LECTURE 1 - History of Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
what is the study of cognition?
- the scientific study of how the mind encodes, stores, and uses information
- includes perception, attention, memory, reasoning, problem solving, decision making, language, etc
what are the two approaches to cognitive psychology?
- highly controlled lab experiments that isolate mental processes within the lab
- broader studies aiming to understand cognitive processes in the real world
what is selective attention?
the mind selects only portions of information and constructs what we mistakenly believe to be a faithful and complete perception of the world around us
- encoding (in this case through vision) is a matter of what your mind can keep track of
what are mental representations and computations?
mental representations - encoded and stored information about the environment
computations - processing steps performed on the representations
what did David Marr suggest about perception and cognition?
- Perception and Cognition can be probed at three different levels (1) computational (2) algorithmic (3) implemental
- understanding the function of a mental process vs. the information transformations that support that function vs. the neural processes involved
what is the computational level of analysis?
- seeks to understand what the mind is trying to compute and why
- ex. what skills are involved in reading development? must identify individual words
what is the algorithmic level of analysis?
- aims to understand the rules, mechanisms, and representations the mind
- ex. how do changes in attention to words support reading development? measure eye movements to see how our familiarity with different words guides the way we pay attention to words as we read them
what is the implemental level of analysis?
- seeks to know what happens in the brain to enable cognition
- ex. what areas of the brain become more involved as children become better readers? may look at the “visual word form area” in the brain (left hemisphere)
what was plato’s role in cognitive psychology?
- wrote The Republic, proposing that the soul (psyche) has three parts
- the logos (reason),
- the thymos (spirit),
- and the eros (desires)
- precursor to models differentiating mental processes such as reasoning, emotion, and motivation
- suggested that the soul is born with innate knowledge that it can remember over the course of life (nativism) - from the Meno
what was aristotle’s role in cognitive psychology?
- Aristotle argued that knowledge arises from experience
- precursor to theories that focus on perception, memory, and learning
- Aristotle’s writings on memory address memory processes, proposing that memory works by association
- precursor to theories of associative learning and memory
what were the stoics’ (Seneca, Epictetus) role in cognitive psychology?
- believed cognitive processes are important for managing emotions and in becoming a clear and unbiased thinker in order to understand universal reason (logos)
- precursor to cognitive-behavioural approaches to emotion regulation
give a one sentence summary of each of 5 schools of thought in the 19th and early 20th century, and the major figures in each.
- Materialism: claims that behaviour can be explained by physical forces alone (Helmholtz)
- Structuralism: studies the components of mental processes; development of experimental tools to study sensation, perception, thinking, and memory (Wundt, Fechner, Weber)
- Gestalt Psychology: “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”
- Functionalism: focus on function of mental processes (James)
- Behaviourism: focus on behaviour and on shaping it through reward and punishment (through learning associations)
who was Gustav Fechner (1801 - 1887) and what did he do?
- established the field of psychophysics
- psychophysics – the scientific study of the relationship between physical stimuli and perceptual (psychological) experience
- formulated Fechner’s Law - principle that the intensity of subjective experience of a stimulus increases in proportion to the stimulus’s intensity
- psychophysics adopted new concepts for understanding perception, e.g., by measuring detection and difference thresholds
who was Ernst Weber (1795 - 1878) and what did he do?
- studied how changes in external stimulation lead to changes in what the mind perceives, measuring a just-noticeable difference
- just-noticeable difference - smallest detectable difference between two stimuli, or minimum change in a stimulus that can be correctly judged as different from a reference stimulus (difference threshold)
- Weber’s Law – principle specifying the relationship between a stimulus and the resulting sensation that says that the smallest detectable change in a stimulus (the JND) is a constant fraction of the stimulus level or intensity
what was Fechner’s extension of Weber’s law?
as stimulus intensity grows larger, larger changes are required for the changes to be detected by a perceiver
who was Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) and what did he do?
- conducted important work on nerve physiology, and sensory physiology (inspired by early psychophysics)
- hypothesized that color vision arises via the combined activity of separate nerve fibers that respond to each of the primary colors
- suggested that the mind must actively engage in relatively automatic unconscious inference
- unconscious inference - the mind makes “best guesses” in order to turn sensory impulses into percepts of the external world
- argued that behaviour could be explained by only physical forces (materialism)
- to prove this, he measured the speed of neural impulse, showing that neurons obey the laws of physics and chemistry
- laid groundwork for use of reaction times as an important tool in cognitive psychology
who was Wilhem Wundt (1832 - 1920) and what did he do?
- studied and worked with Hermann von Helmholtz
- founder of the first experimental laboratory at the University of Leipzig (Germany)
- sought to uncover the building blocks of consciousness using rigorous experimentation, such as reaction times
- known for using introspection, where researchers observed their own experience of a stimulus as the experience unfolded
- widely considered the most influential force in the development of psychology as an empirical science
who was Franciscus Cornelis Donders (1818 - 1889) and what did he do?
- hypothesized that the speed of higher mental processes could be similarly measured as the speed of nerve transmission
- by taking the difference between these reaction times (Donder’s subtraction method), one could isolate the time involved in discriminating a stimulus and choosing an appropriate response
- limitation – this approach assumes that cognitive processes unfold serially and that the duration of one process is unaffected by the addition of a second task
who was Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909) and what did he do?
- believed that higher mental functions such as memory could be measured and understood through experimentation
- unlike most cognitive scientists, Ebbinghaus only ran experiments on himself
- Ebbinghaus (1885) provided lasting insights into the role of repetition in memory and the exponential rate at which forgetting occurs (the so-called forgetting curve)
what were the schools that were in opposition of materialism and structuralism?
