Chapter 1

Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

What is Cognitive Psychology?

Cognitive psychology is the study of how people perceive, learn, remember, and think about information.

Why is understanding Cognitive Psychology important?

Understanding cognitive psychology can help us understand much of what goes on in our every day lives.

Why study the history of Cognitive Psychology?

-If we know where we came from, we may have a better understanding of where we are heading. In addition, we can learn from past mistakes.
-Ultimately, cognitive psychologists hope to learn how people think by studying how people have thoughts about thinking.

-The progression of ideas often involves a dialectic process.

-A dialectic is a developmental process where ideas evolve over time through a pattern of transformation. It involves thesis, antithesis & synthesis.

DIALECTIC PATTERN
A Thesis is proposed.
An Antithesis emerges.
A Synthesis integrates the viewpoint

Thesis is a statement of belief.

For example, some people believe that human nature governs many aspects of human behavior. (e.g., intelligence or personality; Sternberg, 1999).
After a while, however, certain individuals notice apparent flaws in the thesis.

An antithesis emerges.
An antithesis is a statement that counters a previous statement of belief.
For e.g., an alternative view is that our nurture (the environmental contexts in which we are reared) almost entirely determines many aspects of human behavior.

A Synthesis integrates the viewpoints.

The debate between the thesis and the antithesis
leads to a synthesis.
A synthesis integrates the most credible features of each of two (or more) views.
For example,
Nature versus Nurture, the interaction between our innate (inborn) nature and environmental nurture may govern human nature.

Philosophical Antecedents of Psychology

Philosophy seeks to understand the general nature of many aspects of the world, in part through introspection, the examination of inner ideas and experiences (from
intro-, “inward, within,” and-spect, “look”);
Physiology seeks a scientific study of life-sustaining functions in living matter, primarily through empirical (observation-based) methods.

1. Beginning with Plato and Aristotle, people have contemplated how to gain an understanding of the truth.
a. Plato held that rationalism offers a clear path to truth, whereas Aristotle espoused empiricism as the route to knowledge.
b. Centuries later, Descartes (cogito, ergo sum) extended Plato’s rationalism, whereas Locke (tabularasa) elaborated on Aristotle’s empiricism.

How did psychology develop as a science?

c. Kant offered a synthesis of these apparent opposites. Views of Descartes and Locke, argue that rationalism and empiricism have their place. Both must work
together in the quest for truth. Most twenty-first century psychologists accept Kant’s synthesis.

How did cognitive psychology develop from psychology?

1. By the twentieth century, psychology had emerged as a distinct field of study. Wundt focused on the structures of the mind (leading to structuralism), whereas
James and Dewey focused on the processes of the mind (functionalism).

How did cognitive psychology develop from psychology?

1. Emerging from this dialectic was Associationism, espoused by Ebbinghaus and Thorndike. It paved the way for behaviorism by underscoring the importance of
mental associations.
2. Another step toward Behaviorism was Pavlov’s discovery of the principles of classical conditioning. Watson and, later, Skinner were the chief proponents of
behaviorism. It focused entirely on observable links between an organism’s behavior and particular environmental contingencies that strengthen or weaken the
likelihood that specific
3. Most behaviorists dismissed entirely the notion that there is merit in psychologists trying to understand what is going on in the mind of the individual engaging in
the behavior.
4. Tolman and subsequent behaviorist researchers noted the role of cognitive processes in influencing behavior. A convergence of developments across many fields
led to the emergence of cognitive psychology as a discrete discipline, spearheaded by such notables as Neisser.
Chapter 2
Cognitive Neuroscience

Methods for the studying the human brain

• Postmortem studies
• Animal Studies
• Electrical Recordings
• Static Imaging Techniques
• Metabolic Imaging

Postmortem Studies
• Identify disorder and then examine after death
- Researchers may trace a link between an observed type of behavior and anomalies in a particular location of the brain.
• Paul Broca - linked severe speech problems to an area in the frontal lobe now called Broca's area
• Studies of Alzheimer's victims have le to identify some of the brain structures involved in memory

Animal Studies: In Vivo

• Monitor activity of a single neuron
• Microelectrodes are inserted into the brain of the animal to obtain single-cell recordings of the activity of a single neuron
• Selective lesioning to observe resulting functional deficits

Animal Study: Single Neuron Monitoring

• Disterhoft & Matthew (2003)
-Young versus old rabbits compared in learning of eyeblink conditioning
-Hippocampal pyramidal neurons were monitored
-Typically aging animals cannot learn the task -Metrifonate, galanthamine, and CI-1017 injected into the aging rabbits
-This led aged rabbits to learn as quickly as young controls

EEG-Human Studies

-EEG's are recordings of the electrical frequencies and intensities of the living brain, typically recorded over relatively long periods.
-Electroencephalograph Research Example
-Dehaene-Lambertz, Pena, M., Christophe, & Landrieu (2004)
-Examined the language abilities of infants using EEG

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

• Radioactive material is injected or inhaled
• Participant is then scanned to produce an image of the brain's activity
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Strong magnetic field passed through the skull
• Uses the detection of radio frequency signals produced by displaced radio waves in a magnetic field
• Creates a detailed anatomical image of the brain

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

• fMRI imaging takes a series of images of the brain in quick succession and then statistically analyzes the images for differences among them
• Brain areas with more blood flow have been shown to have better visibility on MRI images
• Better visibility is thought to be correlated with brain activation

fMRI in Research
• Gauthier, Skudlarski, Gore & Anderson (2000)
- fMRIs demonstrate that expertise for cars and birds uses areas involved in face recognition

Anatomy of the Brain

• Forebrain
- Cerebral cortex
-Basal ganglia
• Motor movement
- Limbic system
-Thalamus
- Hypothalamus
Function of Limbic System
• Emotion, motivation, memory, and learning
- Controls mood and attitude
- Stores highly charged emotional memories
-Controls appetite and sleep cycles
-Make us better to adapt our behaviors
-flexibly in response to our changing environment
Anatomy of Limbic System
• Amygdala
Involved in anger and aggression
• Septum
- Involved in anger and fear
• Hippocampus
- Is important in the formation of memories Disruption results in deficits in declarative memory but not in procedural memory
Korsakoff's syndrome
• Loss of memory function
• Thalamus
- Relay sensory information to the cerebral cortex
- Control of sleep and walking
• Hypothalamus
- Important to metabolic behaviors, eating, drinking, sexual behaviors, and regulating emotions.
Midbrain
Controls eye movement and coordination
• Location
- The midbrain extends from the pons to the lower portion of thalamus
• Reticular activating system
-Controls respiration, cardiovascular function, digestion, alertness, and sleep
• Brain Stem
-Vital in basic attention, arousal, and consciousness
-Physicians make determination of brain death based on the functions of the brain stem
-Physicians must determine that the brain stem has been damaged so severely that various reflexes of the head are absent for more than 12 hours
-The brain must show no electrical activity or cerebral circulation of blood.
Hindbrain
• Medulla Oblongata
- Breathing, swallowing and digestion
• Pons
Relay station
• Cerebellum
- Motor co-ordination, posture, and maintaining balance.
Cerebral Cortex Principles
• Contralaterality
-Right side of brain controls left side of body
-Left side of brain controls right side of body
• Corpus Callosum
- Neural fibers connecting left and right lobes
-Allows communication between right and left sides of the brain
Cerebral Cortex Principles
• Localization of function
- Specific mental processes are correlated with discrete regions of the brain
• Hemispheric Specialization
-Each lobe of the brain has specialized functions
Evidence for Specialization of Left lobe
• Wernicke's area
- Speaks fluently but nonsensically
- Not coherent, contains lexical and grammatical errors
• Broca's area
- Can understand everything said
- Patient can only respond in monosyllabic words
Split Brain Studies
• Sperry (1960 - 1998)
- First to study patients with a split corpus callosum
-Two lobes function independently
• Gazzaniga (1980's- current)
- Two lobes function complementarity
Split Brain Methodology
• Corpus callosum severed
• Techniques used test each half-brain

Split Brain Studies Demonstrate

Hemispheric Specialization
• Left Lobe
- Language functions (speech, song)
- Logical thought (writing, logic)
• Right Lobe
- Spatial-relation functions
- Perception of rhythm, abstract or intuitive thought
Split Brain Demonstration

What would a split brain patient say they saw? What would a split brain patient point to with their left hand?

Lobes of the Cerebral Cortex

• Frontal
-Reasoning & Planning
• Parietal
-Touch, Temperature, Pair & Pressure
• Temporal
-Auditory & Perceptual processing
• Occipital
- Visual processing

Chapter 3
VISUAL PERCEPTION

OUTLINE
• From Sensation to Perception
• Approaches to Perception: How Do We Make Sense of What We See?
• Perception of Objects and Forms
• The Environment Helps You See • Deficits in Perception

PERCEPTION
• Is the set of processes by which we recognize, organize, and make sense of the sensations we receive from environmental stimuli (Goodale, 2000a, 2000b; Kosslyn
& Osherson, 1995; Marr, 1982; Pomerantz, 2003).
Knowledge is a key to perception.

