purplemonkey03

[purplemonkey03]

Week 13

Our learning goal for this week was to list the defining characteristics and causes of three forms of aphasia. In the first lecture, we talked about language.

We had five assignments to complete this week. The first assignment was about hearing voices and learning about the scientific study of language. We had to watch to videos, the first one was Dr. Fernyhough’s interview which was a brief overview of research into “hearing voices.” The second video was Deb Roy’s TED talk on “The birth of a word.” In this video, Deb Roy explains how he wired up his house with video cameras in order to watch his infant son’s “gaaa” turn into “water.” The second assignment focused on inner speech. We first had to read Groopman’s (2017) article, “The voices in our head: Why do people talk to themselves and when does it become a problem?” In this video, we learned which brain areas become active when we engage in inner speech, how inner speech might serve a useful function, and how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) uses inner speech. The second article we had to read was “Inner speech speaks volumes about the brain.” In this article, we learned about the role of corollary discharge in inner speech. We then had to make a 200-word discussion post in which we explained inner speech in terms of David’s Integrated System for Mental Simulation. The third assignment is to complete the weekly review sheet. The fourth assignment is to chat with our group with CBT. We had a couple of articles we needed to read prior to the group discussion. Our fifth assignment then was to work on the term project. 

In today’s lecture, we talked about David’s Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation. Below I have added a snapshot of the image we went off of and talked about in class. 

We then talked about the different language areas in the brain, which are Broca’s Area, Wernicke’s Area, and Greschwind’s Territory. Following the different language areas of the brain, there are also different levels of language representation. Those levels are discourse, syntax, words, morphemes, and phonemes.

Discourse is the level at which we put sentences together in a coherent way. The syntax are patterns of relations between word classes and depends on the function of morphemes. They depend heavily on function morphemes and specify the structure of sentences (Ex. The leopard killed the lion. The lion was killed by the leopard.) These two sentences have the same underlying meaning, but different syntax. Words are units of meaning and have a semantic quality but are not the smallest unit of meaning. The smallest unit of meaning is morphemes. You can have multiple in one word. An example of morphemes is the letter s to indicate something that is plural. They are considered building blocks of words. They can also be divided up into different times, including content morphemes (Ex. Lion, kill.) Another kind of morpheme is the function morpheme. Some examples may be certain verbs or prepositions (ex. The, by, was.) They specify relations among word meanings. Lastly, there are bound morphemes that need to be attached (Ex. -s, -ed.) Phonemes are distinct sounds of language. They are speech sound units (aka the phonetic alphabet.)

We then talked about the Lexicon Triangle Model 

What is Lexicon?

o   The entire set of mental representations of words.

o   Not a mental dictionary

o   A set of mappings among associated representations

Triangle model of the Lexicon – emphasis on connections… teach on connecting the meaning with the sound, etc.

o   The leading theory of how word knowledge is acquired, stored, and used.

o   In a network of mappings between three inputs.

o   Learned implicitly

o   Orthography is the written spelling of the word

o   Phonology is the spoken sound of the word

o   The meaning of a word is what it means. – understanding of language or thought

Language area in the brain

Three areas:

1.      IPL – Geschwinds territory – damage to this region leads to … impairment?

2.      Wernicke’s Area

3.      Broca’s Area – producing words

Lessons from Aphasias…

·         Language is represented at various distinct levels

o   Not a unitary function

o   Different levels impacted differently

·         But these levels are interconnected

o   Lower-level impairment affects higher level

Fasciculi – Large bundles of white matter fibers (axons) that strongly interconnect distant brain regions.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)

o   Uses speed or water diffusion to identify neural tracts

o   All three language regions are strongly interconnected

Many implications for those with careers in education and parents

Do educators use this science to teach reading and train reading teachers?

o   Not really

o   They call phonics instruction “drill and kill”

o   They encourage word guessing from context.

Important things most people don’t understand

o   The starting point for reading isn’t reading – its speech

o   Writing systems are codes for representing spoken language

o   Children need to learn how to integrate print with speech

      - Phonics instruction helps with this

o   Provide practice while maintaining interest and motivation

 CBT allows us to take a thought that we have and simulate negative consequences.

     CBT principles

o   Psychological problems are based, in part on cognitive distortions and learned patterns of unhelpful thinking/behavior/ mental simulation.

o   Recognize cognitive distortions and reevaluate them in light of reality.

o   Change unhelpful behavior by facing fears, preparing for them and calming mind and body.

o   Empower self-treatment by learning coping skills and giving homework.

o   Help others using the Socratic Method: challenge negative assumptions by asking questions (“what would really happen if…”)

For our first discussion board assignment, make a post of at least 200 words in which you explain inner speech in terms of David's Integrated System for Mental Simulation.

Inner speech comes from the Broca's area, Geschwind's area, and the Wernicke's area, which are all apart of the language production system in our brain. The Geschwind's area is where the IPL (interior parietal lobe) is located and that is the center of imitation. When we speak our language, we are imitating others who speak the same language to communicate with each other. We can use the information when we are little babies who are learning how to speak by imitating others and learning words to communicate. This information of how to imitate is sent to the SMA (supplementary motor cortex), to produce the motor movements of the mouth to create the sounds for words.

Corollary discharge is hypothesized to be the underlying factor in how we can understand the external information matching with our internal information. For example, we can't exactly surprise or tickle ourselves because we already had the signals tell our brain that we are making movements to the tickle area and then we start to expect it, making it not as ticklish as if someone else were to do it to us.

This information on corollary discharge, tells us that there is possible evidence that internal speech uses the system that is involved with processing external speech. While we read or think in our minds, we use voices that we have heard before or sound familiar to voice our thoughts through our temporal cortex associated with memory.

Lastly, we had to fill out the weekly review sheet which asked us to list the defining characteristics and causes of three forms of Aphasia.

·         Broca's (non-fluent) aphasia:

o   Production is very poor

o   Telegraphic speech

o   Trouble with function morphemes (-s, -ed)

o   Content morphemes are ok

o   Poor syntax, but preserved word meaning and comprehension

·         Wernicke's (fluent) aphasia:

o   They can't understand words. The ability to grasp the meaning of spoken words and sentences is impaired, while the ease of producing connected speech is not very affected.

o   Semi-grammatical, but does not always make sense

o   Damage to the left auditory association cortex, though hearing remains normal

o   Trouble with content morphemes

o   Function morphemes appear ok

·         Conduction (fluent) aphasia:

o   The area of the brain that is related to conduction aphasia is the arcuate fasciculus

o   Frequent speech errors

o   Naming difficulties

o   Inability to repeat words or phrases

o   Expression and comprehension remain intact

That is all for week 13… AND the end of the course information. Thank you all so much for coming back each week and learning more about Cognitive Psychology with me! 😊

[purplemonkey03]

Week 12

Our learning goal for the week was to explain the functional divisions of “David’s Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation.” Let’s dive in!

First things first, we had to finish up the material that we never got to from week 11. Just a quick recap, motor cognition is the notion that cognition is embodied in action, and that the motor system participates in what is usually considered mental processing, in which the motor system draws on stored information. The products of our motor cognition are mental simulation and imagination. Motor cognition plans and produces our own actions and anticipates, predicts, and interprets the actions of others. It also is used to perform some types of reasoning and problem-solving. Motor cognition often involves mental imagery to run “mental scenarios” that allow us to “see what would happen if..” Lastly, it may even support our ability to understand language.

Starting module 12, we talked about mental simulation. Mental simulation anticipates sensory consequences of an imagined movement or action. People use their motor imagery to do this. Motor imagery is a cognitive process in which someone imagines that they perform a movement without actually performing that movement. They also imagine doing this movement without tensing any of their muscles, it is all about “imagination.” Motor imagery is akin to visual imagery and uses the same neural systems for action. Inhibition at the spinal level is what prevents someone from actually doing a specific movement. It also allows us to anticipate the consequences of actions. That is how mental simulation works.

We then go on to talk about evidence from motor priming. Motor priming occurs when stimuli that target the motor cortex, affect changes in motor behavior coinciding with alterations in cortical activity. Watching an action is what makes us do that action. Watching someone else do that action, allows us to do that action even faster. It is a que for simulating the same action. They are priming your motor system for doing that action, and since you just simulated it, it’s already active and ready to go. Doing this, also makes it a lot easier to engage. We then will go on to talk about “mirror neurons” since they are what provide the neutral basis for this.

Mirror neurons were first identified by Giacomo Rizzolatti in 1992. Rizzolatti and his team inserted small electrodes into monkeys’ brains in order to better understand how the brain affects the muscles that make the monkeys move their hands. Neuron activity was closely monitored as they hoped to find neurons that fired when the monkey did a specific action. Below I have included a picture so that you can visually see how this process works.  

Here is a quick snapshot of the method and how the discovery happened…

Rizzolatti’s method:

·         Used a microelectrode

·         Recorded neuron action potentials

·         From multiple sites

·         During a “reach-to-grab” task

·         Determined neuron firing properties

How the discovery happened:

·         Experimenter took food and put it on a tray

·         Experimenter moved the tray to the monkey

·         Monkey took the food

Rizzolatti was expecting that as the tray was moving toward the monkey, and stopped, then that is where the neuron would become active. When the monkey was preparing to make the move. But the neuron is firing at the sight of someone else’s movement. He also discovered a similar increase in activity during both execution and observation.

Next, we will talk about the firing properties of Mirror Neurons. Mirror Neurons do not always fire. Why is that? Well, it could be for a variety of reasons. MN’s do not fire at the sight of the object alone, just simply holding the object, grasping the object with a took, making an intransitive gesture (reaching to grab nothing), and not having a “precision grip”. It has to be the end to get the firing. There is something about the meaning of the movement that is important.

