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Perception and Cognition Exam #1

Terms

undefined, object
copy deck
__ __ is only good in a small area straight ahead, where the image is focused on a part of the retina called the fovea
visual acuity
Brain imaging allows the identification of ___ by tracking ___ activity of internal components of the brain
function
spatial
___ are rapid eye movements from one fixation to another.
Saccades
MRI provides measurement of ___ __ __ showing cortical lobes and structures and tissue differences with lots of accuracy
physical brain structure
__ __ __ provides a method to measure fiber tracks from one brain region to the next.
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
FMRI measure the ______________________
amount of energy used by neurons in the brain
__ __ = two events close enough together in time are seen as simultaneous.
Temporal integration
Positron Emiission TOmography (PET) allows the tracking of specific ___ in the brain. Injecting or inhavin a radioactive ___ which circulates through blood.
chemicals
isotope
change detection was really poor except when the saccade was moving toward the ___, then it was detected about ___% of the time.
object
90
one theory of the Stroop effect is __ __ of ___, where words are read faster than colors are named. The result is that 2 potential responses compete for the final response.
Relative speed of processing
Another stroop effect ehroy is __ __, where motor responses receive at least partial priming as the evidence for which response to make accumulates after the stimulus is presented.
Response competition
__ __ is another theory of the stroop effect where subjects must make a speeded response to indicate which of the two letters was represented.
flanker's test
What do rationalists believe?
take what you know and mike decisions to answer their questions.
Name 2 famous rationalists
Plate--reason helps to understand the world

Descartes--learn through thinking and using our logic
What do empericists believe? Name 2 famous empericists.
we watch what people do to answer our questions of the world.

Aristotle--focus on experinces in the world. Truth is only found by concrete examples.

John Locke--all truths come from experiences
Sysnthesis is a combination theory of ___ and ___. Who brought these two together?
rationalism and empiricism.
Immanual Kant...said we should make theories based on what we know (R) and then go out in the world and find info to back us up (E)
What is structuralism? Who is famous for this theory? What did he believe?
TRying to understand thought.
Wilheml Wundt. Try to understand conscious experinece through INTROSPECTION
Explain functionalism and who is gamous for this theory.
William James. Focuses on the PROCESS rather than the CONTENT of the thought. Why do people do the things they do.
What is pragmatism? Who proposed it?
John Dewey. Believe knowledge is validated by its usefulness.
___ examines how events or ideas can become associated with one another in the mind to result in a form of learning.
Association.
The law of effect states...a certain ___ with tend to produce a certain ___ overtime in an organism is rewarded for that response.
stimulus
response
What is the theory behaviorism?
focus on relation between observable behavior and environmental events
Who is Ivan Pavlov?
He was the first to discover you could relate a bell to salivation...classical conditioning (Behaviorism)
Who is John Watson?
Father of behaviorism. Believes all behavior can be explained in terms of environmental things
Who is B.F. Skinner?
wrote book called Walden 2. Believed you could shape behavior with reward and punishment...operant conditioning (Behaviorism)
Name three critics of behaviorism and what they believed in.
1) Edward Tolman...Father of cognitive psych. Studied rats in mazes giving us hope that we could study thought.
2) Karl Lashley--tried to find out what areas of brain were associated with what function.
3) Wolfgang Koehler--geshalt psychologist. Wanted to see the whole thing instead of studying each thing individually
What is gestalt psych?
whole is greater than sum of it's parts.
What do donald Hebb, Ulric Neisser, Herbert Simon, and Noam Chomsky have in common? Explain each of their views.
All were pioneers in the Cognitive revolution.
1) Donald Hebb--studied brain. Showed how visual perception is explained by connects through the cells in cell assemblies
2)Ulric Neisser--wrote book about cognitive revolution
3) Herbert Simon--devised computer models of human thought
4) Noam Chomsky--Language Acquisition device. Ended behavorism.
Name 6 methods used to study cognition and explain.
1) Naturalistic observation (study people in their own setting...can't control variables)
2) Self-report method (questionairre...can have biases and expectations from the person)
3) Lab experiments (conditions are constant/ can control variables)
4) Psychobiological methods (sleep tests, EEG Tests...brain activity over time. Ethics are problems)
5) Case Study (study one person...can't generalize to everyone)
6) Computer simulations (Artificial intelligence...train robot and see how it acts in certain situations)
__ __ = the degree to which particular findings in one environmental context may be considered relavant outside their context.
ecological validity
__ __ = cross-disciplinary field that uses ideas and methods from cognitive psych, psychobiologicy, AI, philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology
Congitive science
Explain nature vs. nuture
Do our genes influence us more than our environment? Most people think it's a mix between the two
Expalin rationalism vs. empiricism.
how should we discover the truth about ourselves and our world? A mix between the two
Explain Structures vs. Processes
Should we study structures or processes of the brain?
Areas of the brain interact together to create different processes.
Explain domain generality vs. domain specificity
Is a creative person creative in one area or in everything?
Explain Validity of causal inferences vs. ecological validity
should we study cognition with hily controlled experiments or use more naturalistic techniques? Which way will give us best results without throwing away too much control?
Explain applied vs. basic research
some research can be applied to others, but some just want to understand the processes BEFORE you apply it to anything.

