Cognition PSYC3466 Writing Assignment Paper #1

One of the goals I have for students of Cognition is to be able to relate what they learn in the classroom to real-life situations they find themselves in. Below are a few questions to help you think about the things we've talked about in terms of your actual experience. Pick two questions and answer in a paragraph or so. If you want extra credit, answer number 8.There should be at least two aspects to every answer you give - a description of your experience and an attempt to account for that experience using what you learned in class.1. Describe a real instance of object recognition in as much detail as you can – what sources of information did you use? Is there a bottom-up theory accounts well for your experience? What were the contributions (if any) of top-down processing? 2. Can you think of instances of Gestalt principles in action? If you've ever done any design (in the visual arts, web design, print design, choreography...) have you ever employed a Gestalt law of perceptual organization to help make your display effective? 3. Have you ever experienced sights or sounds that others around you haven't? Ever heard a “bump in the night” that somebody else swears didn't happen? Describe it. How could a top down processing account for such differences in perceptions? 4. Have you ever experienced the cocktail party effect? Describe what happened and try to account for your experience in terms of the theories of selective attention we talked about. 5. Have you ever been in a situation akin to the dichotic listening task? What was it like? What information were you able to remember? What model of attention accords best with your experience?6. Think of a real-life instance of inattentional blindness. Describe why it happens. 7. Think of a real-life example of a visual search. Use feature integration theory to account for how you found (or didn’t find) what you were looking for. 8. Can you divide your attention? Give an example – what makes it easy or hard? With reference to the attention paper we read (Strayer & Drews, 2007), do you think your example supports a single, general purpose resource or multiple, dedicated resources model of attention?