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Cognition, Memory, and Attention

1. No single information-processing theory of cognition


a. Built on a set of assumptions concerning how humans acquire , store,
and retrieve information.
i. Humans have limited mental resources for processing info
ii. Information moves through a system of stores
1. There are three types of memory stores in this model
2. Control processes govern the processing and movement
of info from one store to the next
a. Attention, rehearsal, encoding, retrieval
b. Three Stores
i. Sensory Memory allows for trace sensory inputs to remain in the
brain even after they are emitted.
1. Trace stays in your brain (1 sec for sight, several for
sounds) for a brief period
2. Separate stores exist for each sensory system
a. Store input for analysis by unconscious processes,
to determine if it should be sent to short-term
memory
ii. Short-term Store (working memory)
1. Information that we pay attention to in the sensory store
is sent to short-term
a. Info disappears quickly of not rehearsed or
attended to
b. Major workplace of the mind; all conscious thought
takes place
2. Analogous to the central processing unit
3. Only around 7 items at a time, but great flow of info over
a while
iii. Long-term Memory
1. Not aware of the info we hold in our long-term until it is
called into working
2. Long-term is passive, lasts a long time, and is unlimited
c. Methods of transportation
i. Attention controls the flow of info from sensory to short term
ii. Encoding moves short=term to long-term
1. Memorizing; most not deliberate (interest)
iii. Retrieval controls long-term to short-term (remembering)
1. Deliberate or not (flow of info from one recall)
iv. More energy (glucose) is consumed by cognitive areas when
executing difficult tasks compared to easy ones
v. Effortful processes vs automatic processes
1. Automatic cocur without intention, dont interfere with
other processes, dont improve with practice, and arent
influenced by individual differences in intelligence,
motivation, edu
a. Understanding sentences
b. Effortful are the opposite

2. Everyday processes require a combo of the two


2. Attention
a. Preattentive processing refers to that down by the unconscious brain to
sensory memory
b. Attention is a gate between sensory and short-term memory,
controlled top-down fashion by short-term
i. Only some input from sensory is able to pass the criteria of the
gate
c. Selective Listening
i. Cocktail-party phenomenon
1. We are only to understand on persons voice at a time
d. Selective Viewing
i. Only focus on one shape
1. Fail to see shapes when focusing on something else
(inattentive blindness)
e. Abilty to shift attention depends on our ability to look backward in time
to stimuli recorded a moment earlier in sensory memory
i. Echoic memory (auditory sensory memory); people can recall
stimuli from ten seconds ago, even if not paying attention to it
ii. Iconic memory (visual sensory memory); Sperling showed
people could remember images within a 3rd of a second
1. Notice things that have meaning to them, even if they are
ignoring it
iii. Attentional capacity can be increased (video games)
f. Information processing theory fails in explaining how sensory input can
change behavior without becoming conscious
i. Priming activation of info already stored in LT mem
1. Not experienced consciously, but influences
consciousness
2. Priming stimulus also does not have to be consciously
perceived
a. Duck in the tree experiment
b. Helps us understand contextual information
ii. Mind can perform routine tasks automatically, freeing working
memory
1. Driving, reading,
2. Stroop interference effect shows the obligatory nature of
reading
a. Say color of words, even if words spell a different
color
iii. Sensory stimuli activates specific sensory areas of the cerebral
cortex whether or not the person consciously notices it
iv. Attention magnifies the activity that task-relevant stimuli
produces in sensory areas of the brain, and diminishes the
activity that task-irrelevant stimuli creates
v. Neural mechanisms in anterior parts of the cortex are
responsible for control of attention

