Speech perception is the process by which we convert a stream of speech into individual words and sentences. The objective when either listening or reading is to understand what is being communicated. Prosody refers to the rhythm, intonation and stress patterns in speech.
There are few clear boundaries between words in spontaneous speech and sounds blend together as they are produced. Words in speech are not presented as distinct units. We understand everyone’s speech as language, although there are a lot of differences between people, such as sex, age, accent and so on. Recognition of the word precedes the completion of the heard word. Research into the amplitudes of words shows that there is no clear boundary between words.
There are two major problems of speech perception:
The foreign accent syndrome is a syndrome resulting from brain injury in which a person’s speech sounds like the accent of a foreigner. Infants tend to show a preference for their native language over an unfamiliar language. The development of word recognition requires the extraction of the regularities in a language that can be reliably used to distinguish word boundaries. Phonotactic constraints describe the language-specific sound groupings that occur in a language (e.g: some things are not allowed in a language: no English word starts with ‘XR’ and this can give a cue about word boundaries). Onset of a word is the initial phoneme or phonemes.
Slips of the ear occur when we misperceive a word or phrase in speech. It occurs when there is a misperception of a word boundary. These kinds of slips are also called mondegreens. Segmentation of incoming speech is biased towards the dominant patterns of the native language. Disfluency in speech can aid comprehension, as it can give the listener a cue that a less predictable word is coming.
Categorical perception is categorizing the incoming sound in a known category. This helps counteract the invariance problem. We are more sensitive to differences in speech sounds across phonetic categories than within. Voicing is when speech sounds are produced while the vocal cords are vibrating. People will categorize incoming sounds, even though it is rather different from the sounds they’re used to and they categorize it into categories of known phonemes. Infants can distinguish between the speech sounds of many languages at a young age, but this ability disappears as they acquire experience of the sounds of their own native language.
The left hemisphere language areas are accessed more efficiently by stimuli presented to the right ear. The right ear advantage for speech sounds refers to the finding that language sounds are processed more efficiently when presented to the right ear compared to the left. The effect of context can lead to the perception of absent speech sounds. The phoneme restoration effect describes the tendency to hear a complete word even when a phoneme is missing. This is a top-down influence, as the context drives the perception. Visual cues are also important for speech perception. The McGurk effect is a perceptual illusion that illustrates the interplay of visual and auditory processing in speech perception (e.g: if we see someone’s mouth make the movement for different phonemes than we actually hear, we are more likely to hear the phonemes that fit the movement of the mouth).
There are multiple models of speech perception:
Lexical access is the process by which we access stored knowledge about words. There are two tasks that investigate lexical access. Word naming tasks require participants to name a word, while response time is measured and sentence verification tasks present a sentence frame with a target word and the participant must decide if the word fits in the frame. There are several effects that influence lexical access:
The language used affects our perception of the situation (e.g: empty gas cans or gas cans). Parsing is the process by which we assign a syntactic structure to a sentence. We show a preference for one structure and interpretation and only when we realize that we made a mistake is when we go back. Reversible passives require more processing time. People with Broca’s aphasia don’t understand reversible passives. A phrase structure tree is a graphic representation of the syntactic structure of a sentence. Garden path sentences are grammatically correct but ambiguous sentences that bias the reader’s initial parsing. The goal of parsing is to assign incoming words to the appropriate role in the sentence as simply and efficiently as possible. There are two key strategies for this:
Garden path sentences require the person to revise their initial interpretation of the sentence, as new, conflicting, information is presented.
There are four main types of scripts:
The scripts can also be combined. The grapheme is the written representation of a phoneme. Transparent or shallow orthography uses a one-to-one correspondence between the letters and sounds. Opaque or orthographically deep languages are those where the relationship between letters and sound is more complex.
The word superiority effect refers to the finding that a target letter within a letter string is detected more readily when the string forms a word. We can fill in letters if they’re not there when reading. Context has a considerable influence on visual word recognition. People cannot read a word and when asked to name the colour of the word, instead of the word, interference often arises. This is called the Stroop interference. Saccades are fast movements of the eye made when reading or scanning an image. Fixation time on a word is reduced if the reader has managed to preview the word prior to fixating it and fixation time is reduced for words that are readily identified. As the text difficulty increases, the saccade length decreases and the number of regressions increases. The processing cost is greater for phonological textisms compared to orthographic textisms.
