AGP

1. What is Attention?

- • Attention is the act of focusing limited mental resources on speci c

information (Sternberg, 1999).
- • It lters stimuli to focus on relevantinformation, enhancing awareness and
readiness (Hilgard et al., 1975).

2. Types of Attention

- • Selective Attention: Focus on speci c stimuli while ignoring irrelevant ones. It

involves active (e ortful) and passive (involuntary) attention.
- • Divided Attention: Performing multiple tasks simultaneously but may reduce
e ciency (Kahneman, 1973).
- • Sustained Attention: Maintaining focus over a long period, important for tasks like
driving.
- • Alternating Attention: Switching between tasks and returning to the original one.
- • Focused Attention: Concentrating on speci c information, linked to working
memory and executive function.

3. Theories of Attention

- • Broadbent’s Filter Model: Early selection of information based on physical

features; unselected info gets little processing.
- • Treisman’s Attenuation Model: Unattended stimuli are weakened, but
important information (like one’s name) can break through.
- • Capacity Theory: Attention is a limited resource, and task performance
depends on cognitive load and e ort (Kahneman, 1973).

4. Factors In uencing Attention

- • Internal: Interest, motives, past experience, mental setup, and aims.

- • External: Size, intensity, change, contrast, and novelty of stimuli.

5. Neuroscience of Attention

- • Attention is governed by brain networks for alertness, stimulus response, and

executive control (Posner & Petersen, 1990).

6. Attention Disorders
- • ADHD: Characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Subtypes
include combined, inattentive, and hyperactive types.
- • Delirium: Disturbance in consciousness and cognition, uctuating in severity.

Perception
1. De nition of Perception

• Perception is the process of organizing, identifying, and interpreting sensory

information to understand the environment (Schacter, 2011).
• It involves the ve senses and follows the stages of selection, interpretation, and
reaction (Erin & Maharani, 2018).

2. Types of Perception

• Visual Perception: Involves interpreting information from visible light, in uenced

by factors like lighting, distance, and expectations (Goldstein, 2014).
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 • Auditory Perception: The brain interprets sound waves, identifying pitch, volume,
and timbre. Background noise and attention a ect auditory perception (Sternberg, 2016).
• Olfactory Perception: Detects odors and is closely linked with memory and
emotions (Goldstein, 2014).
• Gustatory Perception: Involves detecting tastes like sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and
umami (Sternberg, 2016).
• Tactile Perception: The sense of touch, detecting pressure, temperature, and pain
through skin receptors (Goldstein, 2014).

3. Perceptual Process

• Perceptual Inputs: Environmental stimuli such as objects, events, and people.

• Perceptual Mechanism:
• Selection: The process of focusing on speci c stimuli.
• Organization: Arranging stimuli to make sense.
• Interpretation: Assigning meaning to stimuli based on individual assumptions
(Schneider & Shi rin, 2018).
• Perceptual Outputs: The end result in the form of attitudes, opinions, and
behavior.

4. Factors In uencing Perception

• Factors in the Perceiver: Attitudes, motives, interests, experience, expectations.

• Factors in the Situation: Time, work setting, social setting.
• Factors in the Target: Novelty, motion, sounds, size, background, proximity,
similarity (Robbins & Judge, 2019).

5. Gestalt Principles

• Similarity: Objects that look alike are perceived as a group.

• Proximity: Objects close to each other are perceived together.
• Continuation: The eye follows a path from one object to another.
• Closure: Incomplete objects are seen as whole by lling in gaps.
• Figure & Ground: The ability to distinguish objects from the background.
• Prägnanz: The brain simpli es complex objects into simpler forms.
• Symmetry: Symmetrical objects are seen as uni ed and balanced.

6. Perceptual Disorders

• Hallucinations: Perceptions without external stimuli, e.g., visual, auditory, tactile

hallucinations.
• Illusions: Misinterpretation of real sensory stimuli.
• Sensory Distortions: Altered perception due to intensity changes (hyperaesthesia,
hypoaesthesia) or spatial form changes (micropsia, macropsia).
• Agnosia: Inability to recognize objects, sounds, or shapes despite intact sensory
function.
• Depth Perception Disorders: Di culty judging distance (e.g., strabismus).
• Synesthesia: One sensory modality involuntarily triggers another (e.g., associating
sounds with colors).

Learning
1. De nition of Learning:

• Learning is de ned as a relatively permanent change in behavior resulting from

prior experience (Hilgard, Atkinson & Atkinson, 1979) .

2. Key Elements of Learning:

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 • Behavioral Change: Learning can lead to either positive or negative behavioral
change.
• Result of Practice or Experience: Changes due to growth or maturation are not
considered learning.
• Relatively Permanent: The change must last a signi cant amount of time to be
considered learning .

3. Types of Learning:

1. Motor Learning: Involves acquiring physical skills like walking or driving.

2. Verbal Learning: Learning through language, symbols, and communication.
3. Concept Learning: Involves higher-order thinking, such as reasoning and
understanding.
4. Discrimination Learning: Learning to di erentiate between stimuli (e.g., di erent
vehicle horns).
5. Learning of Principles: Understanding relationships between concepts (e.g.,
mathematical formulas).
6. Problem-Solving: Higher-order learning requiring cognitive processes like
reasoning.
7. Attitude Learning: Development of predispositions that a ect behavior (e.g.,
professional attitudes) .

