helps explain the automatic vs. controlled processes

the brief memory for material that you are currently processing.

Memory for expereinces and informaiton that have accumulated over a lifetime.

• Episodic
• Procedural
• Semantic

Memories of events

knowledge of how to do things.

general knowledge of things or events

Believed that inorder for short term memories to transfered to long term memories it needs to be rehearsed.

• A multipart system
• Central Executive
• Visuaospatial Sketchpad
• Phonological Loop

• major role focusing attention, planning and coordinating behavior: suppresses irrelevent information.
• exp: the boss of working memory. Plans, Problem Solves, and Initiates decision process.

visual and spatial info

• sounds and autdio information.
• Two Parts:
• Phonological store - Memory store lasting 1-2 sec.
• Subvocal rehearsal process - Repeat to self

Temporary storehouse to combine info form phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, longterm memory.

Material held in memory for less than a minute is frequently forgotten.

3 letters, count backward by 3's, recall

• chunking
• pronounciation - time we can recall number of times produced in 1.5 seconds... linked to verabal trace

a memory unit that consists of several components that are strongly associated with one another.

Short term memory holds about 7 chunk; it can be a single # or letter.

• Defined the limits on our capacity for processing information.
• Calls basic units in short term memory chunks
• He came up with #7 (+/- 2)

when previously learned information interferes with new learning.

• Chunking
• Pronounciation
• Semantic similarity

• is a U-shaped relationship between a word position in a list and it's probability of recall.
• Primacy Effect and Recency Effect

better recall for items at beginning of list because of more rehearsal time (LTM)

better recall for items at end of list because less interference (WM)

previously learned material interferes with new learning

it is spoken, written, or signed words and the way we combine them as we think

• it is the smallest unit of distinctive sound.
• Exp: e, l, th

40

• it is the smallest unit that carries meaning.
• it can onot be divided into smaller meaningful units
• exp: un break able, giraffe

it is the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classifiacation of its phonemes.

it is a method of representing the sounds of a language using a written system.

studies of the rules for forming admissible words.

3 phonemes and 1 morpheme

4 phonemes and 2 morphemes

a system of rules that enables us to communicat with others.

a set of rules we use to derive MEANING from morphemes, words, and sentences

rules we use to order words into sentences, grammatical rules that govern how we organize words into sentences.

exp: in english, we say a red car; in spanish the adjective comes after the noun

WORD ORDER

our knowledge of the social rules that underlie language use.

it is realted to Syntax, it has to do with the word order of a sentence.

it is related to Semantics, it has to do with the meaning

That is my toy and That toy is mine.

That is my car and That is my toy.

• when sentences have identical surface structure but different deep structure.
• exp: The shooting of the hunters was terrible. They are cooking apples.

• it emphasizes that we construct a sentence by using a hierarchial structure that is based on grammatical BUILDING BLOCKS called CONSTITUENTS.
• exp: The little girl looked at the big building
• Noun Constituent: the little girl
• Verb Constituent: looked at the big building

• Chomsky
• Proposes innate language skills
• Emphasizes grammar not meaning
• It is necessary to understand similarities and diffences between sentences and thier meaning

• Emphaiszes that the purpose of language is to communicate meaning to others
• we structure sentences differently to communicate slightly different meanings

Transformaitonal Garmmar and Cognitive- Functional Approach

Negatives, Passives, Nested Structures, and Ambiguity

Few people strongly deny that the world is not flat.

The book was dropped by Tom.

• The car that I drive to school everyday broke down yesterday.
• information that is given before the important information is given.

Visiting relatives can be a nuisance

• is a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that the readers' most likely interpretation will be incorrect.
• exp. The old man the boat. = The boat is manned by the old.

Broca's area and Wenicke's area

It is identified as an essentioal component of the motor mechanisms governing articulated speech

thought to be essential for the understanding and formulating coherent speech

a large region of the parietal and temporal lobes of the left cerebral hemisphere.

a small posterior part of the infereior frontal gyrus of the left cerebral hemisphere

readers can recognize a word directly from the printed letters

we must translate the ink marks on the page into a form of sound before we can locate info about a word's meaning

we can use either direct-accesss or indirect-access

direct-access, indirect-access, and dual route

Whole-word approach and Phonics approach

• Encourages identifying (whole) words by using context cues
• DIRECT ACCESS

• it encourages ientifying words by pronouncing individual letters
• best way
• INDIRECT-ACCESS

• a mental dictionary that contains a variety of information about words.
• organized by meanings (Semantic) not alphabetically and relation to other words

• an effortless and automatic search because the features do not overlap
• (Single feature)
• looking for a red ball amongst green balls

• it requires effort because some caracteristics overlap between the target and distracters
• exp: looking for a green ball amongst green squares and red and green balls.

• it is brief memory for material you are currently processing.
• coordinating ongoing mental activities
• aka (STM)

Short term memory

working memory

it holds and manipulates info as we perform cognitive tasks

Can't remember anything AFTER brain damage.

Can't remember anything BEFORE brain damage

includes imagery about events, emotional reations, procedural information, and verbal narrative about yourself

• memory for the circumstances in which you first learned about a very suprising and emotional event.
• Exp: 9/11

the have greater rehearsal, more elaboration, more distinct

we also construct memories at retrieval.

• it is generalized knowledge of an event.
• an organized mental structure or framwork of preonceived ideas about the world and how it works.

tendency to exaggerate consistency between past and current feeling and beliefs.

trying to identifyy the origins of your memories and beliefs.

Mixing up the source of the memory.

• incorporating information learned after an event into memory for that event.
• Exp: How fast was the car going when they smashed into eachother. vs. How fast was the car going when they hit each other.

it argues that we construct knowledge by integrating what we know, so that our understanding of an event of a topic is coherent and makes sense.

• Weapon Focus
• Long Delay

• Plausible misinformation
• Social pressure to report an answer
• Witness receives positive feedback from say a lineup

Many "recovered" memories are actually constructed stories about things that never happened.

Actively inhibiting memories of abuse in order to maintain an attachment to the adult

Strong association between probes and falsely remembered items.

a level of processing model.

it talks about how recall is better if the retrieval context is similar to the encoding context

Organized knowledge about the world. It includes facts, lexical knowledge and conceptual knowledge.

• when concepts are stored in memory according to a list of necessay features.
• Defining Features and Characteristic Features

• when someone can define something based on it being typical for that category.
• Exp. Robin vs penguin for birds

the amount of time you learn depends on the total time you devodt to learning.

You will remember more material if you spread your learning trials over time.

the use of a strategy to help memory

Imagery and organization

Mentally "revisiting" the place or Loci which will cut the items

Remembering what you need to do in the future

Your knowledge and control of your cognitive processes.

Tip-of the toungue phenomenon

Metamemory, Metacoprehension, and Self-regulaiton.

the knowledge and control of your cognitive processes.

People overestimate the number of answers they will supply on a test.

a rule that guarantees solving a problem.

a simple strategy of shortcut that allows us to solve problems efficiently.

the tendency to think of a problem in a typical or customary way when a better solution is available.

Taking a break from the problem then coming back.

making a generalized conclusion

drawing conclusions that are definitely valid

• If a student at my college is enrolled in a course in cognitive psychology
• Then the student must have completed research methods
• Chris has not completed a course in reasearch methods
• Therefore, Chris is not taking a course in cognitive psychology

Syllogism and Performance on conditional reasoning tasks

it has two true statements and a conclusion

System for categorizing the kinds of reasoning used in analyzing propositions.

a statement

it includes "if"

it includes "then"

Error/Invalid Conclusion