Coltheart’s dual-route model of reading proposes three routes for reading:
Pure word deafness (compromised route 1) is a deficit affecting the ability to recognize speech sounds, while comprehension of non-speech sounds remains intact. They can hear other sounds, just not speech. Other aspects of aphasia are absent. Pure word meaning deafness (compromised route 2) is a disorder in which the patient can repeat back the word, but cannot understand it.
Acquired dyslexia (alexia) refers to reading difficulties following brain injury. Surface dyslexia (route 1 is used) is characterized by a deficit in the reading of irregular words, while the reading of regular words is spared. Phonological dyslexia affects non-word reading, but real words can be read (route 2 is used). People with non-semantic reading can read regular and irregular words, but there is no comprehension of the words.
This bundle contains everything you need to know for the fourth interim exam of Introduction to Psychology for the University of Amsterdam. It uses the book "Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition)". The bundle contains the following chapters:
- 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
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Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 1
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of how people and animals process information. It studies how we acquire information, store information in memory, retrieve information and work with information to reach goals. In all these cases, individuals deal with internal or mental representations.
There is a long history of cognitive psychology:
Tolman was a behaviourist but was the beginning of the end for behaviourism. He stated that rats have mental maps or mental representations of a spatial layout. Tolman partially debunked the behaviourist approach of describing basic behaviour by his experiment showing latent learning; animals learning even though there was no reward. The behaviourist approach had many successes in accounting for basic animal learning, it was less applicable to complex mental phenomena such as reasoning, problem-solving, decision making and language.
An information processing approach is an approach for understanding mental activity, based on computing. Computer programs to solve suitable problems could be seen as comparable strategies that humans might use to solve the same problems. Strategies are systematic ways to carry out a cognitive task. A simulation program is a program which expresses a model of human thinking and involves programming computers to solve problems in a similar way to humans. The difference between a simulation program and artificial intelligence is that A.I tries to solve the problem as effectively as possible, without any attempt at mimicking human strategies.
Theorists using the information processing approach try to explain performance in cognitive tasks by using concepts of internal representations, which are transformed by mental operations. Internal representations are the mental representations of external objects and events. Mental operations are
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 2Perception is our sensory experience of the world. Sensation entails the processes by which physical properties are converted to neural signals. Perception does not give us a faithful image of the real-world. There are three fundamental concepts of perception:
Invariants in vision are properties of the three-dimensional object being viewed that can be derived from any two-dimensional image of the object. Direct perception refers to the bottom-up process by which objects and their function are recognized. Direct perception consists of three levels:
Embodied cognition holds that cognition is about the experiences arising from a perceptual system tightly linked to an action system, rather than the manipulations of abstract representations.
Synaesthesia is a condition where stimulation of one perceptual modality results in experiencing a percept in a typically unrelated modality (e.g: seeing letters in different colours). The basic organization of a perceptual system is a hierarchy (e.g: eyes – cones – optic nerve, thalamus, cortex – visual cortex – colour). Somatoperception is the perception of touch and proprioception is the sense of how our limbs are positioned in space and vestibular sensation is the sense of balance and orientation in space.
