Intro to Cognitive Science - Unit 1 Flashcards
What is cognitive psychology?
study of human mental processes and their role in thinking, feeling, and behaving
What was Ebbinghaus’ pioneer experiment?
He compared the time it took to learn a list from scratch to the time it took to relearn/recall a list he had semi-forgotten, thus comparing explicit and implicit memory
explicit memory
as measured in recall
implicit memory
as measured in learning performance
two main schools of early psychological thought
structuralism and functionalism
structuralism
focused on the elements of consciousness such as sensations, feelings, and images
who pioneered structuralism?
Wundt and Titchener
what is the school of structuralism based on?
introspection
what are two problems with structuralism?
inconsistent introspective reports, and sometimes cognition happens without consciousness
how did functionalism arise?
as an alternative to structuralism
pioneers of functionalism
Angell, Thorndyke, etc.
what is functionalism based on?
function over structure of the mind: how the mind mediates between stimuli and reponse
behaviorism
tried to make psychology objective by studying behavior instead of cognition
pioneer of behaviorism
Watson, 1913
what is a well-known example of behaviorism?
Pavlov’s dogs: conditioning
Thorndyke’s law of effect
rewards increase the frequency of behavioral responses to certain stimuli
how did Skinner contribute to operant conditioning?
showed in experiments how rewards or punishments affected the frequency of responses to stimuli
how did cognitive studies come about?
with the arrival of and information provided by computer systems
who are some pioneers of cognitive studies?
Chomsky, Piaget, Miller, Bruner, Broadbent
who came up with the physical symbols hypothesis?
Simon, 1990
what is the physical symbols hypothesis?
a system is only capable of intelligent behavior if it can input, output, store, and modify symbols and carry out actions in relation to those symbols
information-processing approach to cognitive psychology
analogy between mental processes and computing
what provides the focus of human mental life, meaning or information?
meaning (Bruner, 1990)
how can psychologists study the evolutionary development of the mind?
by comparing different species, or by comparing developmental stages of a single species: earlier developing traits are generally accepted to be evolutionarily earlier
On what is the information-processing approach built?
The assumption that an organism’s ability to perceive, comprehend, learn, decide, and act depends on mental representations
Comparison between mental and external representations?
Robins: you might have the song in your head, but a painter’s work doesn’t
What is so AWESOME about mental representations?
They are private and perceived only by their owners and are unique!
Are all mental representations perceived as images?
Not by a long shot: aural, verbal, etc.
What provides the basis for all cognitive abilities? Why?
Mental representations: to perceive your environment at all, you need your own mental representations with which to work cognitively
Who concluded that processes modify mental representations in stages?
Massaro and Cowan, 1993
Basic overview of the cognitive stages of processing?
Perception and encoding, storage, retrieval, output
Stages of processing definition
Steps required to form, modify, and use mental representations in a cognitive task
What is the serial vs parallel processing question?
Whether or not stages of cognition occur simultaneously or in conjunction (CONJUGO!)
Trigram example of series vs parallel processing
PIG vs WAQ: pig can be processed parallel, whereas waq needs to be broken down since it’s unfamiliar
How can one describe the mind through a hierarchical system?
The mind is a hierarchical arrangement of functional components that can be analyzed and studied in isolation (Simon, 1969)
Cognitive architecture
The design and organization of the mind’s info-processing components and systems
module
Set of processes that are automatic, fast, and encapsulated apart from other cognitive systems: often in a localized brain area
Symbolic model
Assumes the mind is like a digital computer: mental representations are serially processed by a set of rules: provides a global perspective of the cognitive architecture and overview of components and links
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s symbolic model of memory
Environmental input > sensory store> pattern recognition into short or long term memory ( > rehearsal and retrieval) > behavioral response
Connectionist model
Assumes the mind is shaped according to the structure of the brain, not a digital computer: based on associations between numerous simple “neurons” (not bio neurons)
What does the connectionist model rely on?
Parallel processing: the mental representation isn’t processed serially, but in multiple regions of the brain in multiple neurons at the same time
What is the advantage of connectionist models over symbolic models?
Provides a more localized analysis and perspective on a cognitive process, not as generalized as symbolic
How do symbolic models explain cognition?
Simulations that operate like computer programs to encode, store, and manipulate symbols
How do connectionist models explain cognition?
Simulations of simple neuron-like units arranged in complex networks
Who were two fundamental researchers of memory stores?
Atkinson and Shiffrin
What did Atkinson and Shiffrin discover in 1971 about short-term memory storage?
Occurs in visual and auditory registers, known now as sensory memory
What are the three main definitions of consciousness?
Self-knowledge, informational access, and sentience
Self-knowledge
Capacity to represent the self mentally in addition to the objects, events, and ideas encountered externally
Informational access
Capacity to be able to report on mental representations and processes that operate on them
sentience
The basic capacity for raw sensations, feelings, or subjective experiences
What has been one long opinion of emotion in the brain? (Ekman 1972)
Certain emotional states are genetically prewired categories of physiological and behavioral patterns, universally expressed and recognized through facial expressions (Ekman 1972)
Example of the dual process theory applied to our understanding of human emotional responses?
Amygdala’s quick response to fearful stimulus, followed by longer, calmer, deliberate appraisal of the situation
What is an alternate opinion of emotions besides the physiological/behavioral?
Based on polar biological scales (pleasure/displeasure, etc.) that may or may not be shared between various emotional states
Cognition is a function of what?
THE BRAIN!
Cerebral cortex
bark of the brain: covering