Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - 1.2

Question 1

Why was there a shift in analytic introspection?

Answer 1

Focus replaced by “pure” observable behaviour - approach called behaviourism (study of stimulus-response/input-output relationships)

Question 2

In 1913, John Watson became dissatisfied with the method of analytic introspection because of two reasons:

Answer 2

1. Produced extremely variable results from person to person, and..
2. Results were difficult to verify/prove

Question 3

What approach did Watson proposed?

Answer 3

Behaviourism

Question 4

What is behaviourism?

Answer 4

The approach to psychology, founded by John B. Watson, which states that observable behaviour provides the only valid data for psychology.

A consequence of this idea is that consciousness and unobservable mental processes are not considered worthy of study by psychologists.

Question 5

What does Watson’s quote famously summarise in two points?

Answer 5

1. Watson rejects introspection as a method and,
2. Observable behaviour, not consciousness (which involve unobservable processes such as thinking, emotions and reasoning) is the main topic of study
3. (reject the idea of going beyond data to draw a conclusion from unobservable mental events)

Question 6

What question did Watson shift from “What does behaviour tell us about the mind” to … (with behaviourism)

Answer 6

“What is the relation between stimuli in the environment and behaviour?”

Question 7

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 7

A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response.

Question 8

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 8

Definition:Type of conditioning championed by B. F. Skinner, which focuses on how behaviour is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection.

Question 9

How does Watson’s idea closely related to the idea of classical condition originally studied by Ivan Palvolv in 1890?

Answer 9

• Pavlov demonstrated that dogs could be made to salivate to the sound of the bell when the (neutral ) sound was previously paired with the arrival of food
• Watson showed the same principle applied to human behaviour and can be analysed without any reference with mind
• Watson what is going inside our head (e.g inside dog mind) is irrelevant
• Watson only cared about pairing one stimulus with another affected our behaviour

Question 10

When did operant conditioning be introduced by B.F Skinner?

Answer 10

1938

Another way to study the relationship of stimulus and response relationship

Question 11

What did B.F Skinner’s operant conditioning focus on?

Answer 11

How behaviour is strengthened by the presentation of positive reinforcers (such as good or social approach or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as shock or social rejection)

Question 12

An example of operant conditioning with B.F Skinner’s rat

Answer 12

• Reinforcing a rat with food for pressing a bar mainted or increased the rat’s rate of bar pressing

Question 13

How is Skinner and Watson alike?

Answer 13

Not interested what was happening in the mind but focused on how behaviour is controlled by a stimulus

Question 14

During 1940-1960 operant and classical conditioning dominated areas such as:

Answer 14

1. Classroom teaching
2. Treating psychological disorders
3. Testing the effects of drugs on animals

Question 15

What does figure 1.7 show?

Answer 15

• Timeline of studies of mind and cognitive psychology experiments

Question 16

What is one critique of the stimulus-response theory?

Answer 16

• Cannot explain that people often respond to different aspects of the same stimulus event, and which aspect is unknown until the response is made

Question 17

Example of critique of stimulus-response theory

Answer 17

• Group of people in museum viewing a painting of a street market
• One person may comment to his friend on specific painting technique
• Other friend in the group could suggest they try out new brasserie (French restaurant tonight) - focused content of painting
• Both instances controlling stimulus aspect is defined after the fact, the meaning has to the individual, not in terms of its external objective qualities as suggested by stimulus-response theory.

Question 18

What researchers didn’t follow the strict rules of behaviourist line?

Answer 18

• Edman Tolman and ten years later Noam Chomsky
• Edward - American psychologist
• Chomsky - American linguist

Question 19

Tolman 1938 Procedure

Answer 19

• First rat placed in maze and initally explored the maze, running up and down each alley
• After this initial period of exploration, rat placed at A and food placed at B
• Second condition was when rat placed C and food placed at B

Question 20

What happened with Tolman’s first condition?

(findings)

Answer 20

• Rats quickly learned to turn right at the intersection to obtain food
• This is what behaviourist would predict because turning right was rewarded with food

Question 21

What happened with Tolman’s second condition?

Answer 21

Rat turned left at intersection and reach food at B

Behaviourist couldn’t predict because they thought rat would go to the right

(Tolman took precautions to make sure rat couldn’t determine the location of food based on smell)

Question 22

What is a cognitive map?

Answer 22

Mental conception of a spatial layout.

Question 23

Tolman’s conclusion of maze

Answer 23

Rat during inital period developed a cognitive map

(conception within the rat’s mind of the maze’s layout , 1948)

Thus even though the rat previously rewarded for turning right, its mental map indicted it should turn left to reach the food

The use of cognitive and idea other than stimulus-response connection occurring in rat’s mind placed Tolman outside of mainstream behaviourism

Question 24

Diagram of Tolman’s experiment

Answer 24

Question 25

How was Tolman’s idea of cognitive map viewed by everyone else

Answer 25

Many psychologist in 1940 use of cognitive difficult to accept as violated the behavioursts’s idea that internal processes such as thinking/maps in head were not acceptable topics to study

Decade after Tolman’s study led to resurgence of mind in psychology

One development was in 1957 of Skinner’s book Verbal Behaviour

Question 26

What did Skinner’s book argue?

Answer 26

• Children learn language through operant conditions
• In this idea, children imitate speech they hear, and repeat correct speech because it was rewarded

Question 27

What did Noam Chomsky in 1959 point out in Skinner’s idea of children learning language through operant conditioning?

Answer 27

• Published review of book
• Pointed out children say may sentences that have never been rewarded by parents e.g I hate you Mummy and during the normal course of language development, they go through a stage of incorrect grammar e.g The boy hitted the ball even though incorrect grammar may never been reinforced.

Question 28

How did Chomsky view language development?

Answer 28

• Not determined by imitation or reinforcement, but by an inborn biological programme that holds across cultures
• language is a product of the way the mid is constructed rather than a result of reinforcement, led psychologists to reconsider that idea of language and other complex behaviours such as problem solving and reason can be explained by operant conition
• They began to realize that to understand complex cognitive behaviours, it is necessary not only to measure observable behaviour but also to consider what this behaviour tells us about how the mind works.

Question 29

Watson objected to the method of introspection in part because it was:

Answer 29

Produced highly variable results from person to person

Question 30

Little Albert, a nine-month-old-boy, learned to be afraid of a rat when a loud noise was made every time a rat (which Albert had originally liked) came close to the child. Little Albert learned to fear the rat through _____ conditioning.

Answer 30

Classical

In classical conditioning, pairing one stimulus (such as the loud noise presented to Albert) with another, previously neutral stimulus (such as the rat) causes changes in the response to the neutral stimulus.

Question 31

By allowing rats to explore a maze without providing food reward and then rewarding them for going to a particular place in the maze (as opposed to turning in a particular direction), Tolman was able to demonstrate the existence of what he referred as

Answer 31

Cognitive map

Tolman’s explanation of the finding that rats learned to go to a particular place rather than simply turning in a specific direction was that when the rat initially experienced the maze, it was developing a cognitive map, a conception within the rat’s mind of the maze’s layout.

Question 32

What is the cognitive revolution?

Answer 32

Definition:A shift in psychology, beginning in the 1950s, from the behaviourist approach to an approach in which the main thrust was to explain behaviour in terms of the mind. One of the outcomes of the cognitive revolution was the introduction of the information-processing approach to studying the mind.