Cognition

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Blind spot
Hole in the retina where ganglion cells leave
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Photoreceptors
Blood vessels also enter the eye here- causing many small blind spots
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Optic Chiasm
Half of the optic nerve from each eye crosses to the opposite side of the brain at the optic chiasm
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Lateral Geniculate Nucleus
Before reaching the primary visual cortex, most axons of the optic nerve send information to a structure in the Thalamus
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Thalamus
Structure that receives electrical signals coming from the different senses pass
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Primary Visual Cortex
At the back of the parietal lobe in the cortex. It is the first place in the cortex where visual information lands
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Parietal lobe
An area at the back of the primary visual cortex where visual information lands
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Cortical magnification of the fovea
Optic nerve carries to the brain information from the fovea. Information form the fovea is richer than other retinal areas, requiring greater cortical area. Fovea is over-representated in the cortex realtive to the rest of the retina.
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Cones
(Photopic visual system) found mostly near and in the fovea. Work best in intense light. Detect high quality wavelengths and high frequency.
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Rods
(Scotopic visual system)found mostly in the retinal periphery. Work best in low light conditions and detect low wavelengths.
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ganglion cells
The photoreceptors (rods and cones) send their impulses (via bipolar cells) to NEUTRONS in the retina called ganglion cells
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Optic nerve
The axon from all the ganglion cells in the retina form what is known as the optic nerve
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Hue
The colour quality of the light and corresponds to the colour names we typically see
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Saturation
The purity of light
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Brightness
The amount of light present
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Tri-chromatic theory
One type of cone responds to short wavelengths to see BLUE. Another type responds to medium wavelengths to see GREEN. The third type responds to long wavelengths to see RED
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Opponent process theory
There must be colour opponent cells in the visual system, e.g. red and green, blue and yellow
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Retinex theory
We perceive colour when the cereberal cortex compares various retinal patterns of stimulation
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Colour constancy
Despite substantial differences in illumination we perceive the colour of objects to be constant
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The Herman Grid Illusion
Experience of dark patches in the ‘street crossings’. Explained by ganglion cells and the way their receptive fields are structured.
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Primary Visual Cortex
A thin sheet of grey matter, it is organised in 6 layers- each layer will cells specialised to respond to specific information. (Columns and hypercollumns)
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Simple cells
Have elongated receptive fields. This makes them maximally sensitive to a line or edge of a particular location of the retina.
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Complex cells
Respond strongly to stimuli of a particular orientation moving in a particular direction
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Perception
A cognitive activity that permits us to make sense of the world among us
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Visual perception
The ability to make sense of the world through our eyes
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Pupil
Aperture to allow lights in the eye
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Iris
The coloured structure surrounding the pupil
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Lens
The structure that focuses light into the eye and onto the back of the eye
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Cornea
The transparent structure on the outer surface of the eyeball, it yellows with age. 
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Fovea
A small part of the retina that contains the majority of photoreceptors, allows detailed and colour vision
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Top down
Our experience of objects as they are in the world is the result of top down processes
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Bottom up
Systems starting at the sense Oran’s, and adding increasingly complex representations as it proceeds
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Gestalt psychology
A field that focuses on our ability to perceive overall patterns. Reversible figures, proximity and distance, good continuation and closure.
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Sound
The vibration of air, water or another medium that an object produces, such as someone’s vocal chords, or a falling tree.
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Vibration
Moves outward from the sound source- the object- in a way that can be described as a wave
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The cochlea
A snail like structure which contains the basilar membrane. The vibrations in the cochlea displace tiny hair cells - cilia
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Sound localisation
Where sounds come from in the world
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Auditory scene analysis
Recognising ‘objects’ in the auditory scene. The process of grouping and segregating acoustic sensory data into separate representations.
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Interaural time difference
The time difference when the sound waves reach one ear compared to the other
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Grouping by location (auditory Gestalt 1)
Echoing, reverberation, bouncing off sounds
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Similarity in frequency (auditory Gestalt 2)
They tend to segregate e.g. voices
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Cues to auditory streams (auditory Gestalt 3)
Components coming from same spatial location are perceived as same object. We are poor localisers
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PsychoPhysics
The study of psychological responses to physical stimuli detected by the senses
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Sensory threshold
The 50% probability of detection aka reporting the stimulus
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Signal detection theory
The study of people’s tendencies to make hits, correct reactions, misses and false alarms when asked to erect the presence of a physical stimulus
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Subliminal perception
The idea that stimuli can influence our behaviour even when they are presented so faintly or briefly that we o not perceive them consciously
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Super-ordinate, basic, sub-ordinate
A tennis ball can be recognised as “an inanimate object”. The tennis ball is recognised as ‘a ball’, the tennis ball is recognised as a specific token or exemplar of a category e.g. tennis ball
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Feature detection
The visual system detects features- colours, edges, lines, texture, and motion in the image
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Grouping
Individual features are grouped into simple figures that are distinct from the background of other figures
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Recognition
Matching the percept of memory, the groups of features are matched to existing representations in long term memory.
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Later Occipital Cortex
Lies along the ventral visual stream. Runs from the occipital to the anterior temporal lobe. Best activated by simple groups of features
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Visual apperceptive agnosia
Damage to LOC following stroke or Carbon monoxide poisoning. The inability to see any object through vision. ‘Inability to group different features into a single form or figure’
