Welcome to the Psychology Visit Day 12:45-13:45. Welcome to the Psychology Visit Day 12:45-13:45. Welcome to the Psychology Visit Day 12:45-13:45

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1 Why study Cognitive? Understand thinking, language, memory, problem solving your own mind Has an important impact on other areas of psychology Educational Cognitive Economic The Brain has over 100 billion neurons Each connected on average to at least 10,000 other neurons Clinical ocial olitical E Event related potentials (or evoked response potentials) ecord electrical brain waves on the scalp (EEG) Complex mathematical analysis to find brief changes in EEG in response to a stimulus Very good temporal resolution ower spatial resolution Behavioural Measures: The exical Decision Task s what you see a real word or not? dring dnrig + Emotion > Cognition ctivation ocus Coordinates Z-value (Brodmann area) x y z eft inf. temporal (20) 4.16 eft mid. temporal (21) eft sup. temporal (22) eft sup. frontal (9) eft inf. frontal (45) Concrete > bstract ctivation ocus Coordinates Z-value (Brodmann area) x y z eft fusiform (20) 4.31 eft sup. occipital (19) Bilateral post. cingulate (30) Computed tomography images showing saggital and axial views of patient MJ s brain. The lesion comprises the left basal ganglia and extends to the cortical surface of the left temporal lobe (Davies, odriguez-ferreiro & Cuetos, submitted). Different activation sites appear when concrete and abstract verbs are compared using functional M. Javier odríguez-ferreiro, ilvia Gennari, obert Davies & Fernando Cuetos (2008). Concepts, ctions and Objects conference, overeto, taly. 1

2 Why study sleep? For many young people the sleep period is not peaceful and restorative. nfants primary activity is sleep By age two an infant has spent more time asleep than awake. By early school age an average child has spent more time asleep than interacting socially exploring the environment eating playing all other waking activities leep disorders affect about 30% of infants, children and adolescents There are over 80 different sleep disorders Children with developmental disorders are at particular risk of suffering from a sleep disorder e.g. over 75% of children with intellectual disabilities have sleep disturbance Children with sleep disorders are more likely to have behaviour problems psychiatric problems accidents and poor concentration at school Mothers of children with sleep disorders Why study sleep? ignificant sleepiness, which negatively effects our functioning, affects about 5% of us at any one time are more sleepy are more stressed have higher rates of psychiatric disorders have more marital problems and are more likely to consider abusing their child This is worrying for us all! 2

3 Feature-based recognition Try to find the letter Z. One view of object recognition is that we recognize objects via distinctive features that define those objects. For example, consider these examples of the letter Z, what do they have in common? The answer is two horizontal lines and one diagonal line. erhaps it is the presence of these features that define an object as being a Z OBCCGDOODDGQQCCOCGD OGOCBGQQUOCU QCDBOCUOCDBZODQ OQGOQCBBCGOQDUOQ OQDCBGOQCBDOQC Try to find the letter Z. Feature-based recognition KEFXKNMMVXWYKMNX KWNMVXKHNMVTEFM MKNVXWVNMKYFENM MKZNHXVEYFKMNVWTY XVNMKYWTNMKMFWENM When the distracter items contain very different features from the target, the target seems to pop out. You should have found it fairly quickly, with little effort. When the distracter items have similar features, you will have discovered that searching for the target is much more difficult. Each item has to be checked. Distinguishing fantasy and reality Distinguishing fantasy and reality reschoolers understand the distinction between real and toy objects e.g. and before understanding The ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy has important implications, for example it may play a role in children s night-time fears the distinction between real and fictional characters, e.g. and 3

4 mbiguous figures mbiguous figures The Duck abbit What is this? Tilt your head to the left Now what is it? What is wrong with this photo? What is wrong with this photo? apart from it being upside down! Now can you tell? The Thatcher llusion - another demonstration of the same effect olomon sch Demonstrated the power of social influence even in an unambiguous situation (1952) 1) articipants had to make judgements about the length of lines 2) Judgements were made in a room with six other participants 4

5 sch s Experiment Diagrams were shown containing a target line articipants had to judge whether which of, B, or C were the same length as T sch s Experiment Of the seven participants in each group six were confederates or stooges On certain trials all of the stooges unanimously gave the wrong answer sch s Experiment esults 75% of the real participants conformed at least once and gave the obviously wrong answer 5% of the real participants conformed on every single experimental trial n post experimental interviews many of the participants stated that they knew they were giving the wrong answer (i.e. they were demonstrating compliance) They felt great pressure to do this and didn t want to be the only one with a different view even though they knew that their view was the correct one sch s Experiment Further research showed group of only three people was sufficient to create the effect group larger than seven did not increase the conformity level second dissenter reduced conformity rates by 25% even if that dissenter also disagreed with the real participant Conformity levels increased if the group members were perceived to be of high status or had relevant skill Conformity decreased if participants were not face-to-face What is ntelligence? s David Beckham intelligent? s tephen Fry more or less intelligent than Beckham? The problem with intelligence has been finding ways of assessing different types fairly and accurately What is ntelligence? Boring (1923) ntelligence is whatever intelligence tests measure Others argued that intelligence is a single generalised mental ability (g) important for success in mental tasks pecific mental abilities specific to tasks Terman (1916) The power to think abstractedly, to be self critical and adaptive Wechsler (1975) The capacity of a person to understand the world and meet its demands 5

6 Gender dentity Knowing that one is a boy or a girl may be one of the first categories to which children assign themselves; Often they hear they are good girl, good boy, etc.. By the age of 2 children can often identify themselves as either a boy or a girl equential understanding of gender (chaffer, based on albey & Frey, 1975) ge Question asked Type of understanding dentity months tability re you a boy or a girl? 3-4 years Will you be a mummy or a daddy when you grow up? Constancy 6-7years f a boy puts on a dress, will he be a girl? Correctly labels self and others as boy or girl Understands people retain the same gender throughout life ware gender not dependent on changes in appearance (hair, clothes) Ethnic identity wareness of one s ethnicity cultural background. 4-5 year olds children are able to make basic discriminations (e.g. white x black) 8-9 year olds understand that ethnic identity remains constant mith, Cowie and Blades suggest that the development of ethnic awareness follows a process similar to gender identity. Cultural identity Cultural identity is a broader term. eople from multiple ethnic backgrounds may identify as belonging to the same culture. Examples: atin (can include people from Europe and outh merica) ocial groups within one nation may share a broad cultural identity but have distinct ethnic identities (Brazilian, Belgium) European Dual (multiple)-cultural heritage backgrounds (mother ortuguese and father ndian) llusions llusions - otating snakes (Kitaoka, 2003) This is not an animation! 6

7 llusions llusions The diagonal lines are parallel The red lines are the same length ize constancy can create illusions Colour constancy can create illusions mes oom 7