Cognitive Psychology – PSY 504

Lesson 01

INTRODUCTION
Cognitive Psychology deals with cognition. Cognition can be understood as “thinking” or
“knowing.”

Historical Background
• Plato proposed the idea that knowledge is acquired through internal processes, with the
external world being an illusion.
• Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological laboratory in 1875, focusing on
perception and cognition.
• The introspective technique, relying on subjective reports, was criticized and led to the
rise of behaviorism, which focused on observable phenomena.
• The information processing approach, influenced by human factors research,
information theory, and Noam Chomsky's critique of behaviorism, led to the emergence
of cognitive psychology.

Lesson 02

THE INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACH

• The information processing approach focuses on understanding the processes that
occur between sensation and behavior, rather than solely linking specific sensations to
behaviors.
• It employs levels of description, such as hardware and software levels, to examine
different aspects of cognitive processing.
• Hardware level description involves studying the physical components and neural
processes involved in information processing, while software level description focuses
on cognitive processes like sensory storage, attention, and memory.
• Cognitive psychologists develop models based on these descriptions and test them
through laboratory experiments using human subjects.

Lesson 03
 COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
Cognitive Neuro-psychology describes cognition at the hardware level to use the computer
metaphor. The neural architecture of cognition is the basis on which the edifice of the
software level is erected.

Neuropsychological Methods:
Brain-injured Humans
The study of brain injured humans has greatly enriched our understanding of human
cognition. It has allowed psychologists to design split brain experiments which made us aware
of the differences between the right and the left hemispheres of the brain.
Brains of Dead People
The study of brains of dead people has also added to understanding of cognition but to a
limited extent. The brains of people with certain brain disorders were studied to see if any
traces of the illness can shed light on normal brain functioning
Neuro-imaging
• X-Rays, MRI, and fMRI scanning techniques provide valuable insights into brain
processes, with fMRI offering live brain scans and being less intrusive and radiation-free
compared to other methods. However, these techniques provide a hardware-level
understanding and cannot replace a software-level description of brain functioning.
Animal Studies
• Animal studies involving invasive procedures and manipulation of brain functions
provide valuable insights into neural processes, but raise ethical concerns due to the
potential harm and welfare of the animals involved.
The Neuron
There are 70 billion neurons in the brain.
• Neurons are specialized cells responsible for transmitting and storing information in the
brain.
• The cell body of a neuron contains the nucleus and controls its functions.
• Dendrites are branching structures that receive information from other neurons.
• The axon is a branch of the neuron that transmits information to muscles or other
neurons.
The synapse
The neuron is not directly connected to other neurons. A fluid called the neurotransmitter moves between the
dendrites from one neuron and the axon of the other neuron. The gap between the neuron which contains
the neurotransmitter is called the synapse. It is the synapse which transmits the electric impulse generated in
one neuron to the other neurons.
Organization of the Brain
The brain can be divided into four lobes: Occipital lobe, frontal lobe, temporal lobe and
parietal lobe. In each lobe are performed certain specialized functions. Several attached
pictures describe different features of the neuron, synapses, and brain organization. Study
these pictures to get a broad idea of how the brain structure is organized.
Lesson 04

COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY (CONTINUED)

The Eye;
The following diagram of the Eye describes its different parts

Visual information passes through the lens which helps focus the image on the retina. The
information goes from the retina to the optic nerve which transmits it to the brain.

Ibn-al-Haitham
Ibn-al-Haitham had not only proposed that the eyes transmit the information to the brain via
the optic nerve but was also aware of the different visual fields in the eye and had also
proposed a dual visual pathway system. Among his other contributions was the development
of spectacles and telescopes.
The visual pathway
• The visual pathway starts from the retina and passes through the optic nerve, optic
chiasma, and lateral geniculate nucleus.
• Two different visual pathways process different features of the image, with one
pathway focusing on colors and details (geniculate pathway) and the other pathway
processing global features like localization and movement (superior colliculus pathway).
The Ear;
The following diagram shows different parts of the ear:

The Auditory Pathway

Sound Localization
• Sound localization relies on delay detectors in the nervous system.
• The delay detectors process information about the time difference between when the
sound reaches each ear.
• By analyzing the delay between the ears, the brain can determine the direction from
which the sound originated.
Lesson 05
 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY (CONTINUED)
Information Processing in Visual Cells
• Ganglion cells in the visual system play a crucial role in processing visual information.
• Kuffler's experiment revealed the existence of on-off and off-on cells in ganglion cells,
which respond differently based on the location of light on the retina.
• On-off cells are activated when light falls on the center of the retina, while off-on cells
are activated when light falls on the periphery.
• The activation of these cells represents the transformation of visual sensation into
perception before the information reaches the visual cortex.

