everything.study
9.63

Laboratory in Cognitive Science

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2009 · Laboratory in Visual Cognition

9.63 teaches principles of experimental methods in human perception and cognition, including design and statistical analysis. The course combines lectures and hands-on experimental exercises and requires an independent experimental project. Some experience in programming is desirable. To foster improved writing and presentation skills in conducting and critiquing research in cognitive science, students are required to provide reports and give oral presentations of three team experiments. A fourth individually conducted experiment includes a proposal with revision, and concluding written and oral reports.

Readings

  • Wolfe, Jeremy M., Todd S. Horowitz, and Naomi M. Kenner. “Rare Items Often Missed in Visual Searches.” Nature 435 (2005): 439-440.
    Listed reading
  • McBurney, Donald H., and Theresa L. White. Research Methods . 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004, chapters 5 and 8. ISBN: 9780534524180.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • McBurney, Donald H., and Theresa L. White. Research Methods . 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004, chapters 5, 7, 8, and 11. ISBN: 9780534524180.
    Listed reading
  • Treisman, Anne. “Features and Objects in Visual Processing.” Scientific American 255, no. 5 (1986): 114-125.
    Listed reading
  • Wolfe, Jeremy M. “Guidance of Visual Search by Preattentive Information.” In Neurobiology of Attention . Edited by Itti, L, Rees, G. and John K. Tsotsos, Maryland Heights, MO: Academic Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780123757319.
    Listed reading
  • Wolfe, Jeremy M., and Todd S. Horowitz. “What Attributes Guide the Deployment of Visual Attention and How do They do it?” Neuroscience 5, no. 5 (2004): 495-501.
    Listed reading
  • Adelson, Edward H., and James R. Bergen. “Spatiotemporal Energy Models for the Perception of Motion.” J Opt Soc Am A 2, no. 2 (1985): 284-299.
    Listed reading
  • Anstis, Stuart, Giaschi, Deborah, and Alexander I. Cogan. “Adaptation to Apparent Motion.” Vision Res 25, no. 8 (1985): 1051-1062.
    Listed reading
  • Koriat, Asher. “Object-Based Apparent Motion.” Perception and Psychophysics 56, no. 4 (1994): 392-404.
    Listed reading
  • Muckli, Lars., et al. “Apparent Motion: Event-Related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Perceptual Switches and States.” J Neurosci 22 (2002): 1-5.
    Listed reading
  • Maki, William S., Frigen Karen, and Paulson, Kristen. “Associative Priming by Targets and Distractors During Rapid Serial Visual Presentation: Does Word Meaning Survive the Attentional Blink?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 23, no. 4 (1997): 1014-1034.
    Listed reading
  • Raymond, Jane E., Kimron L. Shapiro, and Karen M. Arnell. “Temporary Suppression of Visual Processing in an RSVP Task: An Attentional Blink?” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 18, no. 3 (1992): 849-860.
    Listed reading
  • Chun, Marvin M., and Mary C. Potter. “A Two-Stage Model for Multiple Target Detection in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 21, no. 1 (1995): 109-127.
    Listed reading
  • Nieuwenstein, Mark R., and Mary C. Potter. “Temporal Limits of Selection and Memory Encoding.” Association for Psychological Science 17, no. 6 (2006): 471-475.
    Listed reading