We learned that prior beliefs come from the brain learning the structure of the world (aka the perception-action cycle) and that every action leads to a perception. The brain does an action that changes the perspective of the world which changes the world, then it perceives the change, which then changes the cycle. The brain learns the cycle. The brain creates an internal model of its world. What is the problem though? Well… noise is the problem. One solution to this problem is to make predications. If you make predictions as you move, you can anticipate what should happen.

(Predictions = exploiting the action-perception cycle to anticipate/infer/predict/ fill-in)

Neural basis of imitation:

·         Biological motion perception.

·         Superior temple sulcus.

·         Adjacent to area empty for processing visual motion.

·         Each dot represents a different study for localizing biological motion perception in the STS.

An Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation?

·         STS for biological motion perception --> transform the perception of an action into a motor intention.

·         Inferior parietal lobe for action imitation --> transform the intent to act into a motor program

·         SMA and Premotor area for action planning --> transform a motor program into a mental image (mental simulation)

For the first assignment, we had to make a post in which we explain how moving-point light displays engage the mental simulation system in viewers. Before I did the discussion, I read the article “Point-light biological motion perception activates human premotor cortex”. In this article, we learned that the moving light display activates the human premotor cortex because the observation of others’ actions is known to also evoke activity in motor and premotor areas in the frontal cortex. 

For my discussion, I said, “The moving point-light display is an experimental model that engages a mental simulation system in viewers. It consists of a handful of point-lights that are attached to the joints and other parts of an individual's body, though the actual body is not visible to the eye. Human actors can easily perceive and can even perform decision tasks on point-light displays. The movement of just the small lights produces a compelling impression of the individual in motion. However, without movement, the lights are perceived as random and not as an individual. These point lights may evoke a vivid percept of action when the body is in motion. The perception of point-light biological motion activates posterior cortical areas of the brain. The observation of others' actions is known to also evoke activity in motor and premotor areas in the frontal cortex. Premotor areas are involved in the perception of others' actions. In mental viewers, fMRI scans show a clear response to point-light biological motion animations in frontal areas known to be involved in action observation. The premotor brain regions that contain mirror neurons also activate in response to point-light human motion. The light cues are integrated into one percept of a complete human action, and not as individual lights that move. Several action observation and imagery studies have found responses in premotor areas as well.” 

Saygun et al.'s (2004) article-https://uwwtw.instructure.com/courses/454296/files/42891734?wrap=1 

For the weekly review sheet, we had to explain the functional divisions of “David’s Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation.” 

The first functional division on David's Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation was anticipating sensory consequences of actions. This happens when using motor imagery. The second functional division on David's Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation is motor imagery. Motor imagery is kind of similar to visual imagery. It uses some of the neural systems for action, but there is inhibition at the spinal level. The third functional division on David's Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation was evidenced by priming. When someone is watching an action being made, they tend to facilitate our "making the action." It shows motor imagery that uses the motor system, and mirror neurons tend to provide the basis along with this. 

That is all for week 12! I hope to see you back next week for our very LAST week ☹ BUT, I am excited to help you learn more about the three forms of Aphasia!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 11

Our learning goal for this week is to describe three distinct cognitive roles for different motor areas of the brain while naming each area. 

 At the start of class, Dr. Havas had us stop and think for a second about a movement we were about to do next. That movement could be anything from turning our head, to dropping a pencil on the desk. The point of this was to understand that prediction plays a key role as we have to predict what we will do or what will happen during the movement or after. Our brain makes the prediction before we even do the action. With that being said, let’s first make sure we know the difference between movement and action. Movement is a voluntary displacement of a body part in physical space. Action on the other hand is a series of movements that must be accomplished in order to reach a goal. It is planned with respect to a particular goal. 

Motor cognition is processing in which the motor system draws on stored information to 1. Plan and produce our own actions, 2. Anticipate, predict, and interpret the actions of others, 3. Used to perform some type of reasoning and problem-solving, 4. Often involves mental imagery to run “mental scenarios” that allow you to “see what would happen if…”. 

Next, we talked about the three stages of action. The three stages of action are Intention, Specification and selection, and execution. “Intention” is the mental plan designed to achieve a goal through action. Specification and selection are always rapidly working. It is your brain doing it without conscious awareness. It also needs to happen before execution.  Lastly, execution is an overt and volitional movement. We then go on to talk about internal and external information that is used by the brain. Internalized movements are less focused on externalized movements. One example of internalized movements may be finding the bathroom in the dark. 

Then we talked about the motor Hierarchy in the brain. This also coincides with assignment number three for this week and the learning goal. Though these three areas that I will be talking about shortly are for processing increasingly abstract kinds of information, they also have distinct roles. The Supplementary motor area (SMA) is an important area for motor intention. This area is located at the very top of the premotor cortex and is in the medial premotor. Its main importance is for setting up the action plans. The premotor cortex (PM), also known as the lateral premotor, sets up programs for specific action sequences. It also projects to M1 as it sends signals there. Lastly, we have the primary motor cortex (M1) which is located right behind the SMA. The M1 is the area that provides a signal for the production of skilled movements. The neurons control fine motor movements and when they fire, the body moves. It also sends signals to the muscles in the body. 

We then talked about the Neurophysiology method: Single-cell recording. Single-Cell Recording is a technique used in research to observe changes in voltage or current in a neuron. Below are some notes we were given in class on the single-cell recording. 

 - Use a microelectrode in the specific brain area. 

 - Record neuron action potentials – use a very fine needle. (Note: it is less than the width of a single neuron.) 

 - It detects the electrical activity of the cell and then transfers it out of the brain to a piece of equipment. 

 - Comes from multiple sites

 - Occurs during specific tasks 

 - It determines neuron firing properties 

Next talked about how a study with monkeys and how they performed 1 of 2 tasks. In regard to externally generated actions, they know how to do it based on the instructions coming from Simon. For internally generated actions, they know how to do it based on their memory. Going back to M1, SMA, and PM, we learned the distinct roles of these three areas. M1’s distinct role is that M1 cells fire in both tasks (execution). SMA cells fire for internally generated actions only (formulating a plan). PM cells fire for externally generated actions only (set up specific motor sequence.) We then looked at a few examples of which motor areas are involved when talking about specific actions/tasks. For example, the SMA is the motor area that is involved when controlling your posture while walking. There are many things we do though that involve more than one motor area. 

Towards the end of our discussion, we talked about why is this important for cognition. We look to Daniel Wolpert’s TED talk, which was part of an assignment we needed to do for the week. He talked about how the brain evolved, and not to think or feel, but rather to control movement. Wolpert talks about robots and how they enjoy clean, discrete, and fast inputs and outputs. One of the main takeaways though was that brains are not robots. He talks about how randomness, slowness, and ambiguity are in the world, the brain, and the body. By making predictions about the world and body, the brain can more easily deal with randomness, slowness, and ambiguity. 

Lastly, we talked about motor intentions and the three types of probabilistic belief. The first type is the likelihood belief. This belief is based on incoming sensory information. The second type is the prior belief, which is based on previously learned information. The third type is the posterior belief, which combines these to make a “best guess” prediction. 

Our weekly review sheet was to describe three distinct cognitive roles for different motor areas of the brain while naming each area. 

Motor area: SMA - Supplementary Motor Area                                                       -It is important for setting up action plans                                                               -It is at the very top of the premotor cortex.                                                             -It is in the medial premotor                                                                                    SMA cells fire for internally generated actions only (formulating a plan)

Motor area: PM - Premotor Cortex                                                                           -Lateral premotor                                                                                                     -Sets up programs for specific action sequences                                                   -Projects to M1 (sends signals to M1)                                                               PM cells fire for externally generated actions only (Sets up specific motor sequence)

Motor area: M1 - Primary Motor Cortex                                                                  -Neurons control fine motor movements                                                                  -Neurons that control movements. When they fire, your body moves.                   -Projects to muscles (projects to body) M1 cells fire in both tasks (execution)

That is all for week 11! This week got cut a little short due to Professor Havas needing to cancel one of our classes. Come back next week so that I can help explain the functional divisions of David’s Integrated Neural System for Mental Simulation!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 10

A semi-shorter one this week!

Our learning goal for this week was to Illustrate two ways that decision-making is based on mental representations rather than objective features of the world. The notes for this week focused on decision-making and conflict. I was very excited to do this lecture as I found it to be quite engaging and fun! During the lecture, we did a small activity on decision-making where we were able to figure out how to make a decision. We also talked about Normative vs. Descriptive models of decision-making and the utility effect/curve. We had three assignments to complete this week. Normative models describe the optimal method for making a decision, whereas Descriptive models describe how people actually make decisions. Keep in mind that these two models do sometimes overlap.

The first assignment involves the activity that I talked about above. For my decision-making question, I wanted to decide whether I should go to graduate school in Whitewater or in Milwaukee. First, you want to jot down all your options, which in my case would only be Whitewater and Milwaukee. Then you are going to need to make a pros and cons list for each option (try having at least one pro and con for each option!) Below I added an example that was provided by Professor Havas of a pros and cons decision-making tree.

We then have to decide on whether we want to do the Normative or Descriptive Model approach, but for this activity, we went with the normative approach. After you have down your pros and cons for each option, you will then need to do the Expected Utility which places the focus of value on the final assets. When making a decision, each choice has associated costs and benefits. In deciding, you want to examine all the choices and pick the one that maximizes benefits, while minimizing costs. After that, we go on to figure out the certainty effect. Below I have added an example of the one Professor Havas shared with the class.

One thing to keep in mind is that the EUM is probably wrong and just because you score higher on one option, does not necessarily mean it is the better option for you.

Conflict and decision Making:

- Recall the executive function model of Cohen et al.