Usually a combination
Explain biological vs. behavioral methods
Should study brain and functioning directly or study people's brain in congitive tasks?
__ of __ = refers to the specific areas of the brain that control specific skills or behaviors.
Localization of function
the __ __ is the basis for our ability to perceive, adapt to, and interact with the world around us.
nervous system
name the 5 methods of observing the brain.
1) Postmorten studies
2) Animal studies
3) Electrical recordings
4) Static imagining
5) Metabolic imagining
Define postmortem study. How did this first start?
You take a brain after organism has died and examine it. Compare it to a normal brain.

Looked first at gay men to see if their sexuality had to do with their brain.
Explain pros and cons of postmortem studies.
Pros: can learn about STRUCTURES and see how damage corresponds to diseases...compare appearances.

CONS: can't study function. Hard to compare the brains because they're all different
Explain the first animal study done on brains and what the outcome was.
Cats study about vision. Cats ONLY saw horizontal lines from the beginning of life. Then, when shown verticle lines couldn't see them.

Told us certain areas of the brain are specialized to respond to certain types of stimuli (places or faces)
What other kinds of studies are considered Animal studies
Single cell recording (put probe into nerve cell and measure it's recording)...Mollusks
Name the advantages and disadvantages of animal studies
PRO: can do more with them ethically

CON: not able to study language.
What is lesioning of the brain?
damage to a particular structure to see what type of deficit it leads to.
Explain EEGs.
You put electrodes on scalp to measure the electrical energy that's going on in the brain. Each electrode sends a signal that tells how much activity is happening at any given time.
Why types of waves are seen in EEGs?
TEmporal resolution (blurry picture)

Alpha waves when paying close attention

Beta waves when doing yoga

Not extreme spatial resolution because can't determine exact point.
Explain some different static imaging techniques.
X-ray = not detailed, just see skull

CT scan = more detailed

MRI = most detailed
What is metabolic imagining?
Observes what is going on in your brain by measuring metabolism. Researchers can follow OXYGEN and GLUCOSE in your brain to see where it's used.
Name and describe 3 types of metabolic imaging types.
fMRI--good temporal AND spatial resolution. Observe behavior over time

MEG = can see movies on the brain. Increases temporal resolution

PET scans = injected with radioactive isotope and watch to see what parts of brain are active. Less temporay resolution. Can't take as many pictures. Only have 4 a year.
Why is metabolic imagining a good choice to explore the brain?
when you use magnetci fields, not affected by other bodily structures.
Name the forebrain structures and what happens in the forebrain.
Where higher cognition happens.
Cerebral cortex
Basal gangli
LImbic system
Thalamus
Hypothalamus
Diencephalon
Define cerebral cortex.
Where higher cognition happens.
What is the basal ganglia
collections of neurons crucial to motor funcgtion. Come out where corpus collusom is.
Explain the 3 parts of the limbic system
Limbic system is involved in EMOTION

AMYGDALA = involved in anger and agression
SEPTUM = involved in fear responses
HIPPOCAMPUS = involved in forming new memories.
What does that thalamus and hypothalamus do. What structure do they make up?
Thalamus = sensory info
Hypothalamus = fight or flight response

DIENCEPHALON
__ syndrome produces loss of memory function
Korsakoff's
What does the midbrain do and what is it made up of?
Helps control eye movement and coordination.

