Introduction to Cognitive Psychology.

Aging: * Death and Dying. * Keep you mind young with Sudoku. How to solve sudoku -- easy rules.
Crime: * Criminal Behavior. * Criminal Justice Glossary. * Criminal Investigation.
* Samenow's Inside the Criminal Mind.
* Brian Innes's The Body in Question: Exploring the Cutting Edge of Forensic Science.
Political science: * Introduction to Political Science. * Political Science Glossary.
Political science books: * Political Theory: The Classic Texts and Their Continuing Relevance by Joshua Kaplan.
USA Modern History: * Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. * Challenges for freedpeople after the Civil War. * Challenges by workers to industrialization. * Populist reformers. * USA Modern History Glossary. * Malcolm X autobiography.
Psychology: * Biopsychology. * Cognitive Psychology.
* The Enneagram and Psychology * Evolutionary Psychology.
* Personality Psychology * Psychological research methods.
Psychology books: * blink by Malcolm Gladwell. * Know How: Guided Programs for Inventing Your Own Best Future by Leslie Cameron-Bandler. * Nature of Prejudice by Gordon W. Allport. * Learned Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman. * Pessimism (defensive) (Norem).
Related: * Ecology. * Evolution.
* Disclaimer * Links. * Books read recently. * Best books read. * Harry Potter books.
Note: this site is not giving legal advice, simply organizing information from various classes and texts. If you need legal advice consult your lawyer.
Buy 'Cognitive Psychology' Cognitive Psychology: In and Out of the Lab (2004)
by Kathleen M. Galotti.
Text for the college course in Cognitive Psychology for which these notes are made.
our BLOG (web log) entry.

Glossary:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Index:

What this Is and What this Isn't

What this is: These notes were made by a student with a bad memory, in order to attempt to retain highlights of the lectures.

What this isn't: They are not a substitute for reading the text and taking a class.

Is Psychology a Science?

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

Psychology is the science of mind and behavior when it is studied using the scientific method.

When one studies something by using the scientific method of observation and test, then one is doing science.

Science does not provide "The Truth", which is a matter of faith not science.

However, scientific research allows us to say: "At this point, the best evidence shows that XXX is what is most likely to be happening."

The goals of Psychology scientific research are to discover:

  1. What we do - the description.
  2. Why we do it - the explanation, including testable theories.

Introduction

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

Terms defined:

Highlights:

Topic 1: Research methods

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

Introspection.

Criticisms of Introspection.

  1. Data were inconsistent and a pattern did not emerge. Therefore introspection did not show how things are organized.
  2. Not verifiable (because internal).
  3. Unconscious portions of the mind could have big effects on behavior. But introspection does not see the unconscious. [Freud's self-analysis was introspection, and he is guessing in his claims that he mapped the unconscious.]
  4. The use of words to describe non-verbal experiences is imprecise. Non-verbal responses (such as the measurement of reaction time) are more precise.

Experimental methods in psychological research are widely used:

Topic 2: Forming memories.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Memory.

  2. Jimmie, interviewed by Oliver Sachs; Korsakoff's syndrome (chronic alcohol abuse results in gradual, progressive damage to subcortical memory structures); he was nearly 50 but in mid-1970s he believed he was 19 and in 1946.

  3. Traditional information-processing approach to cognition assumes:

  4. General memory processes:

  5. The working memory model: Specific memory processes accomplish specific tasks in response to external events:

  6. Sensory memory: retains data from senses for fraction to about 3 seconds.

    Iconic memory for visual stimuli. Lasts half a second.

    George Sperling (1960) presented triple rows of symbols (letters, numbers) for fraction of a second. On average, participants could name 4 symbols. Partial report technique: After training with a tone they heard AFTER the visual glimpse (three tones, one for each row), participants could name 3-4 symbols in the row corresponding to a random tone, though they could not remember the other rows; they recalled the symbols from which ever line was signaled after all the symbols were no longer visible. Therefore you register all 12 (3 rows of 4) symbols but recall only your row.

    Echoic memory for sounds. Lasts 2-3 seconds in ideal conditions, so it's longer than iconic memory. But in real-life there are distractions. Partial report technique is also useful for echoic memory.

  7. Working memory:

  8. Working memory model: Baddeley and Hitch (1975).
    Experiment where participants had:
    1. to keep repeating a series of digits while they read sentences;
    2. to decide whether the sentences were correct.
    Compared to when they did not repeat digits:
    1. When they repeated 1 or 2 digits, they were as quick and reliable.
    2. When they repeated more than 2 digits, they did the sentence task more slowly.
    Their ability to do this supports the working memory model:

  9. Evidence for working memory model from fMRI, PET, and case studies:

  10. Experiment:

Topic 3: Retrieving memories.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Measure retrieval and forgetting to learn about encoding and storage, because:

  2. We use gist memory, rather than verbatim memory.

  3. Stimulus events are encoded in terms of their meaning, not their details.

  4. Experiment:

  5. Experiment:

  6. Flashbulb memories:

  7. Douglass' flashbulb-memory study accounts of student responses to Twin Towers destruction (9/11): 182 college students filled out free-text questionnaires 1-10 hours later. 7 months later 45 (27 female) (17-59 years) were retested with identical questionnaire (which could thus act as a retrieval cue). Participants:
    1. Did not reliably recall their emotional response.
    2. Did not reliably recall the most vivid TV image.
    Students asked for free-text descriptions that included:

  8. Retrieving LT memories is a constructive process. This includes specific events. We are not activating verbatim memory, but integrating general knowledge of how the mind works.

