KHA 454 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Alpha Wave, Visual Search, Pyramidal Cell
30 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Advanced Topics in Psychology: week 1
Brain Computer Interface
Aims:
- Relate issues to theory and empirical research
- Undertake a critical evaluation of one of the advanced level topics
Brain Computer Interface:
- Converging
oHow do we bring these all together?
oTopics can benefit from learning from multiple techniques
oThe more understood and learned topics can inform the modern and new,
upcoming techniques
And vice versa
- Using multiple Interdisciplinary techniques in cognitive science
oGoal is to predict human behaviour
oTradition: investigate questions using techniques drawn from
experimental psychology/psychophysics/psychometrics
Different words for the same thing
oThe aim of nearly all cognitive psychology topics
This is what we are taught psychology is
Apply these questions to everyday situations
oEg. Reaction times, error rates, eye tracking, questionnaires…
- Cognitive neuroscience:
oGoal is to understand what is going on in the human brain
oWhat are the mechanisms underlying behaviour
oTradition: investigate questions using techniques drawn from the
neurosciences: animal neurophysiology, human neuroimaging
- Theoretical, computational psychology:
oFrameworks, theories that can explain cognitive phenomenon
oTradition: provide simple frameworks that can explain, reproduce most
existing behavioural data relating to particular questions
- Truly interdisciplinary cognitive science:
oGoal: predict human behaviour and understand the underlying neuro-
dynamics
oApproach:
Provide comprehensive, mathematically explicit, computational
frameworks that:
Are neurobiological-ly plausible
Can reproduce existing behavioural date
Make concrete, testable predictions about behaviour and the
brain
Then test the predictions using behavioural and neuro-scientific
techniques and update the model accordingly
oGoal of theories is to predict!!!
oPredictions drive empirical work
oIncorporate new info into the model/theory, and then make new predictions
- Behaviour
- Neuroscience
- Brain imaging
- Modeling
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Future in cognitive science in dependent on converging interdisciplinary techniques
- For example; behaviour, neuroimaging etc..
- Open to all techniques
- Integrating all these techniques and expertise
- So many aspects, areas that are important and advanced
- Lots of ways to do cognitive neuroscience
IOR: inhibition of return
- Slowed responses to stimuli at previously attended locations, relative to unattended
locations
oRelative to anywhere else
oPosner and Cohen (1984)
Named in 1985
- Function, evolutionary significance: the main idea
oNovelty seeking
oForaging facilitation
oYou see a rock in the Savanna and think it’s a Lion: it will still be salient
oNeed this mechanism so that we don’t keep on looking at it and thinking it’s
the same thing
oStops you re-attending and going back to the same locations
oOne of the mechanisms of attention and cueing
IOR has a specific name and purpose
Eg. Sensory adaptation
Interact in weird ways under different contexts
This can make it hard to study IOR because other mechanisms also
interacting and at play
Key area of research is to isolate IOR so you know you are purely
measuring/assessing this mechanism
oAn example of how this approach has been applied, but that is not essential
- Typical laboratory paradigm
oPosner paradigm
oThe classic paradigm
oSimple as you can get
oFixation point cue ISI Target
oOvertime
oRun the experiment:
On average only some of you show IOR
20-30ms of IOR that is statistically significant
Out of a group of 12 or so
oCue:
Central or peripheral
oISI:
Shorter vs. longer durations
oTarget:
Tell you to look at the target: need to move your eyes
Activating lots of brain systems eg. Occipital lobes…
Most ecologically valid: more likely to apply in the real world
oFacilitation:
Takes firing a while to go back down to base line
If something interrupts then you are faster to go back to baseline
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Behavioural results:
oPsychophysics
oCTOA: in milliseconds
oCue target onset asynchrony
oTime between when the cue appears and the target comes on
Different to the ISI (somehow)
oCued vs. uncued
On the correct side or not
oFacilitation
Subtract uncued from cued (larger from smaller)
oInhibition
IOR
Subtract the cued from the uncued (or the larger one from the smaller
one)
oFaster when CTOA is close together, slower when far apart
oEye tracking devices:
Tells us whether people actually are fixated at the beginning
Therefore lots of the earlier research is not relevant
If you move your eyes some of the time, but not all of the trials… this
is inaccurate
You are measuring two different things
Only matters for some types of tasks: especially attention studies
- Why do we care?
oApplication of this research
oVisual search tasks in real life
oLooking for a target (eg. Your car) so you search around, you don’t want to
keep going back to the same, incorrect car
oYou want to facilitate your search
oMore complicated:
When there is more than one target in the real world
When there is more than one fixation point
Go back to the same number (get to 6 then go back to 5)
IOR applies here like in the spatial cueing paradigm
Your are slower to go backwards
Going forward is easier than going backwards
Because of the way it is implemented in the brain
oReal scene vs. lab scenes
Searching for humans? Is there someone there?
Versus. Searching for a horizontal line among lots of different
oriented lines
oRobotics:
Need some kind of IOR mechanism
Programming a robot to explore
Assign salience to items in the environments
If it is highly salient then it will remain so
Eg a rock that looks like a lion
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Relate issues to theory and empirical research. Undertake a critical evaluation of one of the advanced level topics. Converging: how do we bring these all together, topics can benefit from learning from multiple techniques, the more understood and learned topics can inform the modern and new, upcoming techniques. Using multiple interdisciplinary techniques in cognitive science: goal is to predict human behaviour, tradition: investigate questions using techniques drawn from experimental psychology/psychophysics/psychometrics. Different words for the same thing: the aim of nearly all cognitive psychology topics. This is what we are taught psychology is. Apply these questions to everyday situations: eg. Cognitive neuroscience: goal is to understand what is going on in the human brain, what are the mechanisms underlying behaviour, tradition: investigate questions using techniques drawn from the neurosciences: animal neurophysiology, human neuroimaging. Theoretical, computational psychology: frameworks, theories that can explain cognitive phenomenon, tradition: provide simple frameworks that can explain, reproduce most existing behavioural data relating to particular questions.