The encoding of visual information begins in the retinas of the two eyes and is transmitted from there to the primary visual cortex. Receptors in the eyes transform light into a neural signal. The image is projected on the fovea. The eye has two types of receptors:
The
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 3Attention is a limited resource that is deployed to facilitate the processing of critical information. One basic taxonomy of attention states that there are two types of attention:
Posner stated that there is an attention system, that exists of three different systems:
The cocktail party problem refers to focusing on one speaker in a background of noise and other conversations. There are several theories of attention. There are filter theories, that describe when we process the incoming information:
The resource theory of attention uses the metaphor of the spotlight. This refers to the ‘spotlight of attention’ that illuminates locations of interest. The zoom lens theory uses this metaphor. The size of the spotlight depends on the size of the object that requires our attention. Evidence that attention is a resource comes from experiments by Egly, that show that attention can be bound to an object, instead of a spatial area. An explanation for this
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 4Memory allows us to encode, store and retrieve information. Encoding is the function by which information is coded in a form that allows it to be stored in memory. Storage is the function by which information is retained in memory. Retrieval is the function by which information is recollected as needed. There are several types of memory:
Sensory memory can be easily disrupted. Masking refers to reduced perception of a visual stimulus when another stimulus is presented in spatial or temporal proximity to it. The stimulus onset asynchrony refers to the time between the onset of a stimulus and the presentation of a mask. Recognition of visual stimuli increases as the time of the mask is later after the original visual stimuli. There are several modality-specific sub-stores in the sensory memory:
Holcombe states that visual processes can be categorized into two groups:
Short-term memory holds information in consciousness, It provides temporary storage of active information and has a limited capacity. Atkinson introduced the modal model. It proposes that there are three memory stores, the sensory register, the short-term store and the long-term store. According to the modal model, information is first registered in the sensory store and salient information is transferred to the short-term memory store. The type of processing carried out will determine whether information will be stored in the long term memory store. There are several ways of information processing:
Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 5The case of H.M demonstrates three important aspects of long-term memory processes:
Amnesia refers to a pattern of memory loss affecting elements of long-term memory, while short-term memory remains intact. It is sometimes also called the amnesic syndrome. Amnesia has a number of general characteristics:
Ribot’s law states that recently formed memories are more susceptible to impairment than are older memories. The Wechsler Memory Scale is a widely used neurocognitive assessment that measures visual memory, auditory memory and working memory. There are several causes for amnesia, such as brain surgery, infections, head injuries, a stroke or Korsakoff’s syndrome, in which a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency causes brain damage.
James made the difference between primary and secondary memory. Secondary memory is long-term memory. Verbal learning refers to the area of experimental psychology concerned with how we learn and remember language-based items. There is a distinction in long-term memory between the following to long-term memory types:
There are three types of recollection of information from the memory:
Tulving proposed a distinction within declarative memory. The distinction can also be seen as a difference between remembering and knowing.
There are different types of non-declarative memory, all showing implicit memory:
Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 6Learning refers to the processes of acquiring information for mental storage and later use. Forgetting refers to processes leading to a loss of ability to retrieve previously learned information. The first step in learning new information is to encode that information in an internal representation in working memory. This representation needs to be processed further in order to develop a mental trace, a mental representation of stored information.
Craik’s theory of levels of processing states that the strength of the memory traces depends on the levels of processing. Deep processing (e.g: adding meaning to a word) leads to stronger memory traces than superficial processing (e.g: just reading a word). According to this theory, learning does not have to be intentional, as incidental learning can take place. Positive trial encodings strengthen pre-existing links between stimuli. A pitfall of this theory that it could be using circular reasoning.
Mnemonics are strategies to enhance memory performance. There are several mnemonics:
The dual-coding hypothesis states that concrete words can be encoded both verbally and visually and thus it is easier to recall them, as there are two possible ways of recalling the words. Abstract words can only be encoded verbally.
The encoding specificity principle is that if the context at recall is similar to the context at encoding then memory will be enhanced. If the cues at the time of learning are the same as the cues at the time of recall, then the memory will be enhanced. Context effects occur if memory is better when the external environment at testing is the same as at learning (e.g: learning while in a quiet room and recalling information in a quiet room). State-dependent memory effects occur if memory is better when internal physiological conditions at learning are reinstated at testing (e.g: when learning drunk, recall is better while drunk than when sober). Mood dependent memory means that memory is better when mood at learning is reinstated at testing.
The spacing effect occurs when material studied on many separate occasions is better learned than material studied in one continuous session, even if the total study
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 7Concepts are mental representations of classes of items (e.g: dogs). Imagery is the mental representation of sensory properties of objects, experiences as like perceiving the object but with less vividness than in reality. There are different approaches to concepts.
The definitional approach looks at the definition of an object in order to form a concept. The concepts are based on the definition of the word. This approach looks for well-defined concepts. The main problem with this approach is that most everyday concepts are not so well defined.