  9. People use fragments of information to try to reconstruct the past:

  10. Barlett read the Native American story War of the Ghosts to British participants and later asked them to recall the story. He showed that forgetting occurred because prior knowledge got in the way.

Topic 4: Recovered memories.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Recovered memory is sometimes confused with false memory.

  2. Loftus and Pickrell (1995) demonstrated they could implant false memory in 24 participants by creating (with the aid of the participants' families) a false account of becoming lost in their favorite shopping mall at age 5:

  3. Hyman et al (1995) induced 25% of undergraduates to falsely recall.

  4. False recognition of semantically related words is said to also show false memory construction and is found in about 80% of participants.

  5. Clancy et al. (2000): The group claiming recovered memory (compared to controls) showed significantly higher false recognition of semantically related words. Conclusion: "women that report recovered memories of sexual abuse are more prone than others to develop certain types of illusory memories".

  6. Clancy et al. (2002): Studied three group:
    1. People that claimed recovered memories of being abducted by space aliens.
    2. People that believed they had been abducted by space aliens, but had no conscious memory of it.
    3. The control group: people that did not believe they had been abducted by space aliens.

    The group that claimed recovered memories described symptoms of waking up unable to move, tingling and/or floating sensations, and flashing lights. These experiences are consistent with 'sleep paralysis' which is known (from sleep studies) to occur when people wake straight from REM sleep (which includes loss of muscle tone). Scientifically, the simpler explanation (sleep paralysis) is more likely than alien abduction.

    Many of this 'abducted' group reported having been to a hypnotherapist and to have first experienced a recovered memory during a hypnosis session. Hypnosis appears to be inducing false memory.

    Personality tests showed that this group (compared with the other two) scored higher on hypnotic susceptibility, depressivity, and magical thinking.

    The second group believed they had been abducted by space aliens but had no conscious memory of it; they reported some experiences that had puzzled them (insomnia, waking up in strange positions, preoccupation with watching a lot of science fiction programs on TV, etc.) and that they were looking for explanations.

    Personality tests showed that the third group (compared with the other two) scored lowest on hypnotic susceptibility, depressivity, and magical thinking.

  7. Repression: Not demonstrated reliably as an additional cause of forgetting to decay and interference. Repression fails to replicate experimentally. By contrast:
    1. While negative-arousal images are not remembered as well as neutral stimuli if tested immediately, they are remembered better 1 week later, as are positive-arousal images.
    2. Flash-bulb memories become less accurate with time. But the fact of having heard the shocking news does not get repressed.
    3. Studying children present at a sniper attack on a school, none of the children forgot the attack: no repression.
    4. Adults are susceptible to efficient and event persistent (and unwanted) memories of stress, appearing in PTSD: those adults do not show repression.
    5. Malquist (1985): studied children who witnessed (age 5-10) the murder of a parent. All were haunted by it. Likewise young children that were kidnapped.
    6. Natural selection makes it advantageous for a species to remember and avoid scary events, to survive better.
    7. Supreme Court (1990s) set 4 criteria for admissibility of scientific testimony, including that it had to be mainstream. Repression is not mainstream.

  8. Recovered memory therapy: Thousands of people that went through recovered memory therapy have subsequently returned to denial of those memories as representing events that happened. APA investigated with a panel of advocates and critics working together, who could agree only:
    1. Most people abused as a child remember the abuse.
    2. It is possible to remember abuse that had been forgotten for a long time. [Does not mention 'repression' explicitly.]
    3. It is possible for people to create convincing pseudo-memories of abuse when they had not been abused.
    4. There exist gaps in our knowledge.

  9. Lack of supporting evidence for recovered memories: Recovered memory therapist claim but have not proved (especially with causal data):
    1. Severe adult problems are often caused by childhood traumas.
    2. People tend to repress their experiences of abuse in childhood. Repression has not been proved.
    3. Memories can be recovered with accuracy in adulthood.
    4. The procedure of recovering memory will help clients become healthier.

  10. Terr's 'special mechanism' for recovered memories: Terr (1991, 1994) claims:
    1. If a single traumatic event occurs, a memory is made, encoded like a normal memory (visual encoding and semantic encoding) and readily accessible.
    2. If abuse is repeated, memories are formed differently and incapable of being consciously remembered. Multiple traumas cause 'kinesthetic' encoding (muscle memory).
    3. Provided this data: kids of average age 3.1 years report a single trauma while kids of average age 2.4 years report repeated traumas.

