Lecture 1 - Intro to cognitive psychology

Question 1

What are the functions of the mind?

Answer 1

Forms and recalls memories, solves problems, considers possibilities, makes decisions.
Responsible for the survival and normal functioning, symbol of creativity and intelligence.
Creates representations of the world so we can act in it.

Question 2

What is the mind?

Answer 2

A system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals
The mind operates high level (consciously controlled) and low level (automatic) cognitive functions

Question 3

The mind creates and controls mental functions such as …
What are these known as?

Answer 3

Perception
Attention
Memory
Emotions
Language
Deciding
Thinking
Reasoning
These are known as cognitive domains

Question 4

What is the problem with studying the mind?

Answer 4

We cannot observe the mind directly
We can only observe behaviour and draw inferences about behaviour and underlying processes and mechanisms

Question 5

What is the subtraction method?

Answer 5

First cognitive experiment
Donders (dutch psychologist) invented this method in 1868

If you measure 2 variations of the same mental function that only differ in 1 aspect, the observed difference between these two variations can be attributed to that 1 aspect in which they are different

Question 6

What did Wundt do?

Answer 6

Opened the first psychological lab in 1879 at uni of Leipzig
Investigated nature of consciousness
Assessment of mental activities
Introduced structuralism into the study of the mind

Question 7

What is structuralism?

Answer 7

An approach that attempts to explain functions of the mind by adding hypothesised elementary units

Question 8

What are elementary contents of the mind?

Answer 8

Wundt and his students called these sensations

Question 9

What was Wundts approach to studying the mind?

Answer 9

He was an empiricist
- knowledge rooted in experience
- there are observable and measurable effects that allow inferences about the mind
- method of introspection
- use of technical devices
- create a periodic table of the mind

Method limited to conscious thought

Question 10

Who was Ebbinghaus and what was his approach?

Answer 10

Psychologist at Uni of Berlin interested in memory and forgetting.
Instead of introspection he used quantitative methods
- counting correct and incorrect responses trying to remember his infamous nonsense syllables

Question 11

What is Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve?

Answer 11

Curve that as the days increase, retention decreases

Applies to memory for non integrates/meaningless information

Still valid and accurate of a certain type of memory

Question 12

What did James do?

Answer 12

Published the first psychology textbook - Principles of Psychology
His approach was based on observations and focused on functionality

Question 13

Why did JB Watson critisize introspection?

Answer 13

• it produced extremely variable results from person to person
• these were difficult to verify

Question 14

What did JB Watson introduce?

Answer 14

Behaviourism

Question 15

What was the goal of behaviourism?

Answer 15

The prediction and control of behaviour
Purely objective, experimental branch

Question 16

What are the two types of conditioning?

Answer 16

Classical (Pavlov’s dogs) - learning through association

Operant (Skinner) - learning through reward and punishments

Question 17

What are the ethical considerations of Behaviourism?

Answer 17

Emotion and pain only recognised as reaction to environment

Resulted in ethically questionable research practices
- little albert
- animal research
- electroshocks as conditioning

Historical context - part motivated by WW1 and WW2

Question 18

What did Tolman do?

Answer 18

Discovered cognitive maps
Mice would learn to turn right for food

Question 19

What was the debate between Skinner and Chomsky?

Answer 19

Skinner - children learn through operant conditioning, imitate speech they hear and its is rewarded

Chomsky - verbal behaviour is innate, children say sentences that have never been said or rewarded by parents (I hate you). They also go through incorrect grammar stages which would not have been reinforced

Question 20

What was the new way of conceptualising cognition?

Answer 20

• Use of computing
• Breaking down processes into units and subprocesses like flow diagrams
• Memory as a flexible storage system
• Processing limitations
• Working memory as CPU

Question 21

What were the two key concepts of the cognitive revolution?

Answer 21

Mental representations and transformations of mental representations

Question 22

What is artificial intelligence?

Answer 22

Originated in idea that computers can mimic human behaviour or carry out intelligent behaviour
Computers were modelled after the logic process that were thought to underlie human cognition

Question 23

Newell and Simons Logic Theorist

Answer 23

Created proofs of mathematical theorems that involved principles of logic
Was considered a real thinking machine as it did more than process numbers but also solved problems

Question 24

Does the mind work like a computer?

Answer 24

No
- its a helpful metaphor
- brain and computer operate on completely different basic principles
- computers not as powerful as brains
- computers are extremely fast