Chapter 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

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Chapter 1 Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
Joel Cooper University of Utah
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Bias

• To influence in a particular, typically unfair
  direction prejudice.
• Everyone is biased.
• This class deals with fundamental questions such
  as
• Learning, memory, attention, knowledge, language,
  creativity, decision making and intelligence.
• This is a science class and offers an explanation
  for these phenomenon from that perspective.

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Accretion of Knowledge

• 100,000 years of modern man
• 6,000 years with the wheel
• 110 years with the car
• 55 years with the jet
• Why wasnt the wheel invented earlier?
• Why the recent explosion in technology?

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A graphical rendering of knowledge accumulation
Dissemination of Knowledge in the World
Arbitrary amount of background knowledge needed
for the invention of the wheel
Distance
Time
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What speeds the buildup of knowledge?

• Those things which increase the amount of
  information that can be stored over time and
  shared across distance.
• Knowledge that cannot be stored is lost.
• Knowledge that cannot be shared is not augmentive.

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Knowledge Growth

• Keys to knowledge growth
• Storage
• Transmission
• The knowledge feedback loop creates exponential
  growth in the knowledge base from which knowledge
  is created. Each new device speeds the process
  of growth by increasing the amount of information
  that can be shared across distance and time.

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Knowledge

• Builds based on whats available
• There is no simple or obvious advancement
• Little available knowledge in societies
• Without writing
• With little inter-group contact
• Groups with low population density
• Role of the elderly was very different then

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Recent contributors to the buildup of knowledge

• Agriculture
• Trade
• Class divisions
• Horses
• Writing
• Medical technology
• Automobiles
• Phones
• Airplanes
• Internet

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Cultural transmitters of knowledge

• Songs
• Dance
• Oral traditions
• Mythology
• Religion
• Science

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Conflicts among cultural transmitters

• Song, dance and oral traditions change in the
  telling and may share conflicting information
• Mythologies can conflict
• Religions can conflict
• Science can conflicts
• They can all conflict with each other but they
  are not all have the same explanatory power.

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How does Science differ from other structures
that disseminate and advance knowledge?

• Testable
• Replicable
• Falsifiable

Scientific knowledge is never set, never certain
and always growing.
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Science The only objective method to the
advancement of knowledge.

• Objective Treating or dealing with facts
  without distortion by personal feelings or
  prejudices
• Subjective - Proceeding from or taking place in a
  person's mind rather than the external world
• - Particular to a given person

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Science and the study of mind

• Other cultural traditions offer stable
  information on the mind
• Science offers an uncertain account
• Other explanations may feel warm and
  intuitively appealing
• Scientific explanation may at first feel cold
• Oxytocin the love drug
• Scientific explanation for the mind is rich,
  elaborate and based on solid objective
  principles.
• Scientific explanation for the mind is dynamic
  and continues to grow (which I find exciting).

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Dialectic Progression of Ideas Hegel
flaws/alt idea
Thesis
Antithesis
Synthesis best of both
flaws/alt idea
New Thesis
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Philosophical Roots
Rationalist Logic reasoning is key
Empiricist Experience observation is key
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Cognitive Psychology Is

• The study of how people perceive, learn,
  remember, and think about information.

Problem Solving
Decision Making
Memory
Attention
Intelligence
Language
Perception
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Cognitive Methods

• Experiments
• Psychobiological studies
• Self report
• Case studies
• Naturalistic Observation
• Computer Simulations

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In an Experiment

• Random sample of participants
• Manipulate the Independent Variable
• Create experimental group
• Create control group
• Randomly assign participants
• Measure the Dependent Variable
• Same for all groups
• Control all other variables
• Prevent confounds

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Typical Independent Variables

• Manipulate stimulus materials
• Compare words to non-words
• Compare color diagrams to black and white
• Compare Yes questions to No questions
• Control how participants process materials
• Use imagery to study versus repetition
• Vary speed of presentation of materials

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Typical Dependent Variables

• Reaction Time (milliseconds)
• Mental events take time
• Accuracy/Error analysis
• How well the participant does on a task

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Psychobiological Studies

• Postmortem studies
• Examine the cortex of dyslexics after death
• Brain damaged individuals and their deficits
• Study amnesiacs with hippocampus damage
• Monitor a participant doing a cognitive task
• Measure brain activity while a participant is
  reciting a poem

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Self Report Studies

• Verbal Protocol
• Participants describe their conscious thoughts
  while solving a story problem
• Diary Study
• Participants keep track of memory failures
• Naturalistic Observation
• Monitor decision making of pilots during flights

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Case Studies

• Intensive studies of individuals
• May examine archival records, interviews, direct
  observation, or participant-observations
• Creativity of successful individuals
• The deficits of a neglected child

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Computers in Research

• Analogy for human Cognition
• The sequence of symbol manipulation that
  underlies thinking
• The goal discovery of the programs in humans
  memory
• Computer simulations of Artificial Intelligence
• Recreate human processes using computers

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Pop Quiz
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25 Questions

• Studies have shown that eyewitness testimony is
  valid and accurate, especially with highly
  stressful (i.e., memorable) events.
• False -- Eyewitness testimony is notoriously
  unreliable, particularly when the observer is in
  a highly aroused state.
• As of January 7, 2006 172 wrongly convicted
  prisoners have been released from death row
  because they were factually innocent of the
  crime. Most were committed on the basis of eye
  witness testimony.

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25 Questions

• We use only about 10 of our brain.
• False -- We use all or our brain all the time.
  Even small brain lesions can result in
  significant cognitive impairment. The
  distributed neuronal cell loss with age amounts
  to up to 25 of the brain volume and accounts for
  many effects of cognitive aging.

