Early Work in Cognitive Psych Flashcards
Exam 1
What did Donders bring to the psych world?
He measured how long it takes a person to make a decision. This was the first ever cognitive psych experiment.
What is reaction time? *
The interval between a presentation of a stimulus and a person’s response
What was Donders conclusion?
Mental responses cannot be measured directly but must be inferred from behavior.
Donders Hypothesis (math)
Choice RT - Simple RT = Time of Decisions
What did Wundt bring to the psych world?
Established the first-ever psych lab in Leipzig, Germany. Developed the approach “structuralism”.
What is structuralism?
Overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations.
What did Ebbinghaus bring to the psych world?
He quantified mental measures. He read lists of nonsense syllables to determine the number of repetitions necessary to be perfect.
Ebbinghaus Conclusion
Short break intervals = less time to memorize
Long break intervals = more time to memorize
What are savings?
Original time to learn list - Time to relearn the list after the first delay.
What is the purpose of savings?
It illustrates the forgetting curve.
What did William James bring to the psych world?
Taught the first psychology course at Harvard. He also published the first psychology textbook called Principles of Psychology.
What did William James study?
Observations were based on functions of his mind, not experiments. Dabbled in topics of cognition, language, and attention
What did John Watson bring to the psych world?
He founded behaviorism.
What are the problems with the analytic introspection method?
- Extremely variable results per person
- Results difficult to verify due to focus on invisible inner mental processes.
What were the goals of behaviorism?
- Eliminate the mind as a topic of study
- Study directly observable behavior
What did Watson and Rayner bring to the psych world?
The “Little Albert” Experiment
The “Little Albert” Experiment
9-month-old Albert became frightened by a rat after a loud noise was paired with seeing the rat.
What was the Conclusion of “Little Albert?”
Examined how pairing on stimulus with another affected behavior. Demonstrated that behavior can be analyzed without any reference to the mind
What kind of conditioning did “Little Albert” use?*
Classical Conditioning
What is classical conditioning?
Pair a neutral event with an event that naturally produces an outcome. After Pairings, Neutral event will develop an outcome.
Pavlov’s experiment
Meat = Saliva
Bell no response
Pair the two together and the bell produces saliva after a while.
What did B.F. Skinner bring to the psych world?
Operant Conditioning- Shape behavior by rewards or punishment
What did Tolman bring to the psych world?
Proved that cognitive maps exist through rats finding food in a four-armed maze.
Skinner’s Verbal Behavior
Argued Children learn language through operant conditioning.
What did Chomsky bring to the psych world?
Language must be determined by inborn biological program.
What does it take to study the mind?
- Measure observable behavior
- Make inferences about underlying cognitive activity
- Consider what this behavior says about how the mind works
What is the information-processing approach?
A way to study the mind based on insights associated with the digital computer. States that the operation of the mind occurs in stages.
What did Cherry bring to the psych world?
He built on James’s idea of attention.
What did Broadbent bring to the psych world?
Developed a flow diagram to show what occurs as a person directs attention to one stimulus
What was Cherry’s experiment?
Presented separate messages in separate ears. Found that subjects could understand message A while also hearing message B
What was Broadbent’s conclusion?
Unattended information does not pass through the filter
What did Neisser bring to the psych world?
Wrote the first cognitive psychology textbook
What did Atkinson and Shiffrin bring to the psych world?
Developed the three-stage model of memory
Three-Stage Model of Memory
- Sensory memory
- STM
- LTM
What did Tolvin bring to the psych world?
Broke LTM into episodic, semantic, and procedural memories
What is neuropsychology? *
Studies behavior of people with brain damage
5 ways that showed the rise of cognitive psychology
Chomsky’s language acquisition, behaviorism limitations, cognitive mapping, development of the computer, development of tech