- Conflicting choices require executive processes. 1. They engage executive attention. 2. Which adjusts our actions. An Example: Hmm.. Should I say that hydroxychloroquine cures covid-19? Decisions have real-life consequences and sometimes we make decisions on what just feels right.

Then we go on to talk about the Utility Curve. The Utility Curve is what describes the utility-value relationship for a hypothetical individual. Some observations are the change in utility declines at extreme values. Another is that the pain of a loss is typically greater than the pleasure of a gain. We also learned that the value flattens out the higher it gets. To us, $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 is pretty much the same. As the value increases, the utility increases, and as the value decreases, the utility decreases.

The next assignment is the Review Sheet for Module 10. The question is the same as the learning goal for this week. “Illustrate two ways that decision-making is based on mental representations rather than objective features of the world.” Below is my answer to this question. 

Decision-making is based on mental representations rather than objective features of the world because we make sense of the various prospects, potential gains, and losses. A second way decision-making is based on mental representations is because we then evaluate those potential gains and losses that we found using heuristics based on simple, efficient rules. 

The last assignment for this week was to continue working on the term project. 

 That is all for week 10! It was a short one, but I hope you still learned as much as I did! See you next week to help describe three distinctive cognitive roles for different motor areas of the brain!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 9

Our learning goal for this week is to identity four kinds of specific executive dysfunction that result from frontal lobe brain damage. Our first assignment was to Attend David's lectures on Executive Processes and follow the assignment instructions that he gave us. For this assignment, we had to explain the main objective of a task we had to do outside of class. It was called the “Tower of Hanoi.”

To further explain, the main objective of the Tower of Hanoi was to move all the disks over to Tower 3 while moving only one disk at a time. One of the rules though was that you could not place a larger disk on top of a smaller disk at any time. This task took a lot of thinking and planning for me. When working with only three disks, I completed the task in 7 moves, which was the minimum moves you could do, but I also had to restart about 3 times before achieving it. I then switched to 4 disks and found this task to be a bit more challenging. I ended up completing it within 22 moves, where this one had a minimum of 15. I restarted this one 5 times though. I personally thought that this executive function task was a good assessment of the frontal lobe function. Like I said before, I did a lot of thinking and planning. I thought it helped represent my cognitive skills which are mediated by the frontal cortex. I feel as though the Tower of Hanoi is a beneficial task when observing an individual’s problem-solving ability as well. This task may be a good reflection of how individuals solves other problems. Overall, the Tower of Hanoi is a great task in measuring both the working memory and inhibition processes.

Feel free to try it on your own! https://www.mathsisfun.com/games/towerofhanoi.html

For our second assignment, we had a Group Chat about the Role of Executive Function in Moral or Ethical Behavior. In our group chat, we had to come up with an intervention for children from low socio-economic family backgrounds that supports development of Executive Functions.  Then we had to explain why the intervention we choose supports the development of executive function.

The intervention for supporting the development of executive functions in children of low socio-economic families that our chat group decided upon is a story-based problem-solving intervention. During our chat, we discussed how we wanted our intervention to have little to no material requirements, so that our intervention would be able to be done by any low socio-economic family. First, our intervention would require a facilitator of some sort, whether it be a parent, teacher, or otherwise, to tell the children the beginnings of a story, without any written reminders of what that story contained; this requires the children to utilize the executive function sequencing to remember the order of events in the story as well as their working memory. After being told the story, the children would then be presented with a problem the characters in the story need to solve and would be placed into groups. These groups would function as a way to make the activity fun and lessen the stress that may be inhibiting them, as well as a way to build communication skills. Once in groups, our intervention would have the children collaboratively find ways to solve the problem. This would require them to use and build skills such as reasoning, planning, problem solving, thinking outside of the box, and so on. We would then have the intervention periodically repeated and made more complex so that the executive functions that are being developed are further challenged and improved upon. 

Who’s in charge of cognition?

·         “mini-me”

·         Knows what to do

·         Helps me do it

·         The homunculus – appealing, but wrong

How to Banish the Homunculus?

Phonological loop --> <-- (Central executive) --> <-- Visuospatial scratchpad

·         Show precise, preferably biological, mechanisms

·         Show it can be done without a “supervisor”

·         Role of computational modeling

Supervisor – a prewired set of rules.. it watches what the brain is doing and ensures the mechanism that you are using actually gets the work done.

Who’s in charge of cognition?

The Frontal Executive Hypothesis

Protracted phylogenetic and ontogenetic development

“Riddle of the Frontal Lobes”

A case of Frontal Damage:

·         Patient “W.R.”

·         Lack of interest in important life events

·         Bilateral frontal brain tumor

·         “I don’t feel grief”

·         No plans for the future

 Frontal lobe damage can lead to “Frontal Lobe Syndrome”

·         Anger, Inappropriate Behavior

·         Poor planning, Poor Judgement

·         Apathy, Lack of Motivation

 Typical Executive Functions

·         Socially appropriate behavior, emotion regulation

·         Effective planning, and Good Judgement

·         Motivation, Achievement of Goals

 Neuropsychological Tests

·         Clinical Neuropsychologists – PhD psychologists who specialize in brain dysfunction and work in medical settings.

·         Five main deficit categories

o   Executive Attention

o   Switching Attention

o   Inhibition of Response

o   Sequencing

o   Monitoring

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

·         Requires “set-shifting”. Or Executive Attention

·         Multiple possible sorting rules

·         Once Ss discovers the rule, the E changes it

·         See how long it takes SS to shift to the new rule

·         Frontal patients can find an original rule but have difficulty shifting

·         “Perseverative errors”

·         VJ.R. Stroop (1935)

·         3 conditions “Name Color”

-          Neutral           (   )

-          Congruent    Blue

-          Incongruent   Blue

·         Healthy people are highly accurate, but RTs vary by condition

·         Frontal patients are highly inaccurate

The problem is one of Response Inhabitation, not response time.

Response time is slower with incongruent, and a little faster with congruent than neutral.

For the weekly review sheet, we had to briefly describe four kinds of specific executive dysfunction that result from frontal lobe brain damage.

1.      Switching attention - difficulty paying attention to certain things for an extended period of time without being easily distracted.

2.      Executive attention requires one to be able to sort things without trouble according to certain rules.

3.      Frontal lobe syndrome is the damage to higher functioning processes of the brain. Frontal lobe syndrome results in anger, inappropriate or poor social behavior, poor planning, poor judgment, and lack of motivation.

4.      Inhibition of response is the suppression of actions that are inappropriate in a given context and that interfere with goal-driven behavior. You struggle to give a response to a question that was asked of you or not answer the question at all.

That is all for week 9! Thanks for sticking with me. See you next week to illustrate two ways that decision-making is based on mental representations rather than objective features of the world!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 8

Our learning goal for this week is to critique the idea of short-term memory as a passive buffer for transferring information into long-term memory. We had four assignments for this week. The first assignment was to attend Dr. Havas’s lecture on Short Term and Working Memory. The second assignment was to pick or wait to be picked for our new groups. Once we have our group, we are to list all of our names under the assignment 2 discussion board. Both of my group members are different than my past two group members. Our third assignment was to complete our course review for Module 8, which I will post below. Our last assignment was to work on our term project (Which I am now doing.)

The week 8 Course Review question asked, “What is memory for?” We were to provide three arguments against the idea of short-term memory as a passive buffer for transferring information into long-term memory. Below I have added in the questions, along with my answers to this week’s review sheet.

1.      The first argument is that according to the "Modal" model of memory, the short-term memory works to server the long-term memory.

2.      The second argument is that the short-term memory is an active process that helps memories get processed into long-term memory.

3.      The third argument is that without short-term memory, most, if not all memories can't be processed into long-term memory. Short term memory is just a steppingstone to LTM. It's a passive storage area that briefly holds limited information.

In our class lecture, we talked about the Long Term vs. Working Memory. Some key points we talked about were the Dorsal pathway: “Where? Or “How?”, the Primary Visual Cortex V1, and the Ventral Pathway: “What?”

The Dorsal Pathway is a pathway that carries visual information from the primary visual cortex to the parietal lobe. It is involved in spatial awareness: recognizing where objects are in space. The Primary Visual Cortex V1 is the first stage of cortical processing of visual information. The Ventral Pathway is a pathway that carries visual information from the primary visual cortex to the temporal lobe.

Next, we will take a look at the difference between Free Recall and Serial Recall.

Free recall is a type of memory task where participants attempt to remember previously studied information in any order. An example of free recall is when you are asked “What did you all do today?” When listing off the things you did, no specific order is needed or necessary.

Serial recall is where you recall items in the order in which they are presented. Serial recall is much harder to recall than free recall. An example of serial recall is when you are trying to remember someone’s phone number. In this case, to remember the correct phone number, the phone digits must be in the correct order.

We then went ahead and talked about The “Modal” Model of Memory (1968)

An information processing model of memory

3 sequential stages

Unitary STM system

STM exists to serve LTM

Problems with the Modal Model

In this model of memory, the goal and     purpose of memory is to “graduate” into long term memory (knowledge)

·         But is this all that STM is for?

·         Goal of STM is to be useful

Short term memory is just a steppingstone     to LTM. It’s a passive storage area that briefly holds limited information

·         But is STM really passive?

