Module 2 - How To Study Cognition

Question 1

The puzzle of how the physical body is related to mental activity is called ________.

A. The dualism divise
B. The mind-body problem
C. The mystery of mind
D. The great debate

Answer 1

B. The mind-body problem

Question 2

Descartes articulated the perspective of _________.

A. Monism
B. Physicalism
C. Dualism
D. Behaviourism

Answer 2

C. Dualism

Question 3

The use of introspection was a hallmark method of which school of psychology?

A. Behaviourism
B. Cognitivism
C. Structuralism
D. All of the above

Answer 3

C. Structuralism

Question 4

What field of science served as an inspiration to the structuralist school?

Answer 4

Chemistry

Question 5

The little albert experiment was an example of ____________ conditioning.

Answer 5

Classical

Question 6

Teaching a dog to shake hands on command using a food reward is an example of __________.

A. Classical conditioning
B. Operant conditioning
C. A combination of classical and operant
D. None of the above

Answer 6

B. Operant conditioning

Question 7

A finding in Tolman’s maze experiments was that when rats were placed in a different starting point of the maze than the one they had been trained on, they went _____________.

A. In the wrong direction to get the food.
B. In the correct direction to get the food but only if it involved producing the exact same behaviour as when they had first found the food
C. In the correct direction to get the food but only if they had previously explored the maze
D. In the correct direction to get the food, even when they had not previously explored the maze

Answer 7

C. In the correct direction but only if they had previously explored the maze

Question 8

Which of these methods is NOT currently considered a scientifically valid form of data for the study of cognition?

A. Introspection
B. Measuring behaviour
C. Measuring brain responses
D. None of the above

Answer 8

A. Introspection

Question 9

The “cognitive revolution” led to the idea of cognition as a form of _________.

A. Mental rotation
B. Introspection
C. Computation
D. Biology

Answer 9

C. Computation

Question 10

How do psychologists typically deal with the challenge of cognitive differences across individuals?

Answer 10

Include many participants

Question 11

What is the mind-body problem?

Answer 11

The question, or debate, of how mental events, such as thoughts, beliefs, and sensations, are related to, or caused by, physical mechanisms taking place in the body

Question 12

What is dualism and who created this idea?

Answer 12

First created by René Descartes

Dualism views the mind and body as consisting of fundamentally different kinds of substances or properties.
- Body = physical material
- Mind = not physical

Question 13

What is monism?

Answer 13

It is the view that there is only one kind of basic substance in the world.

(In regards to the mind-body problem)

Question 14

What are the three types of monism?

Answer 14

1. Physicalism/materialism
2. Idealism
3. Neutral monism

Question 15

What is physicalism/materialism?

Answer 15

The position that the only kind of reality is physical reality.

(In regards to the mind-body problem)

Question 16

What is idealism?

Answer 16

The view that the only kind of reality is mental

Question 17

What is neutral monism?

Answer 17

View that there is only one kind of substance that is neither just physical or mental, and that mind and body are composed of that same element.

Question 18

What is dualism synonymous with?

Answer 18

The idea of a soul or a spirit that is common across people and time

Question 19

What area of the brain was identified by René Descartes as a possible location for the soul?

Answer 19

The pineal gland

Question 20

What is pragmatic materialism?

Answer 20

Modern view that science operates based on physical methods, measurements and explanatory mechanisms and cannot test non-physical theories.

🚫say that mind and body are identical like monism
|
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It only states that observable behaviour can be explained based on physical processes. Our inner consciousness might not.

Question 21

How many neurons are there in the human brain?

A. Ten million
B. Seven thousand
C. One hundred billion
D. One trillion

Answer 21

C. One hundred billion

Question 22

Which of these is NOT an offered reason as to why studying the physical brain alone might be insufficient to understand cognition?

A. The brain is enormously complex
B. Cognition depends on non-physical mechanisms
C. The brain is embedded in the larger context of the body and the world
D. The brain must be considered within the contexts in which it operates

Answer 22

B. Cognition depends on non-physical mechanisms

Question 23

What is structuralism?

Answer 23

A school of psychology whose approach relied on introspecting on one’s own conscious mental states in order to understand the mind

Question 24

What does structuralism rely on?

Answer 24

Introspection

Question 25

What is introspection?

Answer 25

A technique employed by the structuralists to study the mind by training people to examine their own conscious experiences

Question 26

What are the reasons as to why introspection is not a good method to study the mind?

Answer 26

1. Cannot be verified by others. Replication is impossible. Very subjective data. There needs to be a clear, verifiable measure 2. It can only access mental activity that is conscious. However, much of our brain activity is unconscious to us.

Question 27

What is cortical blindness?

Answer 27

A condition in which an individual with damage to the visual cortex will report having no visual experience, despite having working eyes

Question 28

What is blindsight?

Answer 28

A phenomenon in which someone who reports blindness due to cortical damage still shows behaviour consisting some perception

Question 29

What is the think-aloud protocol?