The prototype approach looks at the most typical of a ‘family’ of concepts which represents the other concepts. Typicality is the extent to which an object is representative of a category. Members of a category share a family resemblance. This is the tendency for members of a category to be similar to each other but without having any characteristic in common to all of them. The more an item of a category has a family resemblance, the more typical it is deemed to be. The item in a category that has the highest overall family resemblance to the other category members is the prototype of that category. The prototype is an ideal example that best represents a category. The prototype does not have to exist. It is the statistically average member of the category. Categories and concepts typically form into hierarchies. Lower level categories are nested within higher-level categories. The mid-level category is the basic level of categorization. These are categories formed of items that are highly similar and at an intermediate level in a concept hierarchy. The problems with the prototype approach are that some objects are more readily categorized as something, even though it looks more like a different prototype and some things don’t have prototypes, such as rules or beliefs. Ad hoc categories are categories formed of items that meet a given goal. The family resemblance does not work for ad hoc categories.
The exemplar-based approach proposes that categories are represented purely by stored examples or instances and each example Is linked to the category name. If a new item’s similarity to already known items is above a certain threshold it becomes a member of that category. The exemplar approach readily represents variability within a category, which the prototype approach does not.
The theory/knowledge-based approach uses knowledge in order to categorize items. It includes causal information and causal knowledge is used in order to categorize items.
Essentialism is the view that all members of a given category share some key property. This does not have to be something that can be seen from the outside (e.g: a bird without feathers is still a bird). Barton argued that there are different types of concepts which may have different forms of essential properties:
Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 8The motor system includes the components of the central and peripheral nervous system along with the muscles, joints and bones that enable movement. Motor control is the study of how body movements are planned by the brain and performed by the body. Woodworth stated that there were two phases: an impulse phase in which the brain calculates the necessary movements and a control phase where vision is the key to accuracy.
The degrees of freedom of a joint is the number of ways it can move. The degrees of freedom problem refers to the choice of how to move the body when there are countless possible ways to do so. There are several theories of movement planning:
The associative chain theory states that the end of one particular action is associated with stimulating the start of the next action in the sequence, much like a chain. This theory explains how sequences of action arise from linking together associations between individual action components. This theory becomes problematic when one action has to produce multiple other actions. Langley stated that there is a hierarchy of actions, most clearly shown in language production and speech. Parallel processing is the ability to divide the process of solving a problem into multiple parts and work simultaneously on each part. Estes states that each node of the hierarchy corresponds to a particular action schema.
The use of hierarchical structures becomes problematic when explaining how currently desired units can
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 9A problem is a situation in which you have a goal but do not know how to achieve it. Thinking is a process of mental exploration of possible actions and states of the world. Problems can be well-defined problems or ill-defined problems. Well-defined problems are problems in which starting conditions, actions available and goals are all completely specified. Ill-defined problems are problems in which starting conditions, or actions available or goals are not completely specified. Problems can be knowledge-rich or knowledge-lean. Knowledge-rich problems are problems that require extensive specialist knowledge. Knowledge-lean problems are problems that do not require specialist knowledge. Problems may also be classified as non-adversary or adversary problems. Non-adversary problems are problems in which the solver is dealing with inert problem materials with no rational opponent. Adversary problems are problems in which the solver has to deal with a rational opponent.
There are two main historical approaches that are influential in problem-solving and thinking:
The Gestalt approach. This approach to thinking likens problem-solving to seeing new patterns. It stresses the role of insight and understanding of problem-solving. The key process was restructuring. This changing how one represents a problem. A restructuring that leads to a rapid solution is insight. The path to insight is often characterised by restructuring the overall problem in sub-problems. Set is a tendency to persist with one approach to a problem. Functional fixity is a difficulty in thinking of a novel use for a familiar object.
The information processing approach. The problem space is an abstract representation of possible states of a problem. There are two sub-types: state-action spaces (upside-down tree diagram) and goal-subgoal spaces. State-action space is a representation of how problems can be transformed from starting state through intermediate states to the goal The goal-subgoal space is a representation of how an overall problem goal can be broken down into subgoals and sub-subgoals. Three methods can be used to analyse the state-action tree:
The method of hill-climbing uses intermediate evaluations. This is a heuristic method. A heuristic is a problem-solving method that often finds a low effort solution but is not guaranteed to solve the problem. Problems with
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 10Decision making is the cognitive process of choosing between alternative possible actions. The normative approach to decision making attempts to establish ideal ways of deciding what will give the best decision possible. Descriptive approaches aim to describe how decisions are actually taken as against how they should be made. A risk in decision making is the possibility of a negative outcome. A riskless decision involves choices where the outcomes of the choices are known with certainty. Single attribute decision problems involve alternatives that vary in only one dimension. The multi-attribute decision problem is a decision task in which the alternatives vary in many dimensions or aspects. The expected value is the long-term average value of a repeated decision, which is determined by probability and the size of the outcome.