- gestalt psychology: critiques the fundamental tenet of Structuralism that conscious experience could be usefully understood through examining its basic building blocks
- instead, they believe that “the whole is other (more) than the sum of its parts”
- functionalism: william james argued focus should be on the functions of the mind
- behaviourism: john watson argued the mind has the be understood through objective, behavioural methods
what exactly is gestalt psychology? what psychologist supported these ideas?
- emphasizes the idea that the mind perceives whole objects or patterns rather than isolated parts
- Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) studied problem solving abilities in chimpanzees and found that they could solve problems through insight
- insight: the sudden revelation of how to solve a problem, not through trial and error
who was Margaret Floy Washburn (1871 - 1939)?
- first woman to obtain a PhD in Psychology (Cornell University, 1894)
- wrote The Animal Mind (1908), presenting detailed observations of mental processes in non-human animals (perception and mental imagery)
- Washburn’s work highlighted the importance of internal mental processes, in opposition of behaviourism
- in 1921 APA presidential address, reintroduced introspection as a valid experimental method
what were the main ideas of behaviourism?
- associations were either between external stimuli (classical conditioning), or between an organism’s actions and desired or undesired outcomes (operant conditioning)
- believed all behaviour could be explained by experiencing paired associations
- problematic behaviours could be addressed through exposure to the right combinations of paired associations (foundation of Behavioural Therapies)
- behaviourism introduced a new standard of experimental rigor and objectivity, leading to behavioural neuroscience
what was the cognitive revolution?
occurred in the 1950s and 1960s
- advances in fields such as computer science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and neuroscience were providing new tools and models for thinking about cognition
- increasing numbers of researchers felt Behaviourism could not explain psychological experiences
what were the major events that put more focus on cognitive psychology rather than behaviourism?
- in 1959, linguist Noam Chomsky criticized B.F. Skinner’s description of children’s language development as resulting from reinforcement learning, argued that children learn language too easily to be accounted for by behaviourist principles
- Edward Tolman (1886-1959) studied learning in rats using mazes and found patterns in his data that could not be explained without reference to mental representation
- In 1948, Claude Shannon demonstrated that the nature and processing of “information” itself could be studied and analyzed without consideration of the actual content of a message
- this approach laid the foundation for the cross-disciplinary field of information theory, focusing on the processes by which information can be coded, stored, transmitted, and reconstructed
what exactly did Edward Tolman’s work on rats and mazes reveal?
- In 1930, published experimental results suggesting that rats build some sort of knowledge or representation of the space during free exploration, in the absence of rewards
- In 1948, introduced the concept of cognitive maps (a mental representation of space), which was later applied extensively to many areas of psychology
what exactly did Claude Shannon’s work reveal?
- In 1948, Claude Shannon demonstrated that the nature and processing of “information” itself could be studied and analyzed without consideration of the actual content of a message
- recoded info into easily transmittable binary units (like the 1’s and 0’s for computer languages)
- sent through channels that might vary in their capacity and degree of distortion, and
- recoded by a receiving agent according to rules and algorithms that enabled reconstruction of the original message
what is information theory?
- study of how information is processed, transmitted, and stored
- explores how simple algorithms and basic operations can be used to perform complex calculations and solve problems
- Alan Turing’s concept of the Turing machine demonstrated that any possible calculation could be carried out using a simple set of operations
- providing a model for how information might be processed in the mind
what is computational modeling?
- the use of computers and mathematical functions to constrain and predict aspects of human cognition
- means to make theoretical models more precise and explicit
what was the role of information-processing approach in psychology?
- information-processing approach influenced psychologists from the 1950s onward
- George Miller (U.S.) studied memory capacity, introducing the concept of “the magical number 7 ± 2”, which refers to the amount of information people can store
- Donald Broadbent (U.K.) developed a filter model of attention, describing how information flows through a selection process
- American psychology at the time focused heavily on social psychology
- Jerome Bruner and colleagues studied cognition through emotions and motivation, exploring how they influence conscious perception
what was the “Big Bang” of cognitive psychology?
- symposium on Information Theory (1956) brought together psychologists, computer scientists, engineers and mathematicians with different approaches to the study of cognitive psychology
- solidified the idea that the different approaches all represented part of cognitive psychology
what are the limitations to the information-processing approach to cognitive psychology?
- does not consider the relevance of cognition in everyday life
- cognition is shaped by ‘meaning’ (task) and context, which was lost in most computational experiments
- does not consider individual differences
what was the role of emotion in cognitive psychology?
- emotion was considered problematic for cognitive psychology because it was difficult…
- to measure objectively
- to ensure that any emotional event or stimulus gives rise to the same changes in each person
- but evidence was mounting to indicate that cognition and emotion are intertwined
- brain areas involved in emotion often overlap with those responsible for cognitive functions
what is the somatic marker hypothesis?
- internally generated, emotion driven bodily sensations (or mental representations of them) become information that is integrated into and guides our interpretations and evaluations of the world around us
- emotions are a key driver to behaviour and are linked to the way we think and act
- suggests that people link physiological responses (emotional reactions) to outcomes of their actions
- learned associations guide decision making, even when people can’t consciously identify the reasons for their choices
what is emotionally-focused therapy?
Sue Johnson (1947-2024)
- posits that behaviour can only change through a change in emotional experience
- emotions are the key to change in psychotherapy with individuals, families and couples
- this view is in opposition to purely cognitive behavioural approaches and breaks new ground in integrating cognition and emotion
what are cognitive and affective primacy hypotheses?
- Cognitive primacy hypothesis - argues that cognitive interpretations come before emotional response
- Affective primacy hypothesis - argues that emotions come before cognitive interpretation
- these theories aren’t too accurate because emotions and cognition are tightly linked
