Chapter 1

Question 1

Define Cognitive Psychology.

Answer 1

A branch of psychology that is concerned with the scientific study of the mind.

Question 2

Define Cognition.

Answer 2

Mental processes, such as perception, attention, and memory, etc. that are what the mind does.

Question 3

Franciscus Donders

Answer 3

Conducted the first experiment in cognitive psychology. Concerned with measuring Reaction Time and Decision Making. How long it takes a person to make a decision, used technique referred to as mental chronometry

Question 4

Reaction Time

Answer 4

A behavioral measure of

how long it takes an individual to respond to a stimulus.

Question 5

Reaction Time: Simple RT Task =

Answer 5

Participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears

Question 6

Reaction Time: Choice RT task =

Answer 6

Participant pushes one button if light is on right side, another if light is on left side

Question 7

Donders Subtraction Methodology

Answer 7

Choice RT – Simple RT = Time to make a decision

Question 8

What was learned from Donder’s experiments?

Answer 8

Mental responses cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participant’s behavior.

Question 9

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 9

Built the first scientific psychology laboratory. Structuralism. Introspection.

Question 10

Wundt’s Structuralism

Answer 10

An approach to psychology stating experience is determined by combining elementary units called sensations.Looking under the hood of a car to determine which parts do what.

Question 11

Wundt’s Analytic introspection

Answer 11

Goal was to train participants to describe sensory experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli. Super subjective because everyone will describe things differently.

Question 12

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 12

Researched memory & forgetting. Used himself to experiment on. How many days he could remember nonsense words for.

Question 13

Ebbinghaus’s Savings curve

Answer 13

Savings curve shows savings as a function of retention interval. The amount of time you have in between forgetting something is your savings.

Question 14

William James

Answer 14

Interested in how mind allows people to function in the real world.

Question 15

James’s Functionalism

Answer 15

Looking under the hood of a car to determine how various parts function together to allow the car to propel itself

Question 16

John Watson

Answer 16

Father of Behaviorism. Focused on Classical Conditioning of a Fear Response

Question 17

Watson’s Little Albert

Answer 17

Evidence that behaviors are not innate or biological, rather they are learned. Behavior can be analyzed without any reference to the mind. Everything is the result of experience.

Question 18

Pavlov

Answer 18

Classical Conditioning: Pair a neutral event with an event that naturally produces some outcome. The dog salivating at the sound of the bell because he’s been trained to expect food with the bell.

Question 19

B.F. Skinner

Answer 19

Interested in how the relationship between stimuli and response can be weakened or strengthened. Operant Conditioning.

Question 20

Skinner’s Rat Experiment

Answer 20

Rewards or punishments to reinforce the desired behavior. Light/shock/tone - no fear associated with the tone alone because no shock was ever given with it.

Question 21

Tolman Rat Maze

Answer 21

Trained rats to find food in a four-armed maze. The rat turned left for food when based on behaviorist’s theory, it should have turned right. Concluded that there is a cognitive map of the mind - grocery store, campus etc.

Question 22

Skinner vs Chomsky in language acquisition

Answer 22

Skinner: Argued children learn language through operant conditioning. Children imitate speech they hear and correct speech is rewarded.

Chomsky: Argued language acquisition not dependent solely on imitation and reinforcement. Children say things they have never heard and can not be imitating.
Children say things that are incorrect and have not been rewarded for.

Question 23

Language must be determined by inborn biological program.. Language acquisition device (LAD)

Answer 23

Chomsky

Question 24

Donald Broadbent

Answer 24

Proposed the first flow diagram of the mind. Illustrates what happens in a person’s mind when directing attention to a stimulus in the environment.

Question 25

What are the two types of Cognitive Models?

Answer 25

Structural Models: the brain - Representations of a physical structure

Process Models: how things work - Represent the processes that are involved in cognitive mechanisms