Psych 358-Chapter 1 Definitions

Question 1

Cognitive psychology

Answer 1

• branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision making
• concerned with the scientific study of the mind and mental processes

Question 2

Mind

Answer 2

-System that creates mental representations of the world and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning.

Question 3

Cognition

Answer 3

-Mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision making.

Question 4

Reaction time

Answer 4

• time it takes to react to a stimulus.

- usually determined by measuring the time between presentation of a stimulus and the response to the stimulus

Question 5

Simple reaction time (Donders and Ebbinghaus)

Answer 5

-Reacting to the presence or absence of a single stimulus (as opposed to having to choose between a number of stimuli before making a response).

Question 6

Choice reaction time (Donders and Ebbinghaus)

Answer 6

• Time to respond to one of two or more stimuli.
• For example, in the Donders experiment, subjects had to make one response to one stimulus and a different response to another stimulus.
• Ebbinghaus (forgetting curve for nonsense syllables)

Question 7

Structuralism (Wundt)

Answer 7

-An approach to psychology that explained perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations.

Question 8

Analytic introspection

Answer 8

• A procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli.

Question 9

Savings

Answer 9

-Measure used by Ebbinghaus to determine the magnitude of memory left from initial learning. Higher savings indicate greater memory.

Question 10

Savings curve

Answer 10

-Plot of savings versus time after original learning.

Question 11

Behaviorism (Watson)

Answer 11

• observable behavior provides the only valid data for psychology.
• A consequence of this idea is that consciousness and unobservable mental processes are not considered worthy of study by psychologists.

Question 12

Classical conditioning (Watson)

Answer 12

-A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response.

Question 13

Operant Conditioning (B.F Skinner)

Answer 13

-focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection.

Question 14

Cognitive Map

Answer 14

-Mental conception of a spatial layout.

Question 15

Cognitive revolution (1950’s)

Answer 15

• Shift in psychology from the behaviorist approach to an approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in terms of the mind.
• One of the outcomes of the cognitive revolution was the introduction of the information-processing approach to studying the mind.

Question 16

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Answer 16

-The ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human intelligence.

Question 17

Logic theorist (AI)

Answer 17

-Computer program devised by Alan Newell and Herbert Simon that was able to solve logic problems.

Question 18

Process models

Answer 18

-A model that represents the processes involved in cognition. An example is the flow diagram for Broadbent’s filter model of attention.

Question 19

Four Events that led to the cognitive revolution in the 1950’s

Answer 19

1) Chomsky’s critique of Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior
2) the introduction of the digital computer and the idea that the mind processes information in stages, like a computer;
3) Cherry’s attention experiments and Broadbent’s introduction of flow diagrams to depict the processes involved in attention; and
4) interdisciplinary conferences at Dartmouth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.