  11. Critics of recovered memories:
    1. Ask how such encoding can occur. Terr has no convincing explanation.
    2. Ask how such codes could be translated from 'kinesthetic' codes to verbal codes.
    3. Refer to the work of Ebbinghaus and his successors, who clearly and repeatedly established that repetition improved memory.
    4. Goodman et al. (2003) report on 175 well-documented (medical records, corroborating records) cases of adults abused in childhood. The more severe the abuse, the more likely a child was to:
      1. Report the abuse at the time.
      2. Remember it now.
    5. Ceci et al. (1994). Preschoolers were taught to repeat a false account of getting a hand caught in a mouse trap and being taken to hospital. Later, many of the children forgot the source of the data and claimed it happened.
    6. Hyman and Pentland (1996). Adults were told an event (false) that 'happened' to them as children (such as spilling a drink on a bride's dress). Later 25% believed this false event happened to them.
    7. Expanding on the above, a similar experiment where half were encouraged to fill in perceptual details. They are even more likely to believe the event really happened.
    8. Expanding further, adults were told to invent a false account; later many believed their account related a true event, and that the memory 'felt' real.
    9. Thomas et al. (2003). Imagining perceptual details increases the false memory effect.
    10. Lindsay et al. (2004). Contacted parents of ~50 college students; obtained two true school events for when their child was in grade 5-6; two for grades 3-4; and two for grades 1-2. Added a third but 'false' event for each age group.
      1. Each participant was read each of their three events, and encouraged to create mental images.
      2. Half the participants were also shown their class photo at that age.
      3. Participants were told to try to recall these events for the next week. They were given the printed event descriptions and (if assigned to the group to see them) photos.
      4. 1 week later they returned to the lab and described the events.
        23% of those that were not shown a photo developed a false memory of the false event.
        65% of those that were shown a photo developed a false memory of the false event.
        Thus, photos are useful retrieval cues for false memories (as well as for real memories).
      5. Many participants were surprised that the memory was false (when told at debriefing).

    Even more extreme: body memory is the storing of information at a cellular level outside the brain. However, movement memory is stored in the cerebellum and memory of being touched is stored in the cortex.

  12. Hypnosis
    1. Experiment: 27 people highly susceptible to hypnotism; asked if they had been woken up by a loud noise during the last week, and they had not; under hypnosis, each taken back to a night one week before and asked if they heard a loud noise that woke them up; under hypnosis, 17 claimed that they had; after hypnosis 13 still claimed it happened.
    2. Leading questions are asked under hypnosis, causing higher false memories. Does not reliably increase accurate recall of emotional events.
    3. Metastudy shows correlation of false memories with hypnosis.
    4. Memories retrieved under hypnosis are inadmissible in California.
    5. Recovered memory supporters attack artificiality of individual experiments. But the cumulative findings are consistent in showing problems with recovered memory. Converging evidence.
    6. Recovered memory appears to result from social influence; vulnerable clients latch on to explanation by the therapist.

Topic 5: Attention and automaticity.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Attention andconsciousness.
  2. Features of attention:
    1. Limited number of things on which you can concentrate mental resources at once.
    2. Selective: you can focus on one stimulus among many.
    3. Automatic: you don't need to devote 'much' attention for a well-practiced task.
  3. Functions (purpose) of attention. Focusing (a.k.a. selective attention) by attention being:
    1. Drawn to stimuli that are perceptually salient (involuntary).
    2. Given to stimuli related to a person's goals (voluntary).
  4. Central executive as attention.
  5. Experiment: Dichotic listening. Shadow one channel, repeating it aloud. Later try to recall information from both channel. Result: Can only recall details of information in attended channel; remember almost nothing about the unattended channel; can tell if it was a human voice, its gender; some people notice if the unattended voice changed.
  6. How do we select what we attend to? Bottle-neck theories:
    1. All stimuli processed to a certain stage.
    2. Everything pours into sensory storage.
    3. Only attended stimuli get further processing.
    4. Early versus late stage of the bottleneck.

  7. Broadbent's 'filter' model. Filter prevents overload of central processor; filter is flexible. Filter out incoming stimuli that don't match. Then a second filter that looks for sound that match the target. Series of filters using simple physical properties (not meaning).

    Flexible: attention easily reset. Some people can shift very quickly. Mistakes occur when a person fails to shift attention quickly enough.

  8. Modified filter model.

  9. Priming effects.

  10. Capacity theory.

  11. Automaticity. We attend to stimuli because of (1) characteristics of the stimuli (bottom up) or (2) because of my goal to get this done (top down). Stimuli triggers:

  12. Supervisory Attentional System (SAS).

Topic 6: Perception and patterns.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Sensation (raw data from the receptors stimulates the sensory neurons) and perception interprets information from the senses and assigns meaning in an automatic

  2. Visual perception is the easiest to study.

  3. Gestalt psychologists (1920s Germany) pioneered visual perception.

  4. How does information get organized?

    Bottom-up?
    e.g. Template matching.
    e.g. Feature analysis.
    e.g. Prototype matching.

    Top-down?
    e.g. We expect certain patterns to occur in certain situations. e.g. Word superiority effect.

  5. Face recognition.

Topic 7: Semantic memories.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

Topic 8: Concepts and categories.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Concept: the smallest unit of thought.
  2. Categorization: group things based on shared core characteristics or shared perceptual features or functional properties.
  3. Natural level of categorization: categories that we 'use spontaneously'.
  4. Formal concept: a mental representation of a class of objects that is defined by rules. Includes necessary and sufficient features.
  5. Classical view: every concept is a formal concept; rule-based; clear boundaries.
  6. Natural concept: a mental representation of a class of objects that includes their similarities and accommodates their differences. Based on experience rather than based on rules. Represents the center of a category.
  7. A familiar concept is likely to be retrieved by prototype.
  8. An unfamiliar concept is likely to be retrieved by exemplar.
  9. Young children start using exemplars and later develop the use of prototypes.
  10. Knowledge-base views of concepts:

Topic 9: Stereotyping.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. People rely on stereotyping because it's efficient.
  2. When you categorize a person you activate a stereotype.
  3. Use of stereotypes can lead to biases in judgment about the behavior of others.

