UNIT 4 – COGNITIVE LEVEL OF ANALYSISDay 1: Principles & Research

Outcome(s): Outline principles and vocabulary that

define the cognitive level of analysis Explain how principles that define the

cognitive level of analysis and ethics may be demonstrated in research

Agenda1. Reading Quiz2. Guided Notes – Cognitive Processes3. Verbal Protocols Activity4. The future of Cognitive Psychology?

Homework: Read 67-72 Course Companion

Thinking Map Cognition

Cognition Comes from the Latin word cognoscere,

which means “to know”

Principles that define the cognitive level of analysis

1. Human beings are information processors and that mental representations guide behavior

2. Mental processes can and should be studied scientifically by developing theories and by using a variety of research methods

3. Social and cultural factors affect cognitive processes

Cognitive psychology: concerns itself with the structure and functions of the mind

Cognitive neuroscience: combines knowledge about the brain with knowledge about cognitive processes

Cognition: the mind is conceptualized as a set of processes including perception, thinking, problem solving, memory, language, and attention

Principle #1 – Mental processes guide behavior

One goal is to discover principles underlying cognitive processes Bottom-up processing: information comes from sensory stem Top-down processing: information is processed via pre-stored

information in the memory Stereotyping: people who have fixed ideas about other people –

more prone to discriminate (we’ll focus more on this in upcoming days)

Reconstructive nature: people do not store exact copies, but rather an outline that is filled out with information when it is recalled

False memories: may sometimes happen when individuals cannot distinguish between what they have experienced and what they have heard after the event

Perception: cognitive process that interprets and organizes information from the senses to produce some meaningful experience of the world

Principle 2: the mind can be studied scientifically Using scientific research methods Theories, continuously testing New findings result amendments to original

models Cognitive psychologists largely use the

experimental method because it was assumed to be the most scientific method However, the experimental tasks don’t always resemble

what people do in their daily lives Psychologists now study cognition in the

laboratory as well as in daily context

Principle 3: Cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors Frederic Bartlett

Schema: a mental representation of knowledge

Distortions – people remember in terms of meaning and what makes sense to them, so memory is subjective Therefore, it needs to be investigated

scientifically

Will it ever be possible to develop robots that can think like humans?

1. Work in partners and compare the human mind and the computer. Make a list of what the human mind can do and what the computer can do. Discuss your list; does it make sense to you to compare the human mind to a computer?

2. What do you consider to be the major difference between the computer and a human being?

3. Discuss how computers are pictured in one-science fiction film that you have seen.

4. Discuss whether you think it will ever be possible to construct a robot that can be exactly like a human.

Studying the mind Research methods at Cognitive LOA

Laboratory – all variables can be controlled; however, may suffer from artificiality

Case studies Technology (ex: CT, fMRI) Use data to support or refute cognitive

models, or to propose new models

Cognitive processes Cognitive schemas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzbRpMlEHzM

Memory researchers believe that what we know already affects the way we interpret events and store knowledge in our memory

Schema Theory Schema – “how-to-score knowledge” Schema theory: cognitive theory about

information processing Cognitive schema: networks of

knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about particular aspects of the world

Distortions – mistakes

Schema theory and memory processes

Used to explain memory processes. Memory processes divided into three main stages Encoding: transforming sensory information

into a meaningful memory Storage: creating a biological trace of the

encoded information Retrieval: using the stored informationEncoding Storage Retrieval

Research in Psychology: Anderson and Pichert (1978) Aim: To determine the influence of schema processing on both

encoding and retrieval. Method: Participants heard a story which contained information

about a house. Half of the participants were asked to adopt a home-buyer schema when hearing the story, and the other half, a typical burglar schema. A distracting task was performed for 12 minutes before testing recall. After a further 5 minute delay, half the participants were then given the alternative schema (i.e. home-buyers were given burglar schemas and vice versa), and the other half were asked to retain their original schema, and recall was retested.

Results: Points directly linking to alternative schemas increased by 10%, whilst those relating to previous schemas declined.

