Ch. 8 Paragraphs

1. Discuss representations and how they are used in thought. what kinds are there in general? How do they differ from each other? What evidence indicates their use in thought?
     The field of cognitive psychology was originally based on the notions that the brain represents information and that cognition (the act of thinking) is directly associated with manipulating these representations. We use two basic types of representation; analogical, which have some characteristics of actual objects, and symbolic, usually words, ideas, or other abstract things. Analogical representations are mental images of an item. Studies of how long it took to identify a rotated picture of a letter and its mirror image proved that we take the longest to process an object that is inverted. In symbolic representation, we use previous knowledge of something with words and ideas. With concepts, we categorize objects with similar qualities, as is shown in the defining attribute model.
2. Discuss expected utility theory and how its limitation are shown by the evidence that people use heuristic in decision making and are influenced by framing effects.
      Expected utility theory is a normative model of how humans should make decisions. This theory views decision making as a computation of utility, the overall value for each possible outcome. We then compare all the possible alternatives and rank by preference, and then choose the most desirable one. By using heuristics and algorithms, people's decision making process is influenced. With algorithms, the desired outcome is always reached. Heuristics are mental shortcuts, or "rules of thumb." With heuristics, we can decide quickly without having to weigh all of our options. When the framing effect emphasizes either the positive gains or the negative losses, we can be persuaded in our decision making.
3. Discuss how goals are involved in problem solving and at least two strategies people use for researching those goals.
     When a person has goals, they use their knowledge and problem solving abilities in order to move from their current location to the desired outcome. One strategy is to use subgoals. In this we break down goals into progressive steps, where each subgoal brings us closer to our actual goals. A common heuristic strategy for overcoming problems is working backwards. Proceeding from the goal state to the initial state can generate helpful strategies. Two other strategies include restructuring a problem by representing it in a novel way that you may not have considered, and changing your mental set by using an alternative means to find a solution.
4. Distinguish the three major approaches to intelligence and one major finding from each.
     General intelligence is a cumulative measurement of several intellectual abilities. Raymond Cattell proposed that intelligence consisted of fluid intelligence, which involves processing information, and crystallized intelligence, where we acquire knowledge through experience. Studies found that people who had a high fluid intelligence also had a high crystallized intelligence.
     Howard Gardner proposed multiple intelligences. The three intelligences included: analytical, which involved problem solving ability, creative, which involved finding novel solution processes, and practical, which included everyday judgments. Studies found that many phenomenally successful public figures did not excel academically.
     Salovey, Mayor, and Goleman popularized emotional intelligence. This form of social intelligence utilized the perception, management, and understanding of emotions to guide thoughts and actions. Mood regulation and controlling behavior is an important concept of EQ.
5. Discuss the concepts of general intelligence, fluid intelligence, and crystallized intelligence and how they are studied.
      General intelligence deals with the performance of intellectual tasks. Scientist agree that IQ reflects various forms of intelligence. Studies with factor analysis that clustered similar items correlated with general intelligence. Raymond Cattell proposed that intelligence consisted of fluid intelligence, which involves processing information, and crystallized intelligence, where we acquire knowledge through experience. Studies found that people who had a high fluid intelligence also had a high crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence is assessed in nonverbal, more culture-fair tests, such as identifying matching, colored shapes. Crystallized intelligence was tested by having people use the knowledge they gained through an experience to solve a problem.

Ch. 8 Topics

1. Prototype model of the nature of concepts.
      In a prototype model of concepts is thinking of the most generally known examples of a given category. The less commonly known something is, even in the correct category, the more nonprototypical it is. A particular example or prototype can be chosen for several reasons; either it is the most widely known, it might resemble the most members, or it might mean something personal.
2. Use the scripts in thinking about people.
      Schemas about the sequence of events in a certain situation are called scripts. Schemas help us process and organize information that we receive by using previous knowledge. A person's schema varies when considering a person, depending on the type of behavior and appearance they're used to. When you talk about famous people you think of people you've seen on television. When you think of a homeless person, you think of an unshaven man typically with very dirty, worn clothing.
3. The difference between decision making and problem solving.
        Decision making you select among alternatives, usually by identifying important criteria and determining how well each alternative satisfies these criteria. In problem solving, you overcome obstacles to reach a desired outcome.
4. How well we do in forecasting how we feel after various events occur.
        People overestimate the extent to which negative events will affect them in the future. A good example of this would be how I got 4th place last year at state in tennis. Many people would consider that an admirable feat, however loosing after winning the first set 1-0, and being the last match of my high school career, was bittersweet. According to loss aversion, losing is much worse than gaining is good.
5. Validity and how it differs from reliability.
       The validity of something is how true or supported by factual proof something is. In tests, it is knowing that you're measuring what you intend to be measuring. Reliability is the quality of being accurate and dependable in achievement. Reliable data is that which gives you nearly the same result from multiple tests. Experiments can be reliable and not valid if you get similar data but are not measuring the right variable.

