Adapted from by E.Day THE COGNITIVE APPROACH TYPES OF PROCESSING

Adapted from by E.Day Areas of Study Cognition is about internal processes that are often unobservable, e.g.: Perception, Attention, Memory, Visual Imagery, Language, Concept Learning, Reasoning Need converging evidence from different perspectives to really understand cognitive processes ?

Adapted from by E.Day Information Processing Information processing models resemble processing in computers – made cognitive psychology popular Information made available by the environment is processed by a series of processing systems Processing system is a set of processes that work together to accomplish a type of task, using and producing representations as appropriate The major goal of research is to specify these processes and representations

Adapted from by E.Day Types of Processing Bottom-up processing. Processing directly affected by the stimulus input is usually described as stimulus ‑ driven or bottom ‑ up processing. Top-down processing Processing. Processing is influenced by past experience and expectations. These influences constitute top ‑ down or conceptually driven processing.

Adapted from by E.Day Types of Processing Serial processing In serial processing, it is argues that each cognitive process is accessed in turn. (i.e. one process is completed before the next starts) Parallel processing A very different possibility is that some or all of the processes involved in a cognitive task occur at the same time. This is known as parallel processing. Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) One problem with parallel processing is the idea that these processes operate simultaneously but independently of each other. In parallel distributed processing (PDP), cognitive processes operate at the same time and connections between them also influence the final outcome. This approach is also referred to as Connectionism.

Adapted from by E.Day Bottom Up Processing : An early version of the information- processing approach  purely bottom up or stimulus- driven

Adapted from by E.Day A Demonstration of Top-Down Processing

Adapted from by E.Day (Kleffner & Ramachandran, ’92) Why do we seem to have a fairly robust interpretation of which shapes are concave and convex when the perceptual information is perfectly ambiguous? -> perception affected by knowledge Top-down processing: perception affected by knowledge of world

Adapted from by E.Day Sound Induced Illusory Flashes Example of parallel and interactive processing: visual perception affected by auditory perception ucedIllusoryFlash2/ ucedIllusoryFlash2/

Adapted from by E.Day Top-down processing Later stages of processing affect earlier stages  can explain effects of Knowledge, memory, expectations and context

Adapted from by E.Day Serial, Parallel and PDP Processing To illustrate the differences between serial, parallel and parallel distributed processing, consider the Sternberg task Goal: what steps are involved in comparing information to memory? How long do these steps take? Task: give subjects memory sets. E.g Probe memory with targets and foil digits: 9 = “yes”, 6=“no”. Measure reaction time. Vary the size of these memory sets

Adapted from by E.Day Typical Sternberg Results Plot reaction time as function of memory set size and type of trial (targets/foils) What are the implications of seeing a linear increase in reaction time as a function of memory set?

Adapted from by E.Day A serial information processing model for Sternberg task Perceive Stimulus Is it a 3? Is it a 9? 9 Is it a 7? Make Decision yes This serial information processing model predicts a linear increase

Adapted from by E.Day A parallel information processing model for Sternberg task Perceive Stimulus Is it a 3? Is it a 9? 9 Is it a 7? Make Decision yes This parallel information processing model also predicts a linear increase

Adapted from by E.Day A parallel distributed information processing model for Sternberg task Perceive Stimulus Is it a 3? Is it a 9? 9 Is it a 7? Make Decision yes What is the difference between this model and the Parallel model of processing?????