human behaviour

Question 1

Cogitare (Latin):

Answer 1

to think

Question 2

The term ‘cognition’ is often defined broadly so as to include all processes within the capacity of…

Answer 2

human mind, including sensation, perception, learning, remembering and decision making.

Question 3

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 3

Scientific study of the mind: examines the processes and mechanisms underlying human cognition

Question 4

Introspection:

Answer 4

the process of internal perception, looking within oneself to assess one’s mental activity.

Question 5

In cognitive psychology, mental activity is often described in terms of

Answer 5

information processing.

Question 6

Levels of analyses:

Answer 6

Various degrees of abstraction we can use to describe an entity

Question 7

What are the two levels of analyses?

Answer 7

Functional level: What the computer programs do, receiving input in symbols, store information, operations

Physical level: Computer in terms of chips and circuits
Mental activity is considered with its underlying neural structures

Question 8

Marr (1982): Levels of analysis
Complex systems (computers, brain, human behaviour) should be understood at three different levels

Answer 8

Computational - what does the system do?

Algorithmic/Representational - hoes does the system compute?
how is info represented in the system?
how is info operated?

Implementational - physical substrate of the system? what is the hardware of sytsem?

Question 9

A representation is a …

Answer 9

physical state (such as marks on a page, magnetic fields in a computer, or neural connections in a brain) that conveys information, specifying an object, event, or category or its characteristics.

Question 10

Representations have two distinct facets:

Answer 10

(1) Format: the means by which it conveys information.

(2) Content: the meaning, conveyed by a particular representation.

Question 11

A process is a…

Answer 11

transformation of information that obeys well-defined principles to produce a specific output when given a specific input.

Question 12

A processing system is a…

Answer 12

set of processes that work together to accomplish a type of task, using and producing representations as appropriate.

Question 13

An algorithm is a…

Answer 13

a step-by-step procedure that guarantees that a certain input will produce a certain output.

Question 14

Mental activity can be studied by…

Answer 14

constructing models

Question 15

Theory vs. model

Answer 15

A theory proposes a set of abstract principles that can account for a range of phenom­ena.

A model is a specific, concrete version of a theory

Question 16

Computer simulation models:

Answer 16

intended to mimic the underlying mental representations and processes that produce specific types of human performance.

Question 17

Process models:

Answer 17

specify a sequence of processes that convert an input to an output. Such models can be illustrated with a flowchart and are sometimes called “box and arrow” models.

Question 18

Behavioral methods

Answer 18

measures directly observable behavior such as the time to respond or the accuracy of a response.