  • Andrews, P. R., and F. W. Campbell. “Images at the Blind Spot.” Nature 353, no. 308 (1991).
    Listed reading
  • Araragi, Y., Ito, Hiroyuki, and S. Sunaga. “Appearance of an Illusory Object in the Blind Spot.” Perception 37 (2008): 1301-1304.
    Listed reading
  • Rosch, Eleanor. “Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104, no. 3 (1975): 192-233.
    Listed reading
  • Rosch, E., C. Simpson, and Scott R. Miller. “Structural Bases of Typicality Effects.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 2, no. 4 (1976): 491-502.
    Listed reading
  • Edelman, Shimon, and Sharon. Duvdevani-Bar. “A Model of Visual Recognition and Categorization.” Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 352, no. 1358 (1997): 1191-1202.
    Listed reading
  • Winkielman, Piotr., et al. “Prototypes Are Attractive Because They Are Easy on the Mind.” Association for Psychological Science 17, no. 9 (2006): 799-806.
    Listed reading
  • Komatsu, Hidehiko. “The Neural Mechanisms of Perceptual Filling-in.” Neuroscience 7, no. 9 (2006): 220-231.
    Listed reading
  • Pessoa, L., E. Thompson, and A. Noe. “Finding out About Filling-in: A Guide to Perceptual Completion for Visual Science and the Philosophy of Perception.” Behavior and Brain Sciences 21 (1998): 723-802.
    Listed reading
  • Matsumoto, Masayuki, and Hidehiko Komatsu. “Neural Responses in the Macaque V1 to Bar Stimuli With Various Lengths Presented on the Blind Spot.” J Neurophysiol 93 (2005): 2374-2387.
    Listed reading
  • Rensink, Ronald A., Kevin J. O’Regan, and James J. Clark. “TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE: The Need for Attention to Perceive Changes in Scenes.” American Psychological Society 8, no. 5 (1997): 368-373..
    Listed reading
  • Simons, Daniel J., Gabriel Nevarez, and Walter R. Boot. “Visual Sensing Is Seeing.” American Psychological Society 16, no. 7 (2005): 520-524.
    Listed reading
  • Simons, Daniel J. “Attentional Capture and Inattentional Blindness.” Trends in Cognitive Society 4, no. 4 (2000): 147-155.
    Listed reading
  • Rensink, Ronald A. “Change Detection.” Annu Rev Psychol 53 (2002): 245-277.
    Listed reading
  • Simons, Daniel J., and Michael S. Ambinder. “Change Blindness.” American Psychological Society 14, no. 1 (2005): 44-48.
    Listed reading
  • Levin, Daniel T., Nausheen Momen, and Sarah B. Drivdahl. “Change Blindness Blindness: The Metacognitive Error of Overestimating Change-detection Ability.” Visual Cognition 7 (2000): 397-412.
    Listed reading
  • O’Regan, Kevin J., Ronald A. Rensink, and James J. Clark. “Change-Blindness as a Result of ‘Mudsplashes.’” Nature 398 (1999): 34.
    Listed reading
  • Simons, Daniel J., Steven L. Franconeri, and Rebecca L. Reimer. “Change-Blindness in the Absence of a Visual Disruption.” Perception 29 (2000): 1143-1154.
    Listed reading
  • Simons, Daniel J., and Daniel T. Levin. “Change-Blindness.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 1, no. 7 (1997): 261-267.
    Listed reading
  • Hollingworth, Andrew, and John M. Henderson. “Accurate Visual Memory for Previously Attended Objects in Natural Scenes.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 28, no. 1 (2002): 113-136.
    Listed reading
  • Wolfe, Jeremy M., and Todd S. Horowitz. “What Attributes Guide the Deployment of Visual Attention and How do They do it?” Perspectives 5 (2004): 1-7.
    Listed reading
  • Chun, Marvin, M. “Contextual Cueing of Visual Attention.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4, no. 5 (2000): 170-178.
