CH1 Flashcards
Introduction
define the mind
The mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning
define how the mind operates
The mind is a system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals
what is cognitive psychology about?
cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes, which includes determining the characteristics and properties of the mind and how it operates
when was the term cognitive psychology coined?
1967
what is reaction time?
how long it takes to respond to presentation of a stimulus
what extremely significant thing did Donder’s experiment illustrate about studying the mind?
Mental responses (perceiving the light
and deciding which button to push, in this example) cannot be measured directly, but must be inferred from behavior
what are the two measure of reaction time in Donders’s experiment?
simple reaction time and choice reaction time
what was wundt’s approach to psychology? and what did he want to do with it
structuralism and he wanted to make a periodic table of the mind with sensations that are basic elements of experience?
structuralists call these the basic elements of experience
sensations
this term refers to a technique in which trained participants described
their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli
analytic introspection
what was Ebbinghaus’s experiment about?
it was about determining the nature of memory and forgetting, specifically about how rapidly information learned was lost over time
what was Ebbinghaus’ measure for determining how much was forgotten after a delay?
savings
what were the results of Ebbinghaus’ experiment?
he discovered that forgetting occurs rapidly
in the first 1 to 2 days after
original learning
who founded behaviorism?
John Watson
what were watson’s problems with analytic introspection?
- the results extremely vary from person to person
- the results are also difficult to verify because they were interpreted in terms of invisible mental processess
what is classical conditioning?
pairing one stimulus with another previously neutral stimulus
what is operant conditioning?
operant conditioning focused on how behavior is strengthened by the presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval
what was Tolman’s experiment about?
tolman had a rat maze and placed food at the right then when he removed it and placed it at the left, when the rat didnt see the food at the right it went left due to its development of a cognitive map
what was the cognitive revolution about?
cognitive revolution was —a shift in psychology from the behaviorist’s focus on stimulus–response relationships to an approach whose main thrust was to understand the operation of the mind
this term refers to a shift from one paradigm to another
scientific revolution
what is a paradigm?
a paradigm is a system of ideas that dominate science at a particular time
this term refers to an approach that traces sequences of mental operations involved in cognition
information-processing approach
what does the information-processing approach say about the mind?
According to the information-processing approach, the operation of the mind can be described as occurring in a number of stages
who proposed the first flow diagram of the mind?
British Psychologist, Donald Broadbent
this term refers to the approach of making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving
John McCarthy
artificial intelligent approach
why was Broadbent’s flow diagram important?
Broadbent’s flow diagram provided a way to analyze the operation of the mind in terms of a sequence of processing stages and proposed a model that could be tested by further experiments
what did Neisser write in the first book about cognitive psychology?
mostly about vision and hearing and intake of information and holding information for brief periods of time but higher mental processes like thinking, problem solving, an long-term remembering weren’t given much attention in the book due to how they just didn’t know much about it
what are the two gaps of coverage in neisser’s book?
- the complete absence of physiology
- higher mental processes like thinking, problem solving, and long-term remembering
describe Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model of memory
the model pictures the flow of information in the memory system as progressing through 3 stages
- sensory memory
- short-term memory
- long-term memory
this term refers to a type of memory that holds incoming information for a fraction of a second and then passes most of this information to ________
memory
sensory memory
what is episodic memory for?
Episodic memory is memory for events in your life (like what you did last weekend)
this term refers to a type of memory that can be considered a high-capacity system that can hold information for long periods of time (like your memory of what you did last weekend, or the capitals of states)
long-term memory
this term refers to a type of memory which has limited capacity and holds information for seconds (like an address you are trying to remember until you can write it down)
short-term memory
what is semantic memory for?
Semantic memory is memory for facts (such as the capitals of the states)
what is procedural memory for?
Procedural memory is memory for physical actions (such as how to ride a bike or play the piano)
what were the two dominating physiological techniques?
neuropsychology and electrophysiology
this term refers to the study of the behavior of people with brain damage
neuropsychology
this term refers to the technique of measuring electrical responses of the nervous system and made it possible to listen to the activity of single neurons
electrophysiology
this term refers to the procedure that made it possible to see which areas of the human brain are activated during cognitive activity
positron emission tomography (PET)
what does fMRI mean?
fMRI means functional magnetic resonance imaging and is a procedure that does not involve radioactive tracers and which was capable of higher resolution unlike PET
what was Palmer’s experiment about?
a context scene was flashed and Palmer asked the observers to identify the object in the target picture and the observers used their knowledge of objects
that are likely to be found in kitchens to help them perceive the briefly flashed loaf of bread.
What was the point of the opening story about Sam?
the point the opening story about Sam tries to make is that the mind is hidden from view and that the normal mind has a lot going on in the background
What are two ways of defining the mind?
- The mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and
reasoning - The mind is a system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals.
Who founded the first laboratory of scientific psychology?
Describe the method of analytic introspection that was used in this laboratory.
- Wilhelm Wundt
What method did William James use to study the mind?
reported observations of his own mind
Describe the rise of behaviorism, especially the influence of Watson and
Skinner.
How did behaviorism affect research on the mind?
more on stimulus-to-stimulus relationship research
How did Edward Tolman deviate from strict behaviorism?
cognitive map
What did Noam Chomsky say about Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior, and what effect did that have on behaviorism?
it was about how language is not determined by conditioning but inborn biological program and this led to reconsideration of the once famous idea that almost all behaviors can be explained with operant conditioning
who proposed the first flow diagram of the mind?
Donald Broadbent
created by Herb Simon and Alan Newell was able to create proofs of mathematical theorems that involve principles of logic. This program, was a real “thinking machine” because it used humanlike reasoning processes to solve problems.
logic theorist program