Ch. 7 Paragraphs

1. Discuss working memory, how it is used, and what it's limitations are.
       Working memory is the short-term system that holds information for a brief period of time. Our general temporary information that we process on a regular basis and that is replaced if not saved is our immediate memory, which is very similar to the RAM of a computer. Information remains in working memory for about 20-30 seconds before disappearing unless one actively prevents that from happening. Working memory can hold a limited amount of information, usually 7 items (plus or minus two), before having to replace information. This limit is called the memory span. Organizing items into chunks make it easier to remember more information.
2. What different forms of long-term memory have been demonstrated, and how they are different from each other?
        Our long-term memory is divided into the two main categories of explicit memories and implicit memories. Explicit memories are the ones that we can recall and know about. Explicit memories are divided into two groups. episodic memories, which refer to a person's past experiences which include the time, place, and events, and semantic memory, which includes random facts of information gathered without personal experience.
        Implicit memories are the ones that we are not fully conscious of. Implicit memory influences peoples' lives in subtle ways. We are not always aware of why we are affected by certain things in certain ways because we can't make the connection. Classical conditioning employs implicit memory by our minds making associations that we don't recognize, but have been conditioned to.
3. Discuss the evidence that long-term memory is organized according to meaning.
        Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart developed the theory that memory is based on depth of elaboration. Their levels of processing model shows that the more deeply and item is encoded, the more meaning it has and the better it is remembered. In maintenance rehearsal, people repeats an item over and over to remember it better. In elaborative rehearsal we encode information in more meaningful was such as thinking about it more conceptually or comparing it to personal information. At the biological level of analysis, brain imaging studies have proven that semantic encoding activates the most brain regions and is best remembered, acoustic encoding is the next best, and visual is the least likely to be remembered.
4. How do we retrieve information from long-term memory?
       People retrieve memories by using retrieval cues. A retrieval cue is anything that helps a person sort through the data in the long-term memory to find the right information. One example of this would include being asked a fill in the blank question. If you had a word key, however, than you might pick up on the correct answer by making the connection. With the encoding specificity principle, stimuli encoded along with an experience can later trigger a memory, such as a certain smell, song, or visual.
5. Discuss the evidence that the medial temporal lobes, including the hippocampus, play a special role in declarative memory.
        One piece of evidence that supports that the medial temporal lobes and the hippocampus play a role in memory are the results from H.M. After having parts of these region surgically removed, H.M. was unable to form new memories in what is called anterograde amnesia. However, H.M. was able to access the long-term memories he had made before the surgery. Immediate memories become lasting through consolidation. Learning leaves a biological trail or pathway in the brain by changes in the strength of neural connections. It has also been proposed that once memories are activated, they need to be consolidated again in a process called reconsolidation. Actual storage of memories most likely occurs in the particular brain regions engaged during perception. The medial temporal lobes form links between the different storage sites and direct the gradual strengthening of the connections.

Ch.7 Topics

1. Partial report in visual sensory and how it shows the fading of this memory.
       Sensory  memory is a brief stimulus that leaves a vanishing trace on the nervous system. People can generally recall this sensory stimulus for several seconds after it is gone. When you look at something and glance away, you can usually briefly picture the image and recall some of its features. George Sperling found that we lose visual memory after about 1/3 of a second, because our memories perceive the world as a continuous stream. People who can remember segmented visual memories with detail for a period of time have photographic memories.
2. The serial position effect and its explanation.
       The serial position effect deals with one's ability to remember items of a list either better at the beginning or end rather than the middle, and it involves two different effects. The primary effect deals with people who remember things at the beginning of the list better. Recency effect deals with people who remember the most recent information or the stuff at the end of a list.
3. Forms of interference in memory.
       Transience occurs because of interference from other information. Proactive interference is when old information inhibits the ability to remember new information and retroactive interference is when new information inhibits the recollection of old information.
4. Two mnemonic strategies.
       There are six learning mnemonic strategies. The first is to practice; the repetition of a motor skill makes it easier to perform. The second is elaborating the material because processing information at a deeper level helps people remember it. Getting adequate sleep is another strategy. Overlearn information by testing your ability to recall information multiple times. Use verbal mnemonics to come up with a catchy saying or rhyme that will make remembering easier. Visual diagrams and other aids help learners recall seeing what they previously saw.
5. Two causes of false memories.
       Source amnesia is one form of false memory that occurs when a person has a memory of an event, but cannot remember the location of where it occurred. This is also related to childhood amnesia. Most people cannot remember specific memories from before age three. Confabulation is another form of false memory when someone has a false recollection of episodic memory due to a brain injury. Another name for confabulation is "honest lying" because a person doesn't realize what they're saying isn't true.

