Intro and History

Question 1

Name two experiments that have Ethical issues

Answer 1

1. Little Albert
2. Milgram Experiment

Question 2

Who performed the experiment called “Little Albert”?

Answer 2

John B. Watson

Question 3

What was the goal of the experiment?

Answer 3

The goal was to show that fear could be conditioned.

Question 4

What was the Ethical issue in the experiment?

Answer 4

He conditioned fear in the baby but never unconditioned it.

Question 5

Give a description of the experiment.

Answer 5

A baby was first exposed to many furry animals.

In the first part of the video, we can see how the baby is not afraid of any of the animals.

Then, Watson started to play strident noises while the baby was interacting with the animals.

Eventually, the baby grew afraid of the furry animals altogether.

Question 6

Who carried out the Milgram experiment?

Answer 6

Stanley Milgram

Question 7

What was the goal of the Milgram experiment?

Answer 7

To show obedience to authority figures was greater when the authority figures would be held responsible for the participant’s actions.

Question 8

What was the ethical issue with this experiment?

Answer 8

• Deception (no real shock)
• Participants put under a lot of stress. Participants were not protected.
• Participants were discouraged to leave the experiment

Question 9

Give a description of the Milgram experiment

Answer 9

In this experiment, a student and a teacher were picked. The student was then strapped to a chair and the teacher was supposed to read to them a list the student had to memorize.

Then, the student would have to say the list out loud and if they would make a mistake, the teacher would inflict an electrical shock.

During the whole experiment, the student is an actor, there is no electric shock and a scientist in a white coat monitors the experiments by the side of the teacher (the participant).

Question 10

What resulted from these unethical experiments?

Answer 10

The Belmont Report was written to target these ethical concerns.

Question 11

Who is considered the father of experimental psychology?

Answer 11

Wilhem Wundt

Question 12

Who what Wilhem Wundt’s student?

Answer 12

Edward B. Titchener

Question 13

What is analytic introspection?

Answer 13

This is a process where we look into ourselves following a meticulous process.

Question 14

Name a few problems with Analytical introspection

Answer 14

• Many thoughts are unconscious
• Many brains are incremental
• There is no way to prove the claims

Question 15

Who created behaviourism?

Answer 15

John B. Watson

Question 16

Why did Watson develop another process that was not Analytic introspection?

Answer 16

He was not satisfied with analytic introspection. Especially since it would never yield the same results from person to person and was hard to verify.

Question 17

What is behaviourism?

Answer 17

He wanted to use behaviour as a starting point. Therefore, he wanted to observe behaviour to understand what was going on in a person’s mind.

Question 18

Name a few problems with behaviourism

Answer 18

Ethical and theoretical concerns:

• Concerned only with behaviour, no reference to the mind
• Our behaviour is modified by how we interpret a situation
• Our interpretation of a situation is modified by our memories and beliefs.

Question 19

Who wanted to study behaviour to make inferences about the mental process?

Answer 19

Edward Tolman

Question 20

In one of Tolman’s experiments, a rat was introduced to a cross-shaped maze that it was allowed to explore.

Then, the rat was positioned at a given branch and food would be placed at the branch on its right. The rat then fetched the food multiple times while keeping the same positions.

Then the rat was moved and placed at the branch opposing the usual branch. The food was not moved.

Surprisingly, the rat turned LEFT instead of RIGHT.

What does this show?

Answer 20

This shows that the rat had created a cognitive map of the maze and did not associate right with reward.

Question 21

Who claimed that kids would learn language by imitating their parents and by being rewarded when proper language was used?

Answer 21

B. F. Skinner

Question 22

Who disproved Skinner’s claim on how kids learn language?

Answer 22

Noam Chomsky

Question 23

Give an example that disproves Skinner’s claim

Answer 23

Ex: A kid saying: “I hate you, mommy”

Following Skinner’s claim, the kid shouldn’t have learned to say this since it wouldn’t have been rewarded.

Question 24

Who published the first book called Cognitive Psychology and when?

Answer 24

Ulrich Neisser in 1967

Question 25

How do we study the mind?

Answer 25

• Timing
• Errors and accuracy
• Neurophysiological activity using neuroimaging techniques
• Computational Approaches

Question 26

Donders was interested in measuring how long it took a person to make a decision. How did he test this?

Answer 26

He measured the time it took a person to press a button given a light going on. In this case, the time it took is called simple reaction time.

In the second part, Donders added a second light and a second button. Whenever a light would go on, the participant needed to press the corresponding button. The time, in this case, is called choice reaction time.

Finally, reaction time is the time for a response to happen when a stimulus is presented.

Question 27

What is the subtraction method?

Answer 27

choice time - simple time = time to make a decision

choice reaction time <= simple reaction time

Question 28

What did Donders found by using the subtraction method?

Answer 28

He noticed that compared to a simple reaction, it took around a tenth of a second longer to make a decision.

Question 29

Who was interested in the nature of remembering and forgetting?

Answer 29

Herman Ebbinghaus

Question 30

What experiment did Ebbinghaus perform?

Answer 30

He presented himself with a list of nonsense syllables such as

DAX, QEH, LUH, etc.

He then memorized the list perfectly and then let some time pass from a few minutes to 31 days.

He checked how much of the list he remembered and analysed the data.

Question 31

How did Ebbinghaus analyse the data after he let some time pass?

Answer 31

He used the savings method:

savings=(initial repetitions - relearning repetitions)/(initial repretitions) * 100

Question 32

PET scan

Answer 32

Measure how many glucose is used in a certain area of the brain. Since glucose is the fuel of the brain, a high concentration can give us the location of activity levels at a certain moment in time.

To track glucose we inject the subject with Oxygen 15 which emits Gamma rays and sticks to glucose. It is then the amount of rays that is measured.

Question 33

FMRI

Answer 33

The blood contains iron which is responsible for carrying oxygen to the places that need it.

In this technique, we use a giant magnet that will follow the iron.

Especially, once iron delivered oxygen, it becomes much more magnetic.

This way we can detect the brain areas that are being used.

Question 34

EEG (Electroencephalography)

Answer 34

This technique measures the electric signal which allows us to record the voltage changes that happen throughout the scalp by using a net. This gives us the measures of brain activity in a wave-like pattern. This technique allows us to see how the brain responds on shorter time scales to very specific events

Question 35

TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)

Answer 35

In this technique strong magnet pulses at specific regions of the brain to temporarily disrupt brain activity. This allows us to see what functions are compromised when certain areas are targetted.

Question 36

Computational Approaches

Answer 36

Create computational models to better understand cognition