Cognition

3. Cognition • Thinking, Gaining knowledge, and dealing with knowledge. • Became more and more popular in 1950s through the 1970s, partially because of the computer revolution.

4. Categorization • A category is a group that includes numerous members that vary in similarity. • Dog is a category. • Allows us to categorize dogs we have never seen before as dogs. • Wide in variety • Chihuahua • St. Bernard

5. How is it that humans categorize? • 1. Categorization by prototypes. • Many researchers think that humans form categories by referring to a prototype or template. • Are the following vehicles-- car, bus, train, boat • How about these? • Bicycle • blimp • elevator

6. 2. Conceptual networks • Many researchers also believe that categories are made up of organized networks of related ideas. • Every concept is linked to a variety of related concepts. • Reaction time research has investigated these hypothesized networks.

7. Collins and Quillian (1969) first evidence of Semantic Network.

8. True or False • Canaries are yellow • Canaries can fly • Canaries have skin • People are slower to say true to can fly and even slower to say true to have skin. • Perhaps because skin is further removed in the conceptual network, canary = bird = animal = skin.

9. Spreading Activation • When you think about a concept, that concept will become activated, and that activation will spread to other concepts that are linked to it. • Say the word vehicle. • Now you are more likely to recognize the word bus flashed briefly on a screen.

10. Collins and Loftus (1975) example of a network.

11. Spreading activation continued • A concept linked to many concepts will activate each of them only slightly • A concept linked to only a few will activate them more strongly • What is something red that is a flower? • What is something that is a flower, and is red.

13. Mental Imagery • Are we capable of forming images in our minds that resemble an actual object? • Shepard and Metzler (1971). • If people form mental images that are much like real objects, it should take them about the same time to rotate a mental image as it would a real object.

14. The farther one must rotate a mental image of an object. The longer it should take. • Pairs of 3-dimensional objects. • Pull one lever if they are the same • Pull another if they are different • It takes longer - the more you have to rotate it - this implies that mental images are at least somewhat like real vision

16. Cognitive maps • A mental image of a spatial arrangement • Campus • Your parents house • Errors • Turns on streets are remembered as close to 90 degrees even when they are not • Tend to imagine geographic areas as being aligned neatly along a north-to-south axis and an east-to-west axis. Reno, Nevada and Los Angeles California (which is farther west).

18. Attention • Humans rely on the ability to successfully manage attention. • Listening to radio and driving. • If things get complicated -- unfamiliar exit coming up -- turn down the radio. • The more complicated the task -- the more we must attend to it. • Dichotic Listening task

19. Preattentive process • A procedure for extracting information automatically and simultaneously across a large portion of the visual field.

22. Attentive processes • A procedure that extracts information from one part of the visual field at a time

25. The Stroop effect is an example of preattentive processes interfering with attentive processes.

27. Stroop effect • We are so used to reading words that that preattentive process interferes with our ability to attend to the color the word is written in.

28. Expertise and problem solving • What is it that makes experts better at what they do than others? • Chess players • Sports players and fans • Musicians

29. What can an expert do that non-experts can’t? • They seem to be able to recognize patterns that others cannot. • Coaches see opponents weaknesses, more easily then regular fans. • Much research has been done with chess. • Allow a chess expert to look at a board that represents a real game. They can recall where almost all the pieces were. • Random placement they do no better then a novice.

30. Two approaches to solving problems. • Algorithms • step by step rules to guarantee success at solving a problem. • All possible solutions are attempted in a systematic manner until, a solution is found • Computers playing chess • Heuristics • strategies for simplifying a problem or guiding an investigation. • horseradish in the grocery store

31. Language • Humans are the only species that have such a sophisticated language system • Other species communicate, but their communication is much less flexible • Productivity = the ability to express new ideas.

32. Transformational Grammer • Human language has a deep structure and a surface structure • deep structure is the underlying meaning or logic of what is said. • Surface structure is the actual sequence of words used.

33. According to this theory the function of language is to transform (or convert) the deep structure into a surface structure. • We can use different surface structures to convey the same deep structure • This class is exciting • This is an exciting class • This class kicks ass

34. The same surface structure can also indicate different deep structures. • Never threaten someone with a chain saw

35. How proficient are other animals at language? • In the 1920’s some psychologists began to raise chimps in their home to see if they could learn to speak. • They didn’t learn language well, and never learned to speak. • Later the Gardner’s trained Washoe to use american sign language. • She learned about 100-150 words, but did not link them into sentences well.

37. Bonobo’s (pygmy chimps) • The Rumbaugh’s have taught a couple of chimps to use symbols for words. • Why are bonobo’s better than regular chimps. • More advanced? • Raised from when young?

38. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Kanzi

39. Kanzi talking to himself at the keyboard.He is concentrating on the "good" symbol.

40. Children are prepared to learn language • It appears that there is a critical period for learning language. • If raised isolated from any other human’s • wild children - when discovered do not learn language well • Children raised in bilingual families learn two languages equally well. • Later in life it requires much more effort to learn a second language.

41. Stages of language development • 3 months - random vocalizations (deaf children as well) • 6 months- more distinct babbling (deaf children begin to stop) • 1 year - Begin to understand language and can say a word or two. Muh, duh, buh

42. 1 and a half years old • can say some words (the mean is about 50). • Holophrastic speech • Don’t link words together yet. • Two years old • telegraphic phrases - two or more words that sound like from a telegram. • I show book • More page • allgone sticky • allgone outside

43. 2 1/2 to 3 = generating full sentences, but make peculiar errors. • I want to eat either • feet, foots • goed, doed • shis (hers) • implies that they learn rules not words. • 4 yrs = close to adult language