Ch. 6 Paragraphs

1. Discuss how classical conditioning produces brain changes in drug-addicted people and how these changes perpetuate the addiction.
      Conditioned drug effects are common among addicts. For heroin or other drug addicts, the sight of a needle or the sensation felt when it is inserted in the skin will act as a conditioned stimulus. Brain imaging studies have shown that presenting an addict with cues that are associated with their addiction, causes activation of the prefrontal cortex as well as various parts of the limbic system. When a tolerance is developed in addicts, they will use larger doses in order to experience the same effect; in some cases a dose that would be fatal to an inexperienced user.
2. What are conditioned food aversions, how do they arise, and what is unusual about them?
       A conditioned food aversion is an avoidance of certain foods. They typically arise when someone eats a particular food and then becomes ill. Regardless of whether or not the food (especially food that's not part of a typical diet) is directly the cause of the illness, people will associate that food's smell or taste with becoming sick. A food aversion can be formed after only one trial. They are easy to produce with smell or taste, but are very difficult to produce with light or sound.
3. Discuss how expectations are involved in classical conditioning. What information does the CS provide to the participant in the experiment?
       Since the 1970s, scientist have come to find that not only did classical conditioning consist of US,CS,UR, and CR, but also that animals may predict the occurrence of events. The mental processes of prediction and expectancy is called cognitive perspective. In an experiment generally the conditioned stimulus occurs or is presented before the unconditioned stimulus so that the subject can learn to associate the CS with the US. However when the US is predicted before the conditioned stimulus, then it becomes harder to develop a CR. Cognitive perspective was first studied by psychologist Robert Rescorla in 1966.
4. Discuss FI, FR, VI, and VR schedules of reinforcement and what patterns of behavior they produce.
       With a fixed interval (FI), a reinforcement will occur in a consistent pattern. This type of reinforcement leads to students to study only before they know a test will be given. Variable interval (VI) is the randomly timed distribution of reinforcement, such as a person listening to the radio, waiting for a particular song. Fixed ratio (FR) is the consistent rate of the amount of reinforcement given, such as earning an hourly wage. Variable ratio (VR) is the highest response to reinforcement and is the unexpected amount and time of reinforcement, such as that in gambling at a slot machine. Ratio reinforcement generally leads to greater responding than does interval reinforcement. A worker who is paid by the piece is going to be more productive than one who is paid by the hour.
5. What are cognitive maps, and what evidence indicates that laboratory rats learn them rather than particular behaviors?
      Cognitive maps are spatial representations of a maze or other pathway. In a test developed and tested by Edward Tolman, and early cognitive theorist, he used three groups of rats. The first group of rats had to find its way through a maze with no reinforcement. This group showed little improvement in the number of errors it cut down after 17 days. The second group of rats were consistently given reinforcement at the end of the maze and made steady improvement by decreasing the number of errors the rats made in finding the food. The third group of rats were given reinforcement after 10 days without it. The first 11 days the rats made little improvement. But after the first day they had received reinforcement, it decreased the number of errors they made dramatically, indicating that the rats indeed had learned a cognitive map of the maze and used it when the reinforcement began. Latent learning applied to the first groups of rats that learned the maze, but without reinforcement.

Ch. 6 Topics

1. Evidence that extinction does not eliminate an association.
      Extinction is when the conditioned stimulus is not followed with the expected result. The conditioned response gradually disappears. Although the conditioned response man be extinguished, it does not eliminate the association because spontaneous recovery can return after the conditioned response is trained.
2. How drug administration is a classical conditioning trial.
      Like many addictions, the craving for a substance, be it drug or caffeine, can be partially relieved when a drug addict sees a needle or injects themselves with some alternative substance. Coffee addicts satisfy their craving partially by just smelling the aroma of the coffee bean. This works in the opposite affect as well, as how a drug addict will crave drugs when they see a straight-edge razor.
3. Who Edward L. Thorndike was and what he studied.
       Thorndike was a student who worked with William James at Harvard and was influenced by Darwin. He studied whether or not nonhuman animals showed signs of intelligence. By creating a puzzle box for animals and doing numerous test, he developed the law of effect, which states that any behavior leading to a "satisfying state of affairs" will increase the likelihood that that action or behavior will be repeated.
4. How to get an animal to display a behavior that it doesn't show on it own?
        You can train an animal by means of conditioning and reinforcement. You start gradually by rewarding actions that somewhat resemble the desired action, and then selectively actions that are closer and closer to the desired outcome.
5. The difference between positive and negative reinforcement.
        Positive reinforcement usually involves a reward and increases the probability that a behavior will be repeated. Negative reinforcement usually involves the removal of a stimulus such as a irritant that ceases when a lever or button is pushed. It removes a stimuli in order to teach.