The expected value theory works like a charm for decisions that involve money, but it does not comply with human behaviour. Human behaviour seems to follow risk aversion. This is avoiding risky choices even when a higher expected value than riskless alternatives. Risk seeking is a preference for risky choices even when riskless alternatives of a higher value are available. Risk aversion is mostly used when choices are phrased positively. Risk seeking is mostly used when choices are phrased negatively. Utility is the subjective value of an option. Subjective probability is how likely a person believes an outcome to be irrespective of the objective probability.
The prospect theory is a decision theory stressing relative gains and losses (e.g: 10$ means more to a poor person than to an extremely rich person). This theory uses loss aversion. This is that there is a greater dislike of losing utility than liking for gaining the same degree of utility (e.g: losing $10 would feel worse than winning $10 would feel good). Loss aversion is shown in the endowment effect, the tendency to over-value a possessed object and to require more money to sell it than to buy it in the first place (e.g: people don’t want to sell something precious to them for the price which they bought it for). The status quo bias is a tendency to prefer the current state of affairs and this also shows loss aversion.
Objective probabilities are transformed into subjective probabilities, also called decision weights. People tend to overweight small probabilities (e.g: the chance of dying because of a shark attack) and underweight big probabilities (e.g: the chance of dying because of heart disease). Framing effects in decision making occur when irrelevant features of a situation affect the decisions that are made (e.g: something being described positively or negatively). Invariance is the principle that choices should not be affected by how the options are described.
There are two major probabilities often used in making probability judgements:
Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 11Reasoning is the cognitive process of deriving new information from old information. Deductive reasoning is drawing logically necessary conclusions from given information. It’s going from the general to the specific. Inductive reasoning is the process of inferring probable conclusions from given information. It’s going from the specific to the general. Premises are statements assumed to be true from which conclusions are drawn. Valid arguments are those in which the conclusions must be true if the premises are true.
Deductive reasoning has two types:
Inference rules are rules for reaching a conclusion given a particular pattern of propositions. There are multiple inference rules:
There are two main mistakes:
People are better at reasoning with the modus ponens (100%) than with the modus tollens (60%). The two fallacies are rejected in about 25% of the cases. It could be that people do poorly on the modus tollens because of misinterpretation of the premises. The ‘if’ is often interpreted as ‘if and only if’. When more antecedents are added, then the fallacies are suppressed. This is called the suppression effect.
Braine argued that people have mental logic rules that they can apply to solving reasoning problems. He argued that people have a set of mental inference rules or schemas that permit direct inferences. They include the modus ponens, but not the modus tollens.
The mental models approach is the view that people tackle logical reasoning problems by forming mental representations of possible states of the world and draw inferences from those representations. Mental models are used for reasoning and the more mental models reasoning requires, the more difficult it will get for people. People minimise the load on the working memory by tending to construct mental models that represent explicitly only what is true and not what is not true. This can cause people to draw the wrong conclusion when they have to answer questions about things that are implicitly not true according to the premises. The principle of truth leads people to form models in which
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 13Speech perception is the process by which we convert a stream of speech into individual words and sentences. The objective when either listening or reading is to understand what is being communicated. Prosody refers to the rhythm, intonation and stress patterns in speech.
There are few clear boundaries between words in spontaneous speech and sounds blend together as they are produced. Words in speech are not presented as distinct units. We understand everyone’s speech as language, although there are a lot of differences between people, such as sex, age, accent and so on. Recognition of the word precedes the completion of the heard word. Research into the amplitudes of words shows that there is no clear boundary between words.
