Psyc 309 m2 flashcards

Card Set Information

Psyc 309 m2 flashcards
2012-11-06 01:33:14

Part of m2 flashcards....incomplete
Show Answers:

Home > Flashcards > Print Preview


  1. *Bottom-Up Attention =  
    reflexive or automatic tendency of our visual attention to get draw  to “eye-catching” stimuli. e.g. flashing light
  2. *Top-Down Attention =
    Conscious willful decision to attend to some specific aspect or detail of the visual environment
  3. *change blindness = 
  4. *Attending globally (global processing) = 
    • Functional for understanding the general meaning of novel events.
    • When the global system is active, ppl perceive gestalts(concept of wholeness), broad categories in memory, and integrate info into existing knowledge structures
  5. *Attending locally (local processing) = 
    • supports encoding of detail in familiar situations when noval events can be threatening.
    • When active ppl perceive details, and activate narrow categories that lead to exclusion of incoming stimuli
  6. *Unconscious Cognition = 
    • unconscious brain plays a role in cognitive activity is.
    • Several experiments have been performed that show that the unconscious brain can be better at decision making when there are multiple variables to be taken into consideration.
  7. *Semantic Associations = 
    The tendency of words and concepts to be linked together
  8. *Priming = 
    • Occurs following perceptual, semantic, or conceptual stimulus repetition.
  9. *Semantic Association networks = 
    network which represents semantic relations between concepts
  10. *Implicit learning =
    the process of acquiring info about the world without intending to do so, and independent of whether you are consciously aware of what is being learned
  11. *Implicit motor learning = 
    How we generally pick up a motor skill.
  12. *Implicit Statistical Learning = 
    a way of learning of acquiring structure within continuous sensory environments
  13. *meaning maintenance hypothesis = 
    Exposure to unusual situations where patterns break down can spur your statistical learning system into action as a means of maintaining a continuous level of understanding.
  14. *Unconscious thinking = 
    Thought or deliberation in absence of conscious attention directed at a problem
  15. *conscious thinking = 
    conscious thought or deliberation where attention is explicitly directed to the problem or issue at hand
  16. *reasoning problems = 
    when the solution to the problem was arrived to by a step-by-step algorithmic manner
  17. *insight problems = 
    when the solution to the problem presents itself quickly and without warning it is an insight problem
  18. *Mode of thought best for analysing complex things = 
    Unconscious thought.
  19. *Mode of thought best for analysing simple things =
    Conscious thought.
  20. *Rumination = 
    focus on thoughts and behaviours that focus attention on the negative mood and self evaluation related to the mood
  21. *Distraction = 
    Focusing one’s attention away from the mood its causes/consequences, and instead focusing on positive/neutral things that are sufficiently engaging so as to prevent the mind wandering back to the negative mood.
  22. *Suppression = 
    try not to let your feelings show. act in a way that ppl watching would not be able to tell your true feelings
  23. *Acceptance = 
    try and experience feelings fully and do not try and control or change them in any way
  24. *Reappraisal = 
    • try and take a realistic perspective on the task by recognizing that there is no reason to feel anxious.
    • realize that the situation does not pose a threat
  25. *Rational Choice theory =
    • We are “utility” optimizers.
    • That is, we see to maximize the benefits or gains from our decisions while minimizing the costs or losses.
    • “cost/benefit” analyses thus dictate our patterns of behaviour and the course of action that we take
  26. *Bounded Rationality = 
  27. *Heuristics =
    efficient cognitive processes, conscious or unconscious, that ignore part of the available information when making decisions.
  28. *The Recognition heuristic = 
    • Used when having to decide between two options or choices
    • Stipulates that if one is something recognized and one option isn’t then we should pick the recognized option
  29. *Prospect Theory = 
  30. “*loss aversion” =
    • We don’t like to give up options.
    • we will pay in time and money to avoid the emotional pain of a loss
  31. *The Endowment Effect = 
    ppl will pay more to retain something they already own then they will pay to obtain the thing in the first place
  32. *The IKEA Effect =
    there is an increase in valuation of self-made products
  33. *The Free Effect =
    If you add a “free” item in a sale people are more willing to buy that item even if price is modulated to pay for the free thing
  34. *Rapid Task Switching = 
    method of multi-tasking where you flip-flop back and forth between two or more things
  35. *Concurrent Tasks = 
    method of multi-tasking where you are doing two or more things simultaneously
  36. What effect does being exposed to distracting stimuli have on one's ability to igrnore distracting infromation? 
    • Attention can get fatigued. 
    • e.g. people who walked through distracting city were worse at ignoring distracting info then their counter parts who walked though a natural setting. 
  37. What does change blindness and attention to detail suggest?
    • They suggest that  the visual system can focus on only one or very few objects at a time.
    • brain fills in gaps and compiles a cohesive image of reality based on a “flickering view”
  38. Are we aware or unaware of our processin style?
  39. what is is ment by "processing style"?
    global/local distincion between the type of attention that one is giving to a particular task
  40. Novel events trigger what type of processing style?
    global processing
  41. Threatening events trigger what type of processing style?