BASIC CONCEPTS OF PERCEPTION

James Gibson (1966,1979)
• he introduced the concepts of perception and provided a useful framework for studying perception in his influential work.
• DISTAL (far) OBJECT
• INFORMATIONAL MEDIUM
• PROXIMAL (near) STIMULATION
• PERCEPTUAL OBJECT (what you see)

GANZFELD EFFECT
• a uniform visual field is called Ganzfeld means ‘complete field’.
PERCEPT
• mental presentation of a stimulus that is perceived.

HOW DOES OUR VISUAL SYSTEM WORK?

OVERVIEW
LIGHT ENTERS THE EYE → CORNEA → PUPIL → LENS → VITREOUS HUMOR → RETINA → RODS & CONES → OPTIC NERVE → OPTIC CHIASMA → THALAMUS → VISUAL
CORTEX

PATHWAYS TO PERCEIVE THE WHAT AND THE WHERE

VISUAL PATHWAYS IN THE BRAIN

Dorsal Pathway (Where Pathway):
• Function: Processes location and motion information.
• Path: Ascends from the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobe to the parietal lobe.
• Deficit Example: Lesions in the parietal lobe can impair the ability to locate objects.
Ventral Pathway (What Pathway):
• Function: Processes the color, shape, and identity of visual stimuli.
• Path: Descends from the primary visual cortex to the temporal lobe.
• Deficit Example: Lesions in the temporal lobe can impair object recognition.
Alternative Interpretation- What-How Hypothesis:
• Proposed by: Goodale and colleagues.
• Concept: Instead of just "what" and "where," the
pathways relate to "what" an object is and "how" we can interact with it.
• Ventral Stream (What Pathway): Responsible for object identification.
• Dorsal Stream (How Pathway): Controls movements related to the identified objects.

APPROACHES TO PERCEPTION: HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OF WHAT WE SEE?

PERCEPTION THEORIES
Bottom-Up Theories: These theories suggest that perception starts with the sensory stimuli taken in by our eyes, and then the brain processes this data. It is a data-
driven approach.
Top-Down Theories: These theories propose that perception is influenced by higher-level cognitive processes, existing knowledge, and expectations. Perception starts
with what we know and expect, then considers the sensory data.
BOTTOM - UP THEORIES
-DIRECT PERCEPTION
-TEMPLATE THEORIES
-FEATURE MATCHING THEORIES -RECOGNITION - BY - COMPONENTS THEORY

DIRECT PERCEPTION

Gibson’s Theory of Direct Perception, the information in our sensory receptors, including the sensory context, is all we need to perceive anything.

NEUROSCIENCE AND DIRECT PERCEPTION

Neuroscience also indicates that direct perception may be involves in person perception.

TEMPLATE THEORIES
• Template theories suggest that our minds store myriad sets of templates.
• Template matching theories belong to the group of chunk-based theories.
NEUROSCIENCE AND TEMPLATE THEORIES
-Letters of the alphabet are simpler than faces and other complex stimuli. But how do we recognize letters?

WHY COMPUTERS HAVE TROUBLE READING HANDWRITING?

FEATURE - MATCHING THEORIES

• According to these theories, we attempt to match features of a pattern to features tored in memory, rather than to match a whole pattern to a template or a
prototype.
THE PANDEMONIUM MODEL
• In this model, metaphoric “demons” with specific duties recieve and analyze the features of a stimulus.

OLIVER SELFRIDGE
• Oliver Gordon Selfridge, was a mathematician and computer scientist who pioneered the early foundations of modern artificial intelligence.

4 KINDS OF DEMONS:
• Image demons
• Feature demons
• Cognitive demons
• Decision demons

RECOGNITION-BY-COMPONENTS THEORY/RBC THEORY

•How do we form stable 3-D mental representations of objects? The recognition-by-components theory explains it, using simple geometric shapes
Irving Biederman (1987)
•Seeing with the help of Geometric shape called Geons
These shapes include objects such as:
• Bricks
• Cylinders
• Wedges
• Cones
• Curved axis counterparts

Neuroscience and Recognition-by-Components Theory

•Geons are viewpoint-invariant, so studies should show that neurons exist that react to properties of an object that stay the same, no matter whether you look at
them from the front or the side.

Top-Down Theories
-In construction perception, the perceiver builds (constructs) a cognitive understanding (perception) of a stimulus.
•According to constructivists, during perception, we quickly form and test various hypotheses regarding percepts. The percepts are based on the following:
•what we sense (the sensory data)
• what we know (knowledge stored in memory)
•what we can infer (using high-level cognitive processes)

Context Effect
-Are the influences of the surrounding environment on the perception (e.g., our perception of “THE CAT”.
-One reason for favoring the constructive approach is that bottom-up (data-driven) theories of perception do not fully explain context effects.

• Configural-Superiority Effect
•object-superiority effect
•word-superiority effect

How Do Bottom-Up Theories and Top-Down Theories Go Together?

• Both theoretical approaches have garnered empirical support.
• We likely use a combination of information from the sensory receptors and our past knowledge to make sense of what we perceive.
• Visual control of action is mediated by cortical pathways that are different from those involved in visual control of perception.

PERCEPTION OF OBJECTS AND FORMS

•VIEWER-CENTERED REPRESENTATION
-the individual stores the way the object looks to him or her.
•OBJECT-CENTERED REPRESENTATION
-the individual stores a representation of the object, independent of its appearance to the viewer.
•LANDMARK-CENTERED REPRESENTATION
-information is categorized by its relation to a well-known or prominent.
GESTALT LAWS
• Developed in Germany in the early twentieth century.
• It is particularly useful for understanding how we perceive groups of objects or parts of objects to form integral wholes (Palmer, 1999a,
1999b, 2000; Palmer & Rock, 1994; Prinzmetal, 1995).
• The approach was founded by:
Kurt Koffka (1886–1941)
Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1968)
Max Wertheimer (1880–1943)
• It is based on the notion that the whole differs from the sum of its individual parts.

THE GESTALT PRINCIPLES OF FORM PERCEPTION

THE GESTALT PRINCIPLES OF FORM PERCEPTION

Figure Ground

An experiment by Parron and Fagot (2007) showed that only humans misjudged the size of the central circle in the Ebbinghaus illusion, whereas baboons did not.

PATTERN RECOGNITION SYSTEMS

•FEATURE ANALYSIS SYSTEM
-recognizing parts of objects and in assembling those parts into distinctive wholes.
•CONFIGURATIONAL SYSTEM
-recognizing larger configurations, not analyzing parts of objects or the construction of the objects.

RECOGNITION OF FACES AND HOUSES EXPERIMENT BY FARAH ET AL. (1998)

EXAMPLE OF A CONFIGURATIONAL EFFECT

THE NEUROSCIENCE OF RECOGNIZING FACES AND PATTERNS

• FUSIFORM GYRUS AND EMOTION
Studies indicate that emotional processing increases activation within the fusiform gyrus
when people process faces.
• AUTISM AND EMOTIONAL RECOGNITION
People with autism, who often have impaired emotional recognition, show less activation in the fusiform gyrus compared to non-autistic individuals.
• FACE PERCEPTION SPECIALIZATION
Not all researchers agree that the fusiform gyrus is specialized solely for face perception. Some argue that while it shows the greatest activation for face perception,
other brain areas also activate to a lesser degree when perceiving faces.
•EXPERT-INDIVIDUATION HYPOTHESIS
The fusiform gyrus is activated when examining items of visual expertise. For instance, bird or car experts show fusiform gyrus activation when differentiating among
similar items within their domain of expertise.
• PROSOPAGNOSIA
Prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces, highlights the critical role of the fusiform
gyrus. Individuals with this condition can detect emotions but cannot recognize whether the face belongs to a familiar person.
• SCHIZOPHRENIA AND FACIAL EMOTION RECOGNITION
People with schizophrenia often struggle with recognizing emotions in faces, likely due to atypical eye movement patterns.

THE ENVIRONMENT HELPS YOU SEE

PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCIES
• when our perception of an object remains the same even though the sensory input (proximal sensation) changes.
TWO MAIN CONSTANCIES:
1. Size Constancy
2. Shape Constancy

1. SIZE CONSTANCY
• The perception that an object maintains the same size despite changes in the size of the proximal stimulus.
example : Müller-Lyer Illusion

2. SHAPE CONSTANCY
• The perception that an object maintains the same shape despite changes in the shape of the proximal stimulus.

DEPTH PERCEPTION
• involves using various cues to perceive the distance of objects.
example : car from far away->small
DEPTH CUES
• these are visual signals that help the brain perceive how far away objects are.

CUES AND MECHANISMS

1. Monocular
2. Binocular
1. MONOCULAR DEPTH MECHANISM
• visual signals that help us perceive depth and distance using just one eye.
-example of monocular depth cues.

2. BINOCULAR DEPTH MECHANISM

• visual signals that help us perceive depth and distance using both eyes.

THE NEUROSCIENCE OF DEPTH PERCEPTION

TWO DISTINCT VISUAL PATHWAYS
• Identifying objects (WHAT)
• How to manipulate them (WHERE OR HOW) The what-how hypothesis is best supported by evidence of processing deficits.

DEFICITS IN PERCEPTION
Difficulties Perceiving the “What”
AGNOSIA
• trouble perceiving sensory information.
• can perceive the colors and shapes of objects and persons, but they cannot recognize what objects are.
• have trouble with the ‘what’ pathway.
SIMULTAGNOSIA
• an individual is unable to pay attention to
more than one object at a time.