Hubel & Wiesel

• Hubel and Wiesel conducted experiments on cats' visual cortex and discovered that
visual cortical cells respond in a more complex manner than lower-level cells.
• They identified specific types of cells known as bar detectors and edge detectors, which
play a role in perceiving and distinguishing objects.
• Edge detectors respond to differences in light on either side of a line, helping us
perceive object boundaries, while bar detectors respond to light in the center and
periphery, or vice versa, and are specific to position, orientation, and width. These
detectors work together to process visual information and recognize various objects.
David Marr’s Work
• David Marr developed a computer model that assimilates information from on-off cells
to analyze visual images, similar to how human beings process visual information.
• Marr and Hildreth combined the output of off-on detectors in the model to calculate
bars and edges of various widths and orientations, enabling the identification of object
boundaries in real images.
Sensory Memory
When information first enters the human system, it is registered in sensory memories. Sensory
memory allows us to take a snapshot of our environment, and to store this information for a
short period. There are 5 basic senses.

Visual Sensory Memory

Iconic Memory
• Iconic memory refers to a type of sensory memory that can store a large amount of
visual information for a very short duration.
• In experimental setups, subjects are asked to focus on a specific point while letters or
stimuli are briefly presented around that point. The stimuli are then removed, testing
the subject's ability to recall or recognize the briefly presented information.
Sperling’s partial report procedure
• Sperling's partial-report procedure involved presenting subjects with an array of letters
and cueing them to report specific rows based on auditory tones (high, medium, low).
 • Subjects were able to report at least three out of four letters from the cued row,
indicating that they had a brief but comprehensive memory of the entire array.
• This procedure demonstrated the existence of a larger visual memory capacity, known
as iconic memory, that extends beyond the limited recall capabilities of immediate
memory.
The decay in visual memory
• Sperling's experiments demonstrated that visual sensory memory, also known as iconic
memory, can hold a large amount of visual information for a very brief period.
• However, the decay in visual memory becomes apparent as the delay between the
offset of the display and recall increases, indicating that information is lost over time.
This suggests that visual sensory memory has limitations in terms of its duration.
Lesson 06

ISUAL SENSORY MEMORY EXPERIMENTS (CONTINUED)

Sperling (1967) & Neisser (1967)
• Sperling's experiments revealed that the duration of sensory visual memory can be
extended to 5 seconds when the post-exposure field is dark, compared to only 1 second
when it is light.
• Ulric Neisser coined the term "iconic memory" to describe this very short-term visual
memory.
• Iconic memory serves as a visual icon that holds stimuli briefly until they can be
analyzed.
• Neisser also found that if a new display is presented during the retention period, it
erases or overwrites the previous image, indicating the fragility of sensory visual
memory.
Psychological Time
• Our perception of the present moment is based on the synthesis of new information
with our stored knowledge, which happens simultaneously in our mind.
• Even though there may be a brief delay in our visual perception, our ability to perceive
and construct a coherent visual image in real-time reinforces our sense of living in the
present rather than the past.
Auditory Sensory Memory
Evidence for an auditory sensory memory similar to the visual memory comes from the set of
experiments by Moray, Bates and Barnett (1965), and Darwin, Turvey & Crowder (1972)
Moray, Bates and Barnett (1965)
• Moray, Bates, and Barnett conducted an experiment similar to Sperling's, but with
auditory cues instead of visual cues, and the subjects had to report items based on the
location of the sound.
• The partial-report procedure, where subjects were cued visually to report items from
specific locations, resulted in a higher percentage of reported letters compared to the
whole-report procedure.
• The findings indicate that all the information is initially available in short-term sensory
storage, but it quickly decays. This decay is less pronounced in auditory memory
compared to visual memory.
• Neisser referred to this auditory memory as "echoic memory" and highlighted that
cognitive psychology expanded the understanding of psychology beyond behaviorism,
recognizing the importance of internal processes and limitations in production rather
than processing.