Cognitive Psychology

What is cognitive psychology?

- Defined as the psychology of mental process
- It concerns the way we take in information from the outside world, how we
make sense of that information and what use we make out of it.
- Basically how we perceive the information we got from our sense

Stages of Cognitive Processing

INPUT - Information gathered from our senses

Perception – The first stage of cognitive processing. Analysis of the information.
Memory stage – After the process of perception some kind of record of the input
received will be learned and stored in this stage.
Retrieval – is carried out mainly for its own sake to access some information
stored in the past which is sometimes needed to provide the basis for further
mental activities such as thinking (Basically relapsing LMAO).
Thinking – thought process often use for memory retrieval, rearrangement and
manipulation of stored information to make it fit in with a new problem or task.
Approaches to the Study of Cognition.

1. Experimental Cognitive Psychology

- Involves the use of psychological experiments on human subjects to learn
and investigate the ways of how an individual perceive, learn, remember,
and think.

2. Computer Modelling of Cognitive Processes

- Involves the stimulation of certain aspects of human cognitive function by
writing computer programs, in order to test out the feasibility of possible
brain function.

3. Cognitive Neuropsychology
- Involves the study of individuals who have suffered some form of brain
injury. We can discover a great deal about the working of the normal brain
by studying the types of cognitive impairment which result from damage in
certain regions of the brain.
4. Cognitive Neuroscience
- The use of techniques such as brain imaging (brain scans) to investigate the
brain activities that underlie cognitive processing.
- The two most widely used brain-imaging techniques are PET scans (Positron
Emission Tomography) and MRI scans (Magnetic Resonance Imaging).

Experimental Cognitive Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt (1832 – 1920)
- Set up the first psychology laboratory at Leipzig in 1879 where he carried
out research on perception, including some of the earliest studies of visual
illusions.
- Known as the father of experimental psychology
- German physiologist, philosopher and professor.

William James (1842 – 1910)

- Proposed a number of theories which are still broadly accepted today
including short-term and long-term memory.
- Known as the father of American psychology
- American philosopher, historian and psychologist.

The rise and fall of Behaviorism

- Behaviorism is an approach which constrained psychologist to the

investigation of externally observable behavior.
- John B. Watson is the one who popularized this theory
- Watson argued that psychologist should not concern themselves with the
unobservable process in a scientific manner such as inner mental process.
- Example of behaviorist approach is the classic work carried by B.F Skinner
who trained rats to press a lever in order to obtain a food pellet as a reward
(reinforcement)
- The work of skinner generated some important findings but completely
disregards the cognitive processes underlying the response they were
studying.

Gestalt and Schema Theories

Gestalt Psychology
 - An approach to psychology which emphasized the way in which the
components of perceptual input became grouped and integrated into patterns
and whole figures.
- Gestalt German word for “shape” or “form”

Schema
- A mental pattern, usually derived from past experiences, which is used to
assist the interpretation of subsequent cognitions.
- Proposed by Frederick Bartlett as an early attempt to provide some sort of
plausible explanation for an individual ability to make sense of their
perceptual input.

Top-down and Bottom Up Processing

Top-down Processing
 - Involves the generation of schemas by the higher cortical structures.
- Schema-driven or Conceptually driven

Bottom-up Processing
- Initiated by stimulation at the ‘bottom end’ of the nervous system (sense
organs)
- Stimulus-driven or data-driven

Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

 - Cognitive Neuroscience is concerned with the relation between brain
function and cognition, and normally make use of brain-imaging techniques.
- Cognitive neuropsychology is concerned with the relation between brain
mechanism underlying condition, by studying individuals who have suffered
brain damage.
- One of the prominent case on cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology
is Phineas Gage’s accident.

The Nervous System

Central Nervous System (CNS)

- The brain and
the spinal cord

Brain – An organ
that controls all
of our bodily
functions.

Spinal cord –
Can be located at
the spinal column
which is composed of 33 bones called vertebrae. Spinal cord acts as the passage
way of message sent and received by the brain.

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

- Composed of different kinds of nerves that connects the brain and the spinal
cord to the rest of the body.

The Hind Brain

 - The lower part of the brain
- Mainly consist of Medulla, the Pons and the Cerebellum.
- The medulla, pons, the midbrain and certain central structures of the
forebrain constitute the brainstem

MAJOR STRUCTURES

Medulla
- Can be regarded as an enlarged
extension of the spinal cord.

