Ch. 1 : Origins of Cognitive Neuroscience and Information Processing Flashcards
Definition of Cognition
The study of the act of thinking - thinking about thinking
Rationalism
- knowledge comes from observation, logical steps
- there is an innate nature to our minds
Plato
- earliest philosopher to consider the human mind
- rationalism
Empiricism
- All knowledge comes from experience and observation
- thought is associations based on observation
Aristotle
- combined philosophical and scientific approaches
- empiricism
Structuralism
- identify building blocks of consciousness through analytical introspection
- Wundt and Tichener
- emphasized controlled observation
- linked to empiricism
Wilhelm Wundt
- first psychology lab
- focused on introspection
- structuralist
Edward Titchener
- established american experimental psychology
- structuralist, used empirical methods
Functionalism
- why does the mind work
- how are the functions of the mind adaptive
William James
- Functionalist
- consciousness is personal and changing
- promoted experimentation
contribution of functionalism to cog psych
emphasis on functions applications and experimentations
behaviorism
- shifted focus from mind to behavior
- focus on the observable
- shifted to animal research
B.F. Skinner
- behaviorist
- thought behavior is contingent on reinforcement (rewards/punishments)
- OPERANT CONDITIONING
Operant Conditioning
Skinner; shows how behavior is determined thru reinforcement of rewards/punishments
Problems with behaviorism
- poverty of stimulus
- if we learn language through operant conditioning, how do we produce phrases we never heard
Ulric Neisser
father of cognitive psych
-internal mental processes could be studied and measured
tenants of cognitive revolution
-break cognition into information processing steps
assumptions of cognitive psychology
- the mind is a processing system, performs specific computations
- information flows from 1 step to the next
- processing takes resources and time
information theory
-function of info is to reduce uncertainty
-amount of info is inversely related to its probability of occurance
(less likely, more info)
William Hick
-established relationship btwn reaction time and information content
Hick’s experiment
display of ten lamps. more lamp possibilites = slower reaction time
Hick’s Law
equation showing that the more information contained in a signal, the longer it takes to make a correct response
Ray Hyman
similar to Hick’s light experiment. manipulated sequential probabilities.
- with more stimulus uncertainty, there was a slower reaction time
- lower sequential probability, slower reaction time
Decision Fatigue
too many options = bad choices
- the more choices, the more energy expended in choosing
- making a choice btwn lots of options has a cognitive energy depletion