Overview of Cognitive Psychology

Question 1

What is Behaviourism?

Answer 1

Building psychology by measuring only the observable.

E.g. Skinner

Question 2

Outline Information Processing

Answer 2

The computer metaphor: seeing the mind as an information processor.
A common idea as a way of understanding the mind.

Question 3

What is Representationalism?

Answer 3

The form the information is stored as in the mind.
You do not capture in your mind exactly what is out there in the world.
Allow you to impose structure on variable information e.g. phonological representations in Working Memory.

Question 4

Explain the distinction between data and theory

Answer 4

Data is the evidence.

Theory is the claim about what the data means.

Question 5

Outline why theories require models

Answer 5

Can’t just ask yes or no questions about psychology, need to build theories

Question 6

What were Alan Newell’s suggestions for what psychologists should do?

Answer 6

1. Have formal models - not just box and arrow diagrams
2. Theories need to be about cognition not tasks
3. Need general models that can be applied to multiple tasks.

Question 7

Outline the meanings of

1. Empiricism
2. Determinism
3. Testability
4. Parsimony

Answer 7

1. Principle that the key to understanding things is through systematic observation
2. Principle that behaviours have underlying causes and that understanding involves identification of what these causes are and how they’re related to the behaviour of interest.
3. Principle that theories must be stated in ways that allow them to be evaluated through observation.
4. Principle to prefer the simple explanations over more complex ones.

Question 8

What are commonly used measures in cognitive psychology?

Answer 8

1. Accuracy - common where there are either right or wrong responses. Can be about the number and kinds of errors you make not just how many items you correctly recall.
2. Response Time - how long it takes to respond to a stimulus, techniques such as priming and eye movement measurements are regularly used.

Question 9

What is a paradigm?

Answer 9

A commonly used experimental design

Question 10

Why is studying cognition a challenge?

Answer 10

Because you cannot directly measure the thing you are making theories about.