Procedural memory is memories of skills and actions.

Procedural memory is non-declarative

(difficult to explain verbally) - ( riding bike, brushing teeth )

episodic memory is memory of life events. episodic memory is declarative (can be expressed
verbally).

Somantic = facts about something

Both types of memories are associated with different areas of the brain.

Slow wave is where muscles repair and grow, deep sleep, slow delta waves, not motor paralysis

Rem sleep is where the brain is restored, rapid delta waves, dreams, motor paralysis

Altered state of consciousness = alert, awareness and consciousness

Depressants - alcohol, benzodiazepines

Mental models
Car point A Point13
Stimulants - nicotine, caffeine

Hallucinogens - lsd, pcp, extasy

Aeroplanes specifics how it works
Opioids - morphine, heroin

Justice what is deserved eat

LANGUAGE

Sounds
• Phonology

Organisation
• Syntax

Meaning
• Semantics

Implied meaning
• Pragmatics

Phonemes
• Smallest units of sound that constitute so each

◦Th, s, a

Morphemes
• Smallest unit of meaning
◦Anti-, house, the, -ing
Phrases
• Groups of words that act as a unit to convey a meaning
◦In the den, the rain in Spain, ate the lolly
Sentences
• Organised sequence of words that express a thought or intention
◦The house is old. Did you get milk?

Phonology is the structure of sounds that can be used to produce words in language

Phonemes

• Basic building blocks

• Humans can produce about 100 (babies more)

• Different languages use different phonemes

◦French soft r’s do not exist in English

Syntax refers to the rules combining different types of words in sentences

• Can be grammatically sensible but it won’t make sense

• Noam Chomsky - “colourless green ideas sleep furiously”

Chomsky also noted that different parts of the brain are responsible for language

◦Aphasia = a disruption of language due to brain damage.

‣ Broca’s aphasia = damage to speech production (makes sense but is slow)

‣ Wernicke’s aphasia = damage to language comprehension (fluent word salad)

Semantics refer to the meaning of a word or sentence

• Morphemes

◦Smallest unit of meaning in a language

• propositional representations

◦Mental sentences that represent unambiguous meaning of assertions

Benjamin Lee Whorf - linguistic relativity principle

The idea that the complexity of a number of words in our language dictates the complexity of
ideas that we can have
Franz Boas - came from the realisation that in England there were countless ways to
refer
to snow
We break colours into categories
Focal colours

• Red, blue, green and yellow

Internominal colours

• Grass green, tan

Boundary colours - on the edge of other colours

• Almost green, or almost yellow

Pragmatics refer to the way that language conveys meaning indirectly by implying rather than
asserting

• Read between the lines

• People with ASD find it tough to pick up on implications

• The basis of metaphors and some humour

Non-verbal communication
• Vocal intonation

• Body language

• Gestures

• Physical distance

• Facial expressions

• Touch

• Non-verbal vocalisations (throat clearing to get attention)

Discourse is the way that people ordinarily speak, hear, read and write in interconnected sentences

• People represent discourse at multiple levels

◦Exact wording

◦Gist or general meaning

◦suspended reality (different time or place)

◦Communication (story telling, idea sharing)

◦Conversation

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

• Empiricism/Nurture
◦Language is entirely learned

• Nativism/Nature
◦Some aspects of language are innate

◦Language acquisition device (LAD) - Chomsky

The case for nurture: B.F. Skinner

• Skinner (a behaviourist) argued that children imitate the utterances of their parents

• Skinner suggested that children receive different reinforcement for speech sounds

• Parents use positive reinforcement and shaping to teach language

The case for nature: Chomsky

• Chomsky argued that language acquisition appears to be universal across culture (could not be
accounted for by learning)

• Children can use complex

grammatical rules long before
they develop other mental
processes (mathematics)

• Language acquisition device

(LAD): an innate set of neural
structures for acquiring
language

Doubling of vocabulary every 2 years up until grade 5

Overextension - label a cat “kitty” and incorrectly use “kitty” when labelling a rabbit or other furry
animals

Underextension - refers to all animals as “animal”, without being more specific

Critical period - time period to Aquire language until it becomes very difficult to learn language

Language exposure before age 7 for fluency

◦Second-language acquisition (left hemisphere lateralisation- 2-5 years)

◦Critical period for pronunciation/phonology

◦Sign language

THOUGHT

Benjamin Lee Whorf stated that language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can
think about

Linguistic relativity hypothesis

• Thoughts are shaped by language

• The language you speak limits your thought

◦More recently it has been argued that this is not entirely true
Thoughts can be conceived of as a language of the mind.

• The language that the brain uses is mental representation

◦Made up of images, or words, or concepts

• interior monologue is the stream of sentences we hear in our mind.

◦Referred to as propositional though in psychology (cats are animals)

• imaginable thought refers to images (minds eye)

• Thought is an extension of perception and memory

◦We can form mental representations of the world

◦ We can recall representations using our memory

◦Thinking involves mentally manipulating the representations to achieve some sort cognitive
purpose

Frontal lobes - thought

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (blue)

• Central role in working memory and
explicit manipulation of representations
(conscious thought)

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (green)

• Plays a role in use of emotional
reactions to guide decision making and
behaviour

Propositional thought = stream of sentences we hear in our mind

Imaginable thought = images we see in our mind

Mental models = allow us to describe or explain, or even make prediction of how things might
work

• a representation that describes, explains, or predicts how things work

◦A neuron and how it works

◦An understanding of quantum physics

‣ Can be scarce or rich

“Research suggests that children who do not develop a secure attachment with a primary caregiver
as infants (particularly those children who have experienced extreme neglect), later in life can
experience problems in romantic relationships, this is theorised to be because their mental model of
how others respond to their needs has not been developed properly or has formed to teach them
that others will not meet their needs and so forming adult attachments can actually be very difficult.
So this mental model is describing something quite abstract but it is attempting to explain how an
individual makes sense of the world and thinks about how things (in this case relationships) work.”

