Cog Psych Test 1

In the cerebral cortex, the system responsible for sensitivity and alertness to new stimuli; it also keeps a person alert & vigilant for long periods of time.

In gestalt psychology, the situation in which the figure and the ground reverse from time to time, so that the figure becomes the ground and then becomes the figure again.

The branch of computer science that explores human cognitive processes by creating computer models that accomplish the same tasks that humans do.

The proposal that memory can be understood as a sequence of discrete steps, in which information is transferred from one cognitive storage area to another.

A concentration of mental activity.

A theoretical perspective that focuses only on objective, observable reactions. Behaviorism emphasizes the environmental stimuli that determine behavior.

A problem in human vision that stems from the fact that important features of an object (such as shape & color) are not respresented as a unified whole by the visual system.

The condition in which an individual with a damaged visual cortex claims not to be able to see an object, bet can accurately report some characteristics of that object

The theories of attention that propose that a narrow passageway in human information processing can limit the quantity of imformation to which people can pay attention. When one message is flowing through the bottleneck, other messages must be left behind.

The kind of cognitive processing that emphasizes the importance of information from the stimuli registered on sensory receptors.

The destruction of brain tissue caused by strokes, tumors, or accidents

A phenomenon in which people report hearing a clear-cut phoneme (e.g., a clear cut "b" or a clear cut "p"), even though they actually heard a sound halfway between two speech sounds (e.g., halfway between "b" and "p").

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

The inability to detect change in an object of a scene.

The variability in phoneme pronunciation that occurs because the shape of the mouth is influenced by the previous phoneme and the following phoneme.

The situation in which, when paying close attention to one conversation, a person can often notice if his or her name is mentioned in a nearby conversation.

Mental activities involving the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge.

A theoretical orientation that emphasizes people's knowledge & their mental processes.

The field that examines how cognitive processes can be explained by the structure and function of the brain.

(1) a synonym for cognition. (2) The cognitive approach to psychology; a theoretical approach that emphasizes people's knowledge and their mental processes.

An interdisciplinary field that examines questions about the mind. Cognitive science includes the disciplines of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and economics.

Repetitive behaviors that are designed to reduce the anxiety produced by obsessive thoughts or images.

The persopective that cognitive processes work like a computer-- in other words, like a complex, multipurpose machine that processes information quickly and accurately.

A computer system that resembles human performance on a specific cognitive task. Also called computer modeling.

The model proposing that cogintive processes can be understood in terms of networks that link together beuron-like units, and that many operations can proceed simultaneously rather than one step at a time.. Also known as the parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach.

An awareness of the external world, as well as thoughts and emotions about one's internal world.

The experience of listening simultaneously to two different stimuli, one in each ear.

Long passages of spoken and written language; language units that are larger than a sentence.

In perception, the actual object that is "out there" in the environment-- for example, a cell phone sitting on a desk.

A characteristic or component of a visual stimulus.

The kind of perceptual processing that allows people to register features automatically, using parallel processing and registering all features simultaneously. Roughly equivalent to automatic processing, this processing is relatively effortless.

Tasks in which people must attend to two or more simultaneous messages, responding to each appropriately.

A principle stating that the conditions in which research is conducted should be similar to the natural setting to which the results will be applied.

In clinical psychology, a technique in which people are instructed to look at a list of words (related to a possible psychological disorder) and name the color of ink for each word.

Scientific evidence obtained by careful observation and experimentation.

A neuroscience techniqued that records the small, brief fluctuations in the brain's electricial activity, in response to a stimulus.

In the cerebral cortex, the system handling the kind of attention used when a task features conflict (e.g., on the Stroop test)

In perception, the object recognition theories proposing that a visual stimulus is composed of a small number of characteristics, each of which is called a distinctive feature.

A theory of attention proposing that people sometimes look at a scene using distributed attention, with all parts of the scene processed simultaneously; on other occasions, they used focused attention, with each item in the scene processed one at a time.

