Cognitive Psych Exam 1

  1. Knowledge comes from the individuals' own experiences
    Empiricism
  2. Recognizes individuals differences in genetics, but emphasizes malleability of human nature
    empiricism
  3. the "nurture" side in the argument nature vs. nurture
    empiricism
  4. Environment plays a powerful role in determining intellect and abilities
    empiricism
  5. the "nature" side in the argument nature vs. nurture
    nativism
  6. Native ability = more important than learning
    Nativism
  7. Abilities and cognitive functioning are "hard-wired," innate structures of the mind
    nativism
  8. Present at birth;  not learned, formed, or created from experience
    nativism
  9. What are the key points of structuralism?
    • developed introspection
    • sought to figure out what the elements of the mind are
    • William Wudnt: the first to approach cognitive questions scientifically
  10. Which approach was developed by William Wudnt and aimed to create a table of mental elements and utilized introspection?
    Structuralism
  11. Which approach was more interested in why the mind works the way it does, draws heavily on Darwinian evolutionary theory (study whole organisms in real-world settings), believed the most important thing the mind does is adapt to its environment, and used the Recapitulation Theory?
    Functionalism
  12. What are the key points of functionalism?
    • William James
    • Darwinsim
    • Recapitulation Theory
    • why the brain works the way it does .. its function
    • most important thing the brain does is adapt to its environment
  13. What are the key points of Pragmatism?
    • Theory is great, but wanted to study societal ill/mental health
    • Notice and incorporate sex and racial differences
    • Animal Rights and child labor
  14. Which theory utilized rewards and punishments and was only interested in observable behavior and the unobservable processes or subjective mental states were to be banished from psychological study?
    Behaviorism
  15. What are the key points of behaviorism?
    • info stimulus -->BLANK--> info response (behavior)
    • things that were subjective or unobservable shouldn't be included in psychological study
    • reward and punishment
    • The Hidden Cost of Reward (quality of childrens drawings decreased)
  16. What theory focused on stages and the natural progression of development and that it is important not to rush them and that thoughts can be organized into categories of information?
    Schema Theory
  17. What are the key points of schema theory?
    • - shouldn't rush stages and natural progression of development 
    • - accommodation
    • - assimilation
  18. What are schemas?
    patterns of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information
  19. What is the difference between accommodation and assimilation according to the schema theory?
    Accomodation = changing your schema to fit new information