    Listed reading
  • Vickery, Timothy J., Li-Wei King, and Yuhong Jiang. “Setting up the Target Template in Visual Search.” Journal of Vision 5 (2005): 81-92.
    Listed reading
  • Wolfe, Jeremy, M. “Moving Towards Solutions to Some Enduring Controversies in Visual Search.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7, no. 2 (2003): 70-76.
    Listed reading
  • Horowitz, Todd, S., and Jeremy M. Wolfe. “Visual Search has no Memory.” Nature 394 (1998): 575-577.
    Listed reading
  • Neider, Mark, B., and Gregory J. Zelinsky. “Scene Context Guides Eye Movements During Visual Search.” Vision Research 46 (2006): 614-621.
    Listed reading
  • Oliva Aude, Jeremy M. Wolfe, and Helga C. Arsenio. “Panoramic Search: The Interaction of Memory and Vision in Search Through a Familiar Scene.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 30, no. 6 (2004): 1132-1146.
    Listed reading
  • Standing, Lionel. “Learning 10,000 Pictures.” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 25 (1973): 207-222.
    Listed reading
  • Loftus, Geoffrey R. “Observations.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 11, no. 2 (1985): 397-406.
    Listed reading
  • Anderson, John R., and Lael J. Schooler. “REFLECTIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN MEMORY.” American Psychological Society 2, no. 6 (1991): 396-408.
    Listed reading
  • Schacter, Daniel L. “The Seven Sins of Memory.” American Psychologist 54, no. 3 (1999): 182-203.
    Listed reading
  • Wixted, John T. “A Theory About Why We Forget What We Once Knew.” American Psychologist 14, no. 1 (2005): 6-9.
    Listed reading
  • Standing, L., et al. “Perception and Memory for Pictures: Single-Trial Learning of 2500 Visual Stimuli.” Psychon Sci 19, no. 2 (1970): 73-74.
    Listed reading
  • Potter, Mary C. “Short-Term Conceptual Memory for Pictures.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 2, no. 5 (1976): 509-522.
    Listed reading
  • Sinha, Pawan, et al. “Face Recognition by Humans: Nineteen Results All Computer Vision Researchers Should Know About.” Proceedings of the IEEE 94, no. 11 (2000): 1948-1962.
    Listed reading
  • Bruce, Vicki. In the Eye of the Beholder: The Science of Face Perception . New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780198524403.
    Listed reading
  • Serre, T., A. Oliva, and T. Poggio. “A Feedforward Architecture Accounts for Rapid Categorization.” PNAS 104, no. 15 (2007): 6424-6429.
    Listed reading
  • Masland, Richard H., and Paul R. Martin. “The Unsolved Mystery of Vision.” Current Biology 17, no. 15 (2007): R577-R582.
    Listed reading
  • Pelli, Denis G., et al. “Feature Detection and Letter Identification.” Vision Research 46, no. 15 (2006): 4646-4674.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “The remarkable Inefficiency of Word Recognition.” Nature 423 (2003): 752-756.
    Listed reading
  • Potter, Mary C. “Meaning in Visual Search.” Science 187, no. 4180 (1975): 965-966.
    Listed reading
  • Wolfe, J., et al. Sensation and Perception . Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 2005. ISBN: 9780878939381.
    Listed reading
  • McBurney, Donald H., and Theresa L. White. Research Methods . 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004. ISBN: 9780534524180.
    Listed reading
  • Francis, Greg, et al. CogLab on a CD . 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003. ISBN: 9780534640675.
    Listed reading
Fall 2002

