Lecture 1 - Cognitive Psychology intro Flashcards
What is cognitive psychology?
Scientific study of mental functions/ internal processes (perception, attention, language, memory, emotion, reasoning, decision making).
How does cognitive psychology relate to everyday experience?
healthcare/ mental health, advertising/marketing, education/learning.
Early work in cog psych (1868-1890): Donders - reaction time
Test how long it takes to make a decision.
Simple reaction time: Press button as quickly as possible when a light goes on.
Choice reaction time: Press left button if left light on and right button if right light on.
Early work in cog psych (1868-1890) - Wundt - scientific psychology laboratory.
Procedure - analytic introspection.
Method - Trained participants describe sensations, feelings and thoughts in response to controlled stimuli.
Approach - Structuralism - experience is determined by combining basic elements (reductionist approach).
Early work in cog psych (1868-1890) - Ebbinghaus: Forgetting curve
Aim - to investigate the time course of forgetting.
Method - Quantitative method - repeated lists of nonsense syllables to himself at constant rate, determined time taken to learn a list for first time, waited (delay) then determined time taken to learn list second time, information remembered was quantified by difference between initial learning and re-learning times (savings).
Early work in cog psych (1868-1890) - James - principles of psychology.
Topics covered: attention, perception, memory, thinking, consciousness, imagination and reasoning.
(1900- now) - Watson - behaviourism.
Key points - Criticises analytic introspection, results vary per individual - subjective.
Approach - Behaviourism - observable behavioural data, rejects research about unobservable mental processes.
(1900- now) - Skinner - Operant conditioning.
Approach - Operant conditioning - focus on how behaviour strengthens through pos/neg reinforcers.
Behaviour is understood by studying stimulus-response relationships.
1948 - Tolman’s cognitive map
Findings - Rats learn spatial layout of mazes in ways at odds with behaviourist predictions.
Explanation - When initially exploring maze, rats develop ‘cognitive mapʼ - mental conception of maze layout.
1950s - The cognitive revolution
- Cherry - attention experiment.
- First commercially available digital computer.
- M.I.T and Dartmouth conferences.
- Skinner - verbal behaviour.
- Broadbent - flow diagram.
- Emergence of artificial intelligence.
Chomsky - “A review of B.F Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour”.
Review - Rejects children learning language through operant conditioning, argues language is a product of innate mental structures - universal across cultures.
Modern research (1960-now) - Neisser - first cognitive psychology book.
Key ideas of the book - Brings together research on perception, attention, problem solving, memory.
Focuses on information - processing approach.
What are the key ideas of the information processing approach?
- Mind is analogous (comparable) to computers.
- Info from environment is processed by a series of processing systems (perception, attention, memory etc).
- Cognition studied through inferring observable events.
What are the key ideas of behavioural experiments?
- Scientific
- Subjective report (participantʼs own description of experiences)
- Objective performance
- Popular measures: reaction times, eye movements, facial expressions.
What are the key ideas of neuroscientific approaches?
- Single neuron and multi-unit recordings in animals (neurophysiology).
- Effects of brain damage on cognitive abilities (neuropsychology).
- Measurement of behaviour and brain activity combined while participant is performing task (cognitive neuroscience).
- Manipulation of brain activity (e.g magnetic stimulation).