◦Children don’t get enough affection and don’t form attachment with someone (parent/
caregiver)
‣ These children experience relationship problems
‣ This happens because their mental model of how other respond to their needs
isn’t developed properly
◦summary, a mental model and be predicting how the world and many other things
 (relationships) work

THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT MEMORY IS IN MENTAL MODELS

Concepts

• A mental representation of a class of objects, ideas or events that share common properties

Categorisation is how we asign an object to a concept

• Categories based on defining features (dog - 4 legs, tail, fur, and cute)

◦prototype - an abstraction that has been formed using the shared features

‣ We compare objects with a list of defining features

‣
A
prot
otyp
e is
an
abst
racti
on
that
has
bee
n
form
ed
usin
g
the shared features or functions of an object across many instances

◦A prototype bird may look like a lot of birds, but not look like one particular bird

Hierarchy of concepts

1. Basic - broadest most natural level, common interests

2. Superordinate - abstract level in which members share a few common features

3. Subordinate - specific categorisation- level of metaphor

Language

• Nature - innate set of natural structures

• Nurture - learn from caregivers

Language acquisition is universal - we develop language at similar rates, regardless of the

particular language

Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar - innate grammatical rules that facilitate language
development

Overextension = use a label to label more general things (every animal is a dog)

Under extension = too specific (parents car is not the same as every other car)

REASONING

Reasoning is The process of which people generate and evaluate arguments and beliefs

Deductive reasoning - Drawing a conclusion from a set of assumption

◦logical reasoning that draws a conclusion from a set of assumptions and premises that are
based on the rules of logic

Inductive reasoning - reasoning from specific observations to more general propositions

◦An inverted conclusion is made about the probability of some state of affairs, based on the
available evidence and past experiences

‣ Relies heavily on probabilities

Algorithms - step by step procedures that always find a solution if one exists

Mental simulations - imagining the steps involved in problem solving

Means-ends analysis - involves identifying the principle differences between the initial and goal
state, then taking action to reduce ...

Deductive reasoning
• Specific premises are given

◦The dog always barks when there is someone at the door, and the dog barked

• does the premise allow a particular conclusion to be drawn

◦So there is someone at the door

Indicative reasoning
• A conclusion is is made about the probability of some state of affairs, based on the available
evidence and passed experiences

◦Casper is a cat
◦Casper like to take showers
◦Therefor all cats like to take showers
• Generalising from specific instance to an entire category

• Everyday thinking of often includes inductive processes

Deductive reasoning = greater activation in the right hemisphere

Inductive reasoning = greater activation in the left hemisphere

both types are distinct

Syllogism
• A form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given assumed propositions

◦Premise 1 = all 30 year old women are blonde

◦Premise 2 = holly is a 30 year old women

‣ Conclusion = holly is blonde

◦in this case the reasoning was correct and Holly was blonde, however are the premises
logical ? NO

• if the premises are correct, deductive reasoning can lead to the correct certain conclusion

Belief bias is when the conclusions that concur with real world knowledge are judged to be valid

◦If my finger is cut, then it bleeds.

◦My finger has blood on it.
◦Therefore, my finger is cut.
• the logical premises here are overlooked

• Relying on real world knowledge is less effortful than formal reasoning

Belief bias is the tendency to accept conclusions because they are believable, rather than
being logically valid

Analogical reason is the process by which people understand a novel situation in terms of a
familiar one

• we use analogies to categorise novel situations, make inferences, and solve problems

Relational similarity

• Kekule - the molecular structure Benzene

•
surface similarity

• Both methods map from a Base/source to a Target destination

PROBLEM SOLVING

Problem solving

Initial state(starting point, bad state)

Goal state (what we are trying to solve)
Problem solving is going from the initial to the goal state using systematic operators (the
processes to employed to solve the problem)

Well defined problems

• Problems where the initial state, goal state, and operators Re easily determined (e.g. stats,
problems)

I’ll-defined problems
• Occurs when both the information needed to solve the problem and criteria is vague (e.g. leader
tasked with improving morale)

Algorithm
• systematic procedure that will produce a solution to a (simple) problem

Mental stimulation
• Mentally rehearsing the steps needed to solve the problem

Means-ends analysis
• Involves identifying the principle differences between the initial in the goal state then taking action
to reduce the differences

• involves dividing the problem with the subgoals and taking intermediate steps to solutions

◦Golf is an explanation

‣ Initial state = tee

‣ Goal state = flag

Functional fixed ness is the tendency to fixate on a function of an object and to ignore other
possible uses

Duncker’s candle problem

A mental set is the tendency to keep using the same problem solving methods because they
worked in the past

Confirmation bias
• The tendency to search for confirmation of what we already believe

DECISION MAKING

The process by which an individual ways the pros and cons of different alternatives in order to
make a choice

Can involve implicit or explicit processes

Explicit cognition involves

consciou s manipulation of mental
represent ations

Implicit cognition involves the

unconsci ous

◦be haviourist
‣ People can
learn and
discriminate
stimuli without
conscious
thought

 ◦psychodynamic theory
‣ Suggest of the unconscious motives and emotions impact on problem-solving and
decision-making

Heuristics

• Cognitive shortcuts (rules of thumb)

• Representative heuristic : where we match an object in its category but ignore information
about the probability of it occurring

• Availability heuristic: we decide that the events we can easily recall are common and typical

• Bounded rationality States that people are bound by their environment, goals and cognitive
resources