·         No, trying to remember and recall information is a lot of work (active)

Also, STM comes before LTM (in sequence)

·         But, neuropsychic patients w/out STM can have LTM

 The Concept of “Working Memory”

Better notion of short-term memory

A mental blackboard; can erase and write     something new

Computer’s RAM (random access memory)

·         Cleared & reset after use

·         Context independent

·         Capacity limited

Capacity varies among individuals

·         Amount of information that can be held accessible

·         Predicts IQ, SAT, skill acquisition

Also predicts your sleep memory score

 Free Recall Task

Subjects hear items (usually 10-40 words)

Then say or write all they can remember

Either in any order - “free recall”

Or in correct order - “free position     recall”

Herman Ebbinghause (1902) used nonsense     syllables to avoid interference from prior knowledge

Serial position curve

·         Bow shaped curve (like a smile)

·         Why? Two separate mechanisms? Recency is due to decay from STM, while primacy is due to transfer into LTM via rehearsal?

 Do Serial Position Effects Occur in LTM Tasks?

What day of the week is it?

What course did you attend at this time     last semester? Last spring?

Recall the U.S presidents, in order of     their term in office?

Primacy and recency effect in both LTM     and STM

Study 1: a free recall task for two different lists, episodic and semantic that both contain the same items, but one is LTM and the other is STM

The penultimate effects: before the last (pre recency effect)

Conclusions from David’s and Alice’s Study:

Serial position effect in the semantic and episodic memory tasks aren't dependent on the same mechanism

Serial position functions in semantic tasks are probably due to a different frequency of exposure to order information

Serial position functions in episodic tasks reflects contributions of both short and long term memory systems

The “Modal” Model of Memory has 3 sequential stages and basically says that short-term memory exists to serve long-term memory.

Modal Model Problems

·         In this model of memory, the goal and purpose of memory is to “graduate” into long-term memory (knowledge). But is this all the short-term memory is for?

·         Short term memory is just a steppingstone to long-term memory. It’s a passive storage area that briefly hold limited information      

·         But is short-term memory really passive?

·         Also, short-term memory comes before long-term memory (in sequence)    

·         But, neuro-psych patients w/out short-term memory can have long-term memory.

From here we very briefly touched on working memory and went into the phonological loop. 

Working memory is for…

·         Involves a “Central Executive”

o   Like a little “conductor” that directs activity

·         Has multiple independent buffers

o   Buffer: a cushion or shock absorber, but does “work”

o   Verbal/phonological

o   Visuospatial

·         STM is for working, not for storage

o   An active process

Dorsal lateral PFC for both manipulating and maintaining information in WM (storage)

Ventral lateral PFC for maintaining information in WM (storage)

That is all for week 8! Come back next week to help identify four kinds of specific executive dysfunction that result from frontal lobe brain damage!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 7

Our learning goal for this week is to connect the pattern of deficits in patient H.M. with current knowledge about the nature of long-term memory. Our first “assignment” was to attend David’s lecture on Encoding in Long-term memory. To start off, I will give you some definitions that will be beneficial to know.

Encoding & Retrieval:

Memory – the internal repository of stored information

Long-term memory – encoded information that is stored, and that can be retrieved

Encoding – converting information into usable form aka, “consolidation”

Storage – holding this information in memory

Retrieval – taking information out of storage

 Memory: Stages of memory

·         Sensory memory – An exact copy of incoming information

·         For less than a second

·         Can be visual (“iconic”), or auditory (“echoic”).

After sensory memory…

·         Short-term memory – Stores small amounts of information briefly

·         Very sensitive to interruption or interference has a clear limit (“memory span”) seven plus or minus two things at once.

·         Chunking – grouping meaningful units together

·         With rehearsal, can enter long-term memory.

Then…

·         Long-term memory – Storing information relatively permanently

·         Stored on the basis of meaning and importance

·         Not everything gets stored into LTM

·         Supports our sense of identity

Towards the end of our lecture, we talk about the loss of LTM (forgetting)

Infantile/child amnesia

·         Inability as adults to remember events that occurred before 3yo

·         Undeveloped brain structures?

Retrograde amnesia

·         Disruption of memory for the past, especially episodic memory

·         After trauma or brain injury

o   Car crash.. not remembering what events lead up to this point

Anterograde amnesia

·         Inability to form new explicit LTM for events following brain trauma.

·         Explicit memories formed before are intact

·         Caused by damage to the Hippocampus

Encoding in the Brain: The story of H.M.

·         Bilateral removal of Medial Temporal Lobes (MTL)

·         He had epileptic seizures

·         Resulted in Anterograde amnesia

·         Temporally graded Retrograde amnesia (loss of information in the past)

·         But intact non-declarative memory

H.M. lost his explicit memory but regained his implicit memory

The medial temporal lobes are not necessary for all types of long-term memory.

How to hack your hippocampus:

           Factors that influence encoding

·         Attention

·         Distributed practice – you practice and think about information overtime

o   Vs. massed practice (cram information before the test) opposite of distributed

o   The “spacing effect”

o   Enough time to almost forget

·         Elaboration

o   Generating addition information

o   Levels of processing (deep vs. shallow)

Example: Picture of JB… Shallow processing – male or female… Deep processing – deciding if the person is famous or not

o   How does elaboration happen in the brain?

There are two kinds of long-term memories:

1.      Declarative Memory (Explicit) (Medial Temporal Dependent) – Divided into Episodic (Event learning) and Semantic (Fact learning) – knowledge abstracted away from detail just leaving some idea left.

2.      Nondeclarative Memory (Implicit) (Medial Temporal Independent) – A collection of various forms of memory that operate automatically and accumulate information that is not accessible to conscious recollection.

One thing that I found interesting was that going through college increases the volume of the hippocampus if you work on it! For those of you who do not know what the hippocampus is, it is a complex brain structure embedded deep into the temporal lobe and plays a major role in learning and memory. When you go to sleep, the hippocampus becomes active and starts to reinstate all the important memories you had from the day. How cool!

In David’s lecture, we learned about the factors that influence encoding, which is attention and elaboration. There are two levels of processing (deep vs. shallow). Using Justin Bieber as an example, the shallow processing would be deciding whether this person is a male or female. The deep processing then would be deciding if the person is famous or not. This is what we would consider generating additional information.

We then go on to talk about Binding and Consolidation.

·         Binding

o   Aspects of an event, become linked together, probably in MTL and hippocampus.

o   Elaboration is helpful as it helps connect your prior knowledge to new information, which helps keep it in your long-term memory.

·         Consolidation

o   Direct links with cortical representations are formed over time.

o   Possibly via reinstatement (replay the memory) during sleep or remembering.

*The more you replay the memory, the more likely you are to directly connect those cortical representations – that’s how you consolidate your memories*

 Retrieval: Pattern completion and recapitulation

Pattern completion – limited info can complete a pattern of the whole memory

Recapitulation – the memory is “replayed” or reconstructed.

For assignment two, we had to conduct a sleep memory test on ourselves. For the discussion, we had to explain how sleep contributes to long-term memory (Including which memory process or processes occur during sleep) and identify the brain structures that are involved in this process.

After reading the Fenn, K. M., & Hambrick, D. Z. article, we learned that a period of sleep can consolidate declarative memory, procedural learning, and perceptual learning. In terms of sleep and memory, we learned that sleep has been found to increase resistance to interference in declarative memory which then suggests that offline processing may actually strengthen memory representations. In simpler terms, sleep is looked at as a brain state that optimizes memory consolidation, as it has been found to benefit the retention of memory. During the deep stages of sleep, memories seem to become a lot more stable in the brain. Consistent with the results of this study, we see that the sleeping brain provided optimal conditions for consolidation processes in which integrate any new encoded memory representations into the long-term memory. Sleep is what helps the brain consolidate its information that’s stored in long-term memory, therefore making sleep essential for learning new information. The main brain structure that is involved in this process is the hippocampus. The Hippocampus is where new memories are encoded. Hippocampal activity seems to specifically support memory consolidation during sleep as that is where it takes place. In the discussion section of the article we read, it said that it seems possible that long-term memory ability, reflecting hippocampal functioning, accounts for the correlation between working memory capacity (WMC) and consolidation.

We then watched David’s lecture on the Testing Effect. The testing effect is the finding that taking a test on previously studied material leads to better retention than does restudying that material for an equivalent amount of time.

The course exam that I applied what I have learned was my midterm exam for social psychology. For this exam, the professor gave us a review sheet with multiple review questions. This actually works out well because I can use the practice questions as a practice test right after absorbing earlier information that we have learned. The specific steps I plan to take in applying the Testing Effect to study for my midterm is to first study and absorb previous information we were given on the material. I did this first as it helped me understand and form my questions for the practice tests that I did next. Immediately following this, I formulated the review sheet into a couple practice tests, as more practice tests result in better recall a week later. I started this the next day then which was exactly a week before the actual exam. Practice testing is more beneficial when doing it at least a week before. When I took the practice exam, I did it once during the day, and then again about an hour before I went to bed. The reason for this is because when you go to sleep, your hippocampus becomes active and starts to reinstate all the important memories (or in this case, the practice exam) you had from earlier that day. I then repeated this a couple of times throughout the week leading up to the day of my midterm. The reason I choose to go this route is because repeated testing enhances one’s learning of information more than it does for repeated reading. Retrieval of the information when testing it, rather than absorbing it, has more powerful effects on both learning and long-term retention which will better prepare someone for an exam.

David’s lecture on The Testing Effect- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asgfPMb5VJU

For assignment three, we had a group chat where we discussed material on retrieval from LTM. As a group, we had to come up with a conclusion about how Fenn & Hambrick (2011) (an article) was able to conclude that sleep provides a unique benefit to memory, and that this benefit is not simply due to practice with taking the test. We also had to include in our conclusion post how sleep contributes to long-term memory and which processes occur during sleep. Lastly, we had to come to a conclusion about which brain structures are likely involved in this process or these processes. We then had to tell the other members of your Chat Group about your plans for applying what you learned about the Testing Effect to another course assignment. 

