What is the difference between early selection and late selection theories of attention?
Early selection proposes that unattended information is filtered before semantic processing, while late selection proposes that all stimuli are processed for meaning and selection occurs afterward.
What is exogenous orienting?
A shift of attention that is automatically triggered by an external stimulus, such as a sudden flash or movement (e.g., in the Posner cueing paradigm).
How does colour perception work according to trichromatic theory?
Colour perception arises from three types of cone receptors in the retina sensitive to short, medium, and long wavelengths.
What is a key difference between fMRI and EEG as cognitive neuroscience methods?
fMRI has high spatial resolution but poor temporal resolution, while EEG has excellent temporal resolution but poor spatial resolution.
What is the contrast sensitivity function?
A curve describing how sensitive the visual system is to different spatial frequencies; humans are most sensitive to mid-range spatial frequencies (~5–8 cycles/degree).
What did the Ebenholtz reaching vs grasping study show about perception and action?
Visually guided actions like grasping can rely on accurate spatial information even when perceptual judgments are distorted by visual illusions.
What is the Stroop effect?
The delay in naming the ink colour of a word when the word itself names a different colour.
Name four tasks similar to the Stroop task that measure interference or automatic processing.
Examples include the numerical Stroop task, spatial Stroop task, emotional Stroop task, and picture–word interference task.
What is the difference between feature search and conjunction search?
In feature search a target differs by a single feature and pops out automatically; in conjunction search the target is defined by a combination of features and requires serial attention.
What are failures of attention?
Situations where important stimuli are not noticed because attention is limited, such as inattentional blindness or change blindness.
What are the primacy and recency effects?
Primacy refers to better recall of early list items due to rehearsal into long-term memory, while recency refers to better recall of the last items still in working memory.
What are the properties of iconic memory?
It has very large capacity but extremely brief duration, lasting roughly 300–500 milliseconds.
What technique is used to measure iconic memory?
Sperling’s partial-report technique.
What is the Baddeley and Hitch working memory model?
A model proposing working memory consists of a central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer.
What is working memory capacity (WMC)?
The ability to maintain task-relevant information and sustain attention despite interference or distraction.
What is the transfer-appropriate processing principle?
Memory is best when the processes used during encoding match those used during retrieval.
What is infantile amnesia?
The inability of adults to recall episodic memories from early childhood, typically before age 3–4.
What is the reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory?
The tendency for adults to recall a disproportionate number of memories from adolescence and early adulthood.
What is state-dependent memory?
Information learned in a particular physiological or emotional state is recalled better when the same state is reinstated.
What does the ‘Jerry the pot smoking hippie from California’ example demonstrate?
State-dependent memory effects on retrieval.
What is episodic memory?
Memory for personally experienced events including their time and place.
What are inclusion and exclusion conditions in the process-dissociation procedure?
Inclusion allows participants to use any memory to produce a response, while exclusion requires avoiding items from a specific source.
What is the logic behind the inclusion–exclusion procedure?
It separates automatic memory influences from controlled retrieval processes.
What are flashbulb memories?
Vivid memories for emotionally significant events that are held with high confidence but are not necessarily more accurate.
