Cog Labs - Lonnie Yandell\'s Cognitive Psychology PDF

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Lonnie Yandell's Cognitive Psychology...

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Cog Labs Section 1: 1, 7, 9 1. If a subject responds slowly in a standard simple detection task like that found in CogLab, is it possible to distinguish whether the slowed response is related to detection of the stimulus or related to the response? a. No, it is not possible to distinguish whether the slowed response is related to detection or reaction because there are a varied number of reasons why someone’s time could be slowed such being distracted from outside stimuli, forgetting which button to click, or even being slow in moving fingers. Research has found that response time will likely be slower than 200 ms as a result of cognitive and behavioral factors that limit our speed. 7. Discuss the difference between parallel and serial processing as it relates to the visual search paradigm. Serial processing allows only one object at a time to be processed, whereas parallel processing assumes that various objects are processed simultaneously. In this visual search paradigm, they were testing whether someone could accurately and quickly identify a green circle among blue squares. This first section of trials was the serial processing since the only distracting factor was a blue square. In order to test parallel processing, to see if multiple factors could be processed simultaneously, they introduced green squares as well as blue squares. It takes a lot more time and thinking to process whether there is a green circle among multiple distracting factors. This explains why the target-absent trials take longer than the target-present trials. 9. Discuss how change blindness could be related to traffic accidents.

Change blindness has been found to be linked to a great deal of car accidents. Glancing away from the road and then back, whether to look at a cell phone or even change the radio station, is equivalent to seeing a scene followed by a blank field followed by a changed scene. When this happened in the experiment it made the change very difficult to notice, because you had to reevaluate every object again until you noticed the change, which could increase the chance your car hits another car in the real world. When there is no flicker, or no glance away, your attention stays focus and makes it easier for you to detect the change since it is immediately detected. Section 2: 25, 36, 28 25. What type of study environment should an individual with a low OSPAN adopt if he wants to do well in a class? Do you think he could use a study group effectively? A student with low OSPAN should adopt a quiet and distraction free environment to study such as going to a study room or the library if he wants to do well in class. He could use a study group effectively but there is a greater possibility that he would not be able to focus if other factors are being played into his study habits and time. 36. Your friend just got a new sports car for his birthday and said you could test drive it. All excited, you jump into the driver's seat and notice that it is a standard. It has been a long time since you drove one. If you find yourself talking through the steps necessary to drive the standard as your father once told you, what kind of memory are you displaying and why? This type of memory would be procedural because it is skills memory. Procedural memory is a part of the long-term memory that is responsible for knowing how to do things, also known as motor skills. As the name implies, procedural memory stores information on how to perform certain procedures, such as driving a stick shift. You are walking through the steps of how to drive a stick without even realizing it, because at one point it was muscle memory.

28. You are at a huge fraternity party and you see a girl playing beach volleyball that you think you recognize. You are not able to talk to her, but it bugs you that you cannot remember where you know her from. On Monday morning, as you walk into biology class, you see the same girl sitting in front of you. You feel a bit stupid that you did not remember her at the party because she has sat in front of you for 2 months. Now that you have done this lab, how would you explain your memory problem? You should be more accurate recognizing the target when the cue at encoding was the same as the cue at retrieval than when it was different. It is easier to recognize someone when they are in the same location you know them from, such as recognizing a girl in your class instead of outside of school. An item will be remembered easier at a particular time depends on the interaction between the processing that occurred during encoding and the processing that occurred at retrieval. Encoding specificity is the principle that we learn information together with its context. This means that the presence of the context can lead to enhanced memory for the information. This is also illustrated when you go back into the room after you have forgotten what you were looking for and suddenly remember it. Location helps strength encoding in this principle. Section 3: 35, 42, 38 35. What is metamemory and why is it important? "Metamemory" is a term that refers to people's judgments and beliefs about their own memory performance. Metamemory is important because it plays an important role in planning, allocating cognitive resources, selecting strategy, comprehension, and evaluation of performance. 42. How is the lexical decision task similar to a clinical free association task?

Exploring a person's unconscious through spontaneous word association is free Association. They are used to help patients learn more about what they are thinking and feeling. The lexical decision task measures how quickly people classify stimuli as words or nonwords. These tasks are similar because they both are used to see how people identify and associate words and feelings when related. They both measure the activation strength of specific words or types of words that are stored in the mental lexicon 38. Do you think it would be a good idea for a person who is just starting to lift free weights in the gym to have his or her partners watch for proper form by standing in front of them or beside them? Use the results from the Mental Rotation CogLab to explain your answer. It would be best for their partner to stand in front of them when starting to lift free weights. In the mental rotation task, it was much easier for participants to correctly identify a rotation, if it was slight or directly in front of it. When it is turned on the side or at a more distinct angle, things can become distorted and wrong. By looking at your partner from the front you would more easily be able to assess proper form. Section 4: 50 and 53 50. Which hamburger would people tend to buy in the supermarket and why, the package that advertises that it is 80 percent lean and 20 percent fat or 20 percent fat and 80 percent lean? People tend to buy hamburgers that is packaged 80% leans and 20% fat, because the healthier gain is presented first and people tend to prefer the sure gain over a probabilistic gain. When the gain is presented first, people tend to make decisions based on the good things they read, instead of taking the risk choice. The mind tends to seek out positive and beneficial behavior/ information more than riskful and negative information. They like information that confirms their choices in positive ways.

53. What are heuristics, and why do we have them? A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. These heuristics are often based on people’s experiences, beliefs, and values, as well as social norms and commonalities. These strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action....