3/29: Intelligence

• * Do NOT have to study Stereotype Threat
• Intelligence- mental quality consisting of ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations
• Measurement of Intelligence
• General Ability or Several Specific Abilities?
• Disagreement on Correlates
• Considered a Concept
• Intelligence = General Ability?
• Charles Spearman: ONE general intelligence (g) underlies specific mental abilities
• score high on one factor, score high on others
• Thurstone
• pioneer of Multiple Factor Analyses
• Several Factors found by statistical analyses on exams of various intellectual abilites 
• given labels such as verbal comprehension, numerical ability, spatial reasoning, and memory
• Gardner: we have independent multiple intelligences
• Gardner's 8 Intelligences
• verbal, spatial, understanding self, nature, math, movement, understanding others, music
• Savant Syndrome: limited mental capacities but an island of exceptional talent
• Hierarchical compromise  between Spearman and Thurstone
• model in which specific abilities existed and were important but were all somewhat related to another and a global general intelligence
• Robert Sternberg: Three Aspects of intelligence
• Analytical: intelligence tests
• Practical: required for everyday tasks
• Creative: adapting to new situations, generating new ideas
• Intelligence vs Creativity
• Creativity: ability to produce novel and valuable ideas
• Intelligence = Creativity
• score 120 necessary but not sufficient for creativity
• very creative, don't tend extreme intelligence
• Convergent vs Divergent thinking
• Convergent = one right answer ; intelligence
• Divergent = multiple answers ; creativity
• sometimes subject to expectations and pressures
• Sternberg's 5 Components of Creativity
• Expertise - some knowledge of what you're being creative with
• Imaginative Thinking Skills - ability to see things in new ways
• Venturesome Personality - tolerate ambiguity, overcome obstacles, talk to many people
• Intrinsic Motivation- not reliant on external rewards
• Creative Environment - mentor, access to internet, etc.
• Emotional Intelligence: managing and understanding emotion
• 4 Components
• Perceive emotions - recognize
• Understand emotions - comprehend the type of emotion
• Manage emotions - help others/self
• Use emotions
• positively correlated with increased job performance
• How Measure Intelligence?
• Small correlation of +.15 head size and intelligence score
• Larger correlation of +.33 brain volume and intelligence score
• more intelligent, more brain synapses
• take in info more quickly and faster brain wave responses to stimuli
• look how individuals think and solve problems
• Trial and error
• Algorithm: step by step procedures
• Insight: solution comes to mind suddenly
• Heuristics: mental shortcuts, rules of thumb
• Heuristics: mental shortcuts to make quick and efficient judgments
• help select apt schema to use for processing
• 4 main types
• Availability heuristic
• Representativeness heuristic
• Anchoring and Adjustment heuristic
• Simulation heuristic
• Availability heuristic: base judgement on ease with which they can bring something to mind
• Representativeness heuristic: classify something on how similar is to a typical case (schema)
• e.g. quiet and organized representss librarian more than manager
• not a problem unless ignore base rate information
• Anchoring and Adjustment heuristic: uses number or value as starting point and adjusts one's answer away from anchor
• don't often adjust away from anchor enough
• most common anchor = self
• Simulation heuristic: ease of imagining something happening, influences reactions to it
• e.g. bronze medalists happier than silver medalists
• Intelligence test: assessing mental aptitudes and comparing to others
• Francis Galton: 1st psychologist to develop mental tests
• measures now outdated
• all intelligent people together, breed more intelligent race
• IQ test
• first made by Alfred Binet
• assumed all children follow same intellectual development
• Mental age: age at which child was performing at, relative to chronological age
• goal: ID children that needed help
• Lewis Terman
• Binet's norms didn't fit Californian children
• Adapted Binet's IQ test
• Stanford-Binet (SB) Intelligence Quotient
• IQ= mental age/chronological age x 100
• worked for children but not adults
• Current IQ test
• represents test-taker's ability relative to average performance of other own age
• average = 100
• WAIS: most commenly used intelligence test
• yields single full-scale intelligence score, 4 index scores and 12 specific subset scores
• Hierarchical model of intelligence with "g" and specific areas of ability "s"
• Like SB IQ, raw scores compared with age-based experiences
• average = 100 standard deviation = 15
• 2 Types of Mental Ability tests
• Aptitude tests: predict ability to learn new skill (SAT)
• Achievement tests: reflect what you already know (exams)
• Analogies: measure both aptitude and achievement
• Principals of Test Construction
• 3 Criteria
• Standardized
• Reliable
• Valid
• Standardized: person's performance meaningfully compared to others
• Reliable: dependably consistent scores
• two halves of test
• re-testing
• SB, and WAIS have +.9 reliability
• Valid: measures what it's supposed to
• Predictive validity: predict later performance
• Nature vs Nurture in Intelligence
• Genetic component
• Identical twins reared together = virtually same score
• Identical twins reared apart scores suggests 70% of intelligence is genetic
• ranges 50-75%
• Genes importnat to intelligence and learning disabilities
• Polygenetic: many genes involved, each less than 1% of variance in intelligence
• Environmental component
• adoption enhances intelligence scores of mistreated and neglected children
• fraternal twins tend score alike based on how treated
• Plomin and DeFries
• Adopted and children's scores correlate highly with birth parents