- The cranial nerves that originates

from it control vital reflexes such as
breathing, heart rate, vomiting,
salivation, coughing, and sneezing.

Pons
- Is a broad horseshoe-shaped mass
transverse nerve fiber that connect the
medulla with the cerebellum.

- Point of origin or termination for four

of the cranial nerves that transfer
sensory information and motor
impulses to and from the facial region
and the brain.
Cerebellum
- Is a large hindbrain structure with many
deep folds.
- Known for its importance on “balance
and coordination”.

The Midbrain
- Topmost part of the brainstem

- The connection central between the brain

and the spinal cord.

MAJOR STRUCTURES

Tegmentum
- The intermediate level of the midbrain.

- Contains connections that plays a role in keeping us alert.

Substantia Nigra
- Gives rise to a dopamine containing pathway that facilitates readiness for
movement

Colliculi
- Contains two pairs of bulging, layered bundles of neurons called superior
and inferior colliculi.
 - Superior colliculi work on preliminary processing of visual signals before
they passed on to the occipital lobe in the back of the head.

- Inferior colliculi work on auditory

signals before those are passed through
the thalamus to the main auditory
processing center in the cortex

The Forebrain
- The largest brain division.

MAJOR STRUCTURES

Cerebral Cortex
- Outer portion of the forebrain
- Responsible for higher-level process of human brain

Thalamus
- A small structure responsible for to relay motor and sensory signals to
cerebral cortex.
- Located above the brainstem between the cerebral cortex and the midbrain.

Basal Ganglia
- group of structures linked to the thalamus in the base of the brain
- Involved in the coordination of movement
The Limbic System
Cingulate Cortex
- Primary cordial component of the Limbic System
- Involved in emotional and cognitive Processing
Thalamus
- Part of the forebrain
- Relays information from sensory organs to the cerebral cortex
Hypothalamus
- Part of the forebrain
- Regulates the amount of fear, thirst, sexual drive, and aggression we feel
Hippocampus
- Plays a role in our learning, memory, and ability to compare sensory
information to expectations
Amygdala
- Influences our motivation, emotional control, fear response, and
interpretations of nonverbal emotional expressions
The Ventricles
The nervous system begins its development as a tube surrounding a fluid canal.
The canal persists into adulthood as the central canal in the center of the spinal
cord. And as the ventricles, four fluid-filled cavities within the brain.
Each hemisphere contains one of the two large lateral ventricles.

Ventricular System
 - Set of communicating cavities within the brain
- Responsible for the production, transport, and removal of cerebrospinal
fluid
Cerebrospinal Fluids
- bathes the central nervous system.
- Clear, colorless, watery fluid
- Flows in and out of your brain and spinal cord
Functions of Cerebrospinal Fluids
Protection – acts as the cushion for the brain, limiting neutral damage in cranial
injuries.
Buoyancy – prevents excessive pressure on the base of the brain.
Chemical Stability - it creates an environment to allow for proper functioning of
the brain.

Cerebral Cortex
Cerebrum
- Looks like a walnut
- Has very unique external features other that its two hemispheres
Gray and White Matter
- Two different regions in the central nervous system.
- In the brain: gray matter refers to the darker, outer portion. White Matter
describes the lighter, inner section underneath.
- In the spinal cord: the roles are reversed
 The Cerebrum is divided into FOUR
MAIN LOBES:
Frontal Lobe
Temporal Lobe
Parietal Lobe
Occipital Lobe

The Frontal Lobe

- Emotional control center and home to
our Personality.
- Involved in motor function problem
solving, spontaneity, memory,
language, initiation, judgement, impulse control, and social and sexual
behavior.
- Extremely Vulnerable to injury because of their location at the front cranium
and size
- Most common region of injury (mild to moderate)
The Temporal Lobe
- Folds underneath each half of the brain on either side, below the frontal and
parietal lobes.
- It houses our ability to receive and interpret auditory information from the
ear.
- Collects and interprets information from the nose.
- Primary area of the brain for dealing with sensory input.
- Wernicke’s area, (An important area within the temporal lobe) gives us the
ability to recognize speech and interpret the meaning of words.
Wernicke’s Area
- First described in 1874 by Carl Wernicke
- Contains motor neurons involved in comprehension of speech
Broca’s Area
- one of the main areas of the cerebral cortex responsible for producing
language.
- Named for and discovered by Paul Broca

Occipital Lobe
- sit at the back of the head
- responsible for visual perception, including color, form and motion
- These lobes have to be very fast to process the rapid information that our
eyes are sending to the brain.
Parietal lobe
- Integrating sensory information from various parts of the body, knowledge
of numbers and their relations, and in the manipulation of objects.
- Process information relating to the sense of touch.