In our group we all received a higher score for the morning session than the evening session. We each improved by 7, 8, and 12 points in the morning session. Initially we all thought that we would receive a higher score in the evening before learning about how important sleep is for memory processing. We were then surprised that our morning score was better than our evening score even though it had been almost 12 hours since seeing the word pairs. Sleep provides a unique benefit for memory by providing our brain time to do encoding. Sleep has been found to decrease interference in declarative memory, which suggests that offline processing strengths offline representations. Sleep is thought of as a brain state to optimize memory consolidation because it is found to benefit the attention of memory. The main brain structure that is involved in this process is the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the place where new memories are encoded, and it takes time to do so. Encoded memories go from short term to long term. In the article it mentions that long term memory ability related to hippocampal functioning could be responsible for the correlation between working memory capacity and consolidation. Supporting structures that help memory encoding are also the thalamus, amygdala which the process of turning short term memories into long term memories and storing these long-term memories.

Some conclusions to take note of from this lecture is that practicing retrieval of information has powerful effects on learning and long-term retention. Repeated testing enhances learning more than repeated reading and students lack metacognitive awareness of the benefits of repeated testing.

For our weekly review sheet, we first had to identify three features of the pattern of deficits in the patient H.M.

1.      Anterograde Amnesia

2.      Intact non-declarative memory

3.      Temporally graded retrograde amnesia

We then had to list three things we learned about the nature of long-term memory from the patient H.M.

1.      One thing we learned is that there are two major types of long-term memory.

2.      A second thing we learned is that one type of long-term memory is stored within the medial temporal lobe.

3.      A third thing we learned is that removing the medial temporal lobe keeps the non-declarative memory intact.

That is all for week 7. I hope you enjoyed it and learned as much as I did! See you in week 8 to learn about the short-term and working memory!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 6

Our learning goal for this week is to be able to describe three formats for mental representations and evaluate the evidence for each. To begin, we watched David’s lecture on “Knowledge and its representation.” We learned about the role of knowledge in cognition and how to distinguish three formats for mental representation. In this lecture, we learned about how knowledge causes behavior. People typically use folk psychology (beliefs and desires) to explain behavior. Within cognition and knowledge, behaviors can emerge from beliefs and desires. Then the three formats of representation end up being mental imagery, feature records, and amodal symbols. We also learn that information is what makes a brain knowledgeable. Going back to beliefs, they are the information representation in the brain. Thinking transforms one representation into another while preserving truth. Lastly, desire is the cybernetic feedback loop. We then talk about mental images and how people construct mental images that are topographic.

· Feature Record

o   A collection of features

o   Distributed across modality-specific brain regions

o   And integrated into representations by conjunction neurons

· Amodal Symbols

o   Neural representations from vision are transduced in an amodal representation such as a frame, semantic network or feature list.

· Mental imagery

o   A ubiquitous format (found in all modalities of thought, used frequently)

o   Spatiotemporally organized

o   E.g., activity in V1 during visual imagery

o   Imagining larger images activities larger parts of V1

In Steven Kosslyn’s experiment/study, participants were asked to imagine animals standing next to each other, with one being bigger than the other. The conclusion of this study was that visual imagination produces “little models, which can be manipulated much like actual objects.”

In this image, the bunny is the target animal.

What is representation? Representation is a physical state that stands for an object, event, or concept, and that carries information about it (i.e., has format and content.)

David’s Knowledge and Its Representation lecture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0qNU5b3DRA

We then learned about Aphantasia and watched a very interesting TED talk on it. Aphantasia is the inability to form mental images of objects that are not present. (To learn more about it, visit the link below)

TED talk about Aphantasia - https://youtu.be/arc1fdoMi2Y

For assignment three, we went to this website where we used what is called “Cleverbot.” Cleverbot is a chat where you are able to talk with a bot about literally anything. For the assignment, we needed to have a conversation with the bot until it misunderstood us. For me, it took probably 20 minutes until it finally misunderstood something I said. I asked the Cleverbot, “What do you do in the weight room?” and the Cleverbot responded by saying “I do not go to the beach.” The Cleverbot seemed to understand that I was asking a question as it responded in a way that would make sense. The part of the message though that seemed to confuse the Cleverbot was “weight room.” The Cleverbot seems to be limited in its own ability to have an extended goal-directed discussion. It only seemed to understand some common history or experiences that are shared between what us real humans can understand. Computers use the rules of language, and how to properly order them to make sense of our English-speaking language. With that being said, they don’t truly have any understanding of what they are actually saying. We then had to watch a video called “The Chinese Room experiment.” After watching this video, we had to make a reference to it and relate it back to our understanding of the Cleverbot. What I said was that much like in Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, the cleverbot was able to respond to the message he was given in Chinese, but he had no idea what he was writing back to her. I believe that the Cleverbot is just using instructions (like Searle did) in order to respond to what it thinks we are saying on the other end.  

The last assignment then was the weekly review sheet, in which we had to Describe the mental imagery, feature records, and amodal symbol format of representation, and list two sources of evidence for it.

Mental Imagery: The Ubiquitous format is usually found in all modalities. It is typically active in the V1 part of the brain when visualizing images. Two sourses of evidence: People that construct mental images, their mental images typically tend to be topographic. Neurons in the visual cortex preserve a map of the world in our memories.

The feature records typically tends to be what we first recognize in a person's face, such as their eyes, nose, lips, etc. It is brought into some form of representation because of the conjunction neurons. It is meaningful to people's experiences because not only is it how we end up telling one another apart but also how we determine people’s emotions.

The amodal symbol: It typically tends to be the abstract format of the representations which also has conjunction neurons, but without the connections. When looking at a fork that is laying over a spoon (crossed like an x), the spoon has a great gap of "missing data", and yet we perceive the spoon as complete and continuous through the occlusion. When you look at a box that is on a table in front of you, you typically only see 2 - 3 sides (depending how it is placed.) I can perceive the rest of the box as well as the exact location and orientation of the hidden surfaces.

That is all for week 6! Come back next week to learn about the nature of long-term memory!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 5

Our Learning goal for this week is to support the claim that attention involves both engagement and disengagement mechanisms. We have five assignments to complete for this week, three in which are discussions and then as always, the last two are the weekly review sheet and the term project.

Though attention is pretty self-explanatory, it can also be defined as the act or the power of fixing the mind on something. Today we attended David’s lecture on Attention. We learned what attention is, what happens if you lose your attention, exogenous control of attention, endogenous control of attention, and much more. When talking about attention, we know that it is when we take possession of something (selecting something), and it then implies withdrawal (inhibiting something).

So, what happens if you lose your attention? Well, this could be a case of Balint’s syndrome, which is the inability to perceive more than one object at a time. This is due to a deficit in spatial attention resulting from neurological damage and is caused by bilateral parietal lobe damage. One thing that I found to be shocking is that unilateral parietal damage leads to left visual neglect. Posner’s theory of Visual Neglect maintains that neglect and extinction are caused by a deficit in disengaging spatial attention from ipsilesional stimuli.

· For valid trials, the cue captures attention normally.

· For invalid trials, patients’ performance is slowed and performed poorly.

· The right parietal lobe is needed to disengage or withdraw attention.

Exogenous and Endogenous Control of Attention

Exogenous is when something outside of you is controlling your attention. It is the orienting response (shared with animals). Endogenous (inside) is the ability to attend to a stimulus of your choosing (covert attention).

Filter theory of attention

According to Broadbent's filter theory of attention, it is predicted that hearing your name when you are not paying attention should be impossible, as unattended messages are filtered out before you process the meaning. Below I will add a picture so you can better visualize how this theory works, but prior to recognition, the input must be “filtered” out first.

Attention selects only part of the sensory world for deeper processing. This is known as the “bottleneck” processing. This theory suggests that individuals have a limited number of attentional resources that they can use at one time.

So, how does the eye know where to go? The eye hops around from place to place in the visual world, but not at random. The “hops” that the eyes do is called “Saccades.” Once initiated, a saccade cannot change course. The eye goes to where the theory is most dense and can pick up the most information about the picture.

Attention in the visuospatial domain

· The spotlight metaphor:

o   Move your attention

o   Direct your attention

o   Focus your attention

We then begin talking about Posner’s Theory of Spatial Attention. I found this theory to be quite interesting as I never heard of it before. Based on the spotlight theory, we can predict that covertly attending to a location should enhance processing at that location and that it should take time to move your attention around. We then learned about Posner’s cueing task and even got to try it on our own. Posner suggested that when we see a cue, visual attention is oriented towards that cue, which has the effect of enhancing visual processing at the cued/attended location. In terms of the task, if the target appears to where your attention is being pulled to, it is considered a VALID trial. If the target appears at the other uncued location, it is considered an INVALID trial. The time interval between the cue and the target is called “Stimulus onset asynchrony” (SOA). Faster response time means smaller response time. (Valid trial line is lower than invalid). Longer response times when SOA is close to 0 (like no cue). When SOA goes up, it gives you more time to move your attention. It is also important to note that SOA does influence detection speed as it takes time to move attention around.  Even without overt eye movement, attending to a location helps the processing of info there.

To learn more about Posner’s cueing task, feel free to read the article that I have provided below.

Posner’s cueing task explanation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posner_cueing_task

Cueing task (Try it!) - https://www.psytoolkit.org/experiment-library/experiment_cueing.html Directions: detect when a target stimulus is presented and respond as quickly as possible.

For assignment 1, we were to explain how attention illuminates the difference between perceiving and attending. We also had to post our average response times for valid and invalid trials from the spatial cueing paradigm demonstration and give a brief explanation for the difference in average times.

