P+C 2/2 Flashcards
What is cognition?
The experimental study of mental life
What theory did William James propose?
Behaviourism
- clarified foundations of the empiricist tradition
- claimed the newborn mind was a ‘tabula rasa’
- everything is learnt (not nativist)
What is associationism?
- Learning on the basis of contiguity (co-occurrence of things in space and time)
- Learning on the basis of frequency (how often things occur together)
Is behaviourism physical or abstract? What does this mean?
Physical - established laws of behaviour and learning
What was Thorndike’s law of effect?
Animals can learn responses to things that are rewarded
What is operant conditioning?
Animals learn responses to things that are punished
Why does the law of effect work?
It strengthens/weakens the stimulus-response (S-R) bond
What is Watson’s Law of exercise?
The more often a given situation is followed by a specific response the association becomes stronger - rote learning
What were Skinner’s 3 main proposals?
all explanations of behaviour are descriptions of environmental histories
operant conditioning shapes behaviour
wait for responses then reinforce if appropriate - positive reinforcement
What is constructivism?
People construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through their experiences and reflections on them
How did Tolman explain animal behaviour?
It is ‘goal directed’
emphasis on molar achievement rather than molecular movements
learning does not necessarily depend on S-R bonds
Reinforcement is not necessary for learning
What is latent learning?
rats in a maze ‘learnt’ the layout (determined by decreased entrance in to dead ends) with and without a food stimulus
What is a cognitive map?
spatial knowledge of an area represented in one’s mind that is not measurable or observable
What does Experimental Psychology use to test its theories?
IVs –> intervening variables –> DVs
What does Cognitive Psychology use to test its theories?
Biological + environmental conditions –> psychological states + traits –> behavioural manifestations
What does behaviourism use to test its theories?
causes –> outcomes
What is Chomsky’s Poverty of Stimulus argument?
There is not enough exposure to language in everyday life for language learning to be done wholly through the environment
What is universal grammar?
The assumption that we have a language acquisition device that is innate
What is generative grammar?
innate phrasing and grammar rules
What did Miller (1956) determine?
The ‘magic number’ of items one can keep in their working memory is 7 (+-2)
What did Newell and Simon (1958, 1960) create?
A General Problem Solver (GPS) that was a simulation of mental processes
What did Broadbent (1958) propose?
Information processing theory - our brain is a simple input-output system, does not merely respond to stimuli as behaviourists believe
What did Shannon & Weaver (1949) derive from the information processing theory?
The human cognitive system is an information processing system with definite stages
Describe the modular sub-system flow diagram for reading a word
displayed word –> iconic memory (visual info) -fast-> visual code OR -slow-> name code
What is cognitive psychology?
A study of the ‘software’
- experimental study of mental life
- study of mental representations and processes
- provides functional accounts of intellectual processes
What is redundancy?
The extent to which a message can be predicted or recovered from other parts of the message
What is contiguity?
Things that occur at the same time are associated in memories
What is the associationistic perspective?
The idea that we learn by making associations when two entities are frequently seen together
What did Solomon Asch test and discover?
That when random patterns are put together to show one cohesive pattern they are better remembered than just two patterns presented at the same time
What is Descartes’ naive realism?
all we can really assume is that we are thinking
What is the passive, bottom-up view of perception
lower level processes feed into higher level processes
What is Fodor’s ‘modularity of mind’ flow chart depicting perception?
sensory encoding –> input modules –> central processors
What are the Gestalt laws of perception?
grouping by proximity helps us distinguish objects
grouping by similarity helps us distinguish objects
grouping by common fate, symmetry + region helps us distinguish
What did Quinn, Burke and Rush (1993) prove about infants and perceptual organisation?
3 month old infants do not perceive ‘top-down’
What is Neisser’s naive realism?
Visual experiences mirror external stimuli
Visual experiences start and end with the onset and offset of an external stimulus
Visual experiences are based on passive copies of the outside world described using verbal reports
How was Neisser’s 3rd principle of naive realism proved wrong?
Gestalt laws said sensory information is organised according to coding principles not passive copies
What is Bruner’s perceptual readiness theory?
need and value determine our perceptions of the world
How did Bruner&Postman (1949) prove the perceptual readiness theory using cards?
A pack of cards was presented to participants with some of the card colours changed e.g. black hearts (normally red)
normal cards were more accurately recognised due to expecting what they were seeing
What did Bruner&Goodman (1947) find about need and perception?
Value has a role in perceptual influence, as does being rich or poor
What was Minsky’s (1975) frame theory of perception?
There is a role of expectancy in perception - you compare what you expect to see to what you actually see when you walk into a room
What is Stevens&Halle’s (1967) synthesis model based on the frame theory of perception?
preliminary analysis –> comparison from senses –> hypothesis
What did Epstein&Rock (1960) discover about expectancy and recency?
Recency seems more influential than expectancy
What is the difference between ‘seeing’ and ‘seeing as’?
If something is pointed out it may be seen differently to previously e.g. can help with problem solving
What is the poverty of stimulus argument?
each stimulus is an impoverished version of what is actually there
What is the question of simplicity or likelihood?
Do we perceive simplest or most likely option first?
What is Hochberg’s (1981) minimum principle?
We perceive what is most simple/economical
What is Hochberg’s (1981) likelihood principle?
We perceive what would normally fit the sensory pattern
What is Lewunberg’s structural information theory?
The smallest possible code for an object will be perceived i.e. simplicity
What did Peterson&Hochberg have to say about the simplicity or likelihood argument?
interpretation depends on where participants fixate. There are factors other than minimal coding at work
e.g. assumption that light comes from above
What does the minimum principle fail to account for?
light.
There is no reason why it is any simpler for light to come from above than below, yet we always assume that is the case
What is global processing?
determination of the overall structure
What is local processing?
determination of the details/building blocks
What did Broadbent&Navan (1977) say the 2 generic stages of processing are?
- initial passive perceptual analysis (bottom up)
- active stage: most promising interpretation followed by interrogation of proximal stimulus to check if initial suggestion is sensible by seeking supporting evidence
