Chapter 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
What does cognition involve?
perception
paying attention
remembering
distinguishing items in a category
visualizing
understanding and production of language
problem solving
reasoning and decision making
How is cognition invisible?
a lot of times, we are not even aware of inner workings of the mind
What is cognitive psychology?
the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind
What is cognition?
refers to the mental processes, such as perception, attention, and memory, that are what the mind creates
What is the mind?
is involved in forming and recalling memories
solves problems, considers possibilities, makes decisions
helps us to survive and function normally
is a symbol of creativity and intelligence
creates representations of the world so we can act in it
What was Donders (1868) reaction time experiment?
measured how long it takes a person to make a decision
measures interval between stimulus presentation and person’s response to stimulus
What is a simple reaction time task?
participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears
What is a choice reaction time task?
participant pushes one button if light is on right side, another if light is on left side
What was found when choice reaction time and simple reaction time were compared?
choice RT - simple RT = time to make a decision
choice RT = 1/10th sec longer than simple RT (usually 200-300ms)
choice RT is longer as it takes 1/10th second to make a decision
mental responses cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participants behavior
What was Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) study on memory and forgetting?
read list of nonsense syllables aloud to determine number of repetitions necessary to repeat list without errors
after taking a break, he relearned the list
short break intervals: fewer repetitions necessary to relearn list
learned many different lists at many different retention intervals
What was Ebbinghaus’ idea of savings?
savings = (original time to learn list) - (time to relearn list after delay)
What is a savings curve?
savings curve shows savings as a function of retention interval
Who was Wundt (1879)?
established first scientific psychology lab at University of Leipzig, Germany
developed approach called structuralism
used method of analytic introspection
What was Wundt’s idea of structuralism?
overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations
What was Wundt’s method of analytic introspection?
participants trained to describe experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli
What were William James’s principles of psychology?
James was an early American psychologist who taught the first psychology course at Harvard
observations based on the functions of his own mind, not experiments
considered many topics in cognition, including thinking, consciousness, attention, memory, perception, imagination, and reasoning
What were John Watson’s problems with the analytic introspection method?
extremely variable results per person
results difficult to verify due to focus on invisible inner mental processes
What was John Watson’s behaviorism approach?
eliminate the mind as a topic of study
instead, study directly observable behavior
What was Watson’s “Little Albert” experiment?
9 month old Albert became frightened by a rat after a loud noise was paired with every presentation of the rat
examined how pairing one stimulus with another affected behavior
demonstrated that behavior can be analyzed without any reference to the mind
What is classical conditioning?
“Little Albert” experiment used classical conditioning methods
pair a neutral event with an event that naturally produces some outcome
after many pairings, the “neutral” event now also produces the outcome
Watson’s experiment was inspired by Pavlov’s research with dogs
What is B.F. Skinner’s views of conditioning and behaviorism?
interested in determining the relationship between stimuli and response
operant conditioning
behaviorism approach was dominant from the 1940s through the 1960s
What is operant conditioning?
shape behavior by rewards or punishments
rewarded behavior more likely to be repeated
punished behavior less likely to be repeated
What was Tolman’s (1938) experiment about rats in a maze?
trained rats to find food in a four-armed maze
when a rat was placed in a different arm of the maze, it went to the specific arm where it previously found food
Tolman believed the rat had created a cognitive map, a representation of the maze in its mind
the map helped the rat navigate to a specific arm despite starting the maze from a different spot
rejected the behaviorist perspective for the rat’s actions
What was Skinner’s (1957) idea about verbal behavior and language acquisition?
argued children learn language through operant conditioning
children imitate speech they hear
correct speech is rewarded
What was Chomsky’s (1959) idea about verbal behavior and language acquisition?
argued that children do not only learn language through imitation and reinforcement
children say things they have never heard and cannot be imitating
children say things that are incorrect and have not been rewarded for
language must be determined by an inborn biological program
How do we study and understand complex cognitive behaviors?
measure observable behavior
make inferences about underlying cognitive activity
consider what this behavior says about how the mind works
What was the cognitive revolution?
