Psych 100 1H Focus Questions Chapter 9 pg 309 325 Class 19 10 9 2013 Purple lecture notes 1 What is memory and how can we think about it using the modal model of the mind Identify the three memory stores and control processes and explain how they are represented in the model Memory refers to all the information in a person s mind and to the mind s capacity to store and retrieve the information modal model of the mind standard way of trying to make sense of data from many behavioral studies theories in cognitive psychology and summarized visually with diagrams that uses boxes to represent the mind s components and arrows to represent movement of information from one component to another boxes and arrows are metaphors model is successful if predictions prove to be accurate and vice versa memory stores three types sensory memory working short term memory and long term memory conceived of metaphorically as places boxes in diagram where information is held and operated on control processes includes attention rehearsal encoding and retrieval explain how they are represented in the model 2 What is preattentive processing of sensory information and how is this related to the two competing problems the attention system must solve What evidence do we see for these problems in selective listening Selective viewing preattentive processing of sensory information information that is picked up by senses enters briefly into sensory memory and analyzed to determine its relevance to the ongoing task and significance for the person s survival well being Occurs at an unconscious level related to two competing problems degree and type of prattentive processing that occurs and nature of top down control of the gate evidence for problems in selective listening cocktail party phenomenon ability to listen to and understand one s voice while disregarding other voices nearby Experiment researchers played recording of two messages and asked subjects to focus on one message Results showed people perform well as long as their some physical difference between the two voices evidence for problems in selective viewing control what we see by moving our eyes but have no control over what we hear Experiment series of slides were shown to viewers whose eyes were fixed on a spot at the center of the screen each slide contained two overlapping forms green and red and subjects had to focus on one color Results showed that they recognized most of the forms that had been presented in the color they focused on and performed at chance level for colors that had not been attended too Experiment college students watched a video with three black shirted players tossing a basketball and three whited shirt guys around the same area subjects had to count the number of passes of one group while ignoring the other one midway a gorilla came into the video results showed 50 of viewers did not see the gorilla inattentional blindness used by magicians and pick pockets nobody notices attention of one hand because they re focused on the other hand 3 Describe the process through which we shift attention to meaningful information in auditory and visual sensory memory including major concepts associated with each How can practice improve attentional capacity process through which we shift attention to meaningful information in auditory visual sensory memory echoic memory auditory sensory memory echo brief memory trace for specific sound Experiment subjects asked to focus their attention on a task ex Reading a prose passage that they will be tested on and to ignore spoken words presented as they focus on the task if they are interrupted by a signal than they must repeat the spoken words results showed that subjects can repeat accurately the last few words from the spoken list if the signal follows immediately after the last word of the list iconic memory visual sensory memory icon brief memory trace for a visual stimulus Experiment slides contained rows of letters were flashed for 1 20th of a second people could read the letters as if they were still present for up to 1 3rd of a second after the slide was turned off results showed that memory can hold visually presented information for about a third of a second beyond termination of the physical stimulus Ex Task to identify names of animals in set of words and to ignore pictures people are more likely to notice a picture of an animal than other pictures how practice improves attentional capacity only few items of information can cross through sensory memory to working memory masking stimulus immediately flashed to erase iconic memory of original array Experiment compared visual attentional capacity of young men who play action videogames with those who have never played Video gamers outnumber the other group Experiment men outperformed women on tests of ability to locate target stimuli quickly but disappeared after 10 hour training of a video game 4 What is priming and how is this process unconscious What evidence is there that we automatically and unconsciously process stimuli Describe the three main findings that have emerged from studies of brain mechanisms associated with preattentive processing and attention Priming how process is unconscious activation by sensory input of information that is stored in long term memory activation not experienced consciously but influences consciousness evidence is there that we automatically unconsciously process stimuli mind has capacity to perform tasks automatically Ex Learning to drive a car reading stroop inference effect Stroop presented words shapes printed in colored ink to subjects and asked them to name the ink color as rapidly as possible Subjects were slowest at naming ink color for words that named a color different from the ink color people have inability to prevent themselves from reading the color words the preattentive process is so automatic that we cannot consciously stop them from occurring when we are looking at a word three main findings of brain mechanisms with preattentive processing and attention 1 stimuli that are not attended to nevertheless activate sensory and perceptual areas of the brain specially apparent in primary sensory areas Ex Words that were flashed on a screen to quickly activated neurons in the occipital parietal and frontal cortex 2 Attention magnifies activity that task relevant stimuli produce in sensory and perceptual areas of the brain and it diminishes the activity that task irrelevant stimuli produce