Cognitive Processes
Cognitive Processes • • • • •
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Behaviourism - rejected internal mental structures, described all behaviours as stimulus response based Language, attentional overloads/limits aided in the of behaviourism and beginning of cognitive revolution Tolman’s proposal 1948 – rats map out their environment internally – through maze experiment Mental chronometry – timing how long internal thoughts take Why investigate cognitive processes indirectly: o Introspective data doesn’t give valid insight into determinants of cognition o Some processes occur without conscious awareness – can’t investigate them o Consciously controlled processes subject to variety of cognitive biases and reasoning errors that influence our interpretation of events without our awareness Why cognitive psychologists don’t rely on introspection as methodology hence seek objective measures o Certainty effect – reduction of probability from certainty to probable o Pseudocertainty effect – tendency to perceive something as certain when it is in fact uncertain Attention is all about what you’re processing – selects objects not spatial location Dividing attention reduces the amount of information processed Diffused attention – Inattentional blindness – psychological lack of attention not associated to vision defects just failure to perceive something in front of them Change blindness – perceptual phenomenon occurring when change in visual stimulus is introduced and observer doesn’t notice o Implications: sense of completeness is an illusion, don’t encode much visually, must slowly pay attention to each individual part of a scene before info is processed Locus of selection o Point of which you select for further processing o Early locus of selection means info selected or rejected on basis of physical characteristics e.g. tinder o Late locus of selection means info selected or rejected on basis of more complex characteristics ego eHarmony Dichotic listening – if person only aware of crude perceptually distinct info from the unattended ear (evidence for early locus of selection) Lavie believes that location filter depends on cognitive load Parallel search – involuntary, exogenous, pop out and easier to locate Serial search – opposite of parallel Triesen believed the role of attention was to bind things together Endogenous attention – top down or voluntary attention Exogenous attention – bottom up or involuntary, stimulus driven Iconic and echoic memory: o Literal copies of sensory events o Unlimited capacity o Half a second – visual, 8-10 seconds – auditory (why you can recite things on command even if not listening)
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Behaviourism - rejected internal mental structures, described all behaviours as stimulus response based Language, attentional overloads/limits aided in the of behaviourism and beginning of cognitive revolution Tolman’s proposal 1948 – rats map out their environment internally – through maze experiment Mental chronometry – timing how long internal thoughts take Why investigate cognitive processes indirectly: o Introspective data doesn’t give valid insight into determinants of cognition o Some processes occur without conscious awareness – can’t investigate them o Consciously controlled processes subject to variety of cognitive biases and reasoning errors that influence our interpretation of events without our awareness Why cognitive psychologists don’t rely on introspection as methodology hence seek objective measures o Certainty effect – reduction of probability from certainty to probable o Pseudocertainty effect – tendency to perceive something as certain when it is in fact uncertain Attention is all about what you’re processing – selects objects not spatial location Dividing attention reduces the amount of information processed Diffused attention – Inattentional blindness – psychological lack of attention not associated to vision defects just failure to perceive something in front of them Change blindness – perceptual phenomenon occurring when change in visual stimulus is introduced and observer doesn’t notice o Implications: sense of completeness is an illusion, don’t encode much visually, must slowly pay attention to each individual part of a scene before info is processed Locus of selection o Point of which you select for further processing o Early locus of selection means info selected or rejected on basis of physical characteristics e.g. tinder o Late locus of selection means info selected or rejected on basis of more complex characteristics ego eHarmony Dichotic listening – if person only aware of crude perceptually distinct info from the unattended ear (evidence for early locus of selection) Lavie believes that location filter depends on cognitive load Parallel search – involuntary, exogenous, pop out and easier to locate Serial search – opposite of parallel Triesen believed the role of attention was to bind things together Endogenous attention – top down or voluntary attention Exogenous attention – bottom up or involuntary, stimulus driven Iconic and echoic memory: o Literal copies of sensory events o Unlimited capacity o Half a second – visual, 8-10 seconds – auditory (why you can recite things on command even if not listening)
