Module 1 Flashcards
Mind-Body Problem
How can the output of the soul be related to the body?
Fechner
Studied perception (internal representation of external stimuli); opened the door for psych research
Wilhelm Wundt
Structuralism; first psychologist; studied structure of consciousness through controlled analytic introspection; attempted to break complex processes down into individual elements to be studied
Titchner
Student of Wundt; incorporated Wundt’s ideas with his own to make his own structuralist views (scientific observations had to match his opinions/findings to be ‘correct’)
William James
Functionalism; father of Psych in America; studied the purpose of thought rather than its elements; focus on controlling and predicting behavior through observation
Key principles of the scientific method
Empiricism, Determinism, Parsimony, Testability (Pragmatic Materialism)
Empiricism
Real observations of psychological processes that cannot be directly observed
Determinism
Everything must have a cause
Testability
Theories must be confirmable, either true or false (psych theories are difficult to test due to their internal nature)
Parsimony
Go with the simplest explanation of a behavior/theory/phenomenon
Behaviorism
Focus on studying observable behavior, brought psychology to a level where it was taken seriously; Pavlov, B.F Skinner, Watson (black box model), E.C Tolman. Still used in modern experiments, but not used to explain intelligence or cognition
Radial Arm Maze Experiment (E.C Tolman)
Rat trained to turn right to achieve food, but found to turn left when placed in a new position in the maze despite not receiving that training. Occurred ONLY in mice who could explore the maze freely before food was introduced. Proved latent learning and cognitive mapping, and that learning can happen without reward or punishment. Showed cognition happens between input and output
Noam Chomsky
Linguist, argued with Skinner’s behaviorist beliefs. Argued people could perform novel tasks without ever having learned them, specifically in language creation
Shift to Cognition from Behaviorism
Catalyst: World War II
Reason: Government wanted to create computers to replace humans in war
Focus: Attention, problem solving, decision making
Alan Turing
Father of mechanization; focused on finding the human ‘thought’ function that produced output
Newell and Simon
Created first non-war computer program; logic theorist problem-solving capabilities
Neisser
Coined the term “cognitive psych”; argued that the human mind functioned like a computer
Importance of computers to Cog Psych
Changed the focus towards inward thought processes that produce behaviors and how to recreate them in machines. Inspired new avenues of research; attempt to reverse engineer the brain
Major themes of Cog Psych Research
Representations, Computations, Biological Perspective, Embodiment, Interaction between representations and computations
Representations
Mental events that stand for something that exists in the physical world. Generated entirely inside the brain; ‘aboutness’
Computations
The brain processes like a computer; thoughts can be manipulated according to certain rules. One we understand the rules, we can understand thought
Interaction of representations and computations
The computational mind operates by manipulating the symbol system that is produced through representations.
Biological Perspective
Observe the brain to map cortical areas to cognitive functions
Embodiment
How our bodies interact with the world to solve the grounding problem, and how the interaction makes human processing different than computer processing
Grounding problem
Symbol systems have no basis in reality; can use referents for objects forever without ever actually defining an object
Case Studies
In depth analysis of a single subject
Correlational studies
Finding relationships between variables, but cannot draw causal conclusions
Experiments
Controlled manipulations of certain variables that can draw causal conclusions
Quasi-experiments
Experiment where random assignment of a variable is impossible
Computer simulations
Used to test plausibility/correctness of cognitive formulizations
Independent variable
Variable the experimenter directly controls
Dependent variable
Variable that is observed, looking for changes due to independent variable
Random assignment
Everyone in a test population has an equal change of getting assigned to any of the test groups
Confound
Something external and not controlled that can possibly affect the outcome of an experiment or study
Response measures used in Cog Psych
Accuracy (how correctly a participant completes the given task) and Response Time (how fast a participant responds to target stimulus); focus on voluntary responses
Cognition
Sum of all intelligent mental activities
Basic goal of cognitive Psychology
To understand human thought and cognitive processes
Machine learning
Computers are programmed to learn and get better at a task through input and feedback
Dualism
The mind and the body consist of fundamentally different substances or properties
Criticisms of Structuralism
Introspection only accounts for what we are aware of, and lots of cognitive process occurs outside of our awareness. Cannot be externally measured or reliably tested
Nuance Variables
Variables of a participants behavior that could change their results but not be the result of a different cognitive process (lack of attention, mistakes, etc.). Causes noise in data