Attention research illuminates the concept of the spotlight metaphor which allows us to move our attention, direct our attention, and focus our attention to a stimuli. We have exogenous (bottom-up) control of attention which facilitates an orienting response - immediate response to a change in its enviornment. We also have endogenous (top-down) control of attention which facilitates covert attention - paying attention without moving the eyes. Covert attention in involved in spacial cueing by speeding up the detection of a target by attending to a location that helps process information without eye movement. Attentional processes help filter information prior to recognition that eventually leads to perception. Our perceptions of stimuli help us move, direct, and focus out attention. Attention plays an important part in differentiating between perception and attending. 

During the spacial cueing paradigm, our eyes are fixated on the center of the screen which creates differences in reaction time between target stimuli due to covert attention. Covert attention involves mental focus or attention to an object without significant eye movement which takes place in response to cues. When we look at one location, without evening looking at it, it facilitates processing and decreases the time we need to respond to information occurring in that given space. This results in slower reactions times in response to invalid cued targets because there is an increased time interval between the cue and the target (SOA). (Valid cue conditions: 315 ms; invalid cue conditions: 385 ms)

For assignment two, we did an immerse attention exercise. We had to spend an hour looking at Van Goh’s “Starry Night” painting. We then had to write a discussion post and refer to our experiences in this exercise and to the other module material to explain the phrase, "just because you have looked at something doesn't mean you have seen it." In my post I said, My experience in this exercise was quite interesting.��I thought at first “How am I going to see this painting any different if I observe it for 5 minutes compared to observing it for an hour?” I have seen this painting many times before but through this exercise, I feel as though I have seen much more to it than I have before. I will admit, there were times my attention would go elsewhere when I was doing this exercise but after focusing my attention back to the painting, I could make more observations. Some observations I made while looking at this painting is the ridges that appeared on the canvas. This is obviously due to the 3D effect, but I never really looked at that before. One really interesting thing I noticed is that there does not seem to be any black paint used. The more I began to look at it, the more I realized that it is just darker shadings of other colors that are seen in the painting. It is pretty bizarre to me that even after viewing this painting as many times as I had, I missed a lot of important details in it. Jennifer Roberts says in her article “The Power of Patience”, that “in any work of art there are details and orders and relationships that take time to perceive.” This made me realize that deep observations and the viewing of invaluable details are crucial when retaining important information.  

For assignment three, we had a group discussion with the same group members from last week. Each of us group members were given an article to read in which we then had to summarize for one another. We were then given a number of tasks to do, which included..

· Explain to the other members the study’s methodology.  What kind of participants were recruited for the study, and why they were chosen? What tests (Dependent Variables) were administered, and why were these tests administered? What variables were manipulated (Independent Variables) and how were they manipulated? 

· Explain to the other members the major results of the study: What did the author or authors conclude?

· Explain to the other members what the major results mean.

· Then conclude what the different studies mean.  What, for example, would you tell a student who hasn’t taken this course and would like to know how attention works?

In the two articles we focused on, the main differences were the participant’s ages. In the first article, the disengagement of attention focused on ages 16 and up, whereas the other article focused on the disengagement of infants (ages 6-9 months). The first article we discussed was created by Watson and focused on the delayed disengagement of attention from distractors signaling reward. The study concentrated on the time taken to disengage from a centrally presented distractor that indicated a high or low reward. The study consisted of four experiments, but we mainly talked about the first two. The first experiment found out that participants took longer to move their eyes from a high reward distractor even though this came at a financial cost, while the second experiment found that participants were unable to suppress a high reward distractor consistently presented at the central location. The other article we discussed looked at the attention disengagement times for faces and non-face patterns in a sample of 637 infants. The two disengagement times were separated into two different groups, quick and delayed. Results of this study showed that infants are indeed slower to disengage from faces than they are to non-face patterns when they are distracted by novel competing stimuli. 

Our articles: Delayed disengagement of attention from distractors signaling reward-

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31751815/

Focusing on fear: Attentional disengagement from emotional faces-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1855164/

For the second part of this assignment, we had to summarizes how attention helps to explain why different people could "see" different things in the same stimulus. (Discussion below)

Attention can be used to help explain why different people could "see" different things in the same stimulus because of our endogenous control of attention and Posner's theory of spatial attention. In an environment we have the ability to attend to a stimulus of our choosing. It coverts our attention to a specific stimulus that something inside of us is controlling c. Individuals will choose to focus on different aspects in an environment, and see different things because of that. We engage in an environment by attending to a new stimulus. Eventually we disengage, and stop attending to what ever we are currently attending. Finally we move our attention, and focus our spotlight on a different stimulus. This typically follows eye movement which guides attention. This is the pattern that they eye follows when hoping around from place to place in the visual world. The eye Each individual is going to engage and then move to a different place in the environment for deeper processing. That deeper processing is what allows individuals to really "see".  This can result in individuals perceiving the same environment, but seeing different things. Only input this is filtered for deeper processing is recognized through the filter theory of attention.

Finally, for the weekly review sheet, we had to provide three reasons why we think that attention involves an engagement component and two reasons why we think that attention involves a disengagement component.

One reason why we think that attention involves an engagement component is because we tend to believe that we can only listen to one thing at a time. If we listen to more than one thing at a time, some people believe that we can't fully process what we are hearing. A second reason why we think that attention involves an engagement component is that our attention chooses what it processes. By doing this, we are trying to listen to more than two things at a time and our brain chooses what it feels is most important to remember A third reason why we think that attention involves an engagement component is because some of the info we hear is processed before we can comprehend what we are hearing in the first place. One reason we think that attention involves a disengagement component is that stimuli is not always attended with a strong signal. A second reason why we think that attention involves a disengagement component is that some of the info that we process is not always processed while we don't fully pay attention.

That is all for week 5! See you next week to talk about “Knowledge”!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 4

Our learning goal for this week was to evaluate Predictive Coding Theory as a solution to the two problems of perception. We had to complete four assignments, two of which were discussions, and then as always, we had the weekly review sheet and instructions on getting started with the term project. For this week, we will be learning most of the material by watching several online videos (which I will link below).

First, we began by watching Georg Keller’s TED talk for a deeper understanding of Perceptual Coding Theory. There were many things that we learned throughout this video, some including what a “simulation” is, how has direct access to reality, how does the brain generate predictions and what are they used for, and many other things. We then watch a video called, “Blind as a Bat: Seeing Without Eyesight.” After watching this video, we are asked to consider how Kish’s extraordinary ability relates to Predictive Coding Theory. We then watched the video, “McGurk Effect: Auditory Illusion” where we had to consider how the McGurk effect relates to Predictive Coding Theory. I thought this video was really interesting and super trippy, so you should definitely check this one out for sure!

Georg Keller’s TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgWgfdLZciM&feature=emb_logo

Blind as a Bat: Seeing Without Eyesight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_E3zxx2l9g

McGurk Effect: Auditory Illusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k8fHR9jKVM  

First, let’s talk about the Predictive Coding Theory. This theory is when one is seeing something that is incomplete and uses what they already know about similar things and use that to complete the picture. Perception is a “hypothesis” that is consistent with sensory data. The three steps involved in this process are 1. Generate predictions 2. Compare with incoming sensory information 3. Use or revise predictions. One thing to keep in mind is that the Error signal “trains” the brain. We also may ask that if our perceptions of the world are indirect, how does the brain get it right? Well, the simple answer is to learn to predict the world.

Predictions are what guide acquisitions of sensory info. For example, when you walk into a class, you may predict your professor, students, and desks to be there. We predict what we anticipate will happen, along with the important stuff. It is also important to note that predictions facilitate the interpretation of ambiguous sensory info. An example of this is the face vs. vase picture. (See below)

For the first assignment, we have to make a discussion post using the Predictive Coding Theory to explain two things. The first is to explain how the brain learns new perceptual skills and then explain why the brain makes perceptual errors and provide an example for both.

1. The experiences that we encounter are how the brain learns new perceptual skills. Predictive Coding Theory is seeing something that is incomplete and using what we already know (from experiences) and using that to complete the missing pieces to a picture. The Predictive Coding Theory is what compares internal models to outside stimuli. Our brain might also create predictions based on what we expect. For example, we may anticipate what we will see when we walk into our bedroom. Based on past experiences of being in the bedroom, we may anticipate seeing a bed, a closet, two windows, etc. In a TED Talk we watched, a study where mice would turn around a corner and see an image. Every time the mouse would run down and turn the corner, it would picture that same image there. This is the mouse making predictions of experiences it has already encountered. 

2. Due to the Predictive Coding Theory making predictions of what it thinks will happen next, we will typically see the brain make perceptual errors. It is possible for our predictions and/or expectations to be incorrect due to our perceptions of the world being indirect. The McGurk Effect is one example that illustrates perceptual error. In the video we watch on the McGurk Effect, we get confused with the visual and audio of two different "words/sounds." Though he is still saying the same word/sound, we can visually see that what he is mouthing appears to be different, therefore we predict that he is saying something different when in reality he is not. This is our brain making a perceptual error. 

For assignment 2, we had a group chat discussion. Our main discussion question was “How does Predictive Coding Theory solve the problems of perception?” My two group members and I had a conversation about cognitive biases and why cognitive biases reflect the human condition.

What is Cognitive Bias? Cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world. Along with this, cognitive biases are often a result of our brain's attempt to understand and simplify information, this is closely related to the first problem of Perception and having too much input to include in perception. These cognitive biases reflect the human condition because of the differences in each individual’s perception. We perceive what our brain chooses to perceive. Like the example of the painting in front of the window, we are unsure what is behind the painting. It is up to our brain's interpretation; it is also up to our brain to fill-in missing information in an attempt to better understand our predictions. Cognitive biases may impair rational judgments that we make that could potentially lead to poor decisions. Due to us creating our own perceptions, they are going to specifically depend on our own personal perspective of the world. Though perception feels like its objective, it is actually more of a subjective experience. Because we all have our own experiences and perceptions, there are biases because of that. We find ourselves to be entailed to our own personal views. 