  4. Experiment on job application:
    1. White college students looked at video tapes of applicants for a student counseling job.
    2. Each candidate was assigned high, or poor, or moderate qualifications.
    3. During random assignments to the students, when a student saw a white applicant and a black applicant with the same qualifications:
      1. If both applicants were highly qualified, they were judged equally.
      2. If both applicants were poorly qualified, they were judged equally.
      3. If both applicants were moderately qualified, the student rejected the black applicant.
    4. Apparently in the situation where the information was ambiguous and subjective, a negative racial stereotype was activated.

  5. Experiment on guilt and innocence:
    1. Mock trials with transcripts allegedly introduced at the trial.
    2. Photo of defendant shown as a black male.
    3. When the accusation was an aggressive street crime such as auto theft, that 'fit the stereotype' and the defendant was usually found guilty.
    4. When the accusation was a covert and intellectual crime such as embezzlement, that 'failed to fit the stereotype' and the defendant was usually acquitted.

  6. Experiment on intelligence and SES:
    1. Some participants saw a young school girl in a series of photos that showed in their backgrounds a well-kept home, school, or neighborhood.
    2. The other participants saw the same girl in the same clothes and doing the same things, but with a different type of background: a rundown school or backyard, a messy neighborhood.
    3. Half the participants (randomly) were asked how well the girl would do in school. There was no significant difference correlated with background in the photos.
    4. The other participants were asked to watch her perform about 20 minutes of an intelligence test. Then they were asked to judge her intelligence.
      1. If the photos had shown her in a high SES environment, she was judged intelligent.
      2. If the photos had shown her in a low SES environment, she was judged less intelligent.
      3. Notice that in this situation, people think they are getting data and can be more objective. But this is when the stereotype is activated.

  7. Patricia Devine (1989) shows Allport (The Nature of Prejudice) is correct, and that we can have automatic activation of stereotypes:
    1. Pretest of white students on their attitude toward black Americans. Some were classified as prejudiced and some as non-prejudiced.
    2. Randomly they were presented with subliminal messages: stereotype-related or unrelated words while they performed a standard memory test.
    3. Asked to read an ambiguous description of a person's behaviors. Nothing in the paragraph suggests ethnicity. The paragraph (in separate testing) can represent someone being assertive or being hostile.
    4. Asked to judge the character's personality from 1-to-10 in various attributes including hostility.
    5. Students that had been primed by prejudiced words tended to classify the person as more hostile than did the other students.

  8. What separates the prejudice from the non-prejudice response is that some people make an effort to treat others as individuals at the conscious level.

  9. Techniques to change stereotype, by disconfirming them:
    1. Use many examples, not just one.
    2. Describe stereotype-inconsistent people as typical members of their group. Give vivid case studies. e.g. Colin Powell.
    3. Promote empathy (thinking about the situation from another person's perspective).
    4. Explain behaviors in terms of temporary situational factors, rather than character traits.

  10. Empathy study with 6th graders:
    1. All students were asked to think about a person with disabilities: Blind, or deaf, or in a wheelchair, or with only one arm. One per day for four day.
    2. On that day, half were asked a simple question: "Can you give one reason why or why not this person might be good at their job?"
    3. At the same time, the others were shown a photo of such a person and asked a complex question: "Can you think of 4 reasons why this person might be good at their job and 4 reasons why not?"
    4. A week later, a child of their age came to class in a wheelchair.
    5. The amount of time each 6th-grader spent with the visitor was observed.
    6. The students given the harder question, which caused them to think more deeply about the issues, spent significantly more time with the kid in the wheelchair.

Topic 10: Judgments and decisions.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Judgments determine 'what qualities does this have?'
  2. Decision making answers 'which one do I want?'
  3. Problem solving determines 'how do I get this?'

Judgments

  1. Ben Franklin recommended listing pros and cons, and comparing the costs and benefits of each list. But there are often uncertainties of long-term effects and consequences. So one makes a judgment.

  2. Judgment by definition is made under uncertainty, with incomplete information. So you use heuristics.

  3. Availability heuristic: if an event occurs frequently, then instances of that event will come easily to mind. Influenced by:

  4. Risk: what should we try to avoid.

  5. Judgment of risk involves emotion as well as cognition:

  6. Representativeness heuristic: judging a stimulus according to how similar it is to a category of stimuli. If one focuses too much on similarities, stereotypes get activated.
  1. Influenced by biases:

Topic 11: Problem-solving.

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Problem solving: searching for a procedure that gets you from your initial state to a goal state.

  2. Analogy: problem solving is like working your way through a maze.

  3. Well-defined problem: Clear single-end-state goal; clear and relatively few options for reaching that goal.

  4. Ill-defined problem: Goal may be unclear; options may be unclear.

  5. Steps:
    1. Represent the problem. Define the desired end-state and begin the search for a path. Try to avoid functional fixedness (the tendency to represent objects as serving their usual function), by allowing yourself non-standard uses and non-standard combinations of what is available.
    2. Develop a solution to the problem. Prior experience and knowledge (familiarity) can help people generate more solutions.

