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Cognitive 1
Cognitive Psychology material for test 1 (ch 1 - 5)
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Artificial intelligence | a branch of computer science concerned with creating computer that mimic human performance on cognitive tasks |
| Association | a connection or link between two units or elements |
| Attention | mentally focusing on some stimulus |
| Behaviorism | A school of psychology that seeks to define psychological research in terms of observable measures, emphasizing the scientific study of behavior. |
| Between-subjects design | A research paradigm in which different experimental subjects participate in different experimental conditions |
| Brain imaging | The construction of pictures of the anatomy and functioning of intact brain through such techniques as(CAT, or CT), (PET), (MRI), or (fMRI) |
| Clinical interview | a research paradigm in which an investigator begins by asking participants a series of open-ended questions but follows up on the responses with specific questions that have been prepared in advance |
| Cognitive neuropsychology | A school of neuropsychology that investigates the cognitive abilities an deficits of people with damaged or otherwise unusual brain structures |
| Cognitive revolution | A movement in psychology that culminated after World War II, characterized by a belief in the empirical accessibility of mental states and events |
| Cognitive science | The central issues addressed involve the nature of mind and cognition and how information is acquired, stored, and represented |
| Computer metaphor | The basis for the information-processing view of the brain. Different types of psychological processes are thought to be analogous to the workings of a computer processor |
| Connectionism | An approach to cognition emphasizing parallel processing of information through immense networks of interconnected nodes. |
| Controlled observation | A research paradigm in which an observer standardizes the conditions of observation for all participants, often introducing specific manipulations and recording responses. |
| Decision making | The process(es) by which an individual selects one course of action from among alternatives |
| Ecological approach | An approach to the study of cognition emphasizing the natural contest or setting in which cognitive activities occur, and the influences such settings have in the ways in which cognitive activities are acquired, practiced, and executed |
| Ecological validity | A property of research such that the focus of study is something that occurs naturally outside an experimental laboratory |
| Empiricism | A philosophical doctrine emphasizing the role of experience in the acquisition of knowledge |
| Experiment | A test of a scientific theory in which the researcher manipulates the independent variable |
| Experimental control | A property of research such that the causes of different behaviors or other phenomenon can be isolated and tested. Typically, this involves manipulating independent variables and holding constant all factors but the one(s) of interest |
| Functionalism | A school of psychology emphasizing questions such as why the mind or a particular cognitive process works the way(s) it does |
| Genetic epistemology | A Piagetian approach to the study of cognitive development that emphasizes the intellectual structures underlying cognitive experience at different developmental points and the ways in which the structures adapt to environmental experience. |
| Gestalt psychology | A school of psychology emphasizing the study of whole entities rather than simple elements. |
| Human factors engineering | An applied area of research that focuses on the design of equipment and technology that are well suited to people’s cognitive capabilites |
| Individual differences | Subtle patterns of performance that differ qualitatively and/or quantitatively across individuals |
| Information-processing approach | Information processing equates cognition with the acquisition, storage, and manipulation of information (for example, what we see, hear, read about, think about) through a system consisting of various storage places and systems of exchange |
| Introspection | A methodological technique in which trained observers are asked to reflect on, and report on, their conscious experience while performing cognitive tasks |
| Knowledge representation | The mental depiction, storage, and organization of information. |
| Language | A system of communication that is governed by a system of rules (a grammar) and can express an infinite number of propositions |
| Limited-capacity processor | A system that acquires, stores, manipulates, and/or transmits information but has fixed limits on the amount or rate of processing that it can accomplish |
| Linguistics | A field of study focusing on the structure, use, and acquisition of language |
| Localization of function | The “mapping” of brain areas to different cognitive or motor functions; identifying which neural regions control or are active when different activities take place |
| Memory | The cognitive process underlying the storage, retention, and retrieval of information |
| Mental representation | An internal depiction of information |
| Nativism | A philosophical doctrine emphasizing the role of innate factors in the acquisition of knowledge |
| Naturalistic observation | A research paradigm in which an observer observes participants in familiar, everyday context while ideally remaining as unobtrusive as possible |
| Neural network | An approach to cognition emphasizing parallel processing of information through immense networks of interconnected nodes. |
| Paradigm | A body of knowledge that selects and highlights certain issues for study. It includes assumptions about how a particular phenomenon ought to be studied and the kinds of experimental methods and measures that are appropriate to use |
| Pattern recognition | The classification of a stimulus into a category |