    local processing
  42. what are the effects of knowledge or expertise when exposed to change blindness? 
    • ppl are more likely to notice change if context is related to a subject of their expertise
    • ppl are less likely to notice a change if contex is noval 
  43. What was the effect when subjects were primed for words associated to elderly? (priming was done by using anagrams) 
    walking speed of subjects was slower while leaving the room relative to that of neutral priming group
  44. what was the effect of priming subjects with words related to rudeness/politeness?
    ppl were more/less likely to interrupt the experimenter relitive to neutral group
  45. The color red primes for what types of behaviour?
    avoidance and attention
  46. The color blue primes for what types of behaviour?
    creativity and approach
  47. The phenomonon of the Amnesic HM's impoved ability to trace a star in mirror is an example of what type of learning?
    implicit motor learning
  48. What was the Aim of the "statistical learning" study done on newborns?
    To investigate if newborns ability to extract statistics operated in multiple modalities
  49. When newborns were habituated to a complex pattern (sequence of shapes) of shapes, what was the result when they were exposed to a new stimulus pattern?
    They showed no preference for looking at the new pattern over the habituated pattern
  50. When newborns were habituated to a simple pattern (sequence of shapes) of shapes, what was the result when they were exposed to a new stimulus pattern?
    they showed a preference for looking at new pattern over habituated pattern
  51. what is the effect on ones statistical learning system when they are exposed to unusal situations where patterns break down?
  52. what are the two parallel modes of thinking?
    unconscious and conscious thinking 
  53. what are the benifits of solving problems with the unconscious mode of thinking?
    unconsious is able to process large sets of data and it has a large copacity for info 
  54. what are the benifits of solving problems with the conscious mode of thinking?
    it is good at processing small set of data and is precise
  55. when a subject is verbalizing their solution to a problem, the subjects performance is reduced when solving what type of problem? 
    insight problem
  56. How well do we know what we think?
    we seem to be poor judges about how much things are affecting us
  57. When asked to analyze one's relationship verses just provide a hunch, what seemed to be more accurate?
    • Satisfaction rating and analysis when thought out carefully were poor indicators as to if they would be dating their partner several months later
    • Satisfaction rating and analysis were good indicators as to if they would be dating their partner several months later when a hunch was provided
  58. Experiment: to what extend does conscious thinking perpetuate bad moods?
    ruminating increases levels of anger while distraction decreases levels of anger
  59. Experiment: If you’re nervous about a situation how should you reflect on it? What is the best way to handle anxiety? i.e. order of physiological responses and subjective reports, list the method from worst to best.
    • Suppression
    • acceptance 
    • reappraisal
  60. what are three key assumptions of Rational Choice theory?
    • 1)  individual has complete information about each choice
    • 2)  the individual has the cognitive ability to completely weigh and compare all choices
    • 3)  the individual has sufficient times to make the decision
  61. what region is activated when ppl see pictures of things they want to buy?
    nucleus accumbens region of brain - region with dopamine receptors that are activated when you experience something pleasant
  62. what region is activated in the brain of shoppers when they see a price that seems too high?
    insula - activated when you smell something bad, see a disgusting picture or anticipate a painful shock
  63. What are 2 key assumptions of Bounded Rationality?
    • 1)  the human mind has to solve complex problems under highly-constrained operating conditions
    • 2)    to overcome these limits, we use short-cuts in decision making,
  64. What personality type was hypothesized and supported by the results found in the study done on the Recognition Heuristic?
  65. "when deciding which city of two was larger, participants were faster to respond when they recognized one of the cities relative to when they either recognized both, or neither" is an example of people using....
    The Recognition heuristic
  66. Experiment: how much are you willing to buy something vs. sell something that you own?
    people tend to give objects they own a high valuation relative to  objects of the same type that they do not own.
  67. Experiment: To what extent do people increase their valuation of an object if they assemble it?do you need to complete the project to get the “IKEA” effect or is it just about the labor involved?
    if ppl create the object people will put a higher valuation on that object. However, they only put this higher valuation on the object if they complete the object and arn't asked to destroy it.
  68. What drives the “free” effect?
    Emotions do. When people were asked to rate the level of their emotion following the decision they made, ratings were significantly higher for the free condition.
  69. Why does Rapid Task Switching cause performance to decreas?
    when we switch between tasks, we have to reorient our attention and shut down some processes and start up others
  70. Why is talking on your cell phone so hard for your brain?
    • talking in the phone generates mental images that conflict with the spatial processing needed for safe driving.
    • distracted to the point that their engaged brians no longer process much of the information that falls on their retinas, which leads to slower reaction times and other driving problems.

What would you like to do?

Home > Flashcards > Print Preview