Chapter 2

Question 1

What is the mind body problem ?

Answer 1

Where does the body end and mind begin?

Question 2

What is dualism?

Answer 2

Mind and body are two different substances

Question 3

What is monism?

Answer 3

One substance in the world

Question 4

What is physicalism/materialism? ( monism )

Answer 4

Only reality Is physical reality

Question 5

What is idealism ? ( monism )

Answer 5

Only reality is mental (think matrix)

Question 6

What is neutral monism? ( monism )

Answer 6

One substance that’s not physical or mental. Mind and body are both in that element (supposed to be confusing)

Question 7

Thought experiment from frank Jackson (1986). If someone sees no colour but knows everything about how the brain identifies colours, will they know what pink means? Give a physicalist and dualist answer.

Answer 7

Physicalist: yes! Nothing besides physics and chemistry

Dualist: well… no (may know physical component but not mental component)

Question 8

What were platos and Descartes opinions with dualism and soul?

Answer 8

Plato: soul was more real then the physical world

Descartes: distinction between between mind and matter are two substances

Question 9

Pragmatic materialism:

Answer 9

View doesn’t claim mind and body as identical only focuses on observable intelligent behaviour. (Ex. Inner consciousness won’t be physically explained)

Question 10

Why is everyone not in neuroscience if the brain is all physical?

Answer 10

Brain is soooo complex, we don’t understand much

We cannot fully explain behaviours with just neuroscience

Question 11

To understand cognition and behaviour, we need to account for:

Answer 11

1. Brain
2. Body
3. Society
4. World

Question 12

Historical approaches to cognition: structuralism

Answer 12

Introspecting on one’s own conscious states to understand the mind.
(Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener)

Use introspection (which participants were trained for) to hopefully discover the basic elements of the mind

Question 13

BUT! Why does introspection fail to be a valid scientific method. Why? (Two pts)

Answer 13

1. Can only be seen by one individual so cannot be verified. Cannot be fully replicated either
2. Can only access consciously available processes . Some things we know are implicit. Ex grammer and norms

Question 14

What is modern structuralism?

Answer 14

Phenomena that can be externally measured

Ex. Think aloud protocol
Describe thought process when doing a task

Question 15

Historical approaches to cognition: What is behaviourism

Answer 15

Observable stimuli data and behaviours are bias for experimentation

Observing how a stimulus (ex. Bad smell) effects behaviour

From these experiments we got an important idea, behaviour can be learned

Question 16

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 16

Positive and negative reinforcement to alter behaviour

Question 17

What is skinners box and operant conditioning?

Answer 17

Skinner box- contain and provide behavioural feedback to animals
- reinforcement learning

He suggested all of our behaviours were based on this

Question 18

Challenges to behaviourism from Noah Chomsky and Edward Tolman

Answer 18

Noah Chomsky: says people act in ways they’re not conditioned to (ex. “I hate you mommy” even though they’ve never been encouraged to say that)

Edward Tolman: what about latent learning (learning without reward or punishment)

Question 19

What is the fatal flaw of behaviourism?

Answer 19

Cannot account for the flexibility of the mind

Question 20

How do machines use “cognition”?

Answer 20

Machines are able to automatically generate functions- take an input and produce and output

Also have algorithms: function for producing the correct output

Question 21

What is a cognitive revolution?

Answer 21

Mind could be understood as a computational system. Information processing, input: stimuli output: behaviour

Question 22

What is the cognitive approach?

Answer 22

To test theories of underlying processing of the mind.

Experiment with light bulbs and reaction time.

Question 23

What is hypothesis driven vs phenomenon driven?

Answer 23

Research in cognitive psychology. Sometimes research is driven by a hypothesis.

Sometimes a random phenomenon is found and looked into

Question 24

What is applied cognitive psychology? (Signal detection theory)

Answer 24

Signal detection theory: considering people’s choices when under uncertainty

Question 25

How do we account for variability in behavioural measures?

Answer 25

Trials (clinical trials)= repeated conditions

Individuals differences= variability across people

Question 26

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 26

Measuring brain activity

Question 27

What is Behavioural neuroscience?

Answer 27

Behavioural experiments and measures of the brain

Question 28

What is ontogenetic?

Answer 28

Glowy action potential using opsins

Question 29

What is computational neuroscience?

Answer 29

Building computer based models to act as an area of the brain or do a task