| Perception | The interpretation of sensory information to yield a meaningful description or understanding |
| Person-machine system | The ideas that machinery operated by a person must be designed to interact with the operator’s physical, cognitive, and motivational capacities and limitations |
| Problem solving | The cognitive process(es) used in transforming starting information into a goal state, using specified means of solution |
| Quasi-experiment | An empirical study that appears to involve some, but incomplete, experimental control - for example through nonrandom assignment of subject to conditions |
| Reasoning | Cognitive process(es) used in transforming given information, called premises, into conclusions. Reasoning is often seen as a special kind of thinking. |
| Recall | The retrieval of information in which the processor must generate most of the information without aids |
| Recognition | The retrieval of information in which the processor must decide whether the information presented has been previously presented |
| Structuralism | One of the earliest schools of cognitive psychology. It focused on the search for the simplest possible mental elements and the laws governing the ways in which they could be combined |
| Within-subjects design | A research paradigm in which the same experimental subjects participate in different experimental conditions |
| Ablation | Removal of cells or tissues, often through surgical means |
| Affordance | A perceptual property of objects, places, and events that makes clear what actions or behaviors on the part of the perceiver are permitted in interaction with the object, place, or event |
| Amygdala | An area of brain tissue with extensive connections to the olfactory system and hypothalamus, thought to be involved in mood, feelings, instinct, and short-term memory |
| Anterograde amnesia | Lack of memory for events that occur after a brain injury |
| Aphasia | A disorder of language, thought to have neurological causes, in which either language production, language reception, or both are disrupted |
| Attention hypothesis of automatization | The proposal that attention is needed during a learning phase of a new task |
| Attentional capture | A phenomenon in which certain stimuli seem to “pop out” and require a person to shift cognitive resources to them, automatically |
| Attenuation theory | A mode; of attention in which unattended perceptual events are transmitted in weakened form but not blocked completely before being processed for meaning |
| Automatic processing | The carrying out of a cognitive task with minimal resources. Typically, automatic processing occurs without intention, interferes minimally with other cognitive tasks, and may not involve conscious awareness |
| Bottom-up-processing | Cognitive (usually perceptual) process guided by environmental input. Also called “data-driven” process |
| Capacity | The sum total of cognitive resources available at any given time |
| CAT (computerized axial tomography) | An imaging technique in which a highly focused bean of X-rays is passed through the body from many different angles. Differing density of the organs of the body results in different deflection of the X-rays, which allows visualization of the organ |
| Central executive (of WM) | The proposed component of working memory responsible for directing the flow of information and selecting what information to work with |
| Cerebellum | Part of the brain that controls balance and muscular coordination |
| Cerebral cortex | The surface of the cerebrum, the largest structure of the brain, containing both sensory and motor nerve cell bodies |
| Change blindness | The inability to detect changes to an object or scene, especially when given different views of that object or scene |
| Chunking | The formation of individual units of information into larger units. This is often used as a means of overcoming short-term memory limitations |
| Coding | The form in which information is mentally or internally represented |
| Constructivist approach to perception | An understanding of perception as a process requiring the active construction of subjective mental representations not only from perceptual information, but from long-term memory as well |
| Context effect | The effect on a cognitive process (for example, perception) of the information surrounding the target object or event. |
| Controlled processing | The carrying out of a cognitive task with a deliberate allocation of cognitive resources. Typically, controlled processing occurs on difficult and/or unfamiliar task requiring attention and is under conscious control |
| Corpus callosum | The large neural structure containing fibers that connect the right and left cerebral hemispheres |
| Decay | A hypothesized process of forgetting in which material is thought to erode, break apart, or otherwise disintegrate or fade |
| Dichotic listening task | A task in which a person hears two or more different, specially recorded messages over earphones and is asked to attend to one of them |
| Direct perception | A theory of perception, proposed by James J, Gibson, holding that information in the world is “picked up on” by the cognitive processor without much construction of internal representations or inferences. |
| Distal stimulus | An object, event, or pattern as it exists in the world. Contrast with proximal stimulus |
| Divided attention | The ways in which a cognitive processor allocates cognitive resources to two or more tasks that are carried out simultaneously |
| Dual-task performance Event-related potential (ERP) | An experimental paradigm involving presentation of two tasks for a person to work on simultaneously |
| Echo | A sensory memory for auditory stimuli |
| EEG (electroencephalography) | A technique to measure brain activity, specifically, to detect different states of consciousness. |
| Encoding | The cognitive process(es) by which information is translated into a mental or internal representation and stored |