There are two major problems of speech perception:
The foreign accent syndrome is a syndrome resulting from brain injury in which a person’s speech sounds like the accent of a foreigner. Infants tend to show a preference for their native language over an unfamiliar language. The development of word recognition requires the extraction of the regularities in a language that can be reliably used to distinguish word boundaries. Phonotactic constraints describe the language-specific sound groupings that occur in a language (e.g: some things are not allowed in a language: no English word starts with ‘XR’ and this can give a cue about word boundaries). Onset of a word is the initial phoneme or phonemes.
Slips of the ear occur when we misperceive a word or phrase in speech. It occurs when there is a misperception of a word boundary. These kinds of slips are also called mondegreens. Segmentation of incoming speech is biased towards the dominant patterns of the native language. Disfluency in speech can aid comprehension, as it can give the listener a cue that a less predictable word is coming.
Categorical perception is categorizing the incoming sound in a known category. This helps counteract the invariance problem. We are more sensitive to differences in speech sounds across phonetic categories than within. Voicing is when speech sounds are produced
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 14Emotion refers to a number of mental states that are relatively short-lived and are associated with an eliciting event. There are four key features of emotions:
Emotions provide us with essential feedback on the execution of our plans relative to our goals. Emotions have not been studied a lot, because it was first seen as irrational and it is difficult to study. The amygdala (fear), the orbitofrontal cortex (anger) and the cingulate cortex (sadness) are involved in emotions. The insula has been linked to disgust. The default network is a network of brain regions that is active when the person is not focused on the external environment. The salience network is involved in monitoring the external and internal environment to allow detection of salient stimuli.
Emotions are to some extent culture-dependent. Display rules are social conventions governing how, when and with whom emotions may be expressed in society. There are core emotions that are universal. The core emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness. Emotional leakage refers to the unintended expression of emotion or a failure to mask emotion. Masked emotions are associated with more inconsistent expressions and an increased blink rate. The emotional responses someone has when depressed is culturally determined, as being depressed also means not being able to regulate the emotional expression in line with the cultural norms.
Clore and Ortony propose that human emotions are characterized by four components:
There are several theories on the relationship between emotion and cognition. There are two early theories of emotion and cognition:
The catharsis myth is the mistaken idea that aggressive behaviour is an effective means of
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 8The motor system includes the components of the central and peripheral nervous system along with the muscles, joints and bones that enable movement. Motor control is the study of how body movements are planned by the brain and performed by the body. Woodworth stated that there were two phases: an impulse phase in which the brain calculates the necessary movements and a control phase where vision is the key to accuracy.
The degrees of freedom of a joint is the number of ways it can move. The degrees of freedom problem refers to the choice of how to move the body when there are countless possible ways to do so. There are several theories of movement planning:
The associative chain theory states that the end of one particular action is associated with stimulating the start of the next action in the sequence, much like a chain. This theory explains how sequences of action arise from linking together associations between individual action components. This theory becomes problematic when one action has to produce multiple other actions. Langley stated that there is a hierarchy of actions, most clearly shown in language production and speech. Parallel processing is the ability to divide the process of solving a problem into multiple parts and work simultaneously on each part. Estes states that each node of the hierarchy corresponds to a particular action schema.
The use of hierarchical structures becomes problematic when explaining how currently desired units can
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 9A problem is a situation in which you have a goal but do not know how to achieve it. Thinking is a process of mental exploration of possible actions and states of the world. Problems can be well-defined problems or ill-defined problems. Well-defined problems are problems in which starting conditions, actions available and goals are all completely specified. Ill-defined problems are problems in which starting conditions, or actions available or goals are not completely specified. Problems can be knowledge-rich or knowledge-lean. Knowledge-rich problems are problems that require extensive specialist knowledge. Knowledge-lean problems are problems that do not require specialist knowledge. Problems may also be classified as non-adversary or adversary problems. Non-adversary problems are problems in which the solver is dealing with inert problem materials with no rational opponent. Adversary problems are problems in which the solver has to deal with a rational opponent.
There are two main historical approaches that are influential in problem-solving and thinking:
The Gestalt approach. This approach to thinking likens problem-solving to seeing new patterns. It stresses the role of insight and understanding of problem-solving. The key process was restructuring. This changing how one represents a problem. A restructuring that leads to a rapid solution is insight. The path to insight is often characterised by restructuring the overall problem in sub-problems. Set is a tendency to persist with one approach to a problem. Functional fixity is a difficulty in thinking of a novel use for a familiar object.
