Lecture 1

Question 1

cognitive psychology

Answer 1

• The study of intelligent behaviour
  We have to observe behaviour to infer thought because much of cognition is unconscious and more complex than it seems

Question 2

wilhelm wundt

Answer 2

• structuralism
  ○ The ‘first’ psychologist
  Investigated the elements of immediate experience via analytic introspection
  ○ Developed some of the first ideas about
  § Experimentation
  § Attention
  § Memory
  Language

Question 3

titchener

Answer 3

Titchener brought Wundt’s ideas to America in the form of structuralism and controversy of Wundt’s techniques

Question 4

analytic introspection

Answer 4

The process whereby people are trained to describe their inner feelings, thoughts, sensations and experiences in response to some kind of external stimuli

Question 5

william james

Answer 5

• functionalism
  ○ Father of American psychology
  ○ Concerned with prediction and control through direct observation
  Wrote “the principles of psychology”

Question 6

scientific method key principles

Answer 6

§ Empiricism: have to be able experience it
§ Determinism: the assumption that whatever you’re observing has a cause
§ Testability: have to be able to test the theory
Parsimony: pick the simplest explanation

Question 7

behaviourism

Answer 7

Behaviourism offered a way to study publicly observable functions of the mind

Question 8

pavlovian conditioning - salivating dogs

Answer 8

○ Presenting an unconditioned stimulus (meat) = unconditioned response (salivating)
○ Pairing the unconditioned stimulus with a neutral stimulus (bell) = unconditioned response (salivating)
Pairing the unconditioned stimulus with the neutral stimulus enough times = conditioned response (salivating) to just the neutral stimulus

Question 9

john watson

Answer 9

○ Was concerned with behaviour as a series of stimuli and responses
○ Brain processes are unimportant (“mystery box”- you don’t need to understand what’s going on in the mind)
Animals can be a good substitute to study human behaviour

Question 10

e.c tolman

Answer 10

○ Believed behaviour is not just a result of cause and effect
§ Disproved behaviourism by doing an experiment with rats in a maze
Learning can be latent (no reward or punishment)

Question 11

b.f skinner

Answer 11

○ Developed operant conditioning
Behaviour modification frequently used today (shaping)

Question 12

noam chomsky

Answer 12

○ Did not believe language could be simply a result of stimulus and response
His poverty of stimulus argument is impossible for behaviourists to explain

Question 13

WW2 for computers and cognitivism

Answer 13

○ A changing point for psychology because research was needed that had practical applications in the field
○ Problem solving and decision making were of high interest
Computers were being developed that could perform tasks to replace human performance to unobservable computations were knowable

Question 14

turing machine

Answer 14

• first proposed by alan turing
  § Essentially a computer program that could mathematically provide an output in the way a human could
  Goal was to carry out what the human mind can do

Question 15

newell and simon

Answer 15

○ Among the first to design a “non-war” computer program
“Logic theorist” was the first ‘thinking machine’

Question 16

representationalism

Answer 16

○ Cognition may be caused by the brain but that’s not what its about
○ Perceptions are about the physical world, they represent objects in the physical world
○ Thoughts are about possible real situations, they represent possible real situations

Question 16

neisser

Answer 16

○ Coined the term cognitive psychology
Believed human thought was equivalent to computer processing

Question 17

aboutness

Answer 17

§ The conscious experience we have about the world

Question 18

representationalism in short

Answer 18

Describes how the unobservable mind can act on the real world

Question 19

computation and marr

Answer 19

if computers process information and information processing is what characterizes minds, then maybe the mind is computational

Question 20

computation in short

Answer 20

assumes the mind is an information processor

Question 21

computation

Answer 21

§ Input -> store -> manipulate -> output
§ Symbol systems are representational and computational (they are about something and can be manipulated according to rules)
Newell and Simon were the first to suggest this

Question 22

representations and computations

Answer 22

Modern cognitive psych is all based on the assumptions that the mind operates by manipulating symbols that represent thoughts

Question 22

embodied cognition

Answer 22

○ To get meaning, you need to ground your symbol with something real in the world
Believes information is given by perceptual, motor and emotional activity by the body in the real world (and maybe eliminating the need for representations)
- symbol systems face the grounding problem

Question 23

grounding problem

Answer 23

○ Symbol systems face the grounding problem
Ex. what is an apple? What is a fruit? What does it mean to eat? …

Question 23

the biological perspective

Answer 23

believes information is represented as patterns of activity between interconnected neurons in a way similar to the brain
Based in medicine and physiology

Question 24

confounding variables

Answer 24

• Researchers try to avoid confounding variables
  ○ Variables that affect the DV but are not the IV

Question 24

embodied cognition in short

Answer 24

the study of cognition as we interact with the world

Question 24

research methods

Answer 24

• IV is manipulated by the experimenter, DV is measured and changes depending on the IV
  ○ Cognitive psychologists normally only use accuracy and reaction time for the DV, while the choice for the IV is endless
  
  • Researchers create/test hypotheses that the IV will cause a change in the DV

Question 25

quasi-experiments

Answer 25

Where random assignment of the IV is not possible (ex. male & female)

Question 26

structuralism

Answer 26

sought to analyze the adult mind (defined as the sum total of experience from birth to the present) in terms of the simplest definable components and then to find the way in which these components fit together in complex forms.

Question 27

functionalism

Answer 27

Functionalists were interested in studying the purpose of thought rather than it’s elements