Limitations: completed in a laboratory, so issues of ecological validity arise

Evaluation of Schema Theory Cohen (1993)

Says concept of schemas is too vague to be useful

Daniel Gilbert “brain is a wonderful magician but a lousy

scientist”

Can you… name the seven

dwarves…..

Was it easy or hard? It depends on

several things…. If you like Disney

movies? When was the last

time you have seen the movie?

Are people around you being loud pain in the butts so you cannot concentrate?

Recall Versus RecognitionRecall

you must retrieve the information from your memory

fill-in-the blank or essay tests

Recognition you must identify

the target from possible targets

multiple-choice tests

The Working Memory Model Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968): among the

first to suggest a basic structure of memory

Multi-store model

You need to pay attention to something in order to remember it, and you need to give the material a form (code) which enables you to remember it. Rehearsal means keeping material active in memory by repeating it until it can be stored.

Sensory memory Modality specific –

related to difference senses

Short-term memory (STM) – around 7 items, duration about 6-12 seconds (#s better than letters)

Long-term memory (LTM): vast storehouse of information

Working Memory: Badeley and Hitch (1974) Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

Working memory model

Central Executive – “controlling system”

Slave systems: short-term storage systems dedicated to a content domain (verbal and visuo-spatial, respectively)

Attentional control – the central executive’s most important job. This happens in two ways Automatic level: based on habit and controlled

more/less automatically by stimuli from the environment

Supervisory attentional level: deals with emergencies or creates new strategies when the other ones are no longer sufficient

Episodic buffer Phonological loop Phonological store Visuospatial sketchpad

Evidence of Working Memory Dual-task techniques: interference tasks

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) – asked participants to read prose and understand it, while at the same time remember sequences of numbers. In dual-task experiments, there was a clear and systematic increase in reasoning

Findings show that even though there was impairment, it was not catastrophic

Multi-tasking – performing different cognitive tasks at the same time without disruption

Pickering and Gathercole (2001) Working Memory Test Battery for

Children There’s an improvement in performance

in working memory from 5 years until about 15 years

Problems with working memory are associated with problems in academic performance

Holmes et al. (2008) Association between visuospatial

sketchpad capacity and children’s mathematics attainment in relation to age Children ages 7-8 and 9-10 Older children – mathematical performance

could be predicted by performance on visual patterns test

Long term memory (LTM)

Memory & the Brain Biological factors in memory

Neural networks Lesioning Explicit memory Semantic memory Episodic memory Implicit memory Procedural memory Emotional memory Hippocampus Amygdala

Clive Wearing – brain damage 1985... contracts viral encephalitis Damaged parts of his brain... affected memory Memory span of a few seconds... unable to keep

conversation or go places fMRI scans showed extensive damage to both the

right and left hippocampus... and some frontal regions

Provides insight into the biological foundation of different memory stems – episodic memory and some semantic memory lost Distributed memory system Emotional memory – affection he shows for wife

Milner and Scoville (1957) Amnesia HM – head inury sustained when 9 Epileptic seizures Removed tissue from temporal lobe, including

hippocampus HM unable to form new memories Suffers from anterograde amnesia, can’t remember

faces of people he meets (like Wearing) MRI in 1997 - damage not as extensive as estimated

Much better chance of testing areas of the brain related to memory and skill learning

Ethics in Research HM and Clive Wearing are famous case studies in

cognitive psychology. HM has been studied extensively, with all kinds of tests, ever since his operation in 1953. He has even donated his brain to science when he dies. We do not know his identity. Clive Wearing’s identity is known to us due to his wife’s book. Discuss why participants in case studies are

anonymous Discuss ethical considerations in studying an

individual with an interesting disorder or brain damage, such as HM and Clive Wearing

Verbal Protocols Verbal protocols involve trying to make

internal thought processes into public rather than private events – thinking aloud. This is a form of interview.

In pairs Partner 1: participant Partner 2: listening, jotting down steps in

the problem solving process The problem: D O N A L D

+ G E R A L DR O B E R T

Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html