    Assimilation = changing, ignoring, or recasting new information to fit your schema
  20. Which theory loosely translates to "configuration" or "shape" and believes that studying structure as a whole is more important that studying discrete parts and the perception has a profound impact on problem-solving?
    Gestalt
  21. What are the main points to Gestalt psychology?
    • - emergent properties 
    • - the mind imposes structure and organization
    • - the whole is greater than the sum of all its parts/ more important than discrete parts 
    • - perception is organized into wholes 
    • - we remember melodies not the individual notes
  22. Which approach believes many processes occur all at once, all over the brain?
    Connectionism
  23. Which approach believes humans have specialized areas of competence produced by our evolutionary heritage?
    evolutionary approach
  24. Which approach believes cognition does not occur in isolation from larger cultural contexts and that cognitive activities are shaped by culture and context?
    ecological approach
  25. What are the three sections of the brain?
    • Hindbrain
    • Midbrain
    • Forebrain
  26. What structures are found in the hindbrain?
    • pons
    • medulla
    • cerebellum
  27. What structures are found in the midbrain?
    • Tectum
    • Reticular Formation
    • Superior Colliculus
    • Inferior Colliculus
  28. What structures are found in the forebrain?
    • Thalamus
    • Hypothalamus
    • Hippocampus
    • Amygdala
    • Cerebral Cortex
  29. What are the four lobes of the cerebral cortex?
    • Frontal lobe
    • Temporal lobe
    • Parietal lobe
    • Occipital lobe
  30. What is found in the frontal lobe?
    • Prefrontal cortex
    • Motor cortex 
    • Broca's area
    • Exectutive functioning
  31. What is found in the parietal lobe?
    • Somatosensory cortex
    • Processes sensory information
  32. What is found in the occipital lobe?
    • Visual cortex 
    • Processes visual information
  33. What is the hindbrain responsible for?
    • telling muscles how to move and when to move
    • tell us when we're hungry, thirsty
    • breathing, heart beating
    • automatic functions of the body that keep us alive
  34. What is the midbrain responsible for?
    communicates between the hindbrain and forebrain
  35. What is the forebrain responsible for?
    • judgement, decision making, planning
    • emotions
    • memory
  36. Structure that transmits information from the spinal cord to the brain and regulates life support functions such as respiration, blood pressure, coughing, sneezing, vomiting, and heart rate
    medulla
  37. Structure that acts as a neural relay center, facilitating the "crossover" of information between the left side of the body and the right side of the brain (vice versa); involves balance, sleep, and arousal, and in the processing of visual and auditory information
    pons
  38. Structure that contains neurons that coordinate muscular activity; governs balance and is involved in general motor behavior and coordination
    cerebellum
  39. Structure involved in relaying information between other brain regions
    inferior/superior colliculi
  40. Structure that helps us keep us awake and alert and is involved in arousal
    reticular formation
  41. Structure that relays information especially to the cerebral cortex
    thalamus
  42. Structure that controls the pituitary gland by releasing hormones, specialized chemicals, that help to regulate other glands in the body; controls eating, drinking, temperature control, sleeping, sexual behaviors, and emotional reactions
    hypothalamus
  43. Structure involved in the long term formation of memories
    hippocampus
  44. Structure that controls the strength of emotional memories and is involved in emotional learning
    amygdala
  45. Structure that carries information between the cortex and the thalamus or between different parts of the cortex through about a dozen layers of neurons with white matter beneath
    cerebral cortex
  46. Which brain-imaging technique uses radiation to pinpoint areas of brain damage on the density of blood and cerebral fluid in brain structures?
    Computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan
  47. Which brain-imaging technique uses high magnetism to produce high quality, clear images that are "slices" of the brain from top to bottom and relies on the fact that blood goes to more active areas first therefore it would have high magnitude?
    Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
  48. Which brain-imaging technique relies on the fact that more  activity in brain regions = more blood flow to those regions by using gamma emissions that are injected into the blood?
    Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
  49. Which brain-imaging technique doesn't use radiation or injections and can provide information about differences in brain activity among different cognitive tasks because blood is magnetic as it is carried from the heart?
    Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
  50. Which brain-imaging technique has the best temporal resolution of any other recording technique and can detect responses that occur milliseconds apart using electrodes that are placed all over the scalp to detect different stages of consciousness?
    Electroencephalography (EEG)
  51. Which brain-imaging technique can measure changes in magnetic fields generated by neuronal electrical activity and has more precise spatial imagery?
    Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
  52. Which brain-imaging technique measures the area of the brain's response to a specific event by recording brainwaves pre, during, and post stimulus?
    Event-Related Potential (ERP)
  53. Which brain-imaging technique uses a magnetic coil next to the scalp over target area to excite or inhibit it and allows researchers to measure activity of specific brain circuits?
    Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
  54. Describe bottom-up processing
    • data driven
    • you "assemble" the pieces in order to perceive the object
    • research-intensive and time-consuming
    • perception is formed from only the information in the distal stimulus
  55. Describe top-down processing
    • mistakes are more prevalent
    • expectations, theories, or concepts guide what is perceived 
    • less time consuming and resource-intensive
  56. Theory of perception that believes different templates stored for each individual object, event, or stimulus in our environment.

    Bottom-up or top-down?
    • template matching theory
    • bottom-up
  57. Theory of perception that we have "demons" that "yell" louder the more they match the object or stimulus; we break down everything we see into constituent pieces, then assemble them to see what they match

    Bottom-up or Top-down?
    Pandemonium 

    bottom-up
  58. Theory of perception that believes we don't process stimuli as whole units; we break stimuli down into constituent parts and that recognition of each component of stimulus helps us infer what the whole represents

    Bottom-up or Top-down?
    Featural Analysis Theory

    Bottom-up
  59. Theory of perception that believes we match perceptual input to a stored representation; it doesn't have to match exactly just needs to be similar enough to your "perfect representation"

