Chapter 1 pt.2 Flashcards
What was Ebbinghau interested in?
determining the nature of memory and forgetting, specifically how rapidly information that is learned is lost over time
Instead of using Wundts analytical introspection, Ebbinghau used a quantitative method for measuring memory, what exactly did he do?
he repeated lists of 13 nonesense syllables to himself , he determined how long it took to learn the list the first time, then he waited for a specific amount of time (the delay), and then determined hoe long it took to relearn the list
Ebbinghau used a measure called ___ to determine how much was forgotten after a particular delay
Savings (original time to learn the list - time to relearn the list).
The smaller the saving, the more forgotten
William James’s most known observation was what?
The Nature of Attention = the idea that a million things can be present to your senses, but they will never enter your experience if they have no interest to you
John Watson was not a fan of the method of analytic introspection, what were his two issues with the method
1) it didn’t produce consistent results from person to person
2) the results were difficult to verify because they were interpreted in terms of invisible inner mental processes
(he believed that only observing behaviour was valid)
Watson rejects _________ as a method. ____________ behaviour, not _________ behaviour is the main topic of study
Watson rejects INTROSPECTION as a method. OBSERVABLE behaviour, not CONSCIOUS behaviour is the main topic of study
Watson proposed a new approach called ____________.
Behaviourism
Watson most famous experiment was the Little Albert experiment. Explain what went on in this experiment.
9 month old Albert was exposed to a sound noise every time a rat (which Albert initially liked) came close to the child. Albert eventually reacted to seeing the rat as crawling away as soon as possible
What is Classical Conditioning?
Paring a neutral stimulus (rat) with a stimulus that elicts a response (noice) that causes the neutral stimulus to elect that response
What was Watsons inspiration for the little Albert experiment?
Pavlovs classical conditioning with dogs
Skinner provided another type of conditioning called Operant Conditioning, how does this work?
Operant conditioning focuses on how behaviour is strengthened by the presentation of positive reinforcers (like food or social approval)
Edward Tolman called himself a behaviourist because his focus was on measuring behaviour, however he was one of the first Cognitive Psychologists. Explain his famous experiment (hint:rats)
Tolman placed a rat in a maze in which the rat explored. After exploration, the rat was placed at point A and food was placed at point B.
The rat quickly learned to turn right to get to B (the food)
When the rat was placed at point C (across from A), the rat knew to turn Left to get to point B again.
This shows that when the rat initially expored the maze, it created a cognitive map
Skinner believed that children learn language through operant conditioning. Noam Chomsky argued this by saying what?
That children dont only learn through operant conditioning because they say many sentences that haven’t bee rewarded by parents, and even use incorrect grammar
Chomsky’s argument that language is not only learnt from operant conditioning led other psychology’s to reconsider what?
They reconsidered the idea that language and other behaviours can be explained by only operant conditioning
Chomsky’s argument against skinner led to the idea that …?
that its necessary to measure observable behaviour AND consider what this behaviour tells us about how the mind works