PROSOPAGNASIA
• severely impaired ability to recognize human faces.
Difficulties Knowing the “How”

OPTIC ATAXIA
• impaired ability to use the visual system to guide movement.
• have trouble reaching for reaching things.
• the “how” is impaired.

ANOMALIES IN COLOR PERCEPTION

TYPES OF COLOR DEFICIENCY
Color perception deficits are more common in men than in women and are often genetically linked. These deficits can also result from lesions in the ventromedial
occipital and temporal lobes.

• Least common form of color deficiency.

• Complete absence of color vision.
• Cones are nonfunctional; vision is limited to shades of gray perceived through rods.
• Only two out of three mechanisms for color perception function correctly.
• Results in different types of color blindness: Red-Green Color Blindness, Protanopia, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia, etc.

ISHIHARA TEST PLATES

WHY DOES IT MATTER? PERCEPTION IN PRACTICE

Around 50% of all collision accidents happen because of missed or delayed perception. This often involves motorcycles and bicycles.
Example-"looked-but-failed-to-see" accidents

Chapter 4
Attention and Consciousness
The Nature of Attention and Consciousness
• Attention is the means by which we actively process a limited amount of information from the enormous amount of information available through our senses, our
stored memories, and our other cognitive processes
• Attention allows us to use our limited mental resources judiciously. By dimming the lights on many stimuli from outside (sensations) and inside (thoughts and
memories), we can highlight the stimuli that interest us. This heightened focus increases the likelihood that we can respond speedily and accurately to interesting
stimuli.
• Consciousness is the state of being aware of and able to think about one's own existence, thoughts, and surroundings. It encompasses our overall awareness and
subjective experience.

Conscious attention serves three purposes in playing a causal role for cognition
• First, it helps in monitoring our interactions with the environment
• Second, it assists us in linking our past (memories) and our present (sensations) to give us a sense of continuity of experience.
• Third, it helps us in controlling and planning for our future actions.

Attention
• Here are the four main functions of attention:
– Signal detection and vigilance: We try to detect the appearance of a particular stimulus
– Search: We try to find a signal amidst distracters
– Selective attention: We choose to attend to some stimuli and ignore others, as when we are involved in a conversation at a party.
– Divided attention: We prudently allocate our available attentional resources to coordinate our performance of more than one task at a time, as when we are
cooking and engaged in a phone conversation at the same time.
Attending to Signals over the Short and Long Terms
• In beach life guards
– In short notice they need to be attentive to see emergency going on in the beach that needs immediate care, and in longer period making sure that they are
attentive throughout the working day see to it nothing tragic happens
Signal Detection: Finding Important Stimuli in a Crowd
• Signal-detection theory (SDT) is a framework to explain how people pick out the few important stimuli when they are embedded in a wealth of irrelevant,
distracting stimuli.
• SDT often is used to measure sensitivity to a target’s presence.
When we try to detect a target stimulus (signal), •there are four possible outcomes
-hits
-false alarms
-misses
-correct rejections

Signal-detection theory can be discussed in the context of attention, perception, or memory:

• attention—paying enough attention to perceive objects that are there;
• perception—perceiving faint signals that may or may not be beyond your perceptual range (such as a very high-pitched tone)
• memory—indicating whether you have/have not been exposed to a stimulus before
Vigilance: Waiting to Detect a Signal
• Vigilance refers to a person’s ability to attend to a field of stimulation over a prolonged period, during which the person seeks to detect the appearance of a
particular target stimulus of interest.
• When being vigilant, the individual watchfully waits to detect a signal stimulus that may appear at an unknown time
• Neuroscience and Vigilance The amygdala plays a pivotal role in the recognition of emotional stimuli. Thus, the amygdala appears to be an important brain structure
in the regulation of vigilance The thalamus is involved in vigilance as well. Two specific activation states play a role in vigilance: bursts and the tonic state. A burst is
the result of relative hyperpolarization of the resting membrane potential (i.e., polarity of the membrane increases relative to its surrounding), and a tonic state
results from relative depolarization. During sleep, when people are less responsive to stimuli, the neurons are hyperpolarized and in burst mode higher levels of
vigilance are associated with tonic discharges.
Search: Actively Looking
• search refers to a scan of the environment for particular features—actively looking for something when you are not sure where it will appear.
• Search is made more difficult by distracters, nontarget stimuli that divert our attention away from the target stimulus.
• Distracters cause more trouble under some conditions than under others. Suppose we look for an item with a distinct feature like color or shape. We conduct a
feature search, in which we simply scan the environment for that feature
• In a conjunction search, we look for a particular combination (conjunction joining together) of features
three theories that try to explain search processes.
• Feature-Integration Theory- explains the relative ease of conducting feature searches and the relative difficulty of conducting conjunction searches.
• proposed by Anne Treisman and Garry Gelade in 1980
• The theory focuses on how we integrate various visual features to perceive and identify objects in our environment.
• Imagine you're searching for a red apple in a bowl of mixed fruits:
• Pre-Attentive Stage: Your visual system detects various features of all fruits—colors (red, green, yellow), shapes (round, oval), and sizes (small, large) in parallel.
• Focused Attention Stage: To identify the red apple, you focus your attention on combining the color red with the shape of an apple. This integration process
involves scanning and attending to different fruits to find one that matches both features.
Similarity Theory
• the data are a result of the fact that as the similarity between target and distracter stimuli increases, so does the difficulty in detecting the target stimuli. Thus,
targets that are highly similar to distracters are relatively hard to detect. Targets that are highly disparate from distracters are relatively easy to detect
Guided Search Theory
• The guided-search model suggests that all searches, whether feature searches or conjunction searches, involve two consecutive stages.
• The first is a parallel stage: the individual simultaneously activates a mental representation of all the potential targets
• Serial stage, the individual sequentially evaluates each of the activated elements, according to the degree of activation
• Imagine you are looking for a specific type of book on a crowded bookshelf:
• Feature Maps: You first detect features like color and size. Each book is processed for these individual features.
• Salience Map: The visual system combines these features to create a salience map highlighting books that stand out based on the detected features.
• Top-Down Guidance: If you know the book you’re looking for is a hardcover and red, this prior knowledge directs your attention toward books that are red and
likely to be hardcover, making the search more efficient.
Selective Attention
• cocktail party problem, the process of tracking one conversation in the face of the distraction of other conversations.
• Shadowing listen to two different messages
Theories of Selective Attention
• Broadbent’s Model According to one of the earliest theories of attention, we filter information right after we notice it at the sensory level. All incoming information
is processed equally and that we use filters to manage the flow of information.
• Selective Filter Model the selective filter blocks out most information at the sensory level. But some personally important messages are so powerful that they burst
through the filtering mechanism.
• Attenuation Model Unlike Broadbent’s model, which proposed that unattended information is completely blocked Attenuation Model suggests that unattended
information is not entirely filtered out but rather attenuated or weakened. This means that some unattended information can still be processed to a degree.
• Late-Filter Model- suggesting that the selection of information for further processing happens later in the cognitive process.
• Post-Perceptual Processing: According to the Late-Filter Model, all incoming sensory information is processed for meaning (semantic processing) before any
selection or filtering occurs. This means that the initial stages of processing involve understanding and interpreting all sensory inputs.
• Selective Attention: The selection of which information to respond to or focus on happens after all inputs have been analyzed for meaning. Essentially, the selection
occurs at a later stage, based on the relevance or importance of the information.
Divided Attention
• Early Research (Neisser & Becklen, 1975):
• Study Setup: Participants watched a videotape where a basketball game was superimposed on a hand-slapping game. They were tasked with monitoring both
activities simultaneously.
• Findings: Participants struggled to monitor both activities at once, even when each game was presented to a different eye.
• Hypotheses: Neisser and Becklen proposed that improvements in performance with practice were likely, but they believed this was due to skill development rather
than special cognitive mechanisms
• Dual-Task Paradigm (Spelke, Hirst, & Neisser, 1976):
• Study Setup: Participants performed a dual-task involving reading short stories and writing dictated words. Performance was measured in terms of response time
(latency) and accuracy.
• Findings: Initially, performance was poor for both tasks when done simultaneously. However, with extensive practice (85 sessions over several weeks), participants
improved significantly. They became faster at reading and more accurate in comprehension and memory tasks.
• Observations: Participants eventually noticed relationships among dictated words and could perform both tasks effectively without a loss in performance.
• Conclusions: Spelke and colleagues concluded that with enough practice, controlled tasks can be automatized to require fewer attentional resources. Despite this,
tasks remain intentional and involve significant cognitive processing.
• Speeded Tasks and PRP Effect (Pashler, 1994):
• Study Setup: Research focused on simple, speeded tasks requiring quick responses.
• Findings: Performance on one or both tasks typically slowed when tasks overlapped. This phenomenon, known as the psychological refractory period (PRP) effect or
attentional blink, indicated that while perceptual processing of sensory stimuli can be managed, cognitive tasks (e.g., response selection, memory retrieval) suffer
when performed simultaneously.
• Implication: People can handle multiple perceptual tasks but struggle with cognitive operations requiring response choices or memory retrieval when tasks overlap.
• Role of Intelligence (Hunt & Lansman, 1982):
• Study Setup: Participants solved mathematical problems while simultaneously listening for a tone and pressing a button upon hearing it.
• Findings: More intelligent individuals performed both tasks more effectively. Intelligence was linked to better division of attention and multitasking ability.
• Overall Implications:
• Practice and Automatization: Practice can improve performance on multiple tasks, allowing tasks to be performed with fewer resources, though they do not
become fully automatic.
• Cognitive Load: Simultaneous performance of cognitive tasks often results in slower responses due to the PRP effect.
• Individual Differences: Intelligence affects the ability to multitask effectively, with more intelligent individuals typically performing better on divided attention tasks.
Theories of Divided Attention
• To understand how we divide our attention, researchers use capacity models. These models explain how we manage to do more than one attention-demanding
task at the same time.
• Attentional-resources theory suggests that our attention is a limited resource. Just like we have a limited amount of physical energy to spend on tasks, we have a
limited amount of mental attention that we can allocate. When we do multiple tasks, we have to split this limited resource among them.
Two Main Models
• Single Pool Model
• Concept: This model proposes that we have one single pool of attentional resources. We can divide this pool between different tasks as needed.
• Example: If you're trying to do two tasks that both require verbal attention (like listening to a podcast while writing), the tasks might interfere with each other
because they both draw from the same pool of verbal attention.
• Multiple Pools Model
• Concept: This model suggests that we have several separate pools of attention, each dedicated to different types of tasks or sensory modalities (e.g., visual,
auditory).
• Example: Listening to music (auditory) while reading (visual) is easier because each task draws from a different pool of attention. This separation helps reduce
interference between tasks.
• Criticisms: Some argue that attentional-resources theory is too broad and doesn't fully capture the complexity of attention. For example, it might not explain all
aspects of how we manage attention, particularly in specific situations.
• Complementary Theories: Attentional-resources theory works well with other theories, such as filter theories. Filter theories focus on how we select and prioritize
information when attention is limited, while resource theories provide a broader view of how attention is distributed.
Divided Attention in Everyday Life
• Divided attention is crucial in our daily lives. For example, when driving, you need to be aware of potential dangers around you. If you don't pay enough attention,
like missing a car running a red light, you could cause or become part of a serious accident. Many car accidents are due to poor divided attention.
• An experiment has been done about divided attention, When participants did this task alone without any other distractor, they were faster and more accurate
however when listening to the radio or talking on a cell phone has been added the accuracy of pressing the break or ignore it based on the color has decrease. Talking
on a cell phone while driving was found to be much riskier than listening to the radio. Research shows that cell phone use can be as dangerous as drunk driving, and
drivers talking on the phone are more likely to exhibit anger and aggression, which can increase the likelihood of accidents. This explains why cell phone use while
driving contributes significantly to accidents.
 Factors That Influence Our Ability to Pay Attention
• Anxiety
• Arousal
• Task difficulty
• Skills: The more practiced and skilled you are in performing a task, the more your attention is enhanced
Neuroscience and Attention: A Network Model
• Understanding how attention works in the brain can be complex. Is attention controlled by the entire brain or by specific areas? Michael Posner suggests that
attention is managed by both specific brain areas and the overall brain system.
• Posner and Mary Rothbart reviewed neuroimaging studies and found that attention can be divided into three main functions:
Alerting
• Definition: Getting ready to pay attention and staying alert.
• Brain Areas: Right frontal and parietal cortexes, locus coeruleus.
• Neurotransmitter: Norepinephrine (is essential for regulating alertness, managing stress responses, affecting mood, and supporting cognitive functions. Its proper
functioning is crucial for overall mental and physical well-being.)
• Dysfunction: Problems with alerting can lead to ADHD or issues with aging.
Orienting
• refers to the process of directing attention to specific stimuli or locations in our environment. It involves several cognitive and neural mechanisms that allow us to
focus on what is important and ignore irrelevant information
• Brain Areas: Superior parietal lobe, temporal-parietal junction, frontal eye fields, superior colliculus.
• These brain areas work together to manage how we focus our attention on specific stimuli or locations. They help in directing visual attention, responding to new or
significant events, and making sure that our gaze aligns with what we need to focus on. By integrating sensory information and controlling eye movements, these
regions enable efficient and effective orienting of attention.
• Neurotransmitter: Acetylcholine.
• Acetylcholine is crucial for cognitive processes like attention, learning, and memory formation. Acetylcholine is vital for orienting attention because it helps enhance
the brain's ability to focus on and shift to important stimuli or locations. It supports visual search, spatial awareness, and cognitive flexibility by modulating the
activity of key brain regions involved in attention. Proper functioning of acetylcholine systems is essential for efficient and effective attention processes.
• Dysfunction: Issues with orienting are linked to autism.