The information processing approach. The problem space is an abstract representation of possible states of a problem. There are two sub-types: state-action spaces (upside-down tree diagram) and goal-subgoal spaces. State-action space is a representation of how problems can be transformed from starting state through intermediate states to the goal The goal-subgoal space is a representation of how an overall problem goal can be broken down into subgoals and sub-subgoals. Three methods can be used to analyse the state-action tree:
The method of hill-climbing uses intermediate evaluations. This is a heuristic method. A heuristic is a problem-solving method that often finds a low effort solution but is not guaranteed to solve the problem. Problems with
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 10Decision making is the cognitive process of choosing between alternative possible actions. The normative approach to decision making attempts to establish ideal ways of deciding what will give the best decision possible. Descriptive approaches aim to describe how decisions are actually taken as against how they should be made. A risk in decision making is the possibility of a negative outcome. A riskless decision involves choices where the outcomes of the choices are known with certainty. Single attribute decision problems involve alternatives that vary in only one dimension. The multi-attribute decision problem is a decision task in which the alternatives vary in many dimensions or aspects. The expected value is the long-term average value of a repeated decision, which is determined by probability and the size of the outcome.
The expected value theory works like a charm for decisions that involve money, but it does not comply with human behaviour. Human behaviour seems to follow risk aversion. This is avoiding risky choices even when a higher expected value than riskless alternatives. Risk seeking is a preference for risky choices even when riskless alternatives of a higher value are available. Risk aversion is mostly used when choices are phrased positively. Risk seeking is mostly used when choices are phrased negatively. Utility is the subjective value of an option. Subjective probability is how likely a person believes an outcome to be irrespective of the objective probability.
The prospect theory is a decision theory stressing relative gains and losses (e.g: 10$ means more to a poor person than to an extremely rich person). This theory uses loss aversion. This is that there is a greater dislike of losing utility than liking for gaining the same degree of utility (e.g: losing $10 would feel worse than winning $10 would feel good). Loss aversion is shown in the endowment effect, the tendency to over-value a possessed object and to require more money to sell it than to buy it in the first place (e.g: people don’t want to sell something precious to them for the price which they bought it for). The status quo bias is a tendency to prefer the current state of affairs and this also shows loss aversion.
Objective probabilities are transformed into subjective probabilities, also called decision weights. People tend to overweight small probabilities (e.g: the chance of dying because of a shark attack) and underweight big probabilities (e.g: the chance of dying because of heart disease). Framing effects in decision making occur when irrelevant features of a situation affect the decisions that are made (e.g: something being described positively or negatively). Invariance is the principle that choices should not be affected by how the options are described.
There are two major probabilities often used in making probability judgements:
Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 11Reasoning is the cognitive process of deriving new information from old information. Deductive reasoning is drawing logically necessary conclusions from given information. It’s going from the general to the specific. Inductive reasoning is the process of inferring probable conclusions from given information. It’s going from the specific to the general. Premises are statements assumed to be true from which conclusions are drawn. Valid arguments are those in which the conclusions must be true if the premises are true.
Deductive reasoning has two types:
Inference rules are rules for reaching a conclusion given a particular pattern of propositions. There are multiple inference rules:
There are two main mistakes:
People are better at reasoning with the modus ponens (100%) than with the modus tollens (60%). The two fallacies are rejected in about 25% of the cases. It could be that people do poorly on the modus tollens because of misinterpretation of the premises. The ‘if’ is often interpreted as ‘if and only if’. When more antecedents are added, then the fallacies are suppressed. This is called the suppression effect.
Braine argued that people have mental logic rules that they can apply to solving reasoning problems. He argued that people have a set of mental inference rules or schemas that permit direct inferences. They include the modus ponens, but not the modus tollens.