In gestalt psychology, when two areas share a common boundary, the figure has a distinct shape with clearly defined edges. In contrast, the ground forms the background.

The period between saccadic movements (about 50 milliseconds) in which the visual system acquires the information that is useful for reading.

See functional magnetic resonance imaging.

In figure-integration theory, the kind of perceptual processing that requires serial processing, in which more complex objects are identified one at a time.

In vision, the center of the retina, which has better acuity than other retinal regions.

A neuroscientific procedure in which a research participant reclines with his or her head surrounded by a large magnet. This magnetic field that is created produces changes on oxygen atoms. A scanning device records these oxygen atoms while the participant performs a cognitive task.

In psycholinguistics, the proposal that humans use the same neural mechanisms to process both speech sounds and nonspeech sounds, and that speech perception is a learned ability.

In vision a shortened version of the phrase "geometrical ions." In the recognition-by-components theory, the basic assumption is that a given view of an object can be represented as an arrangement of simple 3-D shapes or geons.

The term for recognition that is based on an overall quality that transcends the individual elements.

The theoretical approach which emphasizes that humans have basic tendencies to organize what they see, and that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

In gestalt psychology, the ground is the region that is behind the figure, forming the background.

A term describine recognition based on overall shape and structure, rather than on individual elements.

The kind of brief memory that allows an image of a visual stimulus to persist for about 200 to 400 milliseconds after the image has disappeared. Also known as visual sensory memory.

An inappropriate combination of features (for example, combining one object's shape with a nearby object's color).

A visual illusion, in which people see edges even though they are not physically present in the stimulus. Also called subjective contours.

Mental representations of stimuli that are not physically present.

The inability to notice a new object that appears suddenly and unexpectedly when a person is paying attention to other events in a scene.

An approach in cognitive psychology which argues that (1) mental processes can be compared with the operations of a computer, and (2) information progresses through the system in a series of stages, one step at a time.

The process of systematically analyzing one's own sensations and reporting them as objectively as possible.

The way people's efforts backfire when they attempt to control their consciousness or try to eliminate a particular thought.

The large-capacity memory that contains one's memory for experiences and information that have accumulated over a lifetime.

A phenomenon in which visual information influences speech perception, when individuals integrate both visual and auditory information.

The process of maintaining information over time.

Knowledge and thoughts about one's own cognitive process, as well as control of those cognitive processes.

The model proposing that cognitive processes can be understood in terms of networks that link together neuron-like units; in addition, many operations can proceed simultaneously rather than one step at a time. Also known as the parallel distributed processing (PDP) approach.

The basic cell in the nervous system.

The knowledge that an object exists, even when it is temporarily out of sight.

The process of identifying a complex arrangement of sensory stimuli.

A persistent thought or image that is intrusive or inappropriate, causing extreme anxiety.

A psychological disorder characterized by recurrent obsessions or compulsions that are recognized as excessive, uncontrollable, and time consuming.

A precise definition that specifies exactly how researchers will measure a concept.

In the cerebral cortex, the system responsible for the kind of attention required for visual search, in which a person must shift attention around to various spatial locations.

The model proposing that cognitive processes can be understood in terms of networkd that link together neuron-like unity; the model states that many operations proceed simultaneously, rather than one at a time. Also known as connectionism and neural networks.

A type of cognitive processing in which a person can handle many signals at the same time, as opposed to serial processing.

The process fo identifying a complex arrangement of sensory stimuli.

The use of previous knowledge to gather and interpret the stimuli registered by the senses.

In reading, the number of letters and spaces that can be perceived during a visual fixation.

An excessive fear of a specific object.

The basic unit of spoken language.

In auditory perception, the phenomenon in which people fill in sounds that are missing by using context as a cue.

A hypothetical special-puropse neural mechanism in humans that specifically facilitates speech perception, rather than other kinds of auditory perception. Also known as speech module.