CHAPTER 2: Perception
Perception – subjective experience of sensory information after having been
subjected to cognitive processing.
Visual Perception
- the brain's ability to make sense of what the eyes see.
- This is the ability to perceive a form and find it hidden in a conglomerated
ground of matter.
- For example, ask a child to find the blue crayon in their pencil box. Visual
figure ground is being able to filter out all the other crayons to look for that
blue crayon.
Template Theory
 - essentially a development of schema theory, as it is a system which uses
information from past experience to make sense of a new stimulus.
Schema/ Templates
- Stored representations of objects enabling object recognition.

The Gestalt Approach

- principles/laws of human perception that describe how

humans group similar elements, recognize patterns and
simplify complex images when we perceive objects.
Reversible Figure

- the object perceived depends on what is designated as ‘figure’

and what is designated as ‘(back)ground’
Laws of Perceptional Organization

- Principles (such as proximity) by which parts of a visual scene

can be resolved into different objects.
Feature Extraction Theories
Features

- Elements of a scene that can be extracted and then used to build up a

perception of the scene as a whole.
Pandemonium
- A fanciful but appealing conceptual model of a feature extraction process
Visual Illusions

- caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual percept that

arguably appears to differ from reality.
Perceptual Constancies
- The perceived size of an object remains the same, even though the size of its
image on the retina changes is called SIZE CONSTANCY
Pareidolia

- a psychological phenomenon in which the mind responds to a stimulus by

perceiving a familiar pattern where none exists.

The Fun Theory

– setting out to prove that people’s behavior can be charged for the better by
making mundane activities fun. For example, the Piano Stairs in Sweden.
Sensory Coding
- important features of the world are converted into neural messages
understood by the brain. Also known as “transduction”.
Absolute Thresholds of Sensation

- refers to the minimum intensity of a stimulus that a person can detect half
the time.
- This varies from person to person and can be influenced by psychological
factors
Signal Detection Theory
- refers to our attempt to focus on one particular stimulus and ignore the flood
of information entering our senses
Absolute Threshold
- minimum amount of sensory stimulation that can be detected 50% of the
time
Sensory Adaption

- Tendency of sensory receptor cells to become less responsive to a stimulus

that is unchanging.
 - Receptors are no longer sending signals to the brain
- Clothes would drive us crazy, ticking of the clock, and odors from our home
would not go away.
The EYE
• The lens is just behind the iris and the pupil. This changes shape as it focuses on
the retina.
• The retina is at the back of the eye. Images are projected from the lens.

Depth Perception
• the ability to see three-dimensional space and to accurately judge distances. You
wouldn’t be able to drive a car or ride a bicycle, play catch, etc.
• The world would look like a flat surface!
• Images cast on the retina do not contain depth. They are flat, just like a
photograph.
The Visual Cliff Experiment
- Researchers Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk wanted to test depth
perception in children
- Built a special table that had a big drop on one side. They called it the
“visual cliff.”
- Different size of the pattern was a clue for depth.
- Whole table was then covered by a clear glass top, so that a baby could
safely be placed on or crawl across the “deep” side.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION
- Sensation occurs when sensory receptors detect sensory stimuli. Perception
involves the organization, interpretation, and conscious experience of those
sensations.
Sensation - The “raw” sensory input
Immanuel Kant - refers to the objects or events that exist independently of the
senses:
 • Numena: The world as it really is
• Phenomena: Numena as we perceive them.
• “We see things not as they are, but as we are.”
Sensory Conspicuity

- The extent to which aspects of a stimulus (such as color and luminance)

influence how easily it can be registered by the senses.
Attention Conspicuity

- The interaction of aspects of a stimulus (such as color, luminance, form)

with aspects of an individual (such as attention, knowledge, pre-conceptions)
that determine how likely a stimulus is to be consciously perceived

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