3/27: Application of Memory

• Eyewitness Testimony
• Eyewitness are often wrong!!
• Why are Eyewitnesses Wrong? - 3 Stages of Eyewitness Error
• Acquisition: Info Perceived
• Storage: Info Stored in Memory
• Retrieval: Info Retrieved Later Time
• Acquisition, Stage 1
• Influential Factors
• Time viewing event, night, Lighting conditions
• Brief Exposure, Poor Lighting, etc.
• Narrowed Focus
• Arousal and Emotions
• Weapons-focus effect
• weapon present, difficult to pay attention to culprit or anything else
• Own-Race Bias: people are better at recognizing faces of their own race than others
• Familiarity with own race but not other races
• "They all look alike"
• mock witnesses likely to accuse people of other races
• Platz and Hosch, 1988
• Clerks recognized more customers that were of their own race
• Storage, Stage 2
• Misinformation effect: tendency for False Positive info to become part of people's memory of an event
• Loftus and Palmer, 1974
• video clip of car crash, original info of car crash =  memory
• three misleading questions, smashed/hit/contacted caused them to retrieve info not accurate
• Loftus, Miller and Burns, 1978
• car stopped at stop sign; car stopped at yield sign
• change info about event, change occurs in memory of event
• Loftus, 2004
• "lost in mall procedure: paricipants given 3 real memories and 1 false memory of being lost in mall
• asked to elaborate on stories 24-48 hrs later, 25% recalled vivid details of being lost in mall
• Malleability of Memory: changing beliefs or memories can influence what people think or do later
• Misinformation effect has been applied by Loftus to many situations
• May be Function of Source Monitoring
• Difficulty of remembering what the source was for each piece of info- e.g. saw stop sign, questioned about yield sign
• Info not Tagged correctly
• Recovered Memories: memories, typically of sexual abuse, "recovered" often via therapist help
• most academics argue against this
• False memory syndrome: people can recall a past traumatic event that is objectively false but they believe is true
• Vivid memories acquired especially if Suggested by another person like therapist
• Typically lack other objective findings to support claims
• Retrieval, Stage 3
• Foils
• 4-8 
• Should Look like Actual suspect
• Goal: Reduce actual suspect's Distinctiveness
• Instructions
• Biased-  pressure to pick someone, even if unsure
• " Pick the assailant" or "Concentrate and make a choice"
• more likely to make a false ID
• Fair- "suspect may or may not be here"
• Format
• Sequential lineups or "showups" are better
• Compare each face individually to memory of perpetrator
• Absolute Judgment
• Simultaneous lineups
• like multiple choice - which one best
• Relative Judgment
• Avoid Familiarity Bias
• Familiarity-induced bias: forget where we saw a face we recall
• don't include actual suspects in initial lineup
• People do not always remember where they saw a face
• Detecting Deception
• Use skills at decoding non-verbal behavior...
• average person- slightly better than chance at detecting deception
• Training and Practice can Improve one's skills
• Zukerman (1981)
• 4 Channels for Evaluating Deception
• words, face, body, voice
• Words and face = controllable
• Body = more revealing
• fidgety movements, restless shifts in posture
• Voice = best clue
• pitch rises, and more hesitations

