Psych Test #3

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

All apply to vision as well as sound

- Groupings tend to be in complete or enclosed figures
- 3 corners look like a triangle

- Elements close together in time and space tend to be perceived together
- 8 lines look like 4 pipes

- Elements that are similar to each other tend to be grouped together
- Diamond of Os on background of Xs

- Patterns are organized in as basic and straightforward a manner as possible
- Don't see a number of lines, but a box instead

- Elements shifted together in a similar manner
- i.e. Camouflage: You don't recognize a figure blended in with the background

A pattern or configuration

- As opposed to algorithms
- Rules of thumb, as opposed to guaranteed solutions

- Can view the figure or the ground, but not both
- Background: spaces within the object
- Circumscription: Other things being equal, we see the more circumscribed (surrounded) form as the figure

We tend to organize our knowledge around prototypes (Bird = Raven, Cardinal)

Geons: basic features (shapes) that neurons can identify in the world; breaking up complex figures into images we can comprehend

- Conceptually driven
- Using experience, knowledge, impressions, motivation to decipher otherwise ambiguous stimuli

- Data driven
- Recognizing information in stimuli
- Complimentary theory with top-down processing (work simultaneously)

- The tendency for objects to be perceived as unvarying and consistent even as we see them from different vantage points and distances
- Several Subtypes

The tendency for an object to have normal brightness and color regardless of lighting conditions

The tendency for objects to seem unchanged regardless of viewing angle

The tendency to see an object as the same size, regardless of distance

The tendency of an object to remain in the same position even as we move about

Previous knowledge, experience inform perception of stimuli (friend walking toward you not getting bigger)

- Information in environment informs the perception of stimuli (friend not actually that small because the far away car is not that small either)
- Complimentary theory with constructive theory (working simultaneously)

- Binocular Disparity: 2 eyes --> 2 visual fields --> 3rd dimension synthesizing depth
- Random Dot Autostereograms: Displace dots that stand out as a pattern amongst a mass of random dots

If one object cuts off the view of another, we perceive it as nearer to us

If there are several similar objects of different sizes, the smaller ones are perceived as being in the distance

Objects farther away appear to be higher in the horizontal plane

For irregular surfaces, the grain becomes finer as distance increases

As your head moves, the retinal image of distant objects moves more slowly than the retinal image of closer objects

Parallel lines appear to converge as they become more distant

- Selective Attention: The process that controls our awareness of, and readiness to respond to, particular categories of stimuli or stimuli in a particular location to the exclusion of others
- Can read the names of the colors much more easily than name the colors of the words

- Context affects how we perceive stimuli
- Constantly looking for patterns
- Brain cannot avoid perceiving stimuli
- Brain looks for patterns even when they aren't there and suggests meanings that are not right and order when it is or is not there.
- But we often still accept them

- Sensation: taking in information from the outside world
- Perception: attached meaning to the incoming information
- Memory: maintaining the information so it can be used and reused

- The brain's use of information provided by sensory systems to produce a response
- Selects what is important and gets you to pay attention to information and decide what it means as fast as possible

The flow of information from the primary visual cortex to the visual association area in the parietal lobe; used to form the perception of an object's location in three-dimensional space (the "where" system)

The flow of information from the primary visual cortex to the visual association area in the lower temporal lobe; used to form the perception of an object's shape, color, and orientation (the "what" system)

A hypothetical pattern that is stored in the nervous system and is used to perceive objects and shapes by a process of comparison (i.e. Cookie Cutter)

The perception of movement caused by the turning on and off of two or more lights, one at a time, in sequence; often used on theater marquees; responsible for the apparent movement of images in movies and television

encoding: recording info
storage: maintaining info
retrieval: retrieving info

- the three stage model of memory
- sensory input --> sensory memory --> attention--> rehearsal (short-term memory) --> storage --> retrieval (long term memory)
- Can't explain everything, has limits

memory in which representations the physical features of a stimulus are stored for very brief durations

with full report technique
subjects only remembered 3-4 out of 12 letters

with focus using different pitches 3 out of 4 letters were reported
(partial report technique)

- Holds 9-10 items for up to a quarter of a second

- Holds 5 items for 2 seconds
- Takes time to recall info

Coding is acoustic; we remember things by hearing them repeatedly

Similar, but working memory is more related to connecting to long-term memory

short term mem lasts less than 30 seconds. in the experiment in 30 seconds you lose half the words

-primacy effects remember earliest items better than middle (don't have a lot in mem yet so these words can be given some rehearsal)
-recency effects
you remember most recent items best because they are in your short term memory

capacity 7+/- two items
through chunking (7471865 = 747 1865), able to retain more information