Topics

  • Goals of the class and overview of content and Administrivia
  • The genesis and nature of research ideas Basics of data collection and analysis
  • Experimental design - I
  • Data analysis - I
  • Experimental design - II
  • Data analysis - II
  • Home experiment presentations
  • Data analysis in Excel; Presenting
  • Tutorial on Matlab (data analysis and Psych Toolbox)
  • Correlational research
  • Small N designs
  • Quasi-experimental designs/ Applied research/ Descriptive research
  • Home experiments (set 2) presentations
  • Ethics in conducting and reporting research
  • Flawed papers - I
  • Flawed papers - II
  • Home experiment presentations (set 3)
  • Flawed papers - III
  • Areas of research at MIT and the neighborhood
  • Final project presentations
  • Show-case presentations

Readings

  • Meltzoff, Julian. Critical Thinking About Research . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1998.
    Listed reading
  • Holcomb, Zealure C. Interpreting Basic Statistics - a guide based on excerpts from journal articles . Los Angeles: Pyrczak Publishing, 1998.
    Listed reading
  • The publication manual of the American Psychological Association . Arlington, VA.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: A preference method probed infants’ perception of object motion on an inclined plane. Infants viewed videotaped events in which a ball rolled downward (or upward) while speeding up (or slowing down). Then infants were tested with events in which the ball moved in the opposite direction with appropriate or inappropriate acceleration. Infants aged 7 months, but not 5 months, looked longer at the test event with inappropriate acceleration, suggesting emerging sensitivity to gravity. A further study tested whether infants appreciate that a stationary object released on an incline moves downward rather than upward; findings again were positive at 7 months and negative at 5 months. A final study provided evidence, nevertheless, that 5-month-old infants discriminate downward from upward motion and relate downward motion in videotaped events to downward motion in live events. Sensitivity to certain effects of gravity appears to develop in infancy.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Sigall and Ostrove , “Beautiful but Dangerous Effects of Offender Attractiveness and Nature of the Crime on Juridic Judgment.” J. Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, Vol. 31, 1975
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: Subliminal self-help audiotapes to aid weight loss were evaluated to determine if their apparent effectiveness is due to a placebo effect. All subjects were female students or staff who were both overweight and believed in the possible effectiveness of subliminal audiotapes. Three different groups of subjects were tested: One group listened to subliminal audiotapes purchased directly from a manufacturer, the 2nd group listened to comparable placebo tapes, and the 3rd group did not listen to any tapes at all. Each subject in each group was weighed once each week for 5 weeks. All 3 groups of subjects lost weight, and the average amount of weight lost by each group was approximately equivalent. These results provide no evidence that regular use of subliminal audiotapes leads to a placebo effect. Rather, the results suggest that regular use of subliminal audiotapes may simply make subjects more conscious of their weight.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky recently reported that exposure to brief periods of music by Mozart produced a temporary increase in performance on tasks taken from the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale-IV. The present study examined whether this effect occurred in performance on a backwards digit span task. In a within-subjects design 36 undergraduates were exposed to 10-min. periods of Mozart music, a recording of rain, or silence. After each stimulus period, undergraduates had three attempts to hear and recall different 9-digit strings in reverse order. No significant differences among treatment conditions were found. There was a significant effect of practice. Results are discussed in terms of the need to isolate the conditions responsible for production of the Mozart effect.
    Listed reading
  • Babich, F. R., A. L. Jacobson, S. Bubash, and A. Jacobson. “Transfer of a response to naive rats by injection of ribonucleic acid extracted from trained rats.” In Science 149. 1965, pp. 656-657.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Hartry, A. L., P. Keith-Lee, and W. W. Morton. “Planaria: memory transfer through cannibalism re- examined.” In Science 146. 1964, pp. 274-275.
    Listed reading
  • Byrne, W. T., et al. “Memory transfer.” In Science 153. 1966. pp. 658-659.
    Listed reading
  • Bransford and Johnson, “Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigations of Comprehension and Recall!” J of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11, 1972; or other ANOVA study
    Listed reading
  • Wollen et al, “Bizarreness versus Interaction of Mental Images as Determinants of Learning.” Cognitive Psychology 3, 1972
    Listed reading
  • Context Dependent Memory in two natural environments: On land and underwater. J BR Psychology 66 Godden and Baddeley, 1975
    Listed reading
  • Riskind and Maddux, “Loomingness, Helplessness, and Fearfulness: An Integration of Harm-Looming and Self-Efficacy Models of Fear.” J of Social and Clinical Psychology , Vol. 12, No. 1, 1993
    Listed reading
  • Gunter, Berry and Clifford, “Proactive Interference Effects With Television News Items: Further Evidence.” J Experimental Psychology: Human Learing and Memory , vol. 7, 1981