Answer 29

A research method that involves having participants verbally describe their though process as they are performing a specified task

Question 30

What is behaviourist?

Answer 30

A school of psychology that emphasized using observable stimuli and behaviours as the basis of scientific experimentation

Question 31

Who is the founder of behaviorism?

Answer 31

John watson

Question 32

What is the basis of behaviourism?

Answer 32

Stimulus and response

Question 33

An involuntary behaviour can be induced by a stimulus that wouldn’t normally cause such a reaction, based on the fact that the stimulus was previously paired with a different stimulus that naturally *does* cause that reaction.

Answer 33

Classical conditioning

Question 34

What was the purpose if the Little Albert experiment?

Answer 34

To show that behavioural responses can be dramatically modified by conditioning

Question 35

A method of conditioning that reinforces certain behaviours through a system if rewards and punishments

Answer 35

Operant conditioning

Question 36

A form of behavioural conditioning based on punishment and reinforcement feedback

Answer 36

Reinforcement learning

Question 37

What is the view of cognition from Skinner (behaviouralist)

Answer 37

People learn which behaviours to produce in any situation, based on the reinforcement they received for producing those behaviours in the past

Question 38

In the context of the nature vs nurture debate, what did behaviourists believe produced cognition?

Answer 38

Nurture

Question 39

What is negative reinforcement?

Answer 39

Removing an unpleasant stimulus

Question 40

What is positive punishment?

Answer 40

Generating an unpleasant stimulus

Question 41

What is negative punishment?

Answer 41

Removing a pleasant stimulus

Question 42

What is a positive reward?

Answer 42

Generating a pleasant stimulus

Question 43

Learning in the absence of any reward or punishment conditioning, as in Tolman’s maze experiments.

Answer 43

Latent learning

Question 44

What is one fatal flaw if the behaviourist approach?

Answer 44

It cannot account for the flexibility of cognition to generate novel, intelligent behaviours that have not already been observed or performed.

Question 45

What is a function (computers)?

Answer 45

Mappings from inputs to outputs

Question 46

A method for producing the correct output from the input —> recipe for producing the desired result.

Answer 46

Algorithm

Question 47

A way of encoding information, based on whether or not some device is « on » or « off ».

Answer 47

Binary

Question 48

A device used in computers to control whether or not a current flowed through parts of the system?

Answer 48

Transistor

Question 49

What is the cognitive revolution?

Answer 49

A movement in the 1950’s that proposed that the mind could be understood as a computational system

Question 50

What is information processing?

Answer 50

An approach to human cognition that views it as a type of computation with sensory information serving as an input which is processed by the brain to determine a behavioural output.

Question 51

What is the goal of researchers of cognition in computers?

Answer 51

It is to determine what underlying algorithm or program the brain uses to compute its input/output functions

Question 52

What is used to illustrate the algorithm of the brain and cognition?

Answer 52

Flowcharts

Question 53

How can the brain be thought of, in computer terms?

Answer 53

The mind may be though of as **software**, running on the **hardware** of the brain

Question 54

What is the cognitive approach based on?

Answer 54

The ideas that we can measure observable behaviour in order to test the theories if the underlying mental processes.

Question 55

An approach in psychology that used behaviour as a method for developing and testing the theories of the underlying processing of the mind.

Answer 55

Cognitivism Or Cognitive psychology

Question 56

What is the reaction time?

Answer 56

A measure of how long it takes an experimental subject to respond to a given task or query.

Question 57

What is the detecting condition of Donder’s experiment?

Answer 57

It requires detecting that a light stimulus is present and producing a single motor response

Question 58

What is the discrimination condition of Donder’s experiments?

Answer 58

Requires the ability to detect a light stimulus as well as discriminating whether it is the correct stimulus to produce a response.

Question 59

What is the choice condition of Donder’s experiment?

Answer 59

Requires detection and discrimination as well as a choice between two behavioural responses.

Question 60

What is the stroop effect?

Answer 60

A psychological phenomenon in which reporting the ink colour of words is slowed down when the words spell out the name of a different colour.

Question 61

What kind of experiments does cognitive psychology employ?

Answer 61

Behavioural experiments where the participant is given a task to perform. The subject’s responses are typically recorded and some measure if these responses is then compared across experimental conditions

Question 62

What is correctness?

Answer 62

This measures whether or not a given response is accurate.

Question 63

What are thresholds?

Answer 63

A stimulus may be manipulated along on or several dimensions, such as the brightness of a visual stimulus or the loudness of an auditory stimulus, in order to test what level or change in the stimulus people are able to detect

Question 64

In order to address the issue of noisy data in cognitive psychology, what technique is used?

Answer 64

Many repetitions of each condition, called trials

Question 65

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 65

A field that combines behavioural experiments with methods for measuring brain activity

Question 66

What is behavioural neuroscience?

Answer 66

A scientific field that assesses behaviour and neurological factors in animals as models of human function.