Psy 538 Science of the Mind

Question 1

What is the behavior of the organism as a whole a product of (three types of variation and selection), and what is the fault of natural selection and how was it corrected?

Answer 1

1. (A) Natural selection, (B) Operant Conditioning, and (C) Culture.
2. The fault of natural selections is that a species behavior is only effective in a world that fairly closely resembles the world in which the species evolved.
3. It is corrected with operant conditioning.

Question 2

What is the second fault in variation and selection, why was it critical for operant conditioning, and how was the problem solved?

Answer 2

1. Second fault is the process is that selection must wait upon variation. Therefore the process is usually slow. Evolution can take millions of years but the repertoire of operant behavior must be constructed during a lifetime.
2. The problem was solved by imitation. Individuals take advantage of behavior already acquired by others.

Question 3

What is the third fault of the process of variation and selection?

Answer 3

1. Variations are random and contingencies of selection accidental.

Question 4

What are the two established sciences that have a bearing on human behavior, the second being a group of three sciences, and in what way can they be said to be related?

Answer 4

1. The first science is the physiology of body-with-brain. The second science group is: Ethology, Behavior Analysis, and Anthropology.
2. Physiology studies the product of which the sciences of variation and selection study production.

Question 5

What does physiology tell us and what do the sciences of variation and selection tell us

Answer 5

Physiology tells us how the body works and the sciences of variation and selection tell us why it is a body that works that way.

Question 6

what he calls cognitive science

Answer 6

Cognitive science is the creation science of psychology, as it struggles to maintain the position of a mind or self.

Question 7

Where do the variables of which human behavior is a function lie

Answer 7

The environment

Question 8

Be able to list the three classes of environmental variables that determine behavior

Answer 8

(1) The selective action of that environment during the evolution of the species. (2) Its effect in shaping and maintaining the repertoire of behavior which converts each member of a species in to a person. (3) its role as the occasion upon which behavior occurs.

Question 9

Know what Skinner claims.

Answer 9

Cognitive psychologists internalize contingencies of reinforcement, behavior and the environment.

Question 10

Be able to say what Skinner means when he says that “By its very nature operant behavior encourages the invention of mental or cognitive processes . . . “?

Answer 10

Behaviors seem to start up suddenly as if spontaneously generated. The cause comes after the behavior and is much less conspicuous. Hence the invention of cognitive entities as intention.

Question 11

What is far more damaging and to what? (What is the origin of the term cognition?)

Answer 11

1. The internalization of the environment is far more damaging.
2. The Greeks invented the mind to explain how the real world could be known. The term cognition itself is related to coitus.

Question 12

What does Skinner mean by “representational theories of knowledge are modeled on practical behavior”?

Answer 12

We make copies of things because looking at them is reinforced in much of the same way as what they represent.

Question 13

Be able to say why knowledge is a key term in cognitive theory

Answer 13

Knowledge is said to be a system of propositions

Question 14

What is the cognitive metaphor based on?

Answer 14

It is based on behavior in the real world.