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: A summary of 111 studies identified in a survey of the world literature on familial resemblances in measured intelligence reveals a profile of average correlations consistent with a polygenic mode of inheritance. There is, however, a marked degree of heterogeneity of the correlations within familial groupings, which is not moderated by sex of familial pairing or by type of intelligence test used.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: We investigated the effectiveness of a simplified program for the treatment of stuttering in children. The simplified treatment included awareness training, in which the subjects learned to detect every occurrence of stuttering; training a response incompatible with stuttering, which involved relaxation and regulation of air flow over the larynx when speaking; and social support, which involved parent-delivered prompts and praise of children’s use of the techniques in everyday environments. Eight children were treated in their homes with the simplified treatment, in a multiple baseline across subjects design, and all reached the criterion level of less than 3% words stuttered. In addition, the reduction in stuttering generalized to the school setting and was maintained at posttreatment (10 to 13 months). The subjects’ rates of speech remained stable throughout baseline and treatment. Pretreatment and posttreatment ratings by the parents showed that they found treatment to be both acceptable and credible. Finally, social validity measures revealed a noticeable improvement in the subjects’ speech to parents and speech pathologists.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: The effects of a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement on pedaling a a stationary exercise bicycle were examined. Three obese and three nonobese 11-year-old boys were individually tested five times weekly for approximately 12 weeks. A changing-criterion design was used in which each successive criterion was increased over mean performance rate in the previous phase by approximately 15%. The contingencies of the successive criteria resulted in systematic increases in rate of exercise for all children. Final variable-ratio rates were higher than those under fixed ratios found in previous research, with rates for 2 of the 3 obese boys approximating those of the nonobese.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: This study determined whether music could be used as a reinforcer for increasing productive and decreasing nonproductive behavior of 6 competitive swimmers during the dry-land portion of practice session. The swimmers were randomly assigned to either the contingent reinforcement group, who received music for productive behavior, or the noncontingent group, who received music regardless of their training productivity. An ABAB design showed that a large and immediate increase in productive practice behavior and decrease in nonproductive practice behavior occurred during the contingent phase compared to the baseline phase. Subjects rated the musical reinforcement favorably and elected to have the procedure continued.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: In a systematic evaluation of the effects of a natural disaster on nightmares, nightmare frequency was found to be about twice as high among 92 San Francisco Bay area college students as among 97 control subjects in Tucson, Arizona, after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Subjects in California had not only more nightmares in general but substantially more nightmares about earthquakes. Over a 3-week period, about 40% of those in the San Francisco Bay area reported one or more nightmares about an earthquake, as compared with only 5% of those in Arizona. However, nightmares about earthquakes were not more emotionally intense than other nightmares. These findings support the long-held view that the experience of a potentially traumatic event can result in more frequent nightmares, particularly about the event itself, but contradict the common opinion that nightmares about such events are unusually intense.
    Listed reading
  • Hall and Veccia, “More ‘Touching’ Observations: New Insights on Men, Women, and Interpersonal Touch.” J Personality and Social psychology vol.59, 1990
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: Records on recovery after cholecystectomy of patients in a suburban Pennsylvania hospital between 1972 and 1981 were examined to determine whether assignment to a room with a window view of a natural setting might have restorative influences. Twenty-three surgical patients assigned to rooms with windows looking out on a natural scene had shorter postoperative hospital stays, received fewer negative evaluative comments in nurses’ notes, and took fewer potent analgesics than 23 matched patients in similar rooms with windows facing a brick building wall.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • PubMed abstract: The hypothesis that personal space invasions produce arousal was investigated in a field experiment. A men’s lavatory provided a setting where norms for privacy were salient, where personal space invasions could occur in the case of men urinating, where the opportunity for compensatory responses to invasion were minimal, and where proximity-induced arousal could be measured. Research on micturation indicates that social stressors inhibit relaxation of the external urethral sphincter, which would delay the onset of micturation, and that they increase intravesical pressure, which would shorten the duration of micturation once begun. Sixty lavatory users were randomly assigned to one of three levels of interpersonal distance and their micturation times were recorded. In a three-urinal lavatory, a confederate stood immediately adjacent to a subject, one urinal removed, or was absent. Paralleling the results of a correlational pilot study, close interpersonal distances increased the delay of onset and decreased the persistence of micturation. These findings provide objective evidence that personal space invasions produce physiological changes associated with arousal.
    Listed reading
  • Christensen, “Deception in Psychological Research:When Is Its Use Justified?” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , Vol 14 No.4, 1988
    Listed reading
Sources