-coding is multi dimensional
it can be any sensory stimulus
-tracking down info--> what it means to me
-semantic code: where do I use it, how do I use it

one thing makes it easier to recall another

- Recall: getting specific pieces of information from your memory for a specific thing
- Recognition: identifying a stimulus that you have been exposed to before
- studies use both. they test different systems of the brain

- forms a semantic network with distinctiveness
- Used together in more effective processing methods

- certain stimuli stand apart

elaborative- processing info on a meaningful level, such as formation association, attending to the meaning of the material, thinking about it, and so on.

maintenance- Rote repetition of information; repeating a given item over and over again

- Cues in the encoding context are gone in the retrieval context
- Encoding Specificity: Easiest to retrieve info when the two contexts match

Capacity: Limitless
Duration: Limitless

- Episodic: Memory for when events happen relative to other events
- Semantic: General knowledge about the world

- Implicit: Info you have learned that affects your behavior (i.e. tying your shoes)
- Explicit: Actually have to think about things step by step (math problem)

Perspective: Remembering to do something
Retrospective: Remember something you've done

- Remember highly arousing, highly emotional events more clearly
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (flashbulb memory keeps coming back)

- Anterograde: Can't remember anything after the memory loss
- Retrograde: Can't remember anything before the memory loss
- Different types of memory stores

- Changes in dendritic branching
- Changes in receptor number and sensitivity

- Frontal Lobe --> Episodic Memory
- Amygdala --> Emotional Memory
- Temporal Lobe --> Priming, memory consolidation
- Hippocampus --> Explicit Memory
- Cerebellum --> Implicit Memory, Motor Memory

- You have done something enough times that you have schematized the process --> generic memory of same incident repeated
- Certain, memorable events stick out and are remembered, even if in the same context

Remember what you were doing, what was going on during an event

- Very, very unreliable and faulty
- But juries pay more attention to eyewitnesses than scientific evidence

- Proactive: Old info interferes with new info
- Retroactive: New info interferes with old info
- Recognition better than relearning which is better than free recall
- See Notes for Graphic

- Imagery > looking at face, color
- Make judgement as you see stimulus not afterwards

- Imagery (connect to idea or term)
- Method of Loci (associate one thing with another through location)
- Organization: hierarchy

- First Letter Technique (ROYGBIV)
- Narrative Technique (make up a story)
- Substitution Method (letters for phone numbers)

- "I before E, except after C"

- Planners, phone books, etc.

--> Iconic Sensory Memory:
Duration- 250 ms
Capacity- 9-10 items
Coding- Visual
--> Echoic Sensory Memory
2 seconds
5 items
Acoustic
--> STM:
<30 seconds
7+-2 chunks
Primarily Acoustic
--> LTM
Infinite
Infinite
Multi-Dimensional

The change of information from a state of short-term activation into structural changes in the brain. These changes are considered permanent and therefore part of long-term memory.

- Reticular Formation: autonomic functions (pump blood, respiration)
- Hypothalamus: fight-or-flight, glandular activity
- Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN): monitors optic nerve activity (see whether it is light or dark outside), controls circadian rhythms
--> SCN spits out melatonin, which regulates sleep and wakefulness cycles
- Cerebral Cortex: higher-level thinking, higher-order consciousness, how we want to act on these thoughts and in response to stimuli

- EEG Studies: watching/studying brain activity
- Electrical activity in the brain being recorded --> brain wake patterns correlate with sleep wakefulness

Frequency (Hz or cycles/second): 13-24 Hz
Typical States of EEG Consciousness: Normal waking thought, alert problem solving
Brain Wave: Highest frequency, lowest amplitude

Frequency: 8-12 Hz
Typical States: deep relaxation, blank mind
Wave: lower frequency, higher amplitude

Frequency: 4-7 Hz
Typical States: Light Sleep
Wave: even lower frequency, higher amplitude

Frequency: 0-3 Hz
Typical States: deep sleep
Wave: lowest frequency, highest amplitude

- 90 minute sleep cycle
- REM Sleep: Paradoxical because eyes moving like they're awake (deep sleep but appear to be awake on EEG--> report dreaming)
- When deprived, people fall into REM more easily
- See notes for graphic

Sleep gets interrupted and then the person goes back into a longer REM cycle.