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AREA IT inferior temporal cortex
Cells in IT exhibit perceptual constancy. Their response in the same independently of location, size and cue.
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Visual associative agnosia
Damage to area IT is the arterial temporal lobe following stroke, cardiac arrest or head injury. Inability to recognise a visual form as something
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View independent theories vs view-dependent theories
Structural description (how we perceive / recognise objects despite changes in viewpoint vs also known as view based
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Spatial configuration
Objects are perceived and stored in memory as a collection of distinct spatial configurations
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Non accidental properties
Image properties that are invariant over orientation in depth and are distinguished from metric properties
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Geons
Simple 2D or 3D forms such as cylinders, circles rectangles etc
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Face perception
Realise that a visiability stimulus is a face
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Face recognition
Recognise the face as belonging to a particular individual
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Face pareidolia
We tend to see faces in chance arrangements of objects and parts
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Feature based processing
In order to decide the identity of a face, do we process each feature separately?
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Configuration processing
Do we process the face as a whole figure, ignoring the individual features and relying more on the relationship between face features
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Inversion Paradigm
Using upright and inverted faces and ask people to recognise a face/ figure out what’s wrong with it
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Thatcher illusion
Tells us that face parts are not processed independently but in context of the face
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Prosopagnosia
The inability to identify faces by vision. It is a type of associative agnosia but with faces
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Fusiform Face area
An area in the brain for face processing
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Visual imagery
The act of generating mental imagery in the absence of environmental stimulus is called visual imagery
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Analog accounts
The idea that we have a faithful copy of the world in our mind
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Propositional accounts
Linguistic representations based on knowledge. This knowledge is used to create images
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Tactic knowledge
What is consulted during mental imagery is the tactic knowledge that we have. This knowledge is used to create the image using the same apparatus as perception
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Antons syndrome
Patients with damaged primary visual cortex. They are blind but have vivid imaginations. They do not know that they are blind
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Retinal disparity
The difference in the apparent position of an object as seen by the left and right retinas. The greater the disparity the closer the object must be.
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Naive physics
Without the correct knowledge, there is not correct imagination, even though we may have had repeated visual images of the same events int he past.
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Depth perception
The perception of distance- the perception of depth depends on several factors
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Convergence
The degree to which the eyes turn in to focus on a close object
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Binocular cues
Visual cues that depend on both eyes
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Monocular cues
Visual cues to distance that are just as effective with one eye as both.
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Retinal disparity
The difference in the position of an object as seen by the left and right retinas
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Linear perspective
As parallel lines stretch out towards the horizon, they come closer together
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Clarity of bluishness
Distant objects are more blue due to refraction of light by oxygen in the atmosphere
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Texture gradient
At greater distances, elements of the scene come closer and closer together
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Object size
Other things being equal, a nearby object produces a larger image than a distant one
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Relative height
For objects that appear below horizon line, those further away have higher bases
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Occlusion
An object which is partially hidden, is perceived to be further away
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Shadowing
The more separated the object form its cast shadow, the closer it appears to us, adding shadows makes their location clearer.
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Accommodation of the lens
If the lens is flat (thinner) then the object must be further away. If the lens is rounder (thicker) is must be nearer.
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Motion parallax
The difference in speed of movement of images across the retina as you travel is in this principle
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Size constancy
Even though the retinal projection becomes smaller when an item moves away, we do not perceive the object as smaller.
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Ames room illusion
Designed to look like a normal room, but one corner is much closer than the other.
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Moon illusion
Size comparison. Perception of distance
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Transients
Change in the visual signal (needed to allow us to see)
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Curare
A toxic muscle relaxant - administer it to the eye and only visual darkness is experienced
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Motion agnosia
Damage to MT (M ganglion cells) in the retina causes motion blindness.
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Motion blindness
Damage to area MT causes inability to perceive motion- a neurological deficit known as AKINETOPSIA
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Akinetopsia
The neurological deficit causing motion blindness due to damage to area MT
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The Aperture problem
Viewing only a small portion of a larger stimulus can result in misleading info about the direction which an object is moving
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Retinal slip
Slip of the visual image across large portions of the Retina. ‘Motion of the visual image on the surface of the retina’
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Corollary discharge
Internal sense of eye movement was a copy of the eye movement command. E.g. if image moves right on retina (retinal slip) while eye is moving left (corollary discharge is negative). Our perception is that object is still.
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Biological motion
Motions produced by humans and animals can convey gender, activity, intention and mood.
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Superior temporal sulcus
STS- biological motion activated by neurons in this area
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Attention
The taking into possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought
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Active attention
Attention is controlled ‘top-down’ e.g. it is controlled due to motivational reason
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Passive attention
Attention is deployed in a bottom up fashion because of some property of external stimuli
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Selective attention
Tells us how we can select one input over another and what happens to the ignored stuff
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Divided attention
Tells us something about our processing limits, like multitasking