Reticular Activating system (consciousness and sleeping)

BRAIN STEM
What makes up the hindbrain?
Medulla oblongata (controls breathing, heart, etc)
PONS (relay station)
CEREBELLUM (balance and muscle coordination...higher level thinking)
Name the 5 lobes and what they are associated with.
FRONTAL--motor activity, higher cognition, planning, problem solving, etc.
PARIETAL = sensory cortex
TEMPORAL = auditory
OCCIPITAL = vision
ASSOCIATION AREAS
Name the functions associated with the right hemisphere
spatial perception
navigating spatial tasks
more creativity
emotional processing
Name the functions associated with the left hemisphere
language production (BROCA'S area)
Language comprehension (Wernicke's area)
Lashley's search for localization of function
logic and planning areas
Explain broca's area.
Simplified version of language. Aware of their ability to process info, but might not be able to communicate. Speech and writing is abnormal.
Explain Wernicke's area.
Can't comprehend. Back towards temporal lobe, Talk in jibberish. Trouble reading and writing. Don't know they have this problem.
Who is the father of neuropsychology?
Karl Lashley
Who received the nobel prize for research that each hemisphere behaves as a separate brain?
Roger Sperry
What does split-brain mean?
Corpus callosum has been severed.
Explain a famous split-brain study. What was the result?
Gazzangia showed split-brain patients a picture with different objects on right and let side of picture. Asked which card goes along with picture. Only left brain can use language, so made up a story about the other. Right visual field is seen in left brain and vice versa.

This told us that the Rt. Hemisphere is ver veridicle (presents world as is). Lt. hemisphere will make up stories, think logically, but inacurate.
Name 3 brain disorders and explain them.
HEAD INJURY = open or closed. Concussion is when you've bruised your brain.
BRAIN TUMOR = most common.
STROKE = there's an interruption of oxygen flow to the brain
Describe the 2 different types of strokes.
ISCHEMIC = build up or clot doesn't allow blood to get to the brain (COmmon)

HEMORRHAGIC = blood vessel breaks and blood flows into brain. Area near break is damaged because of lack of oxygen and bleeding. HARD TO CONTROL
Describe the case study we read about Neglect syndrome.
Ellen neglected 1 whole side of her body. She could see the other side if it was pointed out to her, or she really wanted to see it.
What's the difference between blindness and neglect?
Blindnes...truly can't see. Neglect...just don't pay attention. Info is coming in ,but she can't use higher thinking
What neural deficits underlie neglect syndrome?
Reticular activating system circuit doesn't processing.
__ is the means by which was attentvely process a limited amount of info from the enormous amount of info avaiable through our senses.
Attention
___ includes the feeling of awareness and contest of awareness.
Conscousness
List the 3 roles conscious attention seves in cognition.
1) monitoring our interactions with the environment
2) helps us link the past and our present
3) helps us control and plan future actions
List the characteristics of controlled processes. Give an example.
1) effortful (think about what you're doing)
2) Conscious (be aware of what you're doing)
3) Requires attention
4) Serial processing (Step by step)
5) Used for complex difficult tasks

You try to count backwards while spelling your name...solving moral dilemma...learning a new task.
List the pro and con of controlled processes.
They HELP solving moral dilemmas etc. because you don't want to make mistakes.

They HINDER because they take much more time than normal.
List the characteristics of automatic processes and give an example.
1) Effortless (don't have to think about what you're doing)
2) Generally nonconscious (not aware of process)
3) requires little attention
4) Parallel Processing (multi-tasking)
5) Used to relatively simple tasks

Example: reading, tying shoe, priming, anything practiced a lot.
Name three theories that explain Preconscious (nonconscious) processing
1) Priming
2) Intuition
3) Blindsight
___ = the facilitation of a response by previous experiences. What does this make you do......
Priming
Makes you respond to questions or things in a different way because you've already been told what to think about...kind of
____ = hunch, response under conditions of uncertainty.
Intuition
Explain the dyads of triads experiment.
Bowers did this. He gave people 2 lists of 3 words. One group of words could be associated with another word entirely. More than 50% of the time people guess correctly...evidence of intuition.

Ex: Playing, credit, report
or
Still, pages, music

THe 1st goes with CARD
___ = evidence that people who are blind can still respond as if they are processing visual stimuli. Seem to have SOME ability to see.
Blindsight
Explain the experiments with blindsight.
Throw a ball at a blind person and they reach up to catch it in the exact spot.
Individuals with damage to their __ __ cannot see, yet their behavior demonstrates a non-conscous level of perception.
visual cortex
List the pro and con of automatic processes.
PRO: trying shoes, safety procudures, walking, etc

CON: getting up in morning and shut garage door...hard to remember any one piece of it.
__-__-__-___ ___ = try to remember something that's known to be stored in the memory but can't readily be retrieved.
Tip-of-the-tounge phenonema
___= becoming accustomed to a stimulus so we gradually pay less and less attention to it.
Habituation
__ ___ = a lessing attention to a stimulus that's not subject to conscious control.
Sensory adaptation
___ = the process that's controlled is taken from, "If this, then this". If becomes a chain of "if then" and becomes one whole process. Then the process goes from ___ to ___
Automatization

Controlled --> automatic
Explain what the Stroop Effect is.
Interference of automatic reading processes with color naming processes.
__ __ = when you force yourself to overcome a habit (Go home right after class, but force self to go to Registrar's office, so you write yourself a note)
Forcing function
Explain Selective attention
How a person pays attention to a particular attention as opposed to other stimulus in the environment.

