1: Cognitive psychology

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

The science of mind and behaviour.

Question 2

What is science?

Answer 2

Science is one of the of four ways of knowing about the world and reality, based on empirical and non-empirical methods.

Question 3

What are the two empirical methods used in ways of knowing about the world?

Answer 3

1. Intuition (direct observation)

2. Science

Question 4

What are the two non-empirical methods used in ways of knowing about the world?

Answer 4

1. Authority

2. Logic

Question 5

What is authority?

Answer 5

A belief based on what someone else claims.

Question 6

What is logic?

Answer 6

A belief based on inductive or deductive reasoning.

Question 7

What is inductive reasoning?

Answer 7

Specific to general. Generalisations based on single observations.

Question 8

What is deductive reasoning?

Answer 8

General to specific. Uses syllogisms, when 2+ arguments are believed to be true, it guides us towards a conclusion.

Question 9

What is intuition?

Answer 9

A belief based on direct observation.

Question 10

What is science?

Answer 10

A belief based on a collection of methods.

Question 11

What are the 5 steps of the scientific method?

Answer 11

1. Make observation.
2. Generate theory.
3. Generate hypothesis.
4. Test hypothesis.
5. If outcome is consistent with hypothesis, then retain it. If different, generate a new theory.

Question 12

What are the 7 characteristics of science? (Hint: STTOPPE)

Answer 12

1. Self correcting.
2. Tentative.
3. Theoretical.
4. Objective,
5. Progressive.
6. Parsimonious.
7. Empirical.

Question 13

What is parsimony?

Answer 13

The simples explanation is the best.

Question 14

What are the 3 components of measurement in scientific experiments?

Answer 14

1. True value.
2. Bias.
3. Random error.

Question 15

What is the true value?

Answer 15

The things being estimated.

Question 16

What is bias?

Answer 16

Type of error who’s value is unknown and does not equals zero. Can be minimised through precaution.

Question 17

What 2 precautions can we used to minimise bias?

Answer 17

Careful measurement and accurate equipment.

Question 18

What is random error?

Answer 18

Type of error who’s value varies from one measurement to the next. It’s mean value across all measurements equals or is very close to zero.

Question 19

Using the computer analogy in cognitive psychology, the brain is _________ and the cognition is ________.

Answer 19

Using the computer analogy in cognitive psychology, the brain is hardware and the cognition is software.

Question 20

Who is Hermann Ebbinghaus?

Answer 20

Studied human memory and first documented several important features about it (serial position curves and savings).

Used only himself as subject, using nonsense syllables called CVC’s as a method to study memory.

Question 21

Who is William James?

Answer 21

Wrote seminal 2-volume tome ‘The Principles of Psychology’.

Astute observer of the mind and cognition. Made distinction between primary and secondary memory.

Question 22

What is the main goal of introspectionism?

Answer 22

To understand human cognition via introspection.

Question 23

Who is Wilhelm Wundt?

Answer 23

Established the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879.

Founded school of Structuralism, attempting to describe the mind via its simplest components.

Question 24

Who is Edward Titchner?

Answer 24

Wundt’s most prominent student, establishing his own lab in the USA.

Famous for sparking debate with Wundt over existence of imageless thought.

Question 25

Who is Ivon Pavlov?

Answer 25

Russian physiologist, credited with discovering classical conditioning.

Question 26

Who is John B. Watson?

Answer 26

American psychologist, who in 1930 wrote the ‘Behaviourists Manifesto’, causing the paradigm shift from introspectionism to behaviourism.

Question 27

Who is B. F. Skinner?

Answer 27

Discovered operant conditioning. Wrote 1957 book ‘Verbal Behaviour’ to explain human language acquisition through behaviourist S-R principles.

Question 28

Who is Edward Tolman?

Answer 28

Behaviourist who demonstrated cognitive maps in rats.

Question 29

Who is Noam Chomsky?

Answer 29

MIT linguist who wrote 1959 influential critique of Skinner’s ‘Verbal Behaviour’.

Provided examples that language is generative and not bound by S-R principles.

Provide arguments for importance of internal grammar in language acquisition rather than general learning principles.

Question 30

What is Posner famous for?

Answer 30

Introducing cognitive science in 1989.

Question 31

What disciplines make up cognitive science? (Hint: CCPLAN)

Answer 31

Cognitive psychology
Computer science
Philosophy
Linguistics
Anthropology
Neuroscience

Question 32

What are the three basic assumptions of cognitive psychology?

Answer 32

1. Mental processes exist.
2. Mental processes can be measured and understood using science.
3. Humans are information processing systems.

Question 33

What are the three traditional methods of measuring mental processes?

Answer 33

1. RT’s.
2. Errors.
3. Verbal protocols.

Question 34

What are RT’s and how are they used in cognitive research?

Answer 34

Reaction times, which are measured via response speed (ms) using simple equipment like buttons or more sophisticated devices like eye-trackers.

Question 35

What are errors and how are they used in cognitive research?

Answer 35

There are two types, error rates and types of errors, such as those seen in speech production.

Question 36

What are verbal protocols and how are they used in cognitive research?

Answer 36

Participants are asked to complete a task whilst ‘think aloud’ protocols are recorded.

Question 37

What are the three non-traditional (modern) methods of measuring mental processes?

Answer 37

1. ERP’s
2. fMRI
3. TMS

Question 38

What are ERP’s and how are they used in cognitive research?

Answer 38

Event-Related Potentials use electrodes to measure brains electrical activity on the scalp.