vi. Spatial neglect, failing to see things in the contralateral visual


field, is caused by lesions to the parietal, frontal, and anterior
cortex
vii. The more neural activity a stimulus produces, the more likely we
will experience it consciously
3. Working Memory is responsible for conscious perception, thinking, decision
making, information retrieval
a. Baddely divides WM into separate but interacting components
i. Phonological loop holds verbal info
1. Holds onto verbal information by subvocally repeating it
2. Memory span depends on how rapidly a person can
pronounce the items to be remembered
a. Keep in SM the info you can say out loud in 2
seconds
b. Anything that interferes with ability to articulate
words interferes with memory
i. Chinese are able to remember bigger digit
span due to having fewer syllables per
number
1. English > welsh
ii. Visuospatial sketchpad hold visual and spatial info
iii. Ventral executive coordinates minds activities and for bringing
in new info
iv. Memory span is 5 9 items, increases over childhood, and
decreases with old age
1. Working-memory span is how many items a person can
remember while working with something related to those
items (2 less)
a. Why people cant talk and drive
4. Working Memory has been seen as a part of executive function basic
mechanisms that work together to perform complex tasks
a. Working memory (updating info), switching between tasks, & inhibition
of unwanted info
i. Switching demonstrated through Wisconsin card sorting test,
and inhibition through stroop task
b. Shows both unity and diversity, and all the executive functions
correlate with one another
c. Genetic trait to executive function heritability is higher than IQ or
personality
d. Related to and predictive of important clinical and societal outcomes
i. Low inhibition = substance abuse
e. Developmental stability with executive function abilities (children with
high exec have higher exec as adults than others)
f. No single part of the brain controls for all executive functions, but the
prefrontal cortex is critical for thought and behavior
i. Prefrontal injury causes lack of empathy, alterations in mood,
difficulty planning and inhibiting thoughts
5. Memory refers to all the information in a persons mind, and the minds
ability to store and retrieve this info

a. Explicit memory brought into a persons consciousness; content of


conscious thought and highly flexible
i. Used for reflection, problem solving, and planning
ii. Explicit due to being assessed through reporting directly what a
person remembers about an event
iii. Episodic memories past experiences
iv. Semantic memories knowledge of words, facts, ideas,
schemas
v. Storehouse of knowledge akin to a network of concepts linked by
mental associations (spreading activation model)
b. Implicit memory nonverbal memories and unconscious thoughts
i. Balancing on a bicycle, nondeclerative memory
ii. More closely tied to the context they were learned in than
explicit
iii. Only drawn out automatically based on the context
iv. Classical conditioning
v. Procedural memories how to do actions (riding a bike)
1. Artificial grammar rules (not learned, but can distinguish)
a. Set of rules arbitrarily assigned by experimenter
regarding a set of letters
vi. Priming; keeps our thoughts consistent with given contexts
1. Occurs independently of the memory of the priming
stimulus
c. HM had temporal-lobe amnesia, caused by severing of hippocampus
and cortical/subcortical structures closely associated with it
i. Cannot create long-term memories
ii. Only related to explicit memories
iii. Hippocampus and temporal lobe play a role in creating LT mems
iv. Patients usually have greater deficit in episodic than semantic
1. HM had both
v. Hippocampus related mostly to explicit memories
(developmental amnesia)
vi. Episodic memory poorest in children and elderly
1. Infantile amnesia (cant remember events from infancy)
a. Reflects important changes for autobiographical
memory
b. Increased learning with increased vocabulary
c. Lack of sense of self at early ages could be a cause
vii. Prefrontal cortex is more susceptible to decay through old age
1. Responsible for our sense of self and complex thought
6. Long Term Memory
a. Retrieval of information depends on associations with other memories
i. Causes relevant information to be primed
1. Stimulus that primes is the retrieval cue
ii. Association by contiguity concepts paired due to having
occurred together
iii. Association by similarity
1. Made up of contiguity associations, and more primitive
iv. More mental associations = greater retrieval abilities

b. Memory is an inferential process, and the brain only encodes parts of


experiences into an event
i. Construction that is built and rebuilt from various sources (make
logical sense of experiences)
ii. Barlett refered to schema for general concepts
1. Schemas related to time are scripts (birthday party)
iii. Memories can also be changed by events after the event
7. Pseudo logic can be created from the same mechanisms that make logic
a. Cognitive dissonance theory created by Festinger
i. Mechanisms in our mind that create feelings of dissonance when
we have inconsistency with attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge
1. Tries to find ways to resolve contradictions
2. People choose to listen to arguments that support their
own
a. Avoid counter arguments to avoid dissonance
3. People bolster their attitudes to favor the choices they
make if they are not reversible
a. If they could reverse, they reduce dissonance by
saying that they can just exchange anytime
4. People also change their attitudes to match the decisions
they make to relieve dissonance
a. Insufficient-justification effect cant justify actions
based on previous attitudes
i. To work, their cannot be any obvious, high
incentive for performing the counter action
(p 535 ex)
ii. Must perceive their actions as stemming
from their own free choice
iii.

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