The first cognitive bias that we discussed was formed from too much input and is called the focusing effect. Two members of our group actually chose this cognitive bias to use for this group chat. This is a bias that causes us to attribute too much weight to events of the past and translate them into future expectations. The predicting coding theory explains how this bias arises because it is a top-down theory of processing. Top-down processing includes active seeking and extraction of our sensory information driven by our knowledge, beliefs, expectations, and goals, which are stored in our frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is where top-down processing begins, so through our experience of past events, it would be easy to apply these similar expectations to future predictions. The second cognitive bias that we talked about was Murphy's law which is a product of not enough information. Murphy's law is anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Predicting coding theory explains why this bias arises because it follows the steps of predicting coding theory, which is generating a prediction, comparing it with sensory data, and using or revising predictions. Murphy's law taps into our tendency to dwell on negative past events to make predictions. Stress and mood play a role in the feeling and sensory data to make these predictions, such as the belief that when planning a picnic, it will rain on you. 

As always, assignment three was to complete the weekly review sheet, which I will provide below. Assignment four was to choose and describe two term project ideas.

*Briefly describe how Predictive Coding Theory addresses the first and second problems of perception

The predictive coding theory states that perception is a hypothesis that is consistent with sensory data. (The first problem of perception) This could mean that what we are seeing is more like an educated guess than a specific answer that is final. (The second problem of perception) We use the Predictive Coding theory to generate predictions, as well as compare sensory data based on the stuff that we already know.

That is all for week 4! Stay tuned for next week, where we will be talking about Attention!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 3

Our learning goal for week three was to identify the two problems of perception and provide several examples that illustrate each one. This week there are five assignments that need to be completed. In today’s in-class lecture, we learned about the problems of perception. I personally thought this lecture was very interested and worthwhile.

To start off, we learned that the two problems of perception are

1.      Too much input to include in perception

2.      Not enough input to explain perception

First, we talked about too much input. All this means is that there is simply more information in the world than we can possibly perceive. As for not enough information, that means that the mind makes inferences based on incomplete information in order to “fill-in” for any of the missing information. We then go on to talk about the “Inverse problem” of perception which has two different parts. The first part is that it is possible to derive a specific perception from a given stimulus. The second part though is that is it NOT possible to derive a specific stimulus from a given perception (the inverse is not true.) Further information on the two problems of perception and the “Inverse problem” of perception will be given later on.

For our first assignment, we needed to make a discussion post in which we..

1.      Verbally sketch how visual information moves in the brain from the bottom up, listing in order at least three major structures involved in visual processing;

2.      Point out three pieces of evidence that top-down processing strongly affects what we visually perceive;

3.      And support (i.e., provide arguments or evidence for) why it makes sense for both bottom-up and top-down information to play a role in perception.\

(Below is my discussion post)

1. Bottom-up: A stimulus is first presented in order for it to be perceived so that information about that stimulus can be received. Once the eyes receive visual information, the image of that object then travels into the brain through the optic nerve. The optic nrve is what carries the signals to the thalamus. It then transfers to the visual cortex where information is processed so that it can be perceived visually. Three of the major structures that are involved in the visual processing are the retina, rods and cones, and visual cortex. The retina is what first retains all the information. The rods and cones then send that information to the visual cortex. The visual cortex is then what processes the information that it has received.

2. The first piece of evidence that top-down processing strongly affects what we visually perceive is that it allows us to put together a variety of objects attached with backgrounds of information. The second piece of evidence is that a large amount of information is sent through the brain that contains an interpretation of the visual input. It then allows the brain to create a representation of that visual input. The third piece of evidence uses knowledge to make perception more structured and accurate. This again is important as it fills in missing parts of sensory input. An example that we talked about in class was the "Dalmatian" picture. This image affected what we visual perceived. The image had a lot of missing pieces to it so our brains went straight to the top-down processing and filled in the missing pieces (or gaps) which allowed us to see that image a little more clearly. 

3. Bottom-up processing is what allows us to even see in the first place. Our perception for what we are looking at is what directs our cognitive awareness of the object we are seeing. Top-down processing helps us to perceive the information we see. Top-down processing interprets information we are receiving based on known knowledge that we already have and uses it to influence perception. Without bottom-up and top-down processing, it would be very unlikely for us to perceive any information. We use top-down and bottom-up processing to create our perception and without just one (or both) one's sense of perception would significantly change and be very inaccurate. 

For assignment 2, we had another discussion post in which we had to provide three examples each, for both of the problems of perception from the four articles that were provided.

The First Problem of Perception (too little)

1.      "Remarkably, the visual system is able to cut through about 90% of this neuronal noise, but the remaining 10% places a limit on how finely we can discern between two images that look very similar" (Hadhazy 2020) Although 90% is clearly the higher chance, there is still that 10% that keeps up from being able to differentiate between different things, like the two images for example.

2.      "The brain often relies on it's agility to fill in the gap." (Healy, 2014) Because we do not having enough information, our brain needs to fill in those missing pieces.

3.      "Because the brain omits the information that comes in while the eyes are moving, our visual world is mostly during fixations, the short periods of time (approximately 200-300 milliseconds long) when the eyes are stationary. (Burmester, 2015) Our brains are making up perception in order to fill in information that is not perceived. 

The Second Problem of Perception (too much)

1.      "The findings suggest that once a suitably large set of neurons (or artificial, neuron-like processing elements) are available, throwing more neurons at a sensory discrimination problem might not substantially boost performance." (Hadhazy 2020) Having to much information of something does not always make it more well known. Important information may be left out due to our brain not being able to process all of it. 

2.      "Suggesting that, when confronted with too much of the same thing, those circuits can be overloaded." (Healy, 2014) Perceiving to much information can often lead to an overload, which has a tendency then of leaving out certain information. 

3.      "When looking at a busy city street, there are many potential sources of visual information to focus on. But using our visual attention we will only select a small subset of this information – for example, the yellow blob coming toward us that forms into a taxi – at any one time." (Burmester 2015) Here, there is so much going on that it is hard to focus directly on the potential sources of visual info. 

For the third assignment, we had to do another discussion post, but this time on cognitive bias and how the problems of perception relate to it. First, we read a blog post (Cognitive bias cheat sheet), and after we read the Cognitive Bias Codex. We then had to choose two cognitive biases from the Cognitive Bias Codex that we thought reflected that Problem of Perception. Once we completed that, we had to go to the internet where we researched each of the four cognitive biases to confirm that they reflected the problem of perception that we choose. In my discussion post then, I had to consider why it makes sense that cognitive biases have been discovered, as well as classify the four biases from the Cognitive Bias Codex and explain how each cognitive bias reflects one of the Problems of Perception.  (Below is my discussion post)

Due to having to pick through all sorts of information or “fill-in” missing pieces of information, it makes sense that there have been many discovered cognitive biases in relation to the problems of perception. Our brains can only retain so much information at once, but at the same time it needs enough information to make sense of something.

The four Cognitive Biases I choose from the Cognitive Bias Codex are Confirmation Bias, the Ostrich Effect, Hindsight Bias, and Stereotyping.

First Problem of Perception (too much)

1. The first Cognitive Bias I choose from the Cognitive Bias Codex is Confirmation Bias. Confirmation bias looks at and interprets information in order to support any pre-existing views, ideas, or beliefs. This type of bias reflects the first problem of perception because it filters out details that contradict beliefs due to perceiving too much information.

2. The second Cognitive Bias I choose from the Cognitive bias Codex is the Ostrich effect. The ostrich effect tends to avoid specific information that one may perceive as negative or unpleasant. This reflects the first problem of Perception because it still receives the information but uses other information instead and ignores that piece of information.

Second Problem of Perception (too little)

1. Hindsight bias is when something seems to be more predictable than it really is. We cannot make sense of something, so instead, we try filling in the missing pieces. Hindsight bias reflects this problem of perception because it is filling in the brain with information that is not fully accurate, due to lack of information.

2. Stereotyping has a generalization about someone or something that we choose to perceive. When we do not know a whole lot about something or someone, we tend to fill in gaps of what we think we know or what makes the most sense. We do this because of the lack of information we have on that specific person or thing.

Blog post - https://betterhumans.pub/cognitive-bias-cheat-sheet-55a472476b18

The fourth assignment was the weekly review sheet. We covered the first part of it, which was the two problems of perception. The second part of the review sheet was to provide two examples to illustrate the two problems of perception.

One example to illustrate the first problem of perception (too much information) is if you were given a large amount of information that needed to be retained all at once. The information workload is so heavy that it becomes very overwhelming, and you are only able to retain so much and skip over other important info. Another example that illustrates the first problem of perception is when a person waits until the last minute to study all their notes for a test. It is so much information at once that by the time they get to the test, they realize they could not perceive it all and missed a lot of information they learned.

One example to illustrate the second problem of perception (not enough information) comes from (Burmester, 2015.) The brain omits the information that comes in while the eyes are moving. Our visual world is mostly during fixations, the short periods of time when the eyes are stationary. This means our brains are making up perceptions in order to fill in information that is not perceived. Another example to illustrate the second problem is if you do not have enough information but you remember stuff from similar situations and fill in the blanks from there. This allows one to see the full picture, even if it is not completely accurate.

Finally, our last assignment was to work on our term project.

That is all for week 3! Come back next week to learn about the predictive coding theory and more on the two problems of perception!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 2

Journal Entry 1                                                                                        

Our learning goal for this week was to identify several historical views of cognition and appraise which of those views lends itself to a scientific approach. This week we had three assignments to complete. The first one was on the methods of Cognitive Psychology, the second one was on Mental Chronometry, and the third one was on the weekly review sheet.