  6. General strategies in developing solutions:

Glossary.

Support us - buy what you want at Amazon

  1. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Acoustic Encoding.
    Plays a major role in short-term memory, according to the difficulty people have in memorizing a list of similar-sounding words (such as: cap, map, man, can, mad).

    Acoustic Memory.
    Can hold information for up to two or three seconds. Contrast visual memory.

    Teasdale did experiments in which people did an acoustic task and a visual task. They were LESS likely to report having thoughts unrelated to performing a task if the task was unfamiliar.

    Addiction.
    A condition where a body has physical and psychological negative reactions to the absence of a drug.

    Aggression.
    Behavior causing physical or psychological harm to other people.

    Algorithm.
    A formula for a calculation that produces a precise result. Contrast with the time-saving mental shortcuts provided by heuristics, which can be efficient and are often good enough, but are sometimes misleading.

    Alzheimer's disease.
    A chronic organic brain syndrome, usually late in life, whose symptoms include memory loss, decline in intellectual ability, and personality change, often toward a more infantile personality.

    Amnesia.
    A failure of remembering. Usually refers to a set of memories that are related temporarily; often caused by trauma (medical, pharmaceutical, physical, or psychological). See also anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia.

    Amygdala.
    Part of the limbic system. Controls emotions and aggression as well as the formation of emotional memory.

    Anterograde amnesia.
    A type of amnesia in which the ability to form new memories is mainly lost. There is limited ability to express newly learned skills, but only in the exact same context as that in which the skills were learned. Compare retrograde amnesia.

    Anticipatory coping.
    Efforts made before an event that is expected to be stressful to reduce or accept the believed imbalance between demands and resources.

    Anxiety.
    A strong emotional response caused by a potential conflict; also by the 'preconscious recognition' of an emerging 'repressed conflict'.

    Attention.
    Mental focus on a mental event or on a stimulus that is a subset of the available perceptual information.

    Attenuation theory.
    Triesman proposed that one does not block out unattended information but instead that one turns down its volume.

    Automatic process.
    A mental process that does not require attention, allowing it to be performed without interfering with other tasks.

    Autonomic nervous system (ANS).
    Part of the body's peripheral nervous system; controls involuntary motor responses; connects the sensory receptors to central nervous system (CNS); connects the CNS to smooth muscle, cardiac muscle, and glands.

    Availability heuristic.
    Cognitive shortcut of judging of an event's probability as more likely when it is relatively easy to think of examples of that event.

    Availability heuristic.
    Cognitive shortcut of judging of an event's probability

    Aware.
    Watchful; observant. Compare public self-awareness.

  2. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Behavior.
    How an organism adjusts to its environment.

    Behaviorism.
    The study of observable and measurable behavior rather than unobservable mental processes.

    Behaviorist.
    The behaviorist Skinner's main argument against the study of mental representations was (while he believed they existed) that it was unnecessary to include such ideas in explanations of behavior.

    Belief.
    Mental conviction that something is true; usually something that has not been proved logically.

    Bias.
    Following certain patterns of thought regardless of the facts; leads to systematic error.

    Blind sight.
    The phenomenon when a person detects a visual stimulus (such as by moving their hand to its precise location) without being conscious that they have detected the stimulus.

    Blocking.
    When a new stimulus is presented to an organism, if it occurs simultaneously with a stimulus already effective as a signal, then the organism cannot recognize and learn the new stimulus as an unconditioned stimulus.

    Body memory.
    Proposed as a mechanism for the storing of information at a cellular level outside the brain. There is no scientific evidence any memories can be stored outside the brain. Note that movement memory is stored in the cerebellum and memory of being touched is stored in the cortex.

    Bottom-up processing.
    From sense organs to the brain.

    Brain stem.
    Brain structure at the bottom of the brain and top of the spine; regulates basic life processes.

    Broca's area.
    The part of the brain that translates thoughts into speech.

  3. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    CAT scan.
    Computer Assisted Tomography. Internal imaging method using x-rays. Can analyze the brain's structure in 9-12 slices.

    Catharsis.
    Expression of strongly felt but usually repressed emotions.

    Capacity model.
    Kahneman proposed that a person's state of arousal influences the allocation of mental resources.

    Capacity theory.
    We have limited brain power to distribute. When portions of the pool of resources are allocated to a task, insufficient portions can be available to perform other tasks. We prioritize, allocating more attention to important stimuli. The approach is like working memory with multiple resources, each allocated to different tasks and working independently (as long as the load is not too big). Most evidence is consistent with multiple filters and multiple capacitors.

    Cell phone.
    Many experiments show that talking on a cell phone significantly increases the number of driver errors, including failure to stop at a stop sign, and slows down response.

    Central Executive.
    Hypothesized to be the director of the flow of information.

    Central nervous system (CNS).
    The brain and spinal cord. Compare Peripheral nervous system (PNS).

    Cerebellum.
    The region of the brain attached to the brain stem; controls motor coordination, posture, balance, and the ability to learn to control body movements. Used in fast consolidation.

    Chronic accessibility.
    An idea that tends to come to mind easily and often.

    Chronic stress.
    A continuous state of arousal where one perceives greater demands than one's resources for dealing with them.