    Bottom-up or Top-down
    Prototype Theory

    top-down
  60. What are the emergent properties in Gestalt's approach to perception?
    • proximity
    • similarity
    • connectedness
    • movement
    • closure
    • good continuation
    • symmetry
  61. Theory of perception that believes we recognize each object or unit as a whole and that we group stimuli together based on the emergent properties and the law of Pragnanz
    Gestalt approach
  62. What is the law of Pragnanz?
    of all possibilities of interpreting a pattern or stimulus, we tend to select the simplest and most stable organization
  63. What are the stages of David Marr's 1985 theory of perception?
    • 1. Primal Sketch
    • 2. 2 1/2D Sketch 
    • 3. 3D Sketch
  64. What occurs in the Primal Sketch?
    • notice edges figure/ground contrast. regions of similarity 
    • no recognition yet or meaning
  65. What occurs in the 2 1/2D sketch?
    • relies almost exclusively on bottom-up processing
    • notice contours and information from your own viewpoint (distance, foreground, background etc.)
    • Recognition occurs
  66. What occurs in the 3D Sketch?
    • Add information you can't/don't see from your viewpoint based on expertise and experience
    • Conceptualization/meaning occurs
  67. What is distal stimulus?
    each object you see in your environment
  68. What is proximal stimulus?
    retinal image of an object
  69. What is a percept?
    the meaningful interpretation of the proximal stimulus
  70. What is spontaneous recovery?
    when you respond to a repeated stimulus again after a break
  71. What are the key points of the Filter Theory of Attention?
    • There are limits to the amount of information we can attend to at any given time
    • The unattended channel doesn't get analyzed for meaning (early and complete)
  72. What are some strategies that help with vigilance decrement?
    • change job or task
    • change position
    • change topic
    • expertise
  73. When we are tired we have more ____ and when we're caffeinated we have more ____.
    misses; false alarms
  74. In the Signal Detection Theory,if what a person sees and what happens in the world are both correct it is called a ___.
    Hit
  75. In the Signal Detection Theory,if what a person sees is correct and what actually happens is false it is called a ___.
    false alarm
  76. In the Signal Detection Theory, if what a person sees is wrong but actually happens in the world then it is called a ___.
    miss
  77. In the Signal Detection Theory, if what a person see and what actually happens in the world are false then it is called a ___.
    correct rejection
  78. What are affordances? Give an example
    When objects kinda tell us how to use them based off of the way they were made


    Tables are flat so we put things on them we don't have to be taught
  79. What are the stages of expertise?
    • Cognitive Stage
    • Associative Stage
    • Automatic Stage
    • Meta Stage **
  80. Explain the cognitive stage of expertise
    aware of every single step of the process
  81. Explain the associative stage of expertise
    practice, chunking, associated steps
  82. Explain the automatic stage of expertise
    perform task without awareness of steps; difficult to explain steps to another
  83. Explain the meta stage of expertise
    can perform task automatically and also slow and controlled, aware of every step but dont need to follow a guideline, can explain well
  84. What are the key points of the Selective Attention theory?
    • Moray Cocktail Party Effect
    • Detecting info in unattended channel is related to working memory
    • Low working memory = less able to block unattended side
    • Occasional lapses
  85. How does the Selective Attention theory contradict the filter theory?
    If nothing got through the unattended channel then no one would have been able to recognize their name being called (20% with hwm and 65% with lwm)
  86. What are the key points of the Attentuation Theory?
    • - instead of one side being completely blocked, the "volume" of the unattended side is "turned down"
    • Only process as much as is necessary to separate messages
    • Words with a lower threshold are easier to process thus recognizable at lower volumes
    • Allows for many types of analysis of all messages
  87. How does the Attentuation Theory contradict the filter theory?
    it allows some unattended messages to get through at a lower volume (instead of completely blocked) and allows for more than one type of analysis for all messages (physical, linguistic, and semantic) whereas filter only allows for one
  88. How does the Late Selection Model contradict the filter theory?
    moved the selective filter to after the perceptual processes so we actually assign everything meaning but the filter decides what to bring to our conscious awareness

    We actively decide what to filter out
  89. How does the Spotlight Theory contradict the filter theory?
    we highlight what is important and the rest is just fuzzy not necessarily filtered out
  90. What are the key points of the Schema Theory?
    • Selective Looking Task
    • Person-swap pranks
    • We simply don't acquire what we don't attend to
    • Unattended information is completely left out the cognitive processing 
    • Birthday party at McDonalds
    • What is seen guides further seeing
  91. How does the Schema Theory contradict the filter theory?
    we don't filter unattended information because never actually get them... we only process things that we attend to
  92. Why can we efficiently divide our attention?
    Attention Hypothesis of Automatization the more we practice or familiarize ourselves with a task is the more automatic it becomes ie. stroop task .. automatic processing (things done w/o conscious awareness and w/o interfering with other mental activity
Author
notgonnafail
ID
345263
Card Set
Cognitive Psych Exam 1
Description
exam study
Updated