3/22: Memory

• Memory: persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information
• Personally Constructed
• events with more Personal Meaning = more easily remembered
• Function of Synaptic Changes
• Experience strengthens and makes more efficient neural connections= Long term potentiation
• more sensitized receptors, sending neuron needs less prompting to release nt
• Flashbulb memory: clear memory of emotionally significant moment or event
• may be function of emotion-triggered hormonal changes
• may be accurate directly after event
• not as accurate years later
• Stimulus----Sensory Memory--Attention---Short Term Memory---Encoding----Long-term Memory
• Sensory memory: immediate, inital record of sensory info
• Short-term memory: holds few items briefly
• Long-term memory: relatively permanent and limitless storehouse
• retrieval- process from long-term to short-term memory to access memory
• Encoding
• Automatic Processing: unconscious encoding of incidental info like space, time, frequency
• little-no effort
• Effortful Processing: encoding that requires attention and conscious effort
• Rehearsal helps
• Recency vs Primacy effects
• Recency-  just saw it,  in sensory memory
• Primacy- had time to rehearse, in short-term memory
• Durable and Accessible memories often produced
• info audible during sleep, not remembered; 1 hour before sleep - optimal memory
• Retain info better = Distributed over Time
• Many different pathways to encode info
• Visual Encoding: encoding to picture images
• more powerful with concrete imagery than abstract
• Acoustic encoding: encoding of sound
• Semantic encoding: encoding of meaning
• Craik and Tulving study: learning is easier when something has meaning
• ?Best: Imagery + Semantic
• Self-reference effect
• link meaning of something to yourself makes learning easier
• Mnemonic devices help remembering
• Chunking: organizing items into familiar, manageable units
• Hierarchies: subdividing concepts broad---narrow e.g. outline
• Storage
• Short-term: about 7 (giver or take 2) or 4
• Long-Term: limitless
• Memory does not reside in one single spot
• probably occurs in synapses and their neurotransmitters and hippocampus
• Arousal can enhance
• tragic, vividly remembered
• Weaker emotions, weaker memories
• flashbulb memories
• Retrieval
• Recall: ability to retrieve info not in conscious awareness
• Retrieval cues: help call stored info
• come from associations during encoding
• Priming
• elderly study
• Context effects: context of encoding = context retrieves info, remember better
• Deja vu: current situation, similar cues to earlier experience
• Mood-congruent memory: mood of storage = mood of recall, remember better
• Forgetting
• Absent-mindedness: inattention to details produces encoding failures
• Transience: storage decay over time
• Blocking: inaccessibility of stored info
• Misattribution: confusing info source
• Suggestibility: lingering effects of misinfo
• Bias: belief-colored recollections
• misconstruing past info
• Causes of Forgetting
• failure to encode info
• storage decay
• Retrieval failure: 
• lack of relevant cues
• tip of tounge phenomenon
• not enough cues to access all
• Proactive interference: learning earlier info can interfere learning later info
• Retroactive interference: new info takes place of old info
• hour before sleep is an exception
• Motivated Forgetting: remembering things differently than happened
• motivated cognition: memory portray self in positive light
• Repression: defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts,feelings, memories
• Memory Improvement Tips
• Overlearn
• Actively rehearse and think about material
• make material personally meaningful
• use mnemonic devices
• recreate encoding situation and mood
• study before sleeping or no other interference
• test knowledge
• Amnesia
• results from many kind of brain damage, particualry hippocampus
• two main types
• Anterograde amnesia:new info cannot be stored in long-term memory
• Retrograde amnesia: can't recall events preceding accident
• also cause by damage to prefrontal cortex
• Korsakoff's sydnrom
• alcohol runs down vitamin 
• Confabulations
• making things up to fill the gap in memory\
• Can show signs of implicit memory but not explicit memory
• implicit: how to do something (unconscious)
• other brain areas including cerebellum
• unable to declare
• skills 
• explicit: memory of facts and experiences that one can know and declare (conscious)
• hippocampus