    Chunking.
    Taking single items of information and recoding them on the basis of some organizing principle (such as similarity or association) into larger wholes. Helps you store more in short-term memory.

    Cognition.
    Something one knows or perceives.

    Cognitive consistency.
    Tendency to seek self-consistency in one's thoughts.

    Cognitive dissonance.
    Incongruous or inconsistent thoughts produce tension, which motivates one to reduce such tension, particularly by changing one of the thoughts.

    Cognitive map.
    A mental representation of physical space.

    Cognitive processes.
    Include:

    Cognitive psychology.
    Scientific study of:
    • mental information-manipulation processes (attention, learning, language, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking).
    • internal structures and representations used in cognition between stimulus and response.
    • relationships of processes and structures to behavior.

    Began September 11, 1956 at an M.I.T. symposium on information theory.

    Cognitive revolution.

    Cognitive therapy.
    A therapy [developed by Aaron Beck] that assumes that our beliefs and perceptions influence our emotional responses. Our negative thought patterns (rather than unconscious conflicts or early life traumas) are the causes of mental disorders such as depression anxiety. Cognitive therapy helps patients/clients to become aware of such beliefs as well as their effect in producing problems, and then helps patients/clients alter such beliefs.

    Common fate (law of).
    A Gestalt law or rule that one tends to group together elements moving in the same direction at the same rate.

    Compulsion.
    Uncontrollable, repetitive, or unwanted urge to perform some act; can be a defense against unacceptable ideas; failure can leads to overt anxiety, but therapy can include not performing the actions and finding that one survives.

    Concept.
    Mental representation of an object, event, relationship, property. A basic unit of thought.

    Confirming behavior.
    Behavior that matches the (believed) opinion of an observer. E.g. A randomly selected volunteer is judged by an opposite-gender interviewer to be more likeable on average if the volunteer was told earlier that the interviewer liked them, when compared with volunteers told, "she didn't seem to like you".

    Conformity.
    One's tendency to adopt the behaviors, attitudes, and values of other members of the group to which they want to belong.

    Connectionist Approach.
    Assumes that networks are made of simple processing units.

    Consciousness.
    Attention with awareness. Applies to internal and external events and environment.

    Consistent Mapping condition.
    In Schneider and Shiffrin's study of visual search for targets, the number of targets has an effect on processing.

    Contact hypothesis condition.
    Direct contact between groups will reduce prejudice.

  4. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Decision aversion.
    Tendency to avoid making decisions, especially tougher decisions.

    Decision making.
    The process of deciding an issue or question, by selecting and rejecting available options, to choose between alternatives.

    Declarative memory.
    Memory for facts, events, and other information.

    Delusion.
    False or irrational belief that one maintains despite 'clear' (to others) evidence to the contrary.

    Demand characteristics.
    Possessed by an experimental task that cues the subject about how to behave.

    Denial.
    Refusal to accept reality; acting as if a painful event had not happened or as if a painful thought or feeling did not exist.

    Discounting principle.
    When a particular event has several possible causal explanations, one is much less likely to attribute the effect to a single cause.

    Distal stimuli.
    Are to visual perception as phonemes are to language (according to Biederman).

    Divergent thinking.
    Production of unusual yet appropriate responses to a problem.

    Dual-coding hypothesis.
    Recall will be most effective for items that are coded both visually and verbally.

    DV.
    Dependent variable(s); compare with Independent variable.

  5. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Echoic memory.
    Sensory memory that allows auditory information to be stored briefly.

    Ecological validity.
    The extent to which things that are studied actually occur in the real world (outside of artificial or laboratory conditions).

    Ego.
    The part of personality involved in self-preservation.

    Empiricist (in cognitive psychology).
    Make these assumptions:
    • Knowledge comes from the experience of an individual.
    • Learning occurs through the mental association of ideas.
    • Most human characteristics and capabilities are changeable.

    Encoding (Memory).
    Conversion of stimulus [input] events into forms that the brain can manipulate and store.
    One of the general memory processes, which include:

    Encoding specificity.
    • Stimuli can only be effective memory triggers is they match the way that the information was encoded initially.
    • Subsequent retrieval of information improves if cues (visual, auditory, etc.) received at the time of recall are similar to those present at the time of encoding. Example: scuba divers that learn information in the water are more likely to remember the information in the water than if they learn it on land.
    • Also best explanation of mood-dependent memory.

    Episodic memory.
    Long-term memory of an autobiographical event and its context.

    Exemplar.
    A specific remembered instance of a category. Get the details (as well as what is typical).

    Used in retrieval for an unfamiliar object, or if the situation includes a reminder of a specific instance. Compare with prototype, used in retrieval for a familiar object.

    Experiment.
    • Between Subjects: expose different, randomly assigned participants to different experimental conditions; look for differences in performance between groups that receive the experimental conditions compared with the control conditions.
    • Within Subjects: expose a participant to more than one experimental condition; look for differences in performance of the participant depending on the condition.

    Explanatory Style.
    How one describes one's success and failure to others.

    Eye witness.
    • Memories of eyewitnesses deteriorate when time elapses before they are interviewed.

  6. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Face recognition.
    Bruce et al. (1993): people are 96% accurate at sorting faces into male or female. Bruce claimed this was bottom-up and that features were guiding perception.

