Intro/History Flashcards
cognitive psychology
the branch of psychology concerned with the specific study of the mind
mind
the system that creates mental perceptions of the world and controls mental functions
cognition
what is going on in the mind
Franciscus Donders
did one of the first experiments that today would be called a cognitive psychology experiment in 1868
reaction time
how long it takes to respond to the presentation of a stimulus
Franciscus Donders’s experiment
measured decision-making time by comparing simple reaction time (pressing a button when a light flashes) with choice reaction time (pushing left or right button)
mental responses cannot be ____ but must be ____ from ____
- measured directly
- inferred
- behaviour
Who founded the first psychology laboratory, and when?
Wilhelm Wundt in 1879
structuralism
our overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations
Wundt wanted to create a
periodic table of the mind
analytic introspection
trained subjects describe their experiences and thoughts in response to stimuli
when was structuralism abandoned
early 1900’s
what was Hermann Ebbinghaus interested in?
determining the nature of memory and forgetting, specifically how rapidly learned information is lost over time
how did Ebbinghaus study memory?
calculated savings based on how long it took for him to learn a list of syllables compared to how long it took him to re-learn them after forgetting
savings (memory)
(time it takes to learn) - (time it takes to re-learn)
what does the savings curve show?
memory drops rapidly for the first 2 days after the initial learning and then levels off
who was William James?
- American psychologist focused on functionalism
- taught first psychology class at Harvard in 1890
- studied and wrote a book on the operations of his own mind
what was one of the reasons why psychology rejected the study of mental processes?
negative reaction to Wundt’s technique of analytic introspection
what point of view did Watson propose and why?
Behaviourism, because he was not satisfied with introspection and wanted to study only things we can objectively observe
Watson’s most famous experiment
the Little Albert experiment, where a baby formed a negative association with rats after the pairing of a rat and a loud noise
What type of study did B.F. Skinner introduce?
operant conditioning, which focuses on how behaviour is strengthened by the presentation of positive reinforcers
What did Skinner and Watson have in common?
they both focused solely on determining how behaviour was controlled by stimuli
Tolman was one of the early ______ because he used behaviours to _______
- cognitive psychologists
- infer mental processes
Tolman’s experiment with rats showed that
they created a cognitive map of the maze they were in
Chomsky believed that language is ____, while Skinner believed that language is _____
- innate
- learned through reinforcement
Chomsky’s theory of language showed psychologists that
one cannot understand complex cognition through observation of behaviour alone
when was the cognitive revolution?
1950’s
what is the information-processing approach and what inspired it
- an approach that believes the operation of the mind can be described as occurring in a number of stages
- inspired by computers’ information processing stages
William James’s idea of attention
when we decide to attend to one thing, we must withdraw from other things
Who proposed the first flow diagram of the mind?
Thomas Broadbent
who inspired the first idea of artificial intelligence?
John McCarthy in the early 1950’s
what is the logic theorist and who created it?
- a program that created proofs of mathematical theorems that involved principles of logic
- Simon and Newell created it
Miller’s idea of the mind’s capacity
the human mind’s processing limit is 7 items plus/minus 2
what year is considered the birthday of cognitive science?
1956
who coined the term cognitive psychology?
Ulrich Neisser
the path of research in cognitive psychology is fueled by
asking questions
structural model
represent structures in the brain
process models
illustrate how a process operates
sensory memory holds information for _____ and then passes most of this information to _____
- a fraction of a second
- short-term memory
episodic memory
memory of events in your life
semantic memory
memory of facts
procedural memory
memory for physical actions
origins of “cognition’
- gnosco (Greek “to know”) emphasizes structure
- gogito (Latin “I think”) emphasizes process
structure/representation
the knowledge you possess; the information in your memory
static vs dynamic structures
constant vs changing
process
an operation on an external stimulus or on an internal representation (doing something to a representation)
performance
the observable behaviour that we must use as evidence of cognition, is not a perfect representation of what’s going on in the mind
Diogenes of Apollonia
- idea that the different senses integrate information
- theory of air as the vehicle for cognition
Aristotle
- tabula rasa = blank slate
- 380 B.C.
Plato vs Aristotle view of particulars
- Plato thought that particulars are imperfect versions of a universal idea
- Aristotle thought that the universal idea is in each particular
doctrine of association
- contiguity (happen together)
- similarity
- contrast
psychophysics
the systematic study of the relation between the physical characteristics of stimuli and the sensations that they produce
Titchener’s goal
find the structural elements of the mind
James-Lange theory
physical responses cause psychological feelings
theory
system of explanatory ideas that helps us describe and understand a complex domain
the scientific method requires
- careful consideration of the research question
- strict use of experimental controls
- be as objective as possible with the data
- external verification