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25 Questions

• Someone who learns something when they are drunk
  will subsequently remember it better when they
  are drunk than when they are sober.
• True -- State dependent learning demonstrates the
  importance of the cognitive environment in the
  formation and retrieval of episodic memories.
  When there is a match between context, retrieval
  is good.

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25 Questions

• Studies of divided attention have demonstrated
  that driving while using a cell phone is not
  impaired.
• False -- Studies show that using a cell phone
  significantly interferes with driving. In fact,
  several studies show that you are more impaired
  when driving and talking on a cell phone than
  when you are driving drunk.

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25 Questions

• Recent evidence supports some of the claims of
  Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) advocates.
• False -- In controlled double-blinded studies,
  no systematic evidence has been obtained for
  ESP.

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25 Questions

• Memory aids do not really improve our memory.
• False -- Mnemonic techniques work. They organize
  the information, make the material less
  susceptible to forgetting or interference, and
  provide a useful retrieval structure.

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25 Questions

• Backwards messages hidden in music influence our
  behavior.
• eslaF -- There is no evidence that this
  information is processed, let alone influences
  our behavior.

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25 Questions

• Speed reading techniques can dramatically improve
  reading speed without sacrificing comprehension.
• False -- Human performance is governed by the
  speed-accuracy tradeoff -- Going faster results
  in lower accuracy. However, good old fashioned
  practice can improve the efficiency of reading.

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25 Questions

• Freud's "free association" technique tells us
  something about the organization of memory.
• True -- This is similar to the semantic priming
  studies with spreading activation. Individual
  differences can reflect enduring predispositions
  (or partial patterns of activation) that bias the
  semantic network in one way or another.

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25 Questions

• Information can be stored in long-term memory
  even if you never attended to it.
• False -- Attention is necessary for the creation
  of long-term (and short-term) memories.
  Information that falls outside of attention is
  lost.

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25 Questions

• Advertising using subliminal perception is very
  effective.
• False -- Effects of subliminal perception are, at
  best, minimal. There is little evidence that
  stimuli presented below the observers threshold
  influence motives, attitudes, beliefs, or choices.

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25 Questions

• We should try to avoid using heuristics (rules of
  thumb) during decision making.
• False -- Heuristics help speed the decision
  making process and unburden working memory.
  However, these simplifying rules or short-cuts do
  create biases in decision making.

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25 Questions

• There is no basis for the claim that eating
  carrots will help your night vision
• False -- The rods use the photopigment rhodopsin
  (which is made up of vitamin A, also found in
  carrots). People with a vitamin A deficiency can
  have poor night vision which can be corrected by
  supplemental vitamins.

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25 Questions

• Infants ability to discriminate between the
  phonemes of language is actually better than that
  of adults.
• True -- As language develops, infants loose the
  ability to discriminate or produce phonemes that
  are not in their language.

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25 Questions

• There is no limit on how much information can be
  stored in long-term memory.
• True -- No one has ever filled up long-term
  memory. There may be limits on what information
  is initially stored (attentional limitations),
  but once stored, the memories are permanent
  (although they may not be accessible).

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25 Questions

• People who are color blind are missing one or
  more types of cones in the retina
• True -- Trichromatic theory suggests that normal
  color vision depends on three cone types with
  different colors made up by the ratio of
  activation of these receptors. However, some
  forms of color vision can also be due to damage
  to cortical areas.

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25 Questions

• The arrangement of displays and controls in cars,
  airplanes, etc. is arbitrary because we can learn
  to use any configuration with practice.
• False -- There are some configurations that
  result in interference that simply cant be
  practiced away. It is up to Human Factors
  professionals to root out these bad design
  principles.

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25 Questions

• People are always biased.
• True -- Our expectations and memories color the
  way that we perceive and remember the world.
  This accounts for many of the individual
  differences between people.

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25 Questions

• Practice always improves performance.
• False -- Learning capitalizes on the statistical
  regularities of the environment. Most of the
  time there are consistencies in the environment
  that facilitate learning, but in some cases there
  are irregularities or inconsistencies that impede
  learning.

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25 Questions

• Our expectations influence our perceptions and
  memories.
• True -- Expectations and other top-down
  processes play a major role in what we perceive
  and remember. Often, differences in what two
  observers see or remember are due to the effects
  of top down processing.

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25 Questions

• The difference between 500 and 1000 is
  psychologically greater than the difference
  between 10,500 and 11,000.
• True -- The mental representation of magnitude is
  compressed at the high end of the scale. 500 vs.
  1000 is a greater psychological difference than
  10500 vs. 11000

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25 Questions

• If someone is blind in one eye, they will have no
  depth perception.
• False -- There are pictorial cues (e.g., size,
  interposition, etc) and movement cues that
  provide depth information. The use of both eyes
  provides binocular cues -- random dot stereograms
  make use of binocular visual information.

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25 Questions

• With enough practice it is possible to do two
  things at the same time as well as doing each
  thing by itself.
• True -- Under very specific task combinations,
  people can do two things (playing piano and
  reading a novel) as well as either in isolation.
  This is called Perfect Timesharing.

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25 Questions

• During the movement of the eyes while reading,
  the processing of visual information is
  temporarily suppressed.
• True -- This is called saccadic suppression. Not
  only is the processing of visual information
  suppressed, but higher level cognitive thoughts
  also appear to be put on hold.

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25 Questions

• It is possible to have a permanent memory that
  influences your behavior even though you are not
  consciously aware of that memory.
• True -- The distinction between implicit and
  explicit memory suggests that implicit memory is
  very important to out everyday behavior, even
  though we may be unaware of these memories.