Blindness Article Questions

1. What major recent shift in our understanding of the brain is described at the beginning of the article? What may be the practical importance of this shift?
      Neuroscientists now understand that the brain is capable of significant change and adaptation. The importance of these findings deals with the understanding of how sensory input in patients who are blind has changed or adapted so that advancements can be made in the field of sensory substitution and restoration devices.

2. How are blind people able to cope with their environment? Might their other perceptual abilities be unusually good? Might blindness lead to disruptions of development that impair other perceptual abilities? What does the evidence show on these questions?
       Blind individuals have to make major adjustments in order to interact effectively with their environment. Despite the common belief that individuals who lack sensory function in one of their senses develop superior abilities in their other senses, in fact blindness has the potential to disrupt brain development and knowledge acquisition. It has been studied and found that blindness has detrimental repercussions on the processing of spatial information that is gathered through the remaining senses.

3. How do blind people read? In what other ways does their communication compensate for absence of vision? What part of the brain may allow these adaptations to blindness?
        Blind people read Braille, using the pad of their fingers to touch an array of raised dots. This scanning of spatial information with their sense of touch, interprets the dots into meaningful patterns that translate to semantic and lexical properties. A blind patient also relies on verbal descriptions and verbal memory in place of visual perception. The visual cortex, which is used by a sighted person to recognize objects and read visually, does the same job in blind person who reads by touch and relies on verbal language.

4. What does brain imaging (fMRI, PET) evidence show about what part of the brain may be involved in reading Braille, at least in people who lost their vision early in life? Is the same activation present for other tasks involving touch? Does a similar reorganization occur in other forms of sensory loss?
        Evidence shows that the both sides of the visual cortex, in the occipital lobe, was activated while early-blind subjects read Braille. The same evidence was reported in the primary visual cortex when early-blind subjects performed tactile-discrimination tasks such as angle discrimination, but the same activation did not occur when the same subjects tried to feel a homogeneous pattern of Braille dots. Cross-modal plasticity has also been reported in the auditory domain, so basically it works generally the same way with other senses too, but in their general areas.

5. Does the occipital lobe play a casual role in adaptations to blindness? What observations were made in a stroke patient?
       Functional neuroimaging has established an association between activity in the brain and performance, rather than a casual link. To establish a casual link, scientists studied patients with localized brain damage. Because evidence shows that patients who were able to proficiently read Braille became unable to do so following a bilateral occipital stroke, the notion of a casual link is supported between the ability to read Braille and the occipital function.

6. What is TMS? What effect does it have when applied to the somatosensory cortex of sighted and blind people? What effect does it have when applied to the occipital cortex? What do these results imply?
      TMS is transcranial magnetic stimulation. It disrupts cortical activity and creates a "virtual lesion." It impaired the ability of subjects to identify Braille letter but not embossed Roman Letters, when applied to the occipital cortex. In sighted and blind subjects who had TMS delivered to the somatosensory cortex, it interfered with detection of tactile stimulus presented 20-40 milliseconds earlier. The evidence showed that tactile information reaches the cortex by the somatosensory cortex, which is engaged in detection , while the occipital cortex contributes to the perception of tactile stimuli.

7. What happens to the occipital cortex of people who are blindfolded for several days? Is this the same change as is observed in blind people?
       The primary visual cortex is recruited in blindfolded subjects to process tactile and auditory stimuli. Due to the speed of the functional changes it can be concluded that no new cortical connections are established, only previous connections are used. These findings differ from those of early-blind subjects who have more activity in the occipital cortex from tactile domain.

8. What differences have been found between those who lose their vision early (before 4-6 years of age) and those who lose it late in life? What is the role of the occipital cortex in verbally memory in blind people?
       Using a verb-generating test, it was found that early-blind patients differ from late-blind patients in parts of the brain that were used in creating verbal responses. Although the occipital cortex was active in both groups, it was substantially more so in early-blind subjects, especially in the left hemisphere, as opposed to the sighted control group that showed activation in the typical language related areas (Broca's area).

