Module 1- Introduction

Question 1

How much does the brain approximately weigh?

Answer 1

Around 3 pounds

Question 2

What is the most sophisticated computing device in the known universe?

A- human brain
B- Google car
C- calculator
D- Deep blue (chess playing computer)

Answer 2

A = the human brain

Question 3

What is a basic definition of cognition?

Answer 3

The sum of all intelligent mental activities + the acquisition and processing of sensory information about the world in order to make behavioural decisions.

Question 4

Why is the study of cognition made up of multiple fields and subfields of scientific research?

Answer 4

Because cognition encompasses many different kinds of abilities
+
Intelligent behaviour itself is multifaceted.

Question 5

Name the many areas of cognition we will study this semester.

Answer 5

• Perception
• Attention
• Short-term memory
• Long-term memory
• Language
  -Problem solving
• Decision making

Question 6

What is the primary concern of the field of cognition?

Answer 6

Understanding the processes that allow things to go right.

Question 7

Which of these would not be considered part of cognition?

A - memory
B - language
C - digestion
D - perception

Answer 7

C - digestion

Question 8

What are the two major disciplines to understand brain functioning?

Answer 8

1. Experimental psychology
2. Neuroscience

Question 9

What is basic research?

Answer 9

Scientific research whose goal is to try to understand the world and its phenomena without regard to a specific end-use of this knowledge.

Question 10

What is the goal of basic research?

Answer 10

To understand who we humans are as a species and what makes us tick

Question 11

What is applied research?

Answer 11

Research concerned with the end goal of developing an application or solution to a problem.

Question 12

What is a motivation for cognition that is connected to machines and what is this field called?

Answer 12

Try to build machines that can do the same types of cognitions as humans

Artificial intelligence

Question 13

What can be said about the progress of artificial intelligence?

Answer 13

It has made a lot of progress since the 1950’s when it was first attempted, but there are still many tasks that artificial intelligence cannot do as well as humans. It is no where close to the complicated processes made by the human brain.

Question 14

Historically, artificial intelligence has been least successful at tasks that require what kind of capability?

A. Fast performance
B. Many calculations
C. Large memory
D. Flexible thinking

Answer 14

D. Flexible thinking

Question 15

What changed in ai development that created a revolution in the field?

Answer 15

They are no longer programmed based on a human writing the computer code to decide what it should do, it is now programmed to learn.

Question 16

What is called the new programming approach in ai?

Answer 16

Machine learning

Question 17

What is neuroscience?

Answer 17

The study of the physical brain and related systems

Question 18

What is the field of cognitive psychology?

Answer 18

Studying intelligent behaviour itself

Question 19

What does cognitive psychology use to study intelligence?

Answer 19

Behavioural experiments

Question 20

Method in which researchers observe the behaviour of people or other organisms in their natural habitat, without any experimental intervention.

Answer 20

Naturalistic observation

Question 21

What are the results of experiments in cognitive psychology often open to interpretation and debate?

Answer 21

Because the methodology is kind of indirect

Question 22

What is one limitation of cognitive psychology?

Answer 22

The complexity of each of the individual fields is such that they can become relative islands of research without making much direct contact with the other fields.

Question 23

What is the goal of computational modeling?

Answer 23

Understanding the brain based on simulating brain processes or functions using computer-based models.

Question 24

A field of psychology concerned with applying scientific findings to the design of systems that people interact with.

Answer 24

Human factors

Question 25

What is the difference between basic research and applied research?

Answer 25

Basic research
- goal is to try to understand the world and its phenomena without regard to a specific end-use of this knowledge

Applied research
- Research with end-goal of developing a solution to a problem

Question 26

What does the amygdala activity for memory?

Answer 26

It predicts memory for emotional but not neural images

Question 27

What is Epistemology?

Answer 27

The philosophical study of human knowledge

Question 28

What is Plato’s philosophy?

Answer 28

Knowledge involves experience and reason
- Deductive reasoning
- the world is a reflection of our reality
- external and internal processing interact (bottom-up and top-down)

RATIONALISM
- important of prior knowledge
- innate aspect to reasoning
- observation is not always certain

Question 29

What is Aristotle’s philosophy?

Answer 29

EMPIRICISM
- inductive observational reasoning
- suggests to learn from what you see
- foundation for the importance of observation

Question 30

What is structuralism?

Answer 30

It is a school of psychology at the origin of cognitive psychology.

Identify the basic elements of thought and learn how these elements combine to form complex thoughts

introspection and self-report

Question 31

What is psychophysics?

Answer 31

A study of basic cognitive phenomenon by liking sensory experiences to physical changes

Ex: measuring the threshold for feeling the touch from a feather; the smallest amount of change in pigment to notice a difference between two colours

Question 32

What were the criticisms for structuralism?

Answer 32

Experimental methods were considered too subjective, relying on self-report
Approaches were too simplistic

Question 33

What is functionalism?

Answer 33

Early study of experimental psychology
- asks why the mind works
- not interested in breaking down mental states to basic elements
- cognition is about serving a function and so must adapt to current coals

Question 34

What is a criticism of functionalism?

Answer 34

It is difficult to study some of these ideas (consciousness, imagery), especially if cognition is always changing

Question 35

What is the difference between classical conditioning and instrumental learning or operant conditioning?

Answer 35

Classical conditioning
- learning by making associations between cue, a stimuli and the natural response

Operant learning
- behaviour is contingent on a schedule of reinforcements, rewards and punishments
- rewards encourage behaviours
- punishment reduce behaviours

Question 36

Behaviour is limited because _______________.

A. It only focuses on internal processes
B. It is too complex as it accounts for internal and external responses
C. It is impossible to scientifically study behaviour
D. It does not account for internal mental processes and flexibility

Answer 36

D. It does not account for internal mental processes and flexibility

Question 37

What are the problems with behaviourism?

Answer 37

• Overestimated the scope of their explanations
• cannot account for complex human behaviour
• the assumption that learning was the same for all individuals and across species is false

Ex: language. Behaviourism says that language is learned through conditioning, but children learn things that they’ve never heard before (sentences they’ve never heard)

Question 38

What is latent learning?

Answer 38

Learning in the absence of any conditioning

Question 39

What does the amount of choices do for information processing?

Answer 39

The greater the number of choices (or uncertainty of choice) requires more information to process, and thus it takes longer to make a decision.

Question 40

What is decision fatigue?

Answer 40

Making decisions taxes cognitive processing and we have a limited amount of cognitive processing

Question 41

What is the webster and thompson experiment and its findings?

Answer 41

Experiment where people heard two messages at the same time, with familiar and unfamiliar information.

This experiment found that people could process two messages at the same time but only if the messages are familiar to us. We can only process one message if it is unfamiliar to us.

Question 42

What is ecological validity?

Answer 42

The extent to which the findings of a research study can be generalized to real-life naturalistic settings