The mental models approach is the view that people tackle logical reasoning problems by forming mental representations of possible states of the world and draw inferences from those representations. Mental models are used for reasoning and the more mental models reasoning requires, the more difficult it will get for people. People minimise the load on the working memory by tending to construct mental models that represent explicitly only what is true and not what is not true. This can cause people to draw the wrong conclusion when they have to answer questions about things that are implicitly not true according to the premises. The principle of truth leads people to form models in which
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 12Syntax refers to the rules governing the ways words can be combined to create meaningful sentences. Content words are words that provide meaning to the sentence. Language production refers to a number of processes by which we convert thought into language output, in the form of speech, sign language or writing. Social cognition refers to the ways in which people make sense of themselves and of others in order to function effectively in a social world. Speech production proceeds in a top-down manner, also known as conceptually driven.
Language is important for information sharing and promoting social interaction. Language can be used through writing and speech. Mental lexicon is our store of knowledge about words and their uses. Linguistic universals are linguistic features said to be found in all languages. There are several linguistic universals, such as consonants, vowels, negatives, questions and so on. Tonal languages are languages that use changes in tone to alter the meaning of the word, in addition to vowels and consonants. Hockett’s design features for human language consists of a set of properties. Some are shared with animals, but only human language uses the full set. It includes things such as rapid fading, interchangeability and feedback. Functional reference refers to the use by animals of a specific call to stand for a specific object or threat.
Language is a structured system which uses a finite set of sounds to construct words, sentences and conversations. There are several components of language:
Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 13Speech perception is the process by which we convert a stream of speech into individual words and sentences. The objective when either listening or reading is to understand what is being communicated. Prosody refers to the rhythm, intonation and stress patterns in speech.
There are few clear boundaries between words in spontaneous speech and sounds blend together as they are produced. Words in speech are not presented as distinct units. We understand everyone’s speech as language, although there are a lot of differences between people, such as sex, age, accent and so on. Recognition of the word precedes the completion of the heard word. Research into the amplitudes of words shows that there is no clear boundary between words.
There are two major problems of speech perception:
The foreign accent syndrome is a syndrome resulting from brain injury in which a person’s speech sounds like the accent of a foreigner. Infants tend to show a preference for their native language over an unfamiliar language. The development of word recognition requires the extraction of the regularities in a language that can be reliably used to distinguish word boundaries. Phonotactic constraints describe the language-specific sound groupings that occur in a language (e.g: some things are not allowed in a language: no English word starts with ‘XR’ and this can give a cue about word boundaries). Onset of a word is the initial phoneme or phonemes.
Slips of the ear occur when we misperceive a word or phrase in speech. It occurs when there is a misperception of a word boundary. These kinds of slips are also called mondegreens. Segmentation of incoming speech is biased towards the dominant patterns of the native language. Disfluency in speech can aid comprehension, as it can give the listener a cue that a less predictable word is coming.
Categorical perception is categorizing the incoming sound in a known category. This helps counteract the invariance problem. We are more sensitive to differences in speech sounds across phonetic categories than within. Voicing is when speech sounds are produced
.....read more Cognitive Psychology by K. Gilhooly, F. Lyddy, and F. Pollick (first edition) – Summary chapter 14Emotion refers to a number of mental states that are relatively short-lived and are associated with an eliciting event. There are four key features of emotions:
Emotions provide us with essential feedback on the execution of our plans relative to our goals. Emotions have not been studied a lot, because it was first seen as irrational and it is difficult to study. The amygdala (fear), the orbitofrontal cortex (anger) and the cingulate cortex (sadness) are involved in emotions. The insula has been linked to disgust. The default network is a network of brain regions that is active when the person is not focused on the external environment. The salience network is involved in monitoring the external and internal environment to allow detection of salient stimuli.
Emotions are to some extent culture-dependent. Display rules are social conventions governing how, when and with whom emotions may be expressed in society. There are core emotions that are universal. The core emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness. Emotional leakage refers to the unintended expression of emotion or a failure to mask emotion. Masked emotions are associated with more inconsistent expressions and an increased blink rate. The emotional responses someone has when depressed is culturally determined, as being depressed also means not being able to regulate the emotional expression in line with the cultural norms.
Clore and Ortony propose that human emotions are characterized by four components:
There are several theories on the relationship between emotion and cognition. There are two early theories of emotion and cognition:
The catharsis myth is the mistaken idea that aggressive behaviour is an effective means of
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