3/20: Observational learning -Media Violence

• —9 out of 10 teens watch TV daily
• —Americans who live to be 75 will have spent 9 years watching TV
• —The number of minorities on TV is disproportional
• —Minorities are depicted as illegal immigrants, drugees, gangbangers, maids, garbage men
• —U.S. TVs present 3 violent acts per hour during prime time, and 18 per hour during children’s Saturday morning programming
• US has highest murder rate among developed countries globally 
• More than 15,000 murders every year
• More than 92,000 reported rapes
• More than 7 million reported violent acts overall
• Every 5 minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime
• More than 50% of 5th graders report being a victim of violence (70% of those have seen weapons used)
• Guns kill an American child every 3 hours
• 87% of crimes are nonviolent; on TV 13% of crimes are nonviolent
• Average of 7  characters are killed on TV each night
• If applied in reality, this murder rate would wipe out U.S. population in 50 days
• Men gave more shocks after viewing violent erotica
• Violent erotica and other aggression can lead to desensitization
• conditioned stimulus = sexualized violence
• Media Violence
• #1 pastime
• 60-70% programs contain violence
• 70-80% show no remorse or penalty
• post elementary school
• thousands murders seen
• Since 1970s, know Link: Violent Media and Aggression
• Two Kind of Effects
• Short Term- increase in: hostile behavior, feelings, and attitudes
• Long Term- repeated exposure leads to: chronic hostility, desensitization to real violence
• Lab Studies:
• participants exposed violence more likely
• shock confederates
• recognize aggressive words
• criticisms
• exposure is brief and controlled
• experimenter bias: aggression may be sanctioned or encouraged
• no external validity
• External Validity is NOT a problem positive correlation
• Conditions likely to evoke violence
• Realistic violence
• e.g. video game graphics look very real and credible
• Reward/punishment of aggressor
• points system = direct reward, positive ending
• Arousal of observer
• violence to character elicits reaction
• ID of observer with aggressor
• immersion as if you were the aggressor
• Moral justification for violence
• violence needed in order to ___
• Longitudinal study
• Eron and Huesman (1960 -1985 various years)
• aggressiveness in 3rd graders, then again 10 years later
• result: Preference for TV violence significant correlation with  more10 year later aggressiveness
• BUT: aggressiveness in 3rd grade did not correlate with more preference for TV violence 10 years later
• follow up results: 
• more frequent TV at age 8, more serious crimes at age 30
• significant relationship violent TV and agressive behavior 1-22 years (various countries same)
• Liebert and Baron, 1972
• 15 min exposure to nonviolent and violent tv
• violent media associated with increased levels of aggression
• Video Games
• 90% 2-17 years play
• Specific effects due nature of game
• Columbine attacks: "Doom"
• Graphically violent games
• Increase Aggressive thoughts and behavior
• Related to Aggressive Behavior and Delinquency
• Violence is Directly Rewarded
• Increases Likelihood of Aggression
• Association between Media Violence and Aggression is Second Only to Smoking and Lung Cancer
• Primes Aggression; Catharsis Does NOT Work!
• Media Industry Responses
• Mirror to society
• False TV far more violent
• Giving Public what they want
• Maybe, sociteal violence hazardous by product; popular shows can be nonviolent
• Violence Sells
• False. Decreases memory for commercial messages

3/6: Learning

• Learning: relatively permanent chamge in an organism's behavior due to experience
• habituation = simplest form of learning
• Associative Learning: learning that certain events occur together
• Conditioning: process of learning associations
• Behaviorism: psychology should be an objective science, no reference to mental processes
• Classical Conditioning: learning associations and to anticipate events
• Pavlov = discoverer
• dogs' salivation experiment
• UCS = food
• UCR = drool
• CS = preceding bell
• CR = drool at bell's sound
• US (unconditioned stimulus) - stimulus that triggers UCR
• UR (unconditioned response) - an unlearned response
• CS (conditioned stimulus) - previously neutral stimulus (bell) that evokes conditioned response
• CR (conditioned response) - learned response to conditioned stimulus
• Principles of Classical Conditioning
• Acquisition: initial stage in associating neutral stimulus with an US
• Generalization: the CR can occur to stimuli that are similar to the CS
• Discrimination: the CR will NOT occur for ALL stimuli that are similar to the CS
• Extinction: pairing of CS and US stops, CR becomes weaker until it ceases
• Watson and Behaviorism
• founded behaviorism in reaction to introspection
• applied Pavlov's classical conditioning to "Little Albert" experiment
• white rat (CS) paired with loud noise (US) to induce fear (UR). later Albert feared the rat (CR)
• "Little Peter" experiment
• Systematic desensitization: repeated pairings of CS without US to extinguish classically conditioned responses
• treatment for phobia
• systematically associate an object without fearing it
• car phobia: every time give ice cream(CS) to person 
• Pavlov's Contributions
• most organisms can learn via classical conditioning
• process of learning can be studied objectively
• modern applications of conditioning
• phobia patients take small steps
• drug addicts stay away from places associated with prior highs
• Biology of Conditioning
• Natural selection favor traits that aid survival
• e.g, taste aversion to food with food poisoning
• Classical vs Operant Conditioning
• Classical Conditioning- forms associations between an already held response and new stimuli
• doesn't control outcomes
• Operant Conditioning: forms associtations between its behavior and its consequences
• 
  