4. Pavlovian (Classical) Conditioning:

• Unconditioned Stimulus (US): A stimulus that naturally triggers a response (e.g.,

food).
• Unconditioned Response (UR): The natural response to the US (e.g., salivation to
food).
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): A previously neutral stimulus that becomes
associated with the US (e.g., a bell).
• Conditioned Response (CR): The learned response to the CS (e.g., salivation to
the bell).
• Key Concepts: Acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and
discrimination .

5. Operant Conditioning (Skinner):

• Reinforcement: Increases the likelihood of a behavior.

• Positive Reinforcement: Adding a stimulus (e.g., praise) to strengthen a behavior.
• Negative Reinforcement: Removing an aversive stimulus (e.g., stopping nagging)
to strengthen a behavior.
• Punishment: Decreases the likelihood of a behavior.
• Positive Punishment: Adding an unpleasant consequence (e.g., scolding).
• Negative Punishment: Removing a desirable stimulus (e.g., taking away
privileges).
• Schedules of Reinforcement: Includes xed-ratio, variable-ratio, xed-interval,
and variable-interval schedules .

6. Thorndike’s Trial and Error Learning:

• Law of E ect: Behaviors followed by satisfying outcomes are likely to be repeated,

while those followed by unsatisfying outcomes are not.
• Law of Exercise: Practice strengthens behavior connections.
• Law of Readiness: Learning occurs when an individual is ready for it .

7. Insight Learning (Köhler):

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 • Insight Learning: A sudden realization of how to solve a problem (the “Aha!”
moment), often involving cognitive restructuring.
• Stages: Problem recognition, incubation, illumination (insight), and veri cation .

8. Latent Learning (Tolman):

• Latent Learning: Learning that occurs without reinforcement and is not

immediately demonstrated. Knowledge is only used when needed.
• Cognitive Maps: Mental representations of the environment developed through
latent learning .

Disorders
1. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - F42
The essential features of OCD are:
• Obsessions: Recurrent, persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are
experienced as intrusive and unwanted. The individual tries to ignore or suppress these
thoughts, or neutralize them with some other thought or action (i.e., by performing a
compulsion).

• Compulsions: Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand-washing, checking) or mental

acts (e.g., counting, repeating words silently) that the individual feels driven to perform in
response to an obsession. These behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or
reducing anxiety or distress, or preventing some dreaded event or situation, but they are
either excessive or not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize
or prevent.

Criteria:
• The obsessions and/or compulsions are time-consuming (take more than 1
hour per day), or cause clinically signi cant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or
other important areas of functioning.
• The individual recognizes that the obsessions or compulsions are irrational(this insight may be
absent in some cases).
• The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological e ects of a substance
(e.g., drug abuse or medication) or another medical condition.
The symptoms or behaviours are not a manifestation of another medical condition (e.g.
basal ganglia ischaemic stroke), and are not due to the e ects of a substance or medication
on the central nervous system (e.g. amfetamine), including withdrawal e ects.
Symptoms must persist for at least two weeks.

2. Attention-De cit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) - 6A05

ICD-11 de nes ADHD as:
- A persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that is inconsistent with
the individual's developmental level, and causes signi cant impairment in personal, social,
academic, or occupational functioning.
- Inattention: manifests as di culty in sustaining focus, not following through on instructions,
and di culty organizing tasks and activities.
- Hyperactivity-impulsivity: manifests as dgeting, restlessness, inability to remain seated,
and di culty waiting one's turn.

The diagnosis requires that:

- Symptoms begin before the age of 12
- Symptoms are present in two or more settings(e.g., home, school, or work).
- Symptoms must interfere with, or reduce the quality of, social, academic, or occupational
functioning.

3. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) - F84

Autism Spectrum Disorder (referred to as Childhood Autism in ICD-10) involves di culties in
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 social interaction, communication, and behavioral exibility. Symptoms must appear before
the age of 3 years.

Social Interaction Impairments:

• Marked di culties in non-verbal communication (e.g., limited eye contact, facial expressions,
body posture).
• Failure to develop age-appropriate peer relationships.
• Lack of shared enjoyment (e.g., rarely sharing objects or seeking to point out interesting things
to others).
• Impaired social-emotional reciprocity (e.g., reduced back-and-forth conversation, reduced
sharing of interests or emotions).

Communication Impairments:
• Delayed speech development or total lack of speech (without attempts to compensate with
gestures).
• Di culty initiating or sustaining conversations (if speech develops).
• Stereotyped and repetitive use of language, or idiosyncratic language (e.g.,
repeating phrases out of context).
• Lack of varied, spontaneous pretend play or social imitative play.

Repetitive Behaviors and Routines:

• Stereotyped or repetitive movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g.,
hand- apping, lining up toys, echolalia).
• Insistence on sameness, in exible adherence to routines, or ritualized
patterns of behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes).
• Highly restricted, xated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus.
• Hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory input (e.g., indi erence to pain/temperature, adverse
response to speci c sounds or textures).
Symptoms must cause signi cant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning
and cannot be better explained by intellectual disability.

4. Substance Use Disorder (Addiction) - 6C4A

Substance Use Disorder in ICD-11 is de ned by the following criteria:
- Impaired control over substance use (e.g., using larger amounts than intended,
unsuccessful attempts to cut down).
- Strong desire or craving to use the substance.
- Continued use despite harmful consequences, such as physical health problems or social,
occupational, or interpersonal di culties.
- T olerance: requiring more of the substance to achieve the desired e ect.
- Withdrawal symptoms when the substance is not used, or using the substance to relieve
withdrawal.
- Neglect of major roles or activities due to substance use.
The diagnosis is based on at least two or moreof these criteria being present over a
12-month period,causing signi cant distress or impairment
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