9. What two major processes may account for the adaptations of blind people? Might the occipital cortex have broader roles in everyone? What important practical implications may arise from work like that discussed in this article?
        The brains ability to reorganize  the occipital lobe from processing visual information to processing the information of other senses, and the occipital cortex's possession of the computational machinery necessary for the processing of non-visual information accounts for the possibility of adaptations of the brain in blind people. Because of the occipital cortex's ability to be the ideal processor of visual information in sighted patients and it's ability to structurally change by establishing new neural connections in blindfolded and blind patients, does give it a fundamental role in the processing of sensory information. The occipital cortex's plasticity imply that there is a good chance of not only the brains adaptivity for survival but the potential for individuals to compensate for their disabilities and technological aid in repairing or substituting for a person's ability in sensory processing.

Ch. 5 Paragraphs

1. What are hits and false alarms, and how are they used in signal detection theory to separate the experiment participants sensitivity to a signal from the response bias of that participant?
      A hit is when a participant reports a signal when a stimulus signal has been given. A false alarm is when a signal has been reported but no stimulus signal was activated. Response bias refers to a participant's tendency to report detecting the signal in and ambiguous trial. When a participant is given any previous knowledge about something before being tested. they might be partial to either report a signal regardless of whether or not they actually detected the stimulus and vice versa.
2. Where is light transformed into neural signals, and how do these neural signals reach the primary visual cortex?
      After light passes through the cornea and the lens, it is refracted to the retina at the back of the eyeball. Then photoreceptors in the retina transduces the light in the rods and cones. After the information has been transduced, it is passed through bipolar amacrine, and horizontal cells that perform sophisticated computations on the incoming signals. Lastly the signal converges on ganglion cells, in the optic nerve and send the translated signal through neurons up to the thalamus.
3. What evidence indicates that our ability to see colors is based upon three underlying components?
       Because there are three different types of cones, S, M, and L that can perceive different wavelengths of colors, is one reason why we can see colors. The visible spectrum resides in waves that length from 400-700 nanometers, darker cooler colors being near 400 and lighter warmer colors measuring near 700 nm. In the color spectrum there are also three primary colors, red blue, and yellow, as well as three dimensions, hue, lightness, and saturation.
4. What evidence indicates that our ability to perceive the identity of an object is somewhat separate from our perception of its location? What areas of the brain are involved in the perceptions?
       Using equipment such as the fMRI, scientist have found that neural activity is prominent in different parts of the brain for the identification of an object, as opposed to its location. Neural impulses received by the occipital lobe from the eyes are divided into two streams. The ventral "what" stream goes to the temporal lobe in order for the item to be identified. The dorsal "where" stream goes to the parietal lobe in order to be translated as information concerning the location of an object.  
5. How are we able to perceive objects, or even pictures, as three-dimensional, that is, as having depth?
A three-dimensional array of objects creates exactly the same image on the retina that a photograph does. We are able to perceive depth in these two-dimensional patterns because the brain applies the same rules or mechanisms that it uses to wok out the spatial relations between objects in the three-dimensional world. Binocular depth cues are cues received from both eyes that have to do with binocular disparity or the difference between the perceptions of the two eyes to determine the spatial distance in the real world. Monocular depth cues are those received from each individual eye which are better for determining pictorial depth.

Ch. 5 Topics

1. The process of transduction.
Transduction is the result of special neurons, that are in the sense organs, that pick up physical and chemical stimulation. The neurons then code the information into a signal that can be translated by other neurons as it is sent back to the brain.
2. The concept of difference threshold.
A difference threshold is the smallest difference that a person can detect. All of the senses of the body are not "supersonic" for instance, and the difference threshold changes with each person because of damage, environment, etc.
3. The receptors for sound and how they are activated.
Auditory neurons in the thalamus extend to the primary auditory cortex (A1) in the temporal lobe. Neurons in the rear of A1 hear lower frequencies, while neurons in the front of A1 hear higher pitches.
4. The three psychological dimensions of color.
The hue of a color is its identity or name, e.g., red. The brightness or lightness of a color is its shade or tint. The saturation of a color is its closeness to the actual color or its concentration, such as a glob of gray with just a drop or two of red.
5. The concept of opposite colors.
Opposite colors come from the ganglia cells of the optic nerve. These cells receive excitatory input from one type of cone but are then inhibited by another type of cone.