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
What is a scientific revolution?
a shift from one paradigm to another, where a paradigm is a system of ideas that dominate science at a particular time
a scientific revolution, therefore, involves a paradigm shift
What is the information-processing approach?
way to study the mind based on insights associated with the digital computer
states that operation of the mind occurs in stages
What was Cherry’s (1953) study on “dichotic listening”?
present message A in left ear and message B in right ear
to ensure attention, shadow one message (repeat it back)
participants were able to focus only on the message they were shadowing
subjects could understand details of message A despite also hearing message B
What is Broadbent’s (1958) flow diagram?
developed a flow diagram to show what occurs as a person directs attention to one stimulus
unattended information does not pass through the filter
flow diagram representing what happens as a person directs attention to one stimulus
unattended information does not pass through the filter
What is the Arkinson and Shiffrin (1968) three-stage model of memory?
sensory memory (less than 1 second)
short-term memory (a few seconds, limited capacity)
long-term memory (long duration, high capacity)
information we remember is brough from long-term memory into short-term memory
What are the three components of long-term memory?
episodic: life events
semantic: facts
procedural: physical actions
What is neuropsychology?
studies the behavior of people with brain damage
What is electrophysiology?
studies electrical responses of the nervous system including brain neurons
Mind
system that creates mental representations of the world and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language deciding, thinking and reasoning
Cognition
the mental processes involves in perception, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning and decision making
Cognitive Psychology
the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning and decision making
is concerned with the scientific study of the mind and mental processes
Reaction Time
the time it takes to react to a stimulus, this is usually determined by measuring the time between presentation of a stimulus and response to the stimulus
examples of responses are pushing a button, saying a word, moving the eyes and the appearance of a particular brain wave
Simple Reaction Time
reacting to the presence or absence of a simple stimulus (as opposed to having to choose between a number of stimuli before making a response)
Choice Reaction Time
time to respond to one of two or more stimuli
for example, in the Donders experiment, subjects had to make one response to one stimulus and a different response to another stimulus
Structuralism
an approach to psychology that explained perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations
Analytic Introspection
a procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli
Savings
measure used by Ebbinghaus to determine the magnitude of memory left from initial learning
higher savings indicate greater memory
Savings Curve
plot of savings versus time after original learning
What was the procedure Donders used?
simple reaction time versus choice reaction time
What were the results and conclusions of Donders?
choice reaction time takes 1/10 seconds longer; therefore, it takes 1/10 seconds to make a decision
What was the contribution that Donders made?
first cognitive psychology experiment
What was the procedure Wundt used?
analytic introspection
What were the results and conclusions of Wundt?
no reliable results
What was the contribution that Wundt made?
established the first laboratory of scientific psychology
What was the procedure Ebbinghaus used?
savings method to measure forgetting
What were the results and conclusions of Ebbinghaus?
forgetting occurs rapidly in the first 1 to 2 days after original learning
What was the contribution that Ebbinghaus made?
quantitative measurement of mental processes
What was the procedure James used?
no experiments; reported observations of his own experience
What were the results and conclusions of James?
descriptions of a wide range of experiences
What was the contribution that James made?
first psychology textbook; some of his observations are still valid today
Behaviorism
the approach to psychology, founded by John Watson, which states that observable behavior provides the only valid data for psychology
a consequence of this idea is that consciousness and unobservable mental processes are not considered worthy of study by psychologists
Classical Conditioning
a procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response
Operant Conditioning
type of conditioning championed by Skinner, which focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers
Cognitive Map
mental conception of a spatial layout
Cognitive Revolution
a shift in psychology, beginning in the late 1950’s, from the behaviorist approach to an approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in terms of the mind
one of the outcomes of the cognitive revolution was the introduction of the information-processing approach to studying the mind
Scientific Revolution
occurs when there is a shift in thinking from one scientific paradigm to another
Paradigm
a system of ideas, which guide thinking in a particular field
Paradigm Shift
a shift in thinking from one paradigm to another
Information Processing Approach
the approach to psychology, developed beginning in the 1950’s, in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages
Artificial Intelligence
the ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human intelligence
Neuropsychology
the study of the behavioral effects of brain damage in humans
Electrophysiology
techniques used to measure electrical responses of the nervous system
Brain Imaging
technique such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that results in images of the brain that represent brain activity
in cognitive psychology, activity is measured in response to specific cognitive tasks
