PSY246 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Prosopagnosia, Hemoglobin, Lexical Decision Task
2 Jun 2018
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PSY246 – Week 1
Approaches to human cognition:
• Study of cognition = aims to understand the workings of the human mind by
studying human behaviour, often using experimental methods (also
computational modeling, neuroscience and neuropsychological data)
• Most cognitive behaviour (e.g. reading, remembering) involves more than just
one process
• Information-Processing Approach
o Major goal of this approach → specify the processes and structures
involved in cognition e.g. deciding to buy a house
o Steps involve:
▪ Stimulus → attention → perception → thought processes →
decision = response/action
o These steps depict a bottom-up and serial processing (starts from
simple and external stimulus to more complex/internal)
• Types of processing: parallel vs. serial
o Serial = one step at a time
o Discrete = separable
o Cascaded = overlapped processes
▪ Turn on indicator → turn wheel to change lane
o Parallel processes = more where two processes can occur at the same
time
▪ Talking and driving (one does not follow the other/no step by
step)
o Discrete serial processes = step by step
▪ Turn ignition, step on accelerator
• Types of processing: bottom-up vs. top-down processing
o B/U = external stimulus causes internal cognitive processes to occur,
producing the desired response
o T/D = processing influenced by the individual’s expectations and
knowledge
Approaches to study of cognition:
• Cognitive psychology → attempt to uncover the nature of human cognition by
observing people’s behaviour
o Mainly uses the experimental method to tests research hypotheses
o E.g. phonological similarity effect
• Cognitive neuroscience → the attempt to use information about behaviour and
the brain to understand human cognition
o Study of human brain and cognition
o Techniques include:
▪ Single-unit recordings
▪ Event-related potentials
▪ Positron emission tomography (PET)
▪ Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) – blood
oxygen-level-dependent contrast
▪ Magneto-encephalography
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