Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
In the 1800s, ideas about the mind were dominated by the belief that it is not possible to study the mind. What was the rationale behind this idea?
One reason given was that it is not possible for the mind to study itself, or that properties of the mind could not be measured.
The Dutch physiologist Franciscus Donders conducted experiments in 1868 that today would be seen as experiments of cognitive psychology. Which experiments?
He made a comparison between a simple reaction time task and a choice reaction task, and inferred that the time it took to make the choice would be the difference between the two.
Franciscus Donders’ reaction time experiments points to one of cognitive psychology’s greatest weaknesses, which?
That a lot of mental responses can’t (yet) be measured directly, but must be inferred from observing behaviour.
Hermann Ebbinghaus was interested in determining the nature of memory and forgetting. How did he go about measuring these concepts?
He presented nonsense syllables to himself, one at a time, in a ordered list. He would try to guess the next syllable, and score himself based on the percent of correctly recalled syllables. In his experiments, he would vary the delay interval.
What was the name of the device Ebbinghaus created to produce his nonsense syllables?
Memory drum.
Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory of scientific psychology in (year)….
1879
Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory of scientific psychology in 1879. Where?
In Leipzig, Germany.
Wilhelm Wundt’s approach, which dominated psychology in the late 1800s and early 1900s was called…
structuralism.
Give a short explanation of structuralism.
According to structuralism, our overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience the structuralists called sensations.
Why was John Watson so dissatisfied with the method of introspection?
- It produced extremely variable results from person to person.
- These results were difficult to verify because they were interpreted in terms of invisible inner mental processes.
What is the most famous study that Watson did?
Watson’s most famous experiment was the “little Albert experiment” in which Watson and Rosalie Rayner (1920) subjected Albert, a 9-month-old-boy, to a loud noise every time a rat (which Albert had originally liked) came close to the child. After a few pairings of the noise with the rat, Albert had reacted to the rat by crawling away as rapidly as possible.
In the midst of behaviourism’s dominance of American psychology, B. F. Skinner, a young graduate student at Harvard, provided another tool for behaviourism, which insured this approach would dominate psychology for decades to come. What tool, and how did that tool work?
Skinner introduced operant conditioning, which focused on how behaviour is strengthened by the presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval (or withdrawal of negative reinforcers).
Edward Chance Tolman called himself a behaviorist, but is now seen as an early cognitive psychologist. Why?
Because the used behaviour to infer mental processes.
Mention one of Tolman’s experiments.
In one of his experiments, Tolman (1938) placed a rat in a maze with a cross-shape. Initially the rat explored the maze, running up and won each of the alleys. After this initial period of exploration, the rat was placed at one point and food at another. The rat quickly learned to turn right at the intersection to obtain the food. When placed at another alley, it would turn left (or straight ahead) to obtain the food. Holman used this behaviour to infer the existence of a mental map.
Quickly outline the behaviorist’s thoughts on language learning.
B. F. Skinner publicised a book in 1957 called “Verbal Behavior”. In this book, Skinner argued that children learn language through operant conditioning. According to this idea, children imitate speech that they hear and repeat correct speech because it is rewarded.