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Sensory buffer
Information comes in bulk, the aim of the buffer is to hold all the incoming information until the attentional system can act on it. Attentional filtering sensory memory.
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Iconic
Vision
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Echoic
Audition
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Decay
If information is not moved onwards rapidly from sensory memory, then the representation stored there will decay (it takes 300ms for half the information to be lost)
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Dichotic listening
Present same voice to both ears with different messages. Participants are asked to ‘shadow’ one message. The message in the non-shadowed ear is very poorly remembered.
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Bottleneck theory
We talk about our absolute limit in processing as a bottleneck. Essentially a ‘pinch point’ where we cant process all the incoming information. What we can do is prioritise the important stuff.
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Early selection theories
We select out information at an early stage of processing
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Late selection theories
We perform detailed analysis of the incoming stimuli before making a decision what is attended to
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Orienting
Our response to immediate change in the environment
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Over orienting
The alignment of sensory receptors to the location of an external stimulus
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Covert orienting
The alignment of mental resources to an external stimulus which can be involuntary or voluntary
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Parietal lobe
Neglect to the right parietal lobe is thought to be due to failure of the exogenous or stimulus driven covert orienting towards the contralateral (damaged hemisphere) visual field
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Spatial cueing task
Exogenous cueing- draws attention to location of stimulus. Endogenous cueing- particular location away from stimulus
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‘Spotlight’ theory
Attention acts like a spotlight that enhances the efficiency of the detection of events within its beam
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Binding
The visual world we perceive is made up of lots of separable elements we somehow organise and integrate into a conscious whole. Once we know how these separable parts are represented we then want to know how we manage to combine them.
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Visual search
People traditionally look for a specific target that is hidden amongst an array of distractions. When a search has a target defined by a single feature it is often very fast.
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Target-distractor similarity
The more features the distractor shared with the target, the slower the search.
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The size of the array
The more distractor, the slower the search for a conjunction target.
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Looking for the presence of absence of a feature
If the target differs from the distractor in terms of an absent feature then search takes longer
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Feature integration theory
1. Basic visual features are detected and processed in parallel, no need for focused attention. 2. Different features are bound together to form a higher order feature or obejct
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Illusory conjunctions
Without focused attention features from different objects may combine randomnly
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Dual tasking
When we do more than one task at a time, we need to split our resources between them. Less resource means that the tasks are either perfromance slower or less well.
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Dual task cost
The difference in performance between when they are doing single and dual tasks
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Input modality
Both tasks require vision, hearing
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Output modality
Both tasks require verbal responses
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Processing stage
Both tasks requiring comprehension
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Cross modal integration
Participants shadowed the words from a speaker on one side while observing someone mouthing the words
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Maintaining attention sustained/ vigilance
Attention can be deployed quickly between tasks, but after a while can begin to drop fast
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Vigilance
Monotonous and repetitious tasks suppress activity in key brain systems that effect vigilance e.g. the thalamus. Evidence points strongly to failures of vigilance due to excessive task demands over time.
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Mental workload
Workload as a perceived measure is often recorded using the NASA task load index. Mental, physical, temporal, perfromance, effort and frustration
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Stress
Key indicator of stress is the hormone norepinephrine (adrenaline) increased blood pressure/ heart rate lover increases output of glucose muscles increase glucose uptake
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Innate automatic behaviours
Saccade to movement, orient to loud noise, duck oncoming objects.
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Learned automatic behaviours
Reading, driving- hard to suppress (stroop effect, simon effect)
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Practise on attention
With practise we store the relevant information in memory. Frequent mapping between stimulus input and behavioural response leads to a behaviour becoming automatic
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Stroop task
The effect of an irrelevant dimension of a stimulus on the relevant dimension. Information from one processing system leaks out and interferes with other processing system.
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Simon task
An irrelevant dimension e.g. location of square on the relevant dimension e.g. location of square. An automatic process can interfere with a controlled process.
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Action slips, capture and data drive
CAPTURE SLIPS are when an action is perfromed in very similar to one well-practised e.g. rollerblades to ice skates. Data drive lips are external events activating well-practised action schemes, causing innapropriate action.
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Description errors
Carry out an action on the wrong object
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Loss of activation errors
Going into a room to get something and forgetting what it was
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Attentional blink
Present participant with a fast rapid visual presentation. Ask them to identify either a single target or two targets. Typically if second target appears in first 300ms, after first target we see drops in ppts ability to detect the second target.
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Faces- FACS
FACS- facial action coding applies numbers to specific facial features
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Social gaze cueing
Participants have to detect which side the target appears on- gaze cue is on-predictive. How do different emotions modulate the level of cueing?
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Endogenous cueing
For highly anxious individuals the have difficulty disengaging their attention from angry faces. Emotion has a powerful effect on deployment of attention.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Blood vessels also enter the eye here- causing many small blind spots

Back

Photoreceptors

Card 3

Front

Half of the optic nerve from each eye crosses to the opposite side of the brain at the optic chiasm

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Before reaching the primary visual cortex, most axons of the optic nerve send information to a structure in the Thalamus

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

Structure that receives electrical signals coming from the different senses pass

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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