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25 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
What is the difference between rods and cones?
Rods: not sensible to colour, sensible to dim light
Cones: sensible to colour
What are the two types of sensory memory?
Iconic memory - visual
Echoic memory - auditory
What is the Sperling experiment?
Flash matrix of letters
Calculate duration + amount of iconic memory storage
Very sensible to delay
Partial report is better than whole report
What is the experiment by Darwin, Turvey & Crowder?
3 simultaneous messages (right ear, left ear, stereo)
Calculates duration + amount of echoic memory storage
Partial report a little better than whole report
Slower decay than iconic memory
What is the Treisman experiment?
A shadowing task (echoic memory)
Task: repeat message heard in ear A; ignore ear B
When same message is on…
- At the same time: they know
- With a lag: they can tell, up to 4.5 seconds
- Preceding: can tell, up to 1.5 seconds
Conclusion: Echoic memory lasts 1.5 seconds
What does the blindsight example tells us?
Blindfield of vision
People believe they are really blind in that area, but they answer questions better than chance. It is perception without awareness
What is the difference between apperceptive and associative visual agnosia?
Apperceptive: can't put features together to make meaningful objects
Associative: can't associate objects with their meaning (ex: wife/hat)
What is congenital amusia?
Pitch perception impairment (but unconsciously perceive pitch - aka can sing)
What's another name for priming?
Subliminal perception
Pattern recognition is an example of…
Bottom up processing
What is the Hoffding function?
Process whereby an emerging perception makes contact with a memory trace. Therefore, we can't recognize something that has no connection to our prior experiences.
What is template matching? What is the problem with that?
Theory according to which stimulus matches stored prototypes
Problem for real world objects --> you would need way too many templates
Who made the Multiple Trace Memory model? What is it?
Hintzman. Model according to which a memory trace is the average of experiences and variations.
What is the feature detection model?
Model according to which we recognize objects by their features, not as a whole matching a template.
Give an example of the Feature detection model. Who elaborated it? How does it work?
The Pandemonium, by Selfridge.

The image demon encodes the image; Features demons spot the different features in the image; the Cognitive demons recognize the pattern; the Decision demon makes the final decision.

It’s parallel processing.
What’s contrast energy?
The higher the contrast energy, the better the perception and encoding.
What is the Recognition by Components model, and who developed it?
Biederman. Decomposing 3D objects into basic shapes (36 geons). Discontinuities in surface are important, and so are junction points and details.
What is the Feature Integration Theory and who developed it?
Treisman. Features must be extracted from objects prior to attending to those objects. Two types of processing: pre-attentive and attentive.
What is the difference between pre-attentive and attentive processing?
Pre-attentive: simple features from external world. Outside of awareness. Unlimited, in parallel, on all items of visual field.

Attentive: conjunctions of features sharing a location. Limited capacity, conscious, serial.
Give 3 examples of top-down processing.
Letters : jumbled word effect; word superiority effect (easier to perceive a letter in a word)

Pandemonium: cognitive demons are yelling to shut up because they know the answer.

Perceptual filling-in: blind spot; words better identified in conversation; don’t notice when a sound is missing in a sentence.
Give two examples of cross-modal illusions.
Ventriloquist; McGurk effect.
Summarize Gestalt psychology.
The whole is larger than the sum of its parts.
What do the Gestalt theory uses to prove its points?
- Bi-stable figures
- Grouping principles
What are the grouping principles?
Proximity, closure, similarity, good continuation, common fate, meaning (good form)
What are the criticisms formulated against Gestalt psychology?
All else is rarely equal
Grouping principles can contradict each other
It doesn’t explain anything, it is merely descriptive