Executive Attention
• Managing and resolving conflicts among thoughts, feelings, and responses.
• Brain Areas: Anterior cingulate, lateral ventral, prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia.
• Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Monitors conflicts and errors, integrates emotional information, and adjusts attention based on performance.
• Lateral Prefrontal Cortex: Manages cognitive control, task switching, and goal setting, enabling complex decision-making and planning.
• Ventral Prefrontal Cortex: Controls response inhibition and integrates emotional information with cognitive processes.
• Basal Ganglia: Selects and initiates actions, influences motor control, learning, and habit formation, and helps in prioritizing responses.
• Neurotransmitter: Dopamine.
• Dysfunction: Problems here are associated with Alzheimer’s disease, borderline personality disorder, and schizophrenia.
Intelligence and Attention
• The PASS model of intelligence (Planning, Attention, and Simultaneous–Successive Process Model) suggests that intelligence involves three key processing units,
each linked to different brain areas:
• Arousal and Attention: Associated with the brainstem and other regions, crucial for selective and divided attention.
• Simultaneous and Successive Processing: Involves understanding and processing information either all at once or in a sequence.
• Planning: Involves decision-making and goal setting.

Inspection Time
• Definition: The time needed to focus on and decide about items.
• Measurement: Typically involves showing a target stimulus for a brief period and requiring a decision on which option is correct.
• Findings: Shorter inspection times are linked to higher intelligence scores, indicating that quicker decision-making can reflect higher cognitive abilities.
Reaction Time
• Concept: Intelligence is sometimes linked to how quickly the brain processes information.
• Experiment Choice Reaction Time: The time taken to choose the correct answer from multiple options.
• Findings: People with higher IQs generally have faster reaction times. This suggests quicker neural processing might be associated with higher intelligence.
When Our Attention Fails Us
• Significance of Attention:
• The importance of attention becomes evident when people struggle to concentrate. Studying individuals with attention problems can reveal much about how
attention works in the brain.
• Research with People with Attention Deficits
• Normal Participants vs. Those with Deficits: Research often involves people with typical attention, but studying those with attention issues, such as brain damage or
reduced blood flow in critical areas, helps us understand attentional processes better.
Key Brain Areas Linked to Attention Deficits
• Frontal Lobe and Basal Ganglia: Problems with attention are associated with damage in these areas.
• Posterior Parietal Cortex and Thalamus: Issues with visual attention are linked to these regions, as well as parts of the midbrain that control eye movements.
Examples of Attention Problems
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A condition characterized by persistent issues with attention and hyperactivity.
• Change and Inattentional Blindness: Examples of how failing to pay attention can lead to missing changes or important details in our environment.
Change Blindness and Inattentional Blindness
• Survival Advantage: Being able to spot predators and find food was crucial for survival. It’s important for adapting to changes in our environment, which can signal
both opportunities and dangers.
• Change Blindness:
• Definition: Change blindness happens when people fail to notice changes in a scene or object while they are focused on something else.
Relevance:
Traffic Safety: A driver might not notice a car that has suddenly appeared in their lane if they are distracted, increasing the risk of accidents.
Medical Screening: A radiologist might miss a critical change in a scan (like a growing tumor) if they don’t notice the subtle differences from previous scans.
 Inattentional Blindness:
Definition: Inattentional blindness occurs when people fail to see objects that are in their visual field because they are focused on something else.
Relevance:
Driving: A driver might not see a pedestrian crossing the road if they are concentrating on their phone or GPS, leading to potential accidents.
Medical Settings: A doctor might overlook a visible symptom or a piece of crucial information in a patient's medical history if they are focused on other aspects of the
examination.
Spatial Neglect—One Half of the World Goes Amiss
• Spatial neglect (or hemi-neglect) is when someone ignores one half of their visual field due to brain damage.
• If you and a friend are at the zoo, and your friend has spatial neglect, they won’t notice anything on one side (like the left side) of their view, even if it’s right in front
of them.
• Cause: This happens because of damage to specific parts of the brain, usually the right parietal or frontal lobe.
• Testing: To test for neglect, patients might be asked to draw lines on a page. Those with right hemisphere damage might draw the lines to the right side of the
page, missing the left side, and those with left hemisphere damage might do the opposite.
• Drawing Test: If asked to copy pictures, patients might only draw one side, showing they don’t see or focus on the other side.
• Extinction: When both sides of the visual field have stimuli, people with spatial neglect may ignore the side opposite their brain lesion. They might still notice single-
side stimuli but have trouble shifting their attention between the two sides.
• Memory: This issue can also affect memory. For example, patients might describe only one side of a familiar place, even though they know it well from different
angles.
• Brain Areas: Recent studies suggest that spatial neglect is linked to parts of the brain such as the posterior superior temporal gyrus, insula, basal ganglia, and the
superior longitudinal fasciculus in the parietal lobe.
• Habituation- n involves our becoming accustomed to a stimulus so that we gradually pay less and less attention to it.
• Dishabituation- a change in a familiar stimulus prompts us to start noticing the stimulus again
• Both habituation and dishabituation happen automatically, without conscious effort.
• We can exert some conscious control over habituation, unlike sensory adaptation, which occurs in the sense organs and is beyond our control.
• Sensory adaptation- is a lessening of attention to a stimulus that is not subject to conscious control. Occurs directly in sense organ not in the brain.
Two factors that influence habituation
• Internal Variation: Stimuli with more variation (e.g., changing music) are harder to habituate to than constant stimuli (e.g., a fan's hum).
• Subjective Arousal: The level of physiological excitement or readiness for action can influence habituation.
• Arousal is a degree of physiological excitation, responsivity, and readiness for action, relative to a baseline.
• Arousal often is measured in terms of heart rate, blood pressure, electroencephalograph (EEG) patterns, and other physiological signs.
How important habituation
• Focus and Attention:
– Filtering Out Irrelevant Stimuli: Habituation allows us to ignore repetitive, non-threatening stimuli in our environment, enabling us to focus on more important
tasks.
• Preventing Sensory Overload:
– Managing Environmental Stimuli: Without habituation, we would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of sensory information we encounter daily. By becoming
accustomed to familiar stimuli, we prevent sensory overload, which could otherwise lead to stress, anxiety, and difficulty functioning in busy environments.
• Enhancing Safety and Responsiveness:
– Prioritizing New and Important Stimuli: Habituation allows us to quickly detect changes in our environment that might signal danger or require our attention. For
example, while we might ignore the usual traffic noise, the sudden sound of screeching brakes would immediately catch our attention, prompting us to respond
appropriately.
• Improving Sleep and Relaxation
– Adapting to Background Noises: Habituation helps us sleep in environments with consistent background noises, like living near a busy street or airport. Over time,
we get used to these sounds and can sleep soundly without being disturbed.
• Emotional and Social Interactions
– Regulating Emotional Responses: Habituation also plays a role in emotional regulation. By becoming accustomed to certain emotional stimuli or recurring social
situations, we can manage our emotional reactions more effectively, maintaining calm and composure in familiar contexts.
• Learning and Adaptation:
– Adapting to New Environments: Habituation helps us adapt to new environments by allowing us to gradually become comfortable with unfamiliar stimuli. This is
essential for learning, as it frees up cognitive resources to focus on new information once we’ve adjusted to the surroundings.
• Mental Health
– Reducing Anxiety: Habituation can reduce anxiety by helping us become less sensitive to stressors over time. For example, a person who is initially anxious about
public speaking may habituate to the experience after repeated exposure, leading to reduced anxiety in future situations.
Automatic and Controlled Processes in Attention
• Automatic processes- performing without using concious awareness. Demand little or no effort of attention.
• Parallel Processes- Multiple automatic processes can happen simultaneously or in rapid succession without a specific order.
• You can read a book or article while occasionally sipping coffee. The action of drinking the coffee is automatic and doesn’t interrupt your reading.
• controlled processes- Action involve with concious awareness
• Three attributes characterize automatic processes
– they are concealed from consciousness
– , they are unintentional
– they consume few attentional resources.
automatization- start off as controlled processes eventually become automatic
How Does Automatization Occur?
• practice, implementation of the various steps becomes more efficient.
• The individual gradually combines individual effortful steps into integrated components that are further integrated until the whole process is one single operation
• operation requires few or no cognitive resources, such as attention.
Instance theory
• Logan suggested that automatization occurs because we gradually accumulate knowledge about specific responses to specific stimuli.
• For example when some starts playing an instrument
Automatization in Everyday Life
 • automatic processes can be lifesaving, especially in high-risk jobs like piloting or firefighting. By practicing safety procedures until they become automatic, people
can react quickly in emergencies. However, automatic processes can also lead to mistakes, like when a pilot mindlessly follows a checklist and misses a crucial step,
which can have serious consequences.
• However
• there are situations where automatization may result in “mindlessness” and may be life threatening.
• A driver who has been on a familiar route for years might automatically follow their usual path without consciously checking if it’s still appropriate. This could lead
to accidents if they miss new road signs or changes in traffic conditions.
Mistakes We Make in Automatic Processes
• Types of Errors
• Mistakes: Occur when there's an error in planning or deciding the goal. For instance, if you decide not to study and leave your textbook behind, it's a mistake in goal
setting.
• Slips: Happen during the execution of a task when automatic processes interfere. For example, if you meant to bring your textbook but accidentally leave it behind,
it's a slip in the execution process.
• When Slips Occur
• Routine Deviation: Slips are more likely when routine processes interfere with intentional actions. For example, automatic typing might be disrupted if you're
distracted by thoughts.
• Interruptions: External (e.g., distractions) or internal (e.g., intrusive thoughts) interruptions can lead to slips.
Slip associated with automatic response

Conscious Access to Mental Processes

• Simple Processes: People are usually unaware of basic mental processes, like recognizing whether a letter is uppercase or lowercase.
• Complex Processes: There are two main views on how conscious we are of complex mental processes:
View 1
People have good conscious access to complex processes. For example, protocol analysis of problem-solving tasks (like chess or cryptarithmetic problems) suggests
people are aware of their thinking processes.
• In chess According to this view, the player is consciously aware of the steps and strategies they use to evaluate the board and make decisions. They can articulate
their thought process, such as considering potential moves and counter-moves, and explaining why they chose a specific strategy. This is supported by studies like
protocol analysis, where players' verbal descriptions of their thought processes are examined to understand their decision-making.
View 2
• People's access to complex mental processes is limited. They may be aware of the outcomes of their thinking but not the processes.
• According to this view, the person might believe they made the decision based on specific features or attributes, but their actual thought process is less clear. They
may not fully understand or be able to articulate all the factors influencing their decision. This view suggests that while they are aware of the decision’s outcome
(which model they bought), their understanding of how they arrived at that decision is often flawed or incomplete. Advertisers take advantage of this by shaping
unconscious preferences to influence purchasing decisions, despite the individual's conscious justifications.
Preconscious Processing
• Some information that currently is outside our conscious awareness still may be available to consciousness or at least to cognitive processes. Information includes
stored memories that we are not using at a given time but that we could summon when needed.
Studying the preconcious -Priming
• Priming is a psychological phenomenon used to study how stimuli affect our perceptions, even when we're not consciously aware of them.
– Priming Process: A participant first sees a "prime" stimulus. After a break, they are shown a second stimulus and asked to make a judgment (e.g., are both stimuli
the same?). This helps determine if the first stimulus influenced their perception of the second.
– Positive Priming: The first stimulus can make related concepts more accessible. For instance, if you hear a conversation about "satellite dishes," you'll more readily
think of "satellite dish" when you later see the word "dish."
– Negative Priming: Sometimes, the first stimulus can hinder recognition of the second. For example, solving problems with a specific formula might make it harder
to solve a different problem requiring a new formula.
– Preconscious Priming: Priming can occur even if the first stimulus is presented too briefly for conscious awareness. For instance, if you see the word "palm" too
quickly to consciously register, both meanings (tree and body part) might be activated and influence your subsequent responses.
Studies and Applications of Priming
• Marcel's Study
– conducted an experiment where participants were shown the word "palm" very briefly. The word "palm" can mean both a type of tree and a part of the hand. After
this brief exposure, participants were asked to classify a subsequent word, like "wrist" (related to "palm" as a body part) or "coconut" (related to "palm" as a tree).
Those who consciously saw the word "palm" could more quickly classify "wrist" if they associated "palm" with the body part. However, if "palm" was presented too
briefly to be consciously noticed, both meanings of "palm" were activated, affecting their responses.
• Dyad of Triads Task
– In the dyad of triads task, participants were shown pairs of three-word groups. For instance, one group might include "playing," "credit," and "report," which are
related to "card" (playing card, credit card, report card). Another group might include "still," "pages," and "music," which are unrelated. Participants had to identify
which group was coherent. Even if they couldn't consciously figure out the unifying fourth word, they could still identify the coherent group more accurately than
chance, showing preconscious processing.
• Auditory Priming
– In studies of auditory priming, participants listen to a list of words while under anesthesia. After waking up, they are tested with tasks like word-stem completion
(e.g., "sto__"). Even though participants don’t consciously remember the words heard while anesthetized, they are more likely to complete the stem with words from
the list they heard, such as "store," indicating priming effects.
What’s That Word Again? The Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon
• The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon occurs when you
know a word is stored in your memory but cannot quite
retrieve it at the moment.
– In a classic study (Brown & McNeill, 1966), participants heard definitions and tried to guess the corresponding words. They might remember details like the first
letter or syllables, but not the full word.
– Universal Experience: This phenomenon happens across different languages and is more common in bilinguals and older adults. Bilinguals might experience it more
because they use each language less frequently. Older adults experience it more often compared to younger adults.
– Brain Involvement: The anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices are active during this experience, as these brain areas work on resolving the difficulty in retrieving
the word.
When Blind People Can See
•Individuals with damage to parts of their visual cortex may experience blindsight. This means they have some visual abilities in areas of their visual field where they
are otherwise blind. They can guess object locations and orientations correctly even though they claim not to see them.
Case Study of D.B.: A patient named D.B. was blind on the left side of his visual field after surgery. Despite reporting no awareness of objects on this side, he
performed better than chance on tests involving objects presented there, demonstrating that some visual processing occurred without conscious awareness.
Explanation: Blindsight occurs because visual information bypasses damaged parts of the visual cortex and is processed by other brain areas. This information remains
preconscious but can influence behavior and responses