| ERP (even-related potential) | An electrical recording technique to measure the response of the brain to various stimulus events |
| Executive functioning | Cognitive process including planning, making decisions, implementing strategies, inhibiting inappropriate behaviors, and using working memory to process information |
| Exhaustive search | A search or information in which each item in a set is examined, even after the target is found |
| Faculty psychology | The theory that different mental abilities, such as reading or computation, are independent and autonomous functions, carried out in different parts of the brain |
| Feature | A component, or part, of an object, event, or representation |
| Feature integration theory | A proposal that perception of familiar stimuli occurs in two stages. The first, automatic, stage involves the perception of object features. The second, attentional, stage involves the integration and unification of those features |
| Filter theory | A theory of attention proposing that information that exceeds the capacity of a processor to process at any given time is blocked from further processing |
| fMRI (functional MRI) | An imaging technique that uses MRI equipment to examine blood flow in a noninvasive, non-rational dioactive manner |
| Forebrain | The part of the brain containing the thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and the cerebral cortex |
| Forgetting | The processes that prevent information from being retrieved from a memory store |
| Form perception | The process by which the brain differentiates objects from their backgrounds |
| Frontal lobe | A division of the cerebral cortex located just beneath the forehead containing the motor cortex, premotor cortex, and the prefrontal cortex |
| Geon | A single geometric component hypothesized to be used in the recognition of objects |
| Gestalt principles of perceptual organization | Laws that explain the regularities in the way people come to the perceptual interpretations of stimuli. The emphasis is on the apprehension of whole structures rather on than the detection and assembly of parts of structures |
| Hindbrain | The part of the brain, containing some of the most evolutionarily primitive structures, that is responsible for transmitting information from the spinal cord to the brain, regulating life support functions, and helping to maintain balance |
| Hippocampus | A structure of the brain in the medial temporal lobe; damage or removal can result in amnesia |
| Hypothalamus | A structure in the forebrain that controls the pituitary gland and so-called homeostasis behaviors, such as eating, drinking, temperature control, sleeping, sexual behaviors, and emotional reactions |
| Icon | A sensory memory for visual stimuli |
| Inattentional blindness | The phenomenon of not perceiving a stimulus that might be literally right in front of you, unless you are paying attention to it |
| Interference | A hypothesized process of forgetting in which material is thought to be buried or otherwise displaced by other information but still exists somewhere in a memory store |
| Late-selection theory | A model of attention in which all perceptual messages, whether attended or not, are processed for some meaning |
| Lateralization | Specialization of function of the two cerebral hemispheres |
| Localization of function | The “mapping” of brain areas to different cognitive or motor functions; identifying which neural regions control or are active when different activities take place |
| Long-term memory (LTM) | A memory store thought to have a large, possibly infinite capacity that holds onto incoming information for long periods of time, perhaps permanently. Also called secondary memory |
| Long-term potentiation | A process, hypothesized to be a mechanism for long-term learning, in which neural circuits in the hippocampus are subjected to repeated and intense electrical stimulation, resulting in hippocampal cells that are more sensitive to stimuli |
| Medulla oblongata | A structure in the hindbrain that transmits information from the spinal cord to the brain and regulates life support |
| Memory trace | The mental representation of stored information |
| Midbrain | the part of the brain containing structures that are involved in relying information between other brain regions, or in regulating levels of alertness |
| Modal model of memory | A theoretical approach to the study of memory that emphasizes the existence of different memory stores(for example, sensory, memory, short-term memory, long-term memory) |
| Motor cortex | A structure in the frontal lobe that controls fine motor movement in the body |
| MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) | A body-imaging technique in which a person is surrounded with a strong magnetic field. Radio waves are directed at a particular part of the body, causing the centers of hydrogen atoms in those structures to align themselves in predictable ways. |
| Occipital lobe | A division of the cerebral cortex located at the back of the head that is involved in the processing of visual information |
| Pandemonium model | A model of letter perception based on a bottom-up hierarchy of feature detectors. |
| Parallel search | A search for information in which several stores or slots of information are simultaneously examined to match to the target |
| Parietal lobe | A division of the cerebral cortex located at the top rear part of the head; contains the primary somatosensory cortex |
| Pattern recognition | The classification of a stimulus into a category |
| Percept | The outcome of a perceptual process; the meaningful interpretation of incoming information |
| Perception | The interpretation of sensory information to yield a meaningful description or understanding |
| Perceptual learning | The changes in perception that occur as a function of practice or experience with the stimuli |
| PET (positron emission tomography) | A brain-imaging technique that shows which areas of the brain are most active at a given point in time |