    So Bruce did a second experiment, making the features harder to detect, by presenting the photos upside-down. Accuracy decreased to 79% (not face recognition, but gender estimate).

    Tanaka and Farah (1993): Is face recognition based on detection of specific features or the whole face? Experiment showed participants are significantly more accurate in recognizing Drawings of full faces compared to parts of faces; for drawings of houses, participants showed no difference in ability to recognize of full view or partial view.

    Brain researchers find brain circuits in temporal and occipital cortex devoted to face recognition.

    Brain damage can cause prosopognosia.

    Face recognition by computers tested pre-9-11-2001. It could catch 90% of suspects, but only if 1-in-3 non-suspects were stopped also. 2002: 47% definite matches with 2 or 3 false alarms per hour.

    False Memory.
    "Recollection" months or years later of an "event" that never took place. Compare recovered memory.

    False negative.
    An error of omission. The lack of a response that should be there. See also false positive.

    False positive.
    An error of commission. The inclusion of a response that should not be there. See also false negative.

    Fast Consolidation.
    Hippocampus is involved the fast consolidation of emotional and declarative memories.
    Cerebellum is also involved fast consolidation.
    Disrupted by electric shock (tested by Benjamin Franklin).

    Feature analysis or Featural analysis.
    Steps:
    • Begin by recognizing individual features (very primitive data).
    • Primary visual cortex has 'feature detection' cells (for corners, edges, vertical, horizontal, etc.).
    • Combine the features to recognize an object. Perhaps the intermediate neurons assemble geons (building blocks of visual objects).

    Advantages over template matching:

    • Need fewer primitive features than templates.
    • Explains how we can recognize partial views and variations (which template matching fails to explain).

    Problems:

    • No clear definition of a feature.
    • No clear definition of which features to combine or how to combine them.

    Filter model.
    Broadbent proposed this model as an explanation of how people can often shift and reset their attention easily and very quickly:
    • Series of flexible filter that use simple physical properties (not meaning).
    • Prevent overload of central processor.
    • First filter screens out incoming stimuli that don't match.
    • Second filter looks for sound that match the target.

    Filter model (modified) or Modified filter model.
    Two stages:
    1. Check for physical features.
    2. Check for high priority items.

    Flashbulb memories.
    A discredited idea that memories with particularly strong emotional impact are more completely accurate than other memories. If it exists it should reliably report extraordinary detail, including (Browning and Kulik):
    • Location where one learns the news.
    • Source of the news.
    • What one was doing at the time of learning.
    • Emotional response of oneself. Literature shows little evidence that people can recall their specific emotion.
    • Emotional response of others.
    • Aftermath: what did they start to do after learning the news.

    fMRI.
    functional MRI: internal imaging method using magnetism of the blood. Blood leaving the heart is maximally magnetic and decreases as moves further from heart.

    Frontal lobe syndrome.
    Problems with supervision; disturbed attention; increased distractibility; fine with routines but cannot learn tasks in a new situation. Portions of the frontal lobe are vital for controlled processing and the Supervisory Attentional System (SAS).

    Functional Amnesia.
    Severe memory loss caused by psychological factors (such as anxiety, hysteria, or repression).

    Functionalism.
    The study of an organism's mind and behavior by examining the organism's interactions with and adaptation to its environment. The function of an object determines the form, structure, and material of an object. Look at the mind from the point of view of what it does and what is served by that. Emphasize the adaptation of the organism to its environment. Focus on what role a particular system (like the mind) served for an organism (like a human). The study of the contents of consciousness [William James].

    Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE).
    The tendency for an observer of other people's behavior:
    1. to underestimate the impact of situation and environment, and
    2. to overestimate the influence of their disposition.

  7. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    General memory processes:

    Genetic Epistemology.
    Jean Piaget's approach to describing the intellectual structures that underlie cognitive experience at different developmental stages.

    Geon.
    Primitive 3D geometrical ion. Bierderman proposed 36 geons. See also the 44 phonemes (primitive sounds) of the hundreds of thousands of English words.

    Proposed for use in feature analysis as building blocks of visual objects. Explain:

    • Why we recognize familiar objects from any orientation.
    • Why we recognize partially hidden objects.
    • Why we recognize degraded objects as long as the geon features (such as angles) but recognition reduces if you break up the geons.

    Gestalt approach.
    A meaningful pattern or 'good' form. Psychological phenomena cannot be reduced to simple elements, but must be studied in their entirety.
    • The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
    • Brains have natural laws for organizing sensory inputs.
    • When we observe something, properties emerge from the stimulus that are not properties of any of the individual stimuli.
    • Rules:
      • Figure-ground: 'figure' is the characteristics that corresponds to the objects; 'ground' is everything else in the background.
      • Similarity: automatically connect things that are close together.
      • Proximity.
      • Closure: If a form has small gaps, fill in the gaps and detect a meaningful form. Can explain the phenomenon of 'subjective contours'.
      • common fate.
      • Continuity: Prefer to follow continuous lines.

    Gestalt therapy.
    Offers ways to unite one's mind and body, making one whole.

    Gibson's theory of vision.
    According to Gibson's theory, viewers directly perceive shapes, whole objects, and each object's 'affordances'.

    Gist Memory.
    Essential properties, main ideas.
    Easier to form than verbatim memory and forgotten more slowly than verbatim memory.

