The cognitive (r)evolution Flashcards
Who challenged Skinner’s operant approaches?
> Psychologists, argued the necessity to consider the role of unobservable psychological constructs
> Animal behaviourists - Neobehaviourists
Which movement did Edward Tolman represent in the 20th century?
What was his work and hypothesis?
Amercian psychologist - Neobehaviourism
- studied purposive behaviour of animals, wether their choices are cognitive
- using mazes
- Latent learning hypothesis
What is Edward Tolman’s latent learning?
Learning that is dormant, concealed
- exposure without reinforcement
- rapid learning when behaviour is reinforced
Why does Edward Tolman’s latent learning hypothesis represent a challenge for operant conditioning models?
> Latent learning = learning without reinforcement
> Simplest solution in latent learning is the one including cognition
-> debate behaviourists vs. neobehaviourists
How did Edward Tolman and colleagues fit their evidence to the strict, elaborate operant model without using cognitive constructs?
They broke the rule of scientific parsimony
- between multiple explanations, the didn’t choose the simplest one
What did the neobehavioural work of Edward Tolman and colleagues contribute to?
The transition from strict behaviourism to cognitivism during early to mid 20th century
What was the latent learning experiment of Tolman and Honzik (1930)?
> Support for idea of latent learning
> 3 groups of rats:
- Control: standard operant learning, continuous reinforcement schedule
- No reward, reinforcement not contingent on response
- Experimental group: ‘delayed reward’ condition
> Complex maze
- daily exposure for 17 days
- measure turns to reach food box (errors)
What were the results of Tolman and Honzik’s latent learning experiment (1930)?
> Group 1: control - standard operant learning
- quick learning over initial days
- average of 3 errors per run by day 11
- > expected operant learning with their continuous reinforcement schedule
> Group 2:
- limited learning because of the absence of reward (reinforcement) continent on response
> Group 3:
- same as group 2 for first 11 days
- behaviour changed immediately on day 12 when food placed in maze: accurate path from start to goal
-> they learned information during first 11 days about the maze, which layer dormant until behaviours reinforced
= latent learning
What suggested the detour mazes studies conducted by Tolman and Honzik, after the latent learning experiment (1930)?
Rats were learning spatial location rather than a specific route
=> internal representation, cognitive map
- used flexibly, according to specific environmental demands
What is the experimental evidence suggesting cognitive maps in humans (Maguire et al. 2006; Keller and Just, 2015)?
> Maguire et al. (2006)
- larger hippocampus in taxi drivers (learn to navigate vs. bus drivers learning fixed routes