Today, we attended David’s lecture on “How to Study Cognition.” We had to watch a video called, "Transcranial magnetic stimulation” which gave us an inside look at an example of a causal neuropsychological method. According to the Mayo Clinic, Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to improve symptoms of depression. TMS is typically used when other depression treatments have not been effective. We then read an article on cognitive revolution, which talks about the interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes, as it focuses on the interest in mental processes. (Below is the link to that article). For the discussion assignment, we had to make a post in which we write at least 200 words describing at least three key influences or events that contributed to Cognitive Psychology and list the characteristics of the scientific approach that were involved in each influence or event. (Below is my discussion post)

Three key influences that have contributed to Cognitive Psychology.

1. An earlier key influence on Cognitive Psychology was applying the scientific method to the study of human cognition. The scientific method is used in conducting research. It helped put together experiments that eventually lead to useful interpretations and conclusions for human cognition. It allowed psychologists to observe, do further research, experiment, analyze data, and conclude new findings. It also allowed psychologists to acquire new knowledge and overall test theories about human mental processes.

2. Another key influence was the modularity of the mind. This theory of the human mind consists of various components of cognition that are characterized as their own "modules" and are each within their own specific domain/ properties. Psychologists were able to discover that there are many parts to the mind, which work together to construct output behavior. 

3. The Cognitive revolution is a key contributor to Cognitive Psychology. Cognitive revolution focused on learning, perception, memory, thinking, etc. According to Steven Pinker, Cognitive Revolution unified the physical world and world of ideas, with a theory that mental life can indeed be explained in terms of information, computation, and feedback. Cognitive revolution also helped to recognize that emotions may have some kind of effect on cognitive and perceptual processes.

Cognitive Revolution Article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_revolution

Journal entry 2 

Today, I got to conduct this test of the limits of human information processing with one of my friends. The trick that we had to do was called “Catch the dollar.” I will put the URL to the video of this trick below so you can have a clearer idea of how it works, and even try it sometime! The point of this trick was to see their reaction time. Though some people seem to be able to do it, most find it to be extremely difficult. My friend also did this trick on me, so that I would be able to share some of my thoughts on doing it.

When doing this trick, my brain is trying to issue both the drop and the catch when I did it to myself. This resulted in me actually catching the dollar 3 out of the 5 times. My brain issued that I was about to drop the dollar, and that is why I reacted so quickly to catch it. However, when my friend did the drop for me, I needed to see the bill drop before I reacted. I did not know when she would be dropping the bill, so it was more difficult. In this case, the messages had to travel from my eyes to my brain to my hand, which resulted in a longer reaction time. After this occurs, my fingers would then close. The reason this is almost impossible is because all that takes time, which is more time than the dollar bill takes to fall a distance equal to its own length.

Dollar bill trick - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaZ9Gdj93kg 

We then had to read the article “Timing the brain: Mental Chronometry as a Tool in Neuroscience.” This article explains how we relate human thought processes to measurable events in the brain. It explains how Mental Chronometry seeks to measure the time course of mental operations in the human nervous system. It is a very interesting read, so I definitely recommend taking a look!

Posner (2005) “Timing the brain: Mental Chronometry as a Tool in Neuroscience.” - https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030051

Our second assignment for week 2 was another discussion post. For this discussion, we had to make a post of at least 200 words in which we report the results of the dollar bill trick. We also had to propose a new study that uses Mental Chronometry and Donders’ Subtraction Method. For this study proposal, we needed to answer the four following questions.

1.      What is the mental process you aim to isolate in your study?

2.      What other mental processes will be compared in your study?

3.      What is the subtraction equation you would use in your study?

4.      What are your hypotheses (predictions) for your study's outcomes? 

(Below is what I said in my discussion post)

1. For the experiment, I decided to do it with my roommate. I told her if she could catch the dollar within the three tries she gets, she could keep it. The results of this experiment concluded that my roommate could not attempt to catch the dollar bill, in which she did not get to keep it then. This did indeed line up with my predictions. 

2. The new study proposal that uses Mental Chronometry and Donders' Subtraction Method is one that uses both visual and auditory processing skills. The auditory skill will have to do with associating a sound with a meaning, or in this case an image. Fifteen pictures of different animals will randomly be placed, in no specific order on the table. Then, I will mimic the noise of one animal at a time and the individual will have to point to the correct animal that matches the sound I made. The objective is to match the sound with the correct animal as quickly as possible. The mental process I aim to isolate in this study is an individual’s auditory perception. Other mental processes that will be compared in my study are reaction time, memory, and observation. The equation of this process would be the total seconds it takes to respond to stimulus - auditory perception. My hypothesis (predictions) for this study's outcome is that there will be some kind of increased delay in finding the animal through the sound it makes, rather than simply stating the name of the animal. 

Lastly, we had to do our weekly review sheet in which we had to list three historical views of cognition, and the role of science in each one.

The first historical view of cognition is the scientific method of the study of human cognition. The scientific method is used in conducting research. It helped put together experiments that eventually lead to useful interpretations and conclusions for human cognition. It allowed psychologists to observe, do further research, experiment, analyze data, and conclude new findings. It also allowed psychologists to acquire new knowledge and overall test theories about human mental processes. The second historical view of cognition is the modularity of the mind. This theory of the human mind consists of various components of cognition that are characterized as their own "modules" and are each within their own specific domain/ properties. Psychologists were able to discover that there are many parts to the mind, which work together to construct output behavior. The third historical view of cognition is the idea that the human brain has some sort of innateness. The idea that you weren't born a "blank slate," Through observations of this empirical question about how the world works and how humans work, they make observations that lead them to this hypothesis. Noam Chompsky is the one who questions how humans can know so much, "despite relatively limited input".

That is all for week 2! See you next week to learn about the problems of perception!

[purplemonkey03]

Week 1

Our learning goal for week one was to learn how to succeed in the course, and why doing so would be beneficial for your life. The first discussion board consisted of reading the Course How-To, which included many things like how to upload a photo, how to make a discussion board post, etc. In this assignment, we introduced ourselves and used what we learned to create our first-ever discussion post for this class. The second assignment for week one was a Syllabus Scavenger Hunt. I actually really enjoy doing it and found the hunt to be very beneficial! For assignment three, we learned how to respond to discussion board posts. This is important to know as we will every so often have to respond to other students’ posts in the class. The second part of this assignment was to attend David’s Lecture on “What is Cognitive Psychology?” and watch a video on a Cognitive Psychologist who goes by the name of Steven Pinker. In this video, he claims that the cognitive revolution bridged the gap between the physical world and the world of ideas, concepts, meanings, and intentions. We then had to read four different articles about why everyone should take this course. Below I have listed those four articles.

Koch’s (2016) article, “Constructing the Modern Mind”

Pigliucci’s (2017) article, “Second Thoughts on Whether Self-Knowledge is Over-rated”

Price-Mitchell’s (2020) article, “What is Metacognition? How does it Help Us Think?”

Schaffner’s (2020) article, “What’s so Great About Self-Knowledge”

For this discussion board, we also had to summarize how the four articles that we read support the claim that gaining knowledge about cognition can positively affect your life. Below is what I had answered to this question.

“To my understanding, all four articles have their own take on why gaining knowledge about cognition can positively affect your life, while still tying in the importance of it. There are a variety of methods that help us navigate through life a lot easier and greater by using cognitive psychology. Looking back at the first article by Kock (2016), the author talks about the importance of evolution when understanding cognition. This leads us to believe that the importance of studying cognition allows for a more positive impact on everyone as a whole. He also discusses the case in point of human reasoning, which is a “way of knowing.” From what I gather, he is trying to state that we are capable of our own right to thought. In the second article by Pigliucci (2017), they talk about the importance of cognition knowledge and studying the human condition. When talking about the human condition, they believe that it better suits the future of those, rather than their present self and that is why not everyone may see a positive change right away. We learn that when studying the human condition, we’re able to help others, which then accounts for a more positive outlook on life. The third article written by Price-Mitchell (2020) looks at how Metacognition helps us think. This article not only brings up questions about the levels of thinking and success but also about becoming aware of one’s own thinking. Metacognition refers to a deeper understanding of what is going on around us, as well as making us more aware of our own thinking. In the last article written by Schaffner (2020), one quote that really stuck out to me in relation to the main question was, “It turns us into better pilots of our lives, yielding mastery and realism, as well as congruence and alignment.” The name of this article is, “What’s so great about self-knowledge?” To me, this quote is trying to say that we are in charge of our own lives and what we do with them. The goals that we set for ourselves, and what we do with them afterward are very important. Knowing and understanding our own motives is the best way to self-navigate through life. All in all, the main focus of all four articles stresses the importance of understanding the cognitive process of self-knowledge and the importance of understanding the world around us.”

We also learned that psychology is a young science with an old history. Below is a timeline of the history of psychology.

Finally, Assignment 4 was to complete the Review Sheet for the week. The review sheets are used in this course because research in the cognitive psychology of memory has shown that two strategies, repetition, and distributed practice, are among the most effective ways of learning. Below I have added the questions, along with my answers to this week’s review sheet.

Module 1: Why take this course? Describe 3 reasons why knowledge about cognition can positively affect your life.

One way that knowledge about cognition can positively affect your life, as it allows you to gain a deeper understanding of what is going on around you, as well as making you more aware of your own thinking. A second way is by being able to analyze themselves to find any negatives they might have. By doing so, it teaches a person how to take the things they do and do not see to become a better, happier version of themselves. One final way is by having that understanding of the feelings that you have and why you have them. Having this helps to have a better understanding of a specific situation.

That is all for this week’s module. See you in Week 2!