A procedure in which researchers measure blood flow by injecting the participant with a radioactive chemical just before the participant performs a cognitive task.

The portion of the cerebral cortex that is concerned with basic processing of visual stimuli. Located in the occipital lobe of the brain.

A condition in which people cannot recognize human faces visually, though they perceive other objects relatively normally.

In perception, the information registered on one's sensory receptors (for example, the image on the retina created by the cell phone sitting on the desk).

The branch of computer science that seeks to design a program that will accomplish a task as efficiently as possible.

In a serial-position curve, the enhanced accuracy for the final items in a series of stimuli, which presumably occurs because the items are still in working memory.

In perception, the proposal that a specific view of an object can be represented as an arrangement of simple 3-D shapes called geons. Also known as structural theory.

In reading, the eye movements in which the eye returns to earlier material in the sentence.

In vision, the inside back portion of the eye, containing millions of different kinds of neurons that register and transmit visual information from the outside world.

In reading, the kind of eye movement that brings the center of the retina into position over the words to be read.

Generali8zed knowledge or expectation, which is distilled from past experiences with an event, an object, or a person. Schemas frequently guide memory recall.

A psychological disorder characterized by severely disordered thoughts. People with schizophrenia do not show intense emotion, and they may have hallucinations.

A task in which people must respond selectively to certain kinds of information while ignoring other information.

A person's factual, organized knowledge about the world, including knowledge about word meanings.

A large-capacity storage system that records and briefly stores information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy.

A type of cognitive processing in which only one item is handled at a given time, and one step must be completed before proceeding to the next step.

In attention research, the process of repeating a message heard in one ear during a dichotic listening task.

The kind of memory that contains only the small amount of information that a person is actively using. At present, most people prefer the term, "working memory."

A neuroscience technique in which researchers study the characteristics of an animal's brain and nervous system by inserting an electrode next to a single neuron.

The field that uses neuroscience to examine how cognitive processes are used in one's interactions with other people.

In psycholinguistics, an approach stating that humans are born with a specialized cognitive device for decoding speech stimuli. As a result, people process speech sounds more quickly and accurately than other auditory stimuli. Also known as the speech-is-special approach.

In psycholinguistics, an approach stating that humans are born with a specialized cognitive device for decoding speech stimuli. As a result, people process speech sounds more quickly and accurately than other auditory stimuli. Also known as the special mechanism approach.

A hypothetical special-purpose neural mechanism in humans that specifically facilitates speech perception, rather than other kinds of auditory perception. Also known as phonetic module.

In hearing, the translation of sound vibrations into a sequence of sounds that the listener perceives to be speech.

The observation that people take much longer to name the color of a stimulus when it is used in printing an incongruent word than when it appears as a solid patch of color.

In perception, the proposal that a given view of an object can be represented as an arrangement of simple 3-D shapes called geons. Also known as the recognition-by-components theory.

A visual illusion, in which people see edges even though they are not physically present in the stimulus. Also called illusory contours.

A specific perceptual pattern stored in memory.

In pattern recognition, the theory stating that a stimulus is compared with a set of templates, or specific patterns stored in memory. After comparison, the person notes the template that matches the most closely.

Cognitive processes are active, rather than passive.

Cognitive processes are remarkably efficient and accurate.

Cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information.

Cognitive processes are interrelated with one another; they do not operate in isolation.

Many cognitive processes rely on both bottom-up and top-down processing.

The kind of cognitive processing that emphasizes the influence of concepts, expectations, and memory.

In perception, a spatial deficit for one half of the visual field.

In perception, the model proposing that a small number of views of 3-D objects are stored in memory, rather than just one view.

In perception, a phenomenon in which a single letter can be identified more accurately and more rapidly when it apears in a meaningful word than when it appears by itself or in a meaningless string of unrelated letters.

The brief, immediate memory for material that is currently being processed; a portion of working memory also coordinates ongoing mental activities. Working memory was previously called short-term memory.