Chapter 1: Introduction Flashcards
What are six concepts involved in cognition?
Perception
Attention
Memory
Problem solving
Reasoning
Decision making
What is meant by “reverse engineering the mind?”
Starting from behaviour and making inferences about the workings of the mind.
Why is introspection a flawed method of studying cognition?
Personal insight does not reveal all cognitive functions, therefore our insights into our own cognition may be limited
What are five reasons why “common sense” is a poor method of studying cognition?
Inconsistent
Post-hoc
Small number of observations
Not predictive
Can be conflicting
What does the scientific method seek to find?
Empirical answers, tangible data
What are qualities of observations under the scientific method?
Systematic and repeatable
What are the three main components of the scientific method?
Facts (data)
Theory
Hypotheses
What is one problem that can arise when generating a hypothesis?
Confounding variables
What are three problems that can arise when designing a study?
Not having a representative sample
Not enough participants
Bias
What are three possible issues when completing analyses?
Type l and Type ll errors, false positives
P-hacking
HARKing
What is p-hacking?
Running many statistical analyses and presenting only the ones that produce significant results
What is HARKing?
Hypothesis after results are known
What are four attributes of a good theory?
Predicts
Fits the data
Parsimonious (most simple)
No confounds
Most direct way to test a hypothesis about a cause-effect relationship between variables
Experimental studies
Why is ecological validity important to experimental studies?
Sometimes insights drawn from well-designed and well-conducted laboratory experiments still do not fit well with the real world
Relationship between variables studied without controlling one or the other
Correlational studies
What are the two major dependent variables for cognitive studies?
Speed of response (reaction time)
Accuracy
Which psychologist believed mental responses cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participant’s behavior?
Donders (1868)
Which psychologist was a key supporter of analytic introspection?
Wundt (1897)
Which psychologist proposed behaviorism?
Watson
What are the defining characteristics of the Watson’s behaviorism?
Eliminate the mind as a topic of study
Instead, study directly observable behaviour
Which psychologist was interested in determining the relationship between stimuli and responding?
Skinner (1950s)
Behavior is strengthened by positive or negative reinforcers
Operant conditioning
Which psychologist argued that children learn language due to an inborn biological program?
Chomsky (1959)
Which psychologist provided evidence for cognitive maps?
Tolman
How did the cognitive revolution incorporate both Behaviourist and other psychological perspectives?
Measure observable behavior (legacy of Behaviourism)
Consider what this behavior says about how the mind works (i.e., make careful inferences)
Accept introspection under certain circumstances
A way to study the mind created from insights associated with the digital computer
Information processing approach
The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind.
Cognitive psychology
What are two key examples of early experimental research on the mind?
Donders’ (simple versus choice reaction time) and Ebbinghaus’ (forgetting curve for nonsense syllables)
Explain Donders’ simple vs choice reaction time experiment.
- Measured simple reaction time by recording how quickly participants could push a button when they saw a light go on
- Measured choice reaction time by recording how quickly participants could push a button associated with the side (left or right) on which the light turned on
Explain the steps in Donders’ reaction time experiment.
Presenting the stimulus, mental response, behavioural response
Explain Ebbinghaus’ memory experiment.
Determined how long it took to a learn a list of nonsensical syllables, and then how long it took to relearn said list.
What was Ebbinghaus’ key finding with respect to the memory experiment?
The decrease in savings (remembering) with increasing delays indicates that forgetting occurs rapidly over the first two days but more slowly afterwards.
The operation of the mind cannot be observed directly…
Its operation must be inferred from what we can measure.
What was the dominant theoretical approach and method of Wundt’s laboratory?
Structuralism, analytic introspection
What did James use as the basis of his textbook Principles of Psychology?
Observations of his own mind
What was behaviouralism’s central tenet?
Psychology was properly studied by measuring observable behaviour, invisible mental processes were not valid topics
What was Edward Tolman’s contribution to behaviourism?
Studied cognitive processes (internal)
Describe the 1950s cognitive revolution
Decline of behaviourism, reemergence of the study of the mind
Which four events inspired the cognitive revolution?
- Chomsky’s critique of Skinner’ book
- Introduction of the digital computer
- Cherry’s attention experiments and Broadbent’s introduction of attention flow diagrams
- Interdisciplinary conferences at Dartmouth and MIT
What were four major developments in the study of the mind past the 60s?
- Development of more-sophisticated models
- Research focusing on the physiological basis of cognition
- Concerns with cognition in the real world
- The role of knowledge in cognition