- As you get older, you spend fairly the same amount of time in each stage but significantly less time in REM

- A daily rhythmical change in behaviors or physiological processes
- SCN: the biological "clock" in the hypothalamus that controls circadian rhythms, spits out melatonin to regulate

- Restorative Theories: bodily resources restored to be activated again
- Circadian Theories: Body is the result of evolution; sleep has survival value (keep animal out of harm's way for 1/3 of its life)

- Fascinating but really hard to know anything about them
- Nightmares: frightening dreams
- Night Terrors: extremely scary, relatively rare

- Dreams are an expression of unconscious wish fulfillment
- Manifest Content: overt story-line of the dream (symbolic)
- Latent Content: What does that mean? (much different from explicit events of dream)
- Not scientific, widely rejected

Dreaming gets rid of unnecessary information you acquired during the day and holds on to important things

Repeat important information in dreams so you can know it better for survival

Dreams resulting from random electrical actions
- Stimulation from reticular formation produces high cortical activation
--> Emotional modules
--> Perceptual modules
--> Motivational modules
--> Cognitive modules
- Some evidence for all these theories but not overwhelming for any of them

- Some evidence (reduced pain sensitivity)
- Altered state vs. Responsibility
- Relaxed State?
- Posthypnotic Suggestion: A suggestion made by a hypnotist that is carried out some time after the participant has left the hypnotic state and usually according to a specific cue
Posthypnotic Amnesia: Failure to remember what occurred during hypnosis; induced by suggestions made during hypnosis

- Physical Dependence
- Psychological Dependence
--> Sometimes feel both

- Body learns to metabolize drug faster, so people use larger and larger doses
- Can lead to suppressing functions (overdose)

- Used for effect (can move through brain barrier) and lead to addiction
- Also used for experience, self-medication, thrill

Increase heart rate, blood pressure, muscle activity

- Inhibitory NT antagonist
- Tea, chocolate, aspirin
- First, blood pressure increases, then the crash comes, so you need to drink more
- Insomnia, need to use the bathroom a lot, alertness, attentiveness

- Anti-insulin
--> Increases glycogen metabolism, yielding increased glucose levels
--> Increases sympathetic NS activity and arousal
--> Caffeine and nicotine enhance each other's metabolism
- Highly addictive

- Crack, etc. --> Not synthetic
- Blocks reuptake of excess dopamine (involved in movement/motor systems)
- Shuts down mechanisms that deactivate neurotransmitters

- Synthesized in a lab
- Benzedrine (speed), meth
- Alertness, talkativeness
- Works like cocaine: increase release at neurotransmitters
- Amphetamine Psychosis: positive symptoms of schizophrenia

- Intoxication
- Alcohol: effects include relaxation, happiness, emotional responses
- Sedatives
--> Barbiturates (quaaludes)
--> Synergistic Effects: dangerous, effects of different drugs multiply each other

- Two terms used interchangeably (narcotics=synthetic; opiates= naturally-occurring)
- Derived from Opium
- Increased relaxation, separation from pain and anxiety
- Work on opium-like receptors, endorphins (agonist)
- In turn, affect other systems

Body learns how to metabolize drugs, substances
--> Has help from context of drugs (ritual): signal to body to start compensatory response
--> Makes quitting drugs difficult (relapse) as people step back into the context after rehab

- Methodone: satisfies physical cravings without the high (used to ease withdrawal), and then the patient can be weened off of it
- Morphine
- Heroine
- Codeine
- Demerol

- Distort sensory and perceptory systems (sometimes resulting in hallucinations)

- Takes much higher quantity to produce hallucinations
- Euphoria, relaxation, higher senses
- No evidence of addiction
- One of the safest drugs
- Short-term, minor effects (memory loss, slower reaction time)
- Long-Term: temporary immune system damage, lung damage, decreased sex hormones --> All reversible

- Operates on serotonin system (affects all kinds of other NT and brain systems)
- All perceptions changed
- Synesthesia: senses interact ("9 tastes like a banana")
- Generally safe, but always the chance of a bad trip
- Unmetabolized LSD stored in fat cells, can be released after strenuous activity, lead to acid flashback

- Ketamine (Special K): safe, effective anesthetic (does not impede basic functions, but other side effects are present too)
--> Used in veterinary medicine and very young children (won't understand hallucinations)
- More dangerous because they cause delusion, paranoia, and destructive behavior
- Completely synthetic
- Can function as depressant, stimulant, and hallucinogen at the same time
--> Depressant and hallucinogen in high doses

The awareness of complex private processes such as perception, thinking, and remembering

The cognitive processes of encoding, storing, and retrieving information

- Selective: The process that controls our awareness of, and readiness to respond to, particular categories of stimuli or stimuli in a particular location to the exclusion of others
- Divided Attention: The process by which we distribute awareness among different stimuli or tasks so that we can respond to them or perform them simultaneously

Failure to perceive an event when attention is diverted elsewhere

A surgical procedure that severs the corpus callosum, thus abolishing the direct connections between the cortex of the two cerebral hemispheres

Electromyogram: A record of muscle activity
Electo-oculogram: A record of eye movements

An instrument that records changes in physiological processes such as brain activity, heart rate, and breathing

A general category of sleep disorder related to difficulty in falling asleep and remaining asleep