| Phenome | The smallest unit of sound that makes a meaningful difference in a given language |
| Phonological loop (of WM) | The proposed component of working memory responsible for sub-vocally rehearsing auditory information |
| Phrenology | The idea (now discredited) that psychological strengths and weaknesses could be precisely correlated to the relative sized of different brain activity. |
| Plasticity | The ability of some brain region to “take over” functions of damaged regions |
| Pons | A structure in the hindbrain 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 and vice versa. |
| Prefrontal cortex | A region in the frontal lobe that is involved with executive functioning |
| Primacy effect | The improvement in retention of information learned at the beginning of a task |
| Primary somatosensory cortex | A region in the parietal lobe involved in the processing of sensory information from the body – for example, sensations of pain, pressure, touch, or temperature |
| Priming | The facilitation in responding to one stimulus as a function of prior exposure to another stimulus |
| Proactive interference | A phenomenon in which earlier learned material disrupts the learning of subsequent material |
| Prosopagnosia | A specific inability to recognize faces, even very familiar ones, with intact recognition of other objects |
| Prototype | An abstract representation of an idealized member of a class of objects or events |
| Proximal stimulus | Reception of information and its registration by a sense organ – for example, retinal images in the case of vision |
| Psychological refractory period (PRP) | An interval of time following presentation of a first stimulus during which a person cannot respond to a second stimulus, presumably because of a central bottleneck in attentional processing |
| Recency effect | The improvement in retention of information learned at the end of a task |
| Rehearsal | A mnemonic strategy of repeating information (either aloud or silently) to facilitate retention and later retrieval |
| Retention duration | The amount of time a memory trace remains available for retrieval |
| Retina | A layer of visual receptor cells at the rear of the eyeball |
| Retinal image | A proximal stimulus for vision, consisting of the projection of light waves reflected from stimuli and projected to a surface at the back of the eye |
| Retrieval | The process by which stored information is brought back to conscious awareness |
| Retrograde amnesia | Amnesia concerning old events |
| Schema | An organized framework for representing knowledge that typically includes characters, plots, and settings, and incorporates both general knowledge about the world and information about particular events |
| Schema theory | A theory of attention that claims unattended information is never perceived |
| Selective attention | The focusing of cognitive resources on one or a small number of tasks to the exclusion of others |
| Self-terminating search | A search for information that stops when a target is found |
| Sensory memory | A memory store thought to hold onto incoming sensory information for very brief periods of time. A different sensory memory store is hypothesized for each sensory system |
| Serial positron effect | The phenomenon that items at the beginning or end of a list of items are more easily recalled than are items from the middle of the list |
| Serial search | A search for information in which several stores or slots of information are sequentially examined to match to the target |
| Short-term memory (STM) | A memory store thought to hold onto incoming information for up to 20 – 30 seconds. Also called “primary memory.” It is thought to have a small capacity (up to 7 +/- 2) |
| Size constancy | The phenomenon that one’s perception of an object remains constant even as the retinal image of the object changes size (for example, because the object has moved closer or father away from the perceiver) |
| Storage | The mental “holding on” to information between the time it is encoded and the time it is retrieved |
| Stroop task | A task invented by J.R. Stroop in which a subject sees a list of words (color terms) printed in an ink color that differs from the word named (for example, green printed in blue ink). |
| Subjective contours | Illusory outline created by certain visual cues that lead to erroneous from perceptions. The existence of this phenomenon suggests that perception is an active constructive process |
| Template | A stored pattern or model to which incoming information is matched in order to be recognized and classified |
| Temporal lobe | A division of the cerebral cortex located on the side of the head, involved in the processing of auditory information and in some aspects of memory |
| Thalamus | a structure in the forebrain, involved in relaying information, especially to the cerebral cortex |
| Top-down process | Cognitive (usually perceptual) process directed by expectations (derived from context, past learning, or both) to form a larger percept, concept, or interpretation. Also called conceptually driven or theory-driven process |
| Visual agnosia | An impairment in the ability to interpret (but not to see) visual information |
| Visual search task | A task in which subjects are asked to detect the presence of a particular target against an array of similar stimuli |
| Visuospatial sketch pad (of WM) | The proposed component of working memory that maintains visual or spatial information |
| Word superiority effect | The phenomenon that single letter are more quickly identified in the contest of words than they are when presented alone or in the context of random letters |
| Working memory (WM) | A memory structure proposed by Baddeley, described as consisting of a limited-capacity work space that can be allocated somewhat flexibly, into storage space and control processing. |
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msciullo
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