  8. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Heuristic.
    A simple rule that produces a solution. Efficient and time-saving mental shortcut that can replace a complex judgment by a simple rule of thumb; often good enough; sometimes misleading. Contrast with an algorithm, which produces a precise result.

    Hippocampus.
    Part of the limbic system involved in acquiring explicit memories. Used in the fast consolidation of emotional and declarative memories.

    Hypothesis.
    A proposition consistent with know data and probably true, but requiring further experimentation.

  9. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Iconic memory.
    Sensory memory for visual events; stores large amounts of information for a very brief time, to about half a second. Lets us see (for example) the figure traced by a sparkler in the night. Sperling's partial-report research demonstrated that the capacity of iconic memory was larger than previously believed.

    Intentional filter.
    Our expectations influence the filter for further processing, for attention. Experiments on early-selection processing: dichonic listening of one attended channel and one unattended channel. Auditor reports a phrase from unattended channel that completes a phrase from the attended channel.

    Though as yet, there are no experiments to distinguish early and late selection models.

    Interacting Image.
    A method of remembering a pair of words by picturing an interaction where one image does something to the other image, e.g. an elephant smoking a cigar.

    Interference.
    Difficulty in retrieving a memory, particularly if retrieval cues do not point effectively to one specific memory but to several. See for example retroactive interference.

    Introspection.
    Looking inward to consider your own experiences and mental processes.

    IV.
    Independent variable(s); compare with Dependent variable.

  10. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Judgment.
    Process of drawing conclusions from available data; also, the product of that mental activity. Draws on LTM also.

  11. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Kinesthetic sense.
    One's impression of body position and the movement of one's body parts relative to each other.

  12. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Learning.
    The process based on experience that leads to a relatively permanent change in the mind, and therefore in actual or potential behavior.

    Levels-of-processing theory .
    A theory that the deeper the level at which one processes information, the more likely one is to retain the memory.

    Limbic system .
    The regions of the brain that regulate memory as well as the major physiological functions, emotional behavior, and basic motivational urges.

    LTM.
    Long-term memory. Memory processes that preserve information for later retrieval at any time. Compare with short-term memory.

    Bahrick studied the retention of Spanish vocabulary, and showed that:

    • Large portions of information remained in LTM.
    • Over fifty years.

    Words confused in long term memory are often related semantically (such as 'big' and 'large').

    Long Term Potentiation.
    Increases in the responsiveness of synapses.

  13. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Magical thinking.
    Believing in unusual and non-scientific causes of events; performing superstitious behaviors.

    Marr's model of vision.
    In David Marr's model of vision, the 3-D-sketch stage incorporates top-down knowledge.

    Medulla.
    In the brain stem; regulates breathing, waking, and heartbeat.

    Memory.
    Several interrelated processes of cognition used for storage, manipulation, and retrieval of information.
    The capacity to encode and store something, and to recall something learned or to recognize something previously experienced. The most active area in psychology research. Used by theories of attention, etc.

    Mental activity.
    Brain activity.

    Mental map.
    Research by Barbara Tversky suggests that one's mental maps appear to be systematically distorted by use of heuristics.

    Mental processes.
    The activities of your brain to handle information, when you think, perceive objects, store information, etc. [A process is any activity that involves more than one operation or change.]

    Mental representations.

    Modified filter model.
    See Filter model (modified).

    Morality.
    One's beliefs and values that ensure one will keep their obligations to others and behave so as not to interfere with the rights of others.

    MRI.
    Magnetic resonance imaging. Internal imaging method using radio waves to align hydrogen atoms in the blood and magnetic fields to detect and show the resulting energy areas within the brain.

  14. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Natural selection.
    Darwin's theory that favorable adaptations to features of the environment allow some members of a species to reproduce more successfully than others.

    Need for achievement (n Ach).
    The hypothesized basic human need of striving for achievement of goals, which can motivate behavior and thinking.

    Need for cognition.
    A person's preference to engage in cognitive activities.

  15. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

  16. Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

    Pandemonium model.
    Proposed by Selfridge (1959): letter perception is based on bottom-up feature detection by 'demon' detectors who 'shout' louder the more confident they are, to attract the attention of the demon at the next level of integration.

    Partial-report research.
    Demonstrates that the capacity of iconic memory is larger than previously believed.

    Pattern recognition.
    Classification of a stimulus into a known category. Storing general patterns of events

    Perception.
    Interpretation of a stimulus; recognition of an external object that produced a sensation. Contrast with sensation.
    One of the cognitive processes.
    The others are:

    Peripheral nervous system (PNS).
    The spinal and cranial nerves that connect one's sensory receptors to one's CNS and one'e CNS to one's muscles and glands.

    Perseveration
    Repetition (to an unusual degree) of an activity or a mental state. Spontaneous reoccurrence in the mind of the same idea, tune, phrase, etc.

    PET.
    Positron Emission Tomography, a kind of magnetic resonance imaging. Internal imaging method using gamma rays emitted from inject radio-isotopes (reaches brain in 30 seconds) to obtain of images of activity in the living brain. Measures blood flow or metabolic activity, localized in specific brain areas as assigned tasks are performed. Expensive equipment. Time averaging, so resolution can be poor.

    Phenotype.
    Observable characteristics of an organism (arise from interaction of an organism's genotype and environment).