Ex: reading is easier than color naming.
List the filter and bottleneck theories of selective attention (5 of them)
1) Broadbent's filter model
2) Moray's selective filter model
3) Treisman's attenuation model
4) Deutsch and Deutsch's late filter model
5) Neisser's synthesis
Explain Broadbent's filter model about selective attention
Filter occurs between sensation and perception. He was the first to explain attention in a flowchart model
Explain Moray's selective filter model about selective attention.
Filter DOES allow distinctive salient input (for example, your name)
Explain Treismans's attenuation model about selective attention
Filter attenuates the signal, but does not block it entirely. Things get through in a weakened form.

Like a bottleneck theory
Explain Triesman's three stages of his theory.
1) we analyze the physical properties of the stimulus
2) we see if it has a pattern (like music or speech)
3) we focus our attention on whatever gets to this stage and attend to it.
Explain Deutsch and Deutsch's late filter model about selective attention
filter occurs between perception and short term memory. There is a bottleneck through which only a single source of info can pass.
Explain the multimode theory of selective attention
Proposes that attention is flexible. Stages:
1) construct sensory representations of stimuli
2) construct semantic representations
3) Stage 1 and 2 become conscious
Explain Neisser's synthesis about selective attention.

Define preattentive and attentive
both preattentive and attentive processes govern our attention.

Preattentive = automatic, parallel processing or sensory info
Attentive = controlled, serial processing of semantic meaning
Define attentional-resource theory
Attention has a limited capacity. It's Modality-specific (visual, hearing, etc). Harder to pay attention to 2 things in same modality than paying attention to 2 tasks in different modalities.
Explain the dichotic listening task.
You have 2 different messages coming in at the same time. the participant is supposed to remember what is said into 1 ear and ignore the stuff in the other ear. Really hard to do. Can hear pitch change, but not change in subject or continuous word repeated.
Explain divided attention tasks. Who did an experiment and what did they find?
Performing two attention demanding tasks simultaneously (reading and watching tv).

Spelke, HIrt, and Neisser found that reading for comprehensions and taking dictation were made easier if one task becomes automatic. Practice helped them do better on the experiment
Strayer and Johnson did a study with cell phone and driving. What did they conclude?
Driving wtih cell phones is worse than driving and listening to the radio.
What is signal detection? What are two examples of signal detection tasks?
Ability to detect a signal whether it's present or not

Vigilance task
Visual search
What is a vigilance task? Explain and give an example.
a person's ability to attend to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period during which the person seeks to detect the appearance of a particular traget stimulus of increase.

Ex: people watched a clock and had to tell when it skipped 2 ticks in one second. Performance decreased by half in 30 min.
Attention affects ___...the location is more critical than ___ features (such as changing color)
Accuracy
stimulus
Attention acts as a ___...things closer to the center have more attention than those closer to the outside of ___
Spotlight
spotlight
Define visual search.
scan of the environment for particular features.
___ = nontarget stimuli that divert our attention away from the target stimulus.

Give example of this.
Distractor

You look for your mom and see a person who looks just like her, but it's not her.
__ __ can affect the difficulty of a visual serach. Example...finding a 'T' in a box with a bunch of 'L's.
Display size
__ __ = determines your ability to find something in a field of view that looks the same. Sometime __ __ will accompany this...something jumps out at you in the display.
Feature search

Attentional capture
__ __ = look for a particular combination of features

Give an example

MORE DIFFICULT WHEN THINGS LOOK ___ TO IT
conjuction search

Ex: finding a 'T' in a group of 'L's because have to determine what makes a T different.

SIMILAR
Name the 4 characteristics of visual search.
1) Targets/distractors
2) Display size
3) Feature search
4) Conjuction search
Explain the feature-integration theory. Who was it proposed by?
Treisman proposed this. Explains the ease of conducting feature searches and the difficulty of conducting conjunction searches.