Chapter 5
Memory: Models and Research Methods

• Memory is the means by which we retain and draw on our past experiences to use that information in the present.
• Each operation represents a stage in memory processing.
– • In encoding, you transform sensory data into a form of mental representation.
– • In storage, you keep encoded information in memory.
– • In retrieval, you pull out or use information stored in memory
Recall versus Recognition Tasks
• Recall involves retrieving information without external cues. You must generate the information from your memory entirely on your own. This type of retrieval is
used in tasks like essay writing or answering open-ended questions, where no options are provided, and you rely solely on memory to produce the answer.
• Recognition involves identifying previously learned information when it is presented to you. In this case, the memory is triggered by external cues, such as in
multiple-choice tests where you recognize the correct answer from a list of options.
Three main types of recall tasks are used in experiments
• In serial recall, you recall items in the exact order in which they were presented.
• free recall, in which you recall items in any order you choose
• cued recall, in which you are first shown items in pairs, but during recall you are cued with only one member of each pair and are asked to recall each mate. (Also
called paired-associates recall)
• relearning, which is the number of trials it takes to learn once again items that were learned in the past
• recognition-memory tasks are referred to as tapping into receptive knowledge, which means you are responding to a stimulus that is provided to you.
• Recognition (Receptive Knowledge): Responding to external stimuli by recognizing or identifying familiar information.
• recall-memory tasks require expressive knowledge, where you need to produce an answer without being given explicit cues.
• Recall (Expressive Knowledge): Actively retrieving and producing information from memory without cues.
Implicit versus Explicit Memory Tasks
• Explicit memory refers to memories that you can consciously recall and verbally express. It involves intentional remembering of factual information, past
experiences, or events.
• Implicit memory refers to memories that influence your behavior or skills without conscious awareness. These memories are often automatic and do not require
deliberate effort to recall.
• Priming: When exposure to one stimulus influences the response to another stimulus without conscious guidance (e.g., seeing the word "yellow" might make you
faster at recognizing the word "banana").
• Mirror tracing is a task used in psychology and neuroscience to study motor learning, procedural memory, and hand-eye coordination. In this task, individuals are
asked to trace the outline of a shape (usually a star or another simple figure) by looking at its reflection in a mirror rather than directly at the shape itself.
Explicit
• Episodic Memory: Memory of personal experiences and specific events in your life (e.g., recalling your last vacation).
• Semantic Memory: Memory of general knowledge and facts about the world (e.g., knowing that Paris is the capital of France).
Intelligence and the Importance of Culture in Testing
• Culture-relevant tests measure skills and knowledge that relate to the cultural experiences of the test-takers.
• Creating intelligence tests that fairly assess people across different cultures requires understanding and respecting cultural values and experiences. Rather than
removing language barriers alone, tests should be designed to include culturally relevant content and skills. This reflects a broader view of intelligence that considers
the cultural context in which intelligence is expressed and understood.
Models of Memory
• The Traditional Model of Memory
• primary memory, which holds temporary information currently in use.
• secondary memory, which holds information permanently or at least for a very long time.
•Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin three memory stores:
– sensory store, capable of storing relatively limited amounts of information for very brief periods
– short-term store, capable of storing information for somewhat longer periods but of relatively limited capacity as well
– a long-term store, of very large capacity, capable of storing information for very long periods, perhaps even indefinitely
• The different structures or holding information, termed stores.
• and the information stored in the structures, termed memory.