• Organism controls outcomes
• Operant Conditioning: forms associtations between its behavior and its consequences
• B.F. Skinner
• believed that environmental consequences control all behavior = deterministic
• no room for personality or intenral components
• Skinner chamber
• strengthened - reinforcer        diminished - punisher
• based on Throndike's law of effect : rewarded behavior is likely to recur
• Positive Reinforcer : strengthens response through presentation of positive stimulus (reward)
• Negative Reinforcer: strengthens response through removal of an aversive stimulus
• Different reinforcer schedules
• Continuous vs. Intermittent reinforcement
• extinction of CR happened far more quickly in continuous type
• intermittent- random, never know when- hope
• e.g., gambler
• Punishment: negative event that follows undesired behavior that decreases likelihood of response
• 4 main drawbacks
• Behavior is suppressed but not forgotten
• Punishment teaches discrimination
•  can use cuss words around friends but not parents
• Punishment can teach fear
• Physical punishment can increase aggressiveness by modeling aggression
• Examples in real life
• clinical purposes: biofeedback
• hook up to machine to learn what feelings induce high blood presurre
• employees reinforced with cash, time off, vacations
• training animals
• Intrinsic vs Extrinsic motivations
• Intrinsic motivation: because seen as enjoyable
• Extrinsic motivation: because of reward/pressure
• Overjustification effect: overestimate extrinsic rewards and underestimate intrinsic motivation
• extrinsic rewards decrease intrinsic motivations = loss of interest in once enjoyed activity
• Observational Learning: learning by observing and modeling behavior of others
• possible reason -presence of mirror neurons in frontal lobe next to motor cortex
• Influential Factors
• if model is the same sex and behaves in a gender-role congruent way
• positive relationship between model and subject
• consequences of model are positive 
• model in position of power

3/1/12: Perception

• Perception is not always a replication of reality
• mind plays tricks on us
• Selective attention: process a limited amount of info and block out all other info
• Cocktail party effect: ability to attend to only one voice among many

Perceptual Organization

• Perceptual Organization: organize perception to transform sensory info into meaningful perceptions
• Visual Capture: tendency for vision to retain dominant influence over other senses
• Perceptual Illusions
• visual system predicts what we think will happen
• Context Effect
• Gestalt: tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes
• perceive parts as one whole of a different type, ex: flag made out of bunch of mini pictures
• Figure and Ground: organization of the visual field into objects (figures) and backgrounds (ground)
• ex: two faces that make up a vase
• Proximity: grouping nearby figures together 
• Similarity: group figures that are similar
• Continuity: perceive continuous patterns
• Connectedness:  spots, lines, and areas are seen as one unit when connected
• Closure: fill in gaps to make sense of it

Depth Perception

• Depth Perception: function of ability to see things in three dimensions which enable us to estimate distance from us
• acquired knowledge
• Binocular cues: dependent on both eyes
• Monocular Cues: depth cues that are available to each eye alone
• Relative Height: objects higher in vision seen as further away
• Relative Size: if two objects are same size, the one that's smaller is perceived to be farther away
• Interposition: if an object blocks our view of another, it's perceived to be closer
• Linear Perspective: parallel lines that appear to converge convey distance; more they converge, greater distance
• Light and Shadow: light= closer dimmer = farther away; shading = info about light source

Perceptual Consistency: ability to recognize objects to be the same despite differences

• Shape consistency: understanding the object may have different shape based on angle of view
• Size consistency: objects have consistent size even when distance changes
• reciprocal relationship between size and distance
• e.g. car at a distance
• Brightness Contrast
• different context can trick us
• e.g: board example
• Color Consistency
• depends on more than wavelength info received by cones
• • also on context
• perceive color as function of light reflected relative to surrounding objects
• Comparisons govern perceptions

Perceptual Interpretation

• Perceptual Set: mental predisposition perceive one thing and not another
• experiences, assumptions, expectations = influences on perception
• Schemas
• Summary
• Perception influenced by:
• Biological 
• sensrory analyis
• unlearned visual phenomena
• Psychological
• selective attention
• kearned schemas
• Gestalt principles
• context effects
• perceptual set
• Social-cultural
• expectations and assumptions
• Extrasensroy Perception
• Parapsychology: study of paranormal psychology
• Extrasensory Perception: perception can occur apart from sensory input
• Telepathy: read/transmit thoughts into people's minds
• Clairvoyance: perceiving remote events
• Precognition: see the future