Feature search is a parallel process, where conjuction serach is a serial process
Explain the similarity theory and tell who proposed it.
Duncan and Humphreys said the data are a result of the fact that as the similarity between target and distracter stimuli increases, so does the difficulty in detecting the target. (If the target and distractors look similar, it's harder to detect the target)
What theory contradicts the feature-integration theory?
Similarity theory
In the Stroop effect experiment, higher accuracy is associated with __ __ ___.
faster reaction time
What is perception?

What is sensation
set of processes by which we recognize, organize, and make sense of the sensations we receive from the environment. We're interpreting our sensations.

Sensation is what we see...the raw data
Who is Gibson? (i.e. What did he introduce)
He tried to explain how we perceive things.

1) Distal object--real world item
2) Informational medium--light, sound, or smell waves
3) Proximal Stimulation--sensory receptors that recieve the info (rods, cones, hair in ears)
4) Perceptual object--you're understanding of the object
What is perceptual constancy?

List two types
When our perception of an object remains the same even we we know the object has changed.

Size constancy and shape constancy
List the 7 monocular depth cues and define them
1) Texture gradient--see more of the pattern close than far away

2) Relative size--things are bigger when they are close

3) Interposition--know something is in fron because it blocks whatever is behind it

4) Linear perspective--lines go towards horizon point

5) Aerial perspective--things in background blurry and clear up close

6) Location in the picture plane--things further are higher

7) Motion parallax--people accellerate as they walk closer
List and define the 2 binocular cues.
1) Binocular convergence--the amt. your eyes need to turn INWARD to focus on 1 thing lets you know how close it is

2) Binocular disparity--each eye receives a slightly different image of the world we look at
Explain the Gestalt approach to form perception
The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. It's good at describing perception, but not good at explaining WHY we do this.

Law of Pragnanz
__ of ___ = we perceive the most simple organization of elements.
Law of Pragnanz.
List and define the 6 gestalt principles.
1) FIGURE-GROUND = we tend to see things as a figure on a ground. Object on a field

2) PROXIMITY = we perceive a group of items as one group if they are closer together

3) SIMILARITY = similar things are seen as a group

4) CONTINUITY = we see the world as continuous forms

5) CLOSURE = we see objects as complete instead of incomplete even when they are really incomplete

6) SYMMETRY = we see things symmetrical around a picture.
__-__ Theories : start with stimulus and then move up to organizing principles of perception.

Driven by __ __ in the environment
Bottom-up

Raw Data
name the 3 types of bottom-up theories
1) Gibson's theory of direct perception

2) Template theories

3) Prototype theories
Explain Gibson's theory of direct perception. Give an example
The info in the proximal stimulus (sensory receptors) is sufficient for perception. We don't need to INTERPRET info. We can perceive things directly from the environment...even things we've never seen before

Ex: the light displays...we know they are people, yet it's just a bunch of lights.
What is another name for Gibson's theory
Ecological model
Explain the Template Theory and give an example.
We match perceptual objects to a template of previously seen objects in memory.

Ex: barcode knows exactly what kind friut it codes for.

BUT, we'd have to have an unlimited amt. of templates for things.
Explain the prototype theories.
We match novel objects to prototypes we have formed in our head. Like, we know what a basic car looks like, so we know things are cars even if they differ from our prototype
Explain feature theory and discuss the Pandemonium experiment.
attempt to match feature of a pattern to features stored in our memory instead of matching a whole pattern to a template or prototype.

Pandemonium: our brain looks at 'R' and looks at each part of it (the round, some rt. angles) and tries to match it to a letter
What is a structural description theory? What theory is a part of this?
We form 3-D representations using basic shapes already in our minds.

Recognition by components theory.
Describe the recognition by components theory and all it's components...lol
we quickly recognize objects by observing the edges of objects and then decomposing them into geons (each component). This is flexible b/c it allows us to recognize even if object is moved in space...ex: how we recognize our friend's face
Define top down theory and give and example of another sub-theory.
Starts with high level processes and then exxamines physical properties of stimulus.

Constructive perception
__ __ = the perceiver builds a perception of the stimulus using sensory info as the foundation for the structure but also uses other sources of info to build perception.

Prior knowledge and expectations ___ perceptions.

Give example
Constructive perception

affect

The CAT or drink sprite thinking it's water and think it's disgusting
Explain Marr's Computational theory
raw data can be organized through edges, contours, and regions of similarity.
____ ___ __ = focusing on light and dark areas. See countours and edges b/c you know info about light and dark. Pure sensory info from retinas
2-D primal sketch
__ __ = get shading info. Now see info that matches the viewpoint of the object
2.5-D Sketch
___ __ = the picture is complete and we can see the object for what it is. Can even infer things we know that's missing from the pic.
3-D Model

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