Sensory Store
• The sensory store is where sensory information first arrives and is briefly held before it can either fade away or move into short- or long-term memory.
• For visual information, the sensory store is referred to as the iconic store. The term "iconic" comes from the fact that this store holds visual images (icons) that
represent what was seen, but only for a very short time.
Sperling’s Study on Iconic Memory
• Conducted a famous experiment about 1960 about iconic memory.
• Wanting to determine how information from a very brief glance
• Sperling flashed an array of letters and numbers for just 50 milliseconds and asked participants to report what they saw.
• In a whole-report procedure, where participants were asked to recall all the symbols they saw, they could typically remember only about four symbols.
• Some participants reported that they had seen all the symbols but forgot them while recalling others.
• Sperling introduced a new method called the partial-report procedure.
• The experimenter then changes the task slightly. After showing the same 12 letters on the screen for 50 milliseconds, you hear a tone immediately after the display.
• In the whole-report method, you could only recall about 4 letters out of 12.
• In the partial-report method, you were able to recall almost all 4 letters from any one row, indicating you briefly stored about 9-12 letters in your iconic memory.
However, this memory fades quickly if you're not prompted to report it right away.
Scenario: Glancing at a Billboard While Driving
• Imagine you’re driving down the highway, and you glance at a large, brightly lit billboard. It’s filled with various images, text, and logos. However, you only look at it
for a moment before focusing back on the road.
– Immediate Sensation: Right after the glance, you may feel like you saw everything on the billboard (the large text, a product image, maybe even a person’s face).
– Recollection: A few seconds later, if someone asked you to recall the details of the billboard, you might only be able to remember parts of it, like the product’s
name or a couple of colors, while forgetting most of the other details. This happens because your brain briefly stored the visual scene in your iconic memory, but
most of it faded before you had a chance to fully process or recall everything.
• Partial Reporting: Now, imagine someone asks you to recall just one detail from the billboard, such as the product’s slogan or the colors used. Since you only need
to recall one specific element, you can retrieve that piece of information much more clearly.
• This situation is very similar to Sperling’s whole-report and partial-report procedures. In the whole-report case, you’re trying to recall everything and can only retain
a small amount. In the partial-report case, focusing on a specific detail (like the product’s slogan) makes you more successful at remembering that part of the visual
scene.
Decay of Iconic Memory
• Sperling's experiments also showed that iconic memory fades very quickly. If the participants were cued within a second after the display, they could recall most
symbols. However, after about one second, recall dropped to the same level as the whole-report method (about 4 symbols). This suggests that iconic memory decays
rapidly, and much of the information is lost unless it's transferred to another memory store quickly.
Refined Experiments on Iconic Memory
• Later experiments by Averbach and Coriell (1961) further refined the understanding of iconic memory. They minimized interference by showing participants only
one letter at a time, using a small mark above the letter to indicate which one to recall. Their results suggested that iconic memory could hold up to 12 items, more
than Sperling had originally estimated.
• Additionally, they discovered that iconic memory can be erased by new visual stimuli, a phenomenon called backward visual masking. For example, if a new image
appears where a previous one was stored in iconic memory, it can "erase" the earlier image, preventing it from being recalled.
Short-Term Store
• Access to Short-Term Memory (STM) vs. Sensory Memory
– Most of us don't have direct awareness (introspective access) to sensory memory (like the iconic store for visual information or the echoic store for auditory
information), but we do have access to short-term memory (STM).
The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model
• According to this model, STM is not just a storage bin for a few items. It also has control processes that help regulate how information flows to and from the long-
term memory store, which holds information for much longer periods.
• If you rehearse or repeat information in STM (like practicing someone's phone number), you can keep it longer or even move it into long-term memory.
Capacity of Short-Term Memory
• STM has a limited capacity. George Miller’s classic research (1956) found that people can generally hold around 7 items (give or take 2) in short-term memory at
any one time. This is often called "the magical number seven, plus or minus two."
• Chunking helps increase STM capacity. For example, it's hard to remember a string of 21 numbers like "101001000100001000100," but if you chunk it into
meaningful units like 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 1,000, and 100, it becomes much easier to remember.
 Influencing Factors on STM Capacity
• The number of syllables in the items we’re trying to remember affects our recall. The more syllables, the harder it becomes to store more items in STM. This is why
shorter words or numbers are easier to hold in STM (Hulme et al., 2006).
• Interference and delay can reduce the number of items we can recall. If you're distracted or if time passes, the ability to remember even 7 items drops, possibly
down to 3 or 4 (Cowan, 2001).
Visual Information in Short-Term Memory
• STM doesn't just handle verbal information—it can also hold visual information (e.g., shapes, colors, orientations).
• A study by Luck & Vogel (1997) tested STM capacity for visual information. Participants were shown two visual displays (such as colored squares or lines at different
orientations). The displays either matched or differed slightly, and participants had to determine if they were the same or different.
• The researchers found that participants could hold about 4 visual items in memory, regardless of whether the display involved just one feature (like color) or
combined features (like color and orientation).
Distinguishing Objects vs. Features
• Later work (Lee & Chun, 2001) helped clarify that the capacity limit is based on the number of objects, not spatial locations or specific features. For example, if
there are overlapping objects in the display, people can still recall about 4 objects.
• This indicates that STM for visual information works similarly to verbal STM, with the limit being around 3 to 5 items.
Short-Term Memory in American Sign Language (ASL)
• Research with American Sign Language (ASL) shows that people can hold around 4 signed letters in STM, consistent with findings for visual-spatial memory. This
makes sense, as ASL involves processing visual information, similar to visual objects in other STM studies (Bavelier et al., 2006; Wilson & Emmorey, 2006).
Long-Term Store
• Short-Term Memory vs. Long-Term Memory
– We use short-term memory (STM) frequently throughout our day to keep track of immediate information, like recalling a phone number or the details of a
conversation. However, when most people refer to "memory," they are usually talking about long-term memory (LTM), which stores information over extended
periods — possibly for a lifetime. LTM holds information like people’s names, where we keep things, our daily schedules, and so on, which we rely on to function day-
to-day.
Capacity of Long-Term Memory
• A key question is: How much information can we store in LTM? While the capacity of STM is well understood (about 7 items, plus or minus 2), LTM is much harder
to measure. The passage explains that no one knows the true capacity of LTM, and some theorists, such as Bahrick (2000) and Brady (2008), even suggest that LTM
may be practically infinite. Since we cannot design experiments to accurately test the limits of LTM, it remains uncertain how much information can be stored over a
lifetime.
Duration of Information in Long-Term Memory:
• Another important question is: How long can information last in LTM? We currently don’t have proof of any "outer limit" for how long memories can be retained.
Memories might be stored indefinitely, but it's difficult to test this due to the complexity of memory processes.
Wilder Penfield’s Brain Stimulation Research
• Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield explored this question by stimulating parts of the brain in conscious epilepsy patients. His work revealed that electrical stimulation
could trigger vivid childhood memories in patients that had not been recalled in years. This led Penfield to suggest that long-term memories might be permanent.
However, he noted that these memories were episodic (personal experiences) rather than factual knowledge (like naming U.S. presidents).
Criticism of Penfield’s Findings:
• Some researchers, such as Loftus & Loftus (1980), questioned Penfield’s interpretations, pointing out that few patients recalled memories during stimulation and
that these memories could have been fabricated rather than genuine recollections. Other studies using empirical methods found conflicting evidence. Thus, while
Penfield’s findings were intriguing, they were not definitive.
Research on Memory Retention (Permastore)
• Later research explored memory retention over long periods. For example, Bahrick and colleagues (1975) found that participants could still recognize the names
and faces of high school classmates after 25 years. Recognition memory remained strong, although the ability to recall names was weaker.
• The term "permastore" refers to long-term storage of information that appears to last indefinitely, like the knowledge of a foreign language or mathematics. This
term was introduced by Bahrick to describe memory that is retained for decades with little decay. Research on the permastore effect even found that people can
recall information learned passively (e.g., the names of streets near their childhood homes) many years later (Schmidt et al., 2000).
Memory Systems Debate
• Researchers have debated whether permastore represents a separate memory system or is part of the broader long-term memory system. Some, like Neisser
(1999), argue that LTM can explain both ordinary memory retention and the permastore effect. While there is no clear resolution to this debate, it highlights how
complex and durable human memory can be.
Implications for Education
• The findings on the vast capacity of LTM have inspired educators to develop new techniques to enhance students’ memory retention. For example, online quizzes,
classroom clickers, and interactive learning methods are used to help students retain information more effectively. Ideally, students should leave school not only with
critical thinking skills but also with a robust knowledge base that will serve them over the long term.
• In summary, while we use short-term memory constantly in our daily lives, long-term memory stores information that lasts much longer, potentially for a lifetime.
While the exact capacity and duration of LTM are still unknown, studies suggest it has an enormous storage potential. Research on permastore shows that some
memories may last decades, even without frequent recall, and educators are developing techniques to maximize students’ ability to retain important information.
The Levels-of-Processing Model
• levels of-processing framework, which postulates that memory does not comprise three or even any specific number of separate stores, but rather varies along a
continuous dimension in terms of depth of encoding.
• Among the levels of processing proposed by Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving are the physical, phonological, and semantic (meaning of the word) levels.
• Not only this is applicable in verbal same also with nonverbal
• An even more powerful inducement to recall has been termed the self-reference effect.
– The self-reference effect is a tendency for people to encode information differently depending on whether they are implicated in the information.
2 o kinds of strategies for elaborating the encoding in LOP.
– The first is within-item elaboration. It elaborates encoding of the particular item (e.g., a word or other fact) in terms of its characteristics, including the various
levels of processing.
– The second kind of strategy is between-item elaboration. It elaborates encoding by relating each item’s features (again, at various levels) to the features of items
already in memory.
An Integrative Model: Working Memory
• Working memory holds only the most recently activated, or conscious, portion of long-term memory, and it moves these activated elements into and out of brief,
temporary memory storage
• Baddeley's model describes working memory as having five major components, each playing a distinct role in memory processing and manipulation:
 • Visuospatial Sketchpad
– This part of working memory is responsible for holding and manipulating visual and spatial information. It allows us to mentally picture and navigate spaces or
objects temporarily, such as visualizing an image or remembering the layout of a room.
Phonological Loop
• This system handles auditory information and is used for tasks involving verbal comprehension and memory. It has two parts:
• Phonological Storage: Holds verbal information temporarily (inner speech, like when you remember a phone number by saying it to yourself).
• Subvocal Rehearsal: Repeats information to keep it active in memory. An example is mentally repeating a list of words to remember them.
Central Executive
• The central executive is the control center of working memory, responsible for attention, decision-making, and coordinating information. It allocates cognitive
resources and decides what information should be processed or ignored. It also engages in complex reasoning and problem-solving, making it key to tasks that
require higher-order thinking.
Subsidiary “Slave Systems”
• These systems help handle other types of information and perform more specific tasks not covered by the phonological loop or visuospatial sketchpad, such as
certain perceptual tasks.
Episodic Buffer
• The episodic buffer is a more recent addition to Baddeley's model. It serves as a binding mechanism, integrating information from the visuospatial sketchpad,
phonological loop, and long-term memory into coherent episodes or unified representations. This allows us to combine different types of information (e.g., visual and
auditory) to make sense of complex tasks or memories.
Neuropsychological Findings on Working Memory
• Phonological Loop
– The phonological loop, a component of working memory responsible for maintaining speech-related information, involves specific brain regions.
– Activation Areas: The left hemisphere, especially in the lateral frontal and inferior parietal lobes, and parts of the temporal lobe, have been found to be active when
individuals are engaging with verbal and auditory tasks (Gazzaniga et al., 2009; Baddeley, 2006). This supports the idea that verbal working memory is localized in
areas traditionally associated with language processing.
Visuospatial Sketchpad
• Short retention intervals activate the occipital lobes (associated with vision) and the right frontal lobe. These areas handle the short-term processing of visual
stimuli.
• Longer retention intervals engage the parietal lobes and the left frontal lobe (Haxby et al., 1995). This shift may reflect the brain's need to recruit additional
resources for tasks that require sustained attention and memory over longer periods.
Central Executive
• The central executive, the system responsible for controlling attention and coordinating cognitive processes, seems to primarily activate regions in the frontal lobes
– This makes sense, as the frontal lobes are heavily involved in higher-order cognitive tasks such as decision-making, planning, and reasoning.
Episodic Buffer
• which integrates information from different memory components involves bilateral activation of the frontal lobes and temporal lobes, including the left
hippocampus
• The hippocampus, a crucial structure in the formation of long-term memories, suggests that the episodic buffer plays a key role in binding new information with
stored knowledge.
Intelligence and Working Memory
• Retention-Delay Task
– How it works: In this task, a stimulus (like a geometric shape) is shown to the participant. After a retention interval (a period of time where the participant may do
nothing or engage in other activities), the participant is shown another stimulus and asked if it is old (previously seen) or new (not shown before).
– Example: A participant sees a shape, waits a few seconds, and then must decide whether the shape presented after the delay is the same or different. In the figure,
the stimulus is new, so the correct answer is “new.”
– What it measures: This task assesses short-term memory and the ability to retain and recognize information after a brief delay.
Temporally Ordered Working Memory Load Task
• How it works: A series of items (such as numbers or letters) are presented. After a while, the participant is shown a test item and must decide whether it is old
(from the original series) or new.
• Example: In the figure, the participant sees a series of numbers. After some time, they are shown the number 4. Since 4 was not in the original sequence, the
correct answer is "new."
• What it measures: This task tests the ability to hold and compare temporal sequences in working memory.
Temporal Order Task
• How it works: A series of items is presented, followed by a test that shows two of the items from the original series. The participant must indicate which of the two
items appeared more recently in the sequence.
• Example: In the figure, numbers 3 and 7 are shown, and the participant must decide which came later in the sequence. The correct answer is 7 because it appeared
after 3.
• What it measures: This task tests the ability to keep track of the order of events in memory.
N-Back Task
• How it works: Participants are shown a series of stimuli. At specific points, they are asked to repeat the stimulus that occurred n presentations back (e.g., 1-back, 2-
back).
• Example: If the participant is asked to repeat the number 1-back, they must recall the digit shown just before (e.g., if 6 was the most recent number, they say 6). If
asked for 2-back, they recall the number shown two presentations earlier (e.g., 7).
• What it measures: The n-back task is commonly used to measure working memory capacity and the ability to update and monitor information over time.
Digit-Span Task/ temporally ordered working memory load task.
• How it works: Participants are presented with a series of digits (or other stimuli) and must repeat them back in the same order they were presented. A variant of
this task requires participants to repeat the items in reverse order (from the end to the beginning).
• Example: If shown the numbers 2, 4, 7, the participant would either repeat them as 2, 4, 7 (in forward order) or as 7, 4, 2 (in reverse order).
• What it measures: This task tests memory span, or how many items a person can hold in working memory. The reverse-order variant requires additional mental
manipulation, engaging both the phonological loop and the central executive.
Arithmetic Task/ a temporally ordered working memory load task
• How it works: Participants are presented with a series of simple arithmetic problems (e.g., addition or subtraction). For each problem, they indicate whether the
result is correct or incorrect. At the end, they must repeat the results of the arithmetic problems in the correct order.
• Example: If given arithmetic problems like 3 + 2 = 5 and 4 - 1 = 3, they would solve and remember the results (5 and 3) and recall them in order.
• What it measures: This task requires participants to perform mental arithmetic while holding the results in memory, testing both numerical manipulation and
working memory load.

• These tasks explore different facets of working memory, including retention, temporal ordering, manipulation, and multitasking.
• They allow researchers to assess how much information a person can hold and manipulate in memory and how efficiently they can perform tasks under dual-task
conditions.
• By pairing working memory tasks with secondary tasks, researchers gain insight into the role of the central executive in managing and allocating mental resources.

Intelligence and Working Memory

• The connection between working memory and intelligence has been extensively studied, with evidence suggesting that working memory is a critical component of
intelligence. Some researchers argue that intelligence could largely be explained by working memory, as it involves holding and manipulating information for short
periods.
• Studies by Daneman & Carpenter (1983) and Turner & Engle (1989) showed strong correlations between working memory tasks (such as recalling words or solving
math problems while remembering words) and higher intelligence scores.
• demonstrated that working memory performance can almost perfectly predict general intelligence scores,
• However working memory may have an influence in intelligence, but it does not encompasses all while working memory is central to fluid intelligence (reasoning
and problem-solving), it does not fully explain all aspects of intelligence.
Multiple Memory Systems
• Types of Memory
• Semantic Memory:
– General knowledge and facts (e.g., names of countries, historical dates).Lacks a specific time or context reference.
• Episodic Memory:
– Personal experiences and events (e.g., your last birthday party). Tied to specific times and contexts.
• Penfield’s Findings:
– Electrically stimulating patients' brains elicited vivid recollections of personal events but not general knowledge, suggesting separate memory systems.
• Tulving’s Distinction (1972):
– Proposed that semantic and episodic memories function differently, with different retrieval processes.
• Neurological Evidence:
• Dissociation:
– Specific brain areas activate during retrieval of semantic vs. episodic memories.
– Damage to the frontal lobe can impair recalling when an event occurred (episodic) while preserving the ability to recognize facts (semantic).
• HERA Model:
– Greater activation in the left prefrontal cortex during semantic tasks. – Greater activation in the right prefrontal cortex during episodic tasks.
• Despite strong evidence for distinct systems, the exact nature of the relationship between semantic and episodic memory remains a topic for further exploration,
indicating that while they can be separate, they also interact closely in practice.
• Squire’s Taxonomy:
• Distinguishes declarative memory (including both semantic and episodic) from nondeclarative memory (procedural skills, priming “perceptual semantic,
conditioning, Nonassociative “habituation sensitization.).
A Connectionist Perspective
• According to the PDP model, the key to knowledge representation lies in the connections among various nodes, or elements, stored in memory, not in each
individual node
• A prime is a node that activates a connected node
• A priming effect is the resulting activation of the node.
• Connectionist models also have some intuitive appeal in their ability to integrate several contemporary notions about memory: Working memory comprises the
activated
• portion of long-term memory and operates through at least some amount of paralle processing. Spreading activation involves the simultaneous (parallel) activation
(priming) of multiple links among nodes within the network.
Exceptional Memory and Neuropsychology
• Outstanding Memory: Mnemonists
• a mnemonist, someone who demonstrates extraordinarily keen memory ability, usually based on using special techniques for memory enhancement.
Techniques Used by Mnemonists
• Visual Imagery: S. utilized visual imagery to remember words, creating vivid mental images associated with each word (e.g., visualizing a green flowerpot for
“green”).
• Synesthesia: S. experienced synesthesia, where he involuntarily converted sensory input into different sensations, allowing him to associate sounds with visual
impressions, tastes, and weights.
Other Mnemonists
• V. P.: Transformed numbers into meaningful dates based on personal events, facilitating recall through verbal translations.
• S. F.: Segmented strings of numbers into groups and encoded them as running times, significantly improving his digit recall through practice.
• Practice and Memory Improvement:
– S. F. increased his memory for digits from about seven to approximately 80 after extensive practice, suggesting that average individuals can develop extraordinary
memory skills with enough training.
Downsides of Exceptional Memory
• Despite their remarkable abilities, mnemonists can face challenges. For instance, S. struggled with listening and understanding abstract concepts due to his reliance
on imagery.
• Exceptional memory can lead to sensory overload and confusion, demonstrating that there are potential drawbacks to such abilities.
Memory Encoding
• Successful memory encoding often involves translating abstract information into more meaningful forms. This process connects new information with existing
knowledge in long-term memory, making it easier to remember.
Hypermnesia
• Hypermnesia refers to the retrieval of memories that seem forgotten but are actually inaccessible.
• This process involves using various retrieval cues to access these memories, but it can also risk creating false memories, especially in therapeutic contexts.
Deficient Memory
• Amnesia
– Amnesia is defined as a severe loss of explicit memory, meaning individuals have difficulty recalling information they have consciously learned. There are different
types of amnesia:
– Retrograde Amnesia: This occurs when a person cannot remember events that happened before a traumatic event.
– Anterograde Amnesia: This affects the ability to form new memories after the traumatic event.
– Infantile Amnesia: This refers to the inability to recall memories from early childhood. Some researchers debate whether it qualifies as "amnesia" since it may not
involve the same processes as other forms of memory loss.
Insights from Amnesia
• Explicit vs. Implicit Memory: Amnesia primarily affects explicit memory (conscious recall of facts and events), while implicit memory (skills and conditioned
responses) remains intact. For example, amnesic patients may struggle to recognize words they’ve seen but can complete them in word tasks, indicating that implicit
memory is still functioning.
• Procedural Knowledge: Amnesics can perform skills like driving, indicating that procedural memory (how to do things) is not impacted, even if their ability to
remember facts is severely impaired.
Alzheimer’s Disease
• Alzheimer’s disease represents a more severe condition than typical amnesia and is characterized by progressive memory loss along with other cognitive declines.
– Pathology: Alzheimer's leads to brain atrophy, particularly in areas associated with memory, like the hippocampus. It’s marked by the presence of plaques and
tangles in brain tissue, which are not found in healthy brains.
– Symptoms: Early signs include difficulty with episodic memory (remembering events in context). As the disease progresses, semantic memory (knowledge of facts)
also declines. Individuals may struggle to differentiate between emotionally charged and neutral memories.
• Types: There are two types of Alzheimer’s: early-onset, linked to genetic mutations, and late-onset, which appears to be influenced by multiple genetic and
environmental factors.
• Diagnosis and Treatment: Diagnosis is definitive only after death through brain tissue analysis, although tests can assess cognitive function. While drugs like
Donepezil and memantine can slow progression, they do not reverse the disease.
Memory Storage and Brain Structures Involved in Memory Processes
• Key Brain Structures Involved in Memory
• Hippocampus
– Crucial for explicit (declarative) memory.
– Plays a role in encoding, integrating sensory information, and spatial orientation.
– Important for transferring short-term memories into long-term storage.
– Involved in complex learning and the recollection of information.

• Cerebral Cortex:
– Serves as a storage area for sensory properties of experiences (visual, spatial, olfactory).
– Different areas correspond to processing specific types of sensory information.
• Basal Ganglia:
– Primarily involved in procedural memory (skills and habits).
– Not directly related to the priming effect or declarative memory.
• Cerebellum:
– Important for classically conditioned responses.
– Contributes to cognitive tasks beyond just motor skills.
• Amygdala:
– Associated with emotional memories.
– Activation correlates with the recall of emotionally charged events.
– Plays a role in memory consolidation, particularly for emotional experiences.

• Microlevel Structure of Memory Recent research focuses on the microlevel aspects of memory, such as:
– Long-term potentiation (LTP): Repeated stimulation of neural pathways strengthens synaptic connections, making neurons more likely to fire together. This
plasticity is crucial for learning and memory.
– Neurotransmitters: Chemicals like acetylcholine and serotonin enhance memory storage. For instance, Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by low levels of
acetylcholine, leading to memory impairment.

Memory Dysfunction and Disorders

• Korsakoff syndrome: Often linked to prolonged alcohol abuse, resulting in anterograde amnesia and sometimes retrograde amnesia. It is associated with damage in
the diencephalon and other brain regions.
• Hormonal influences also play a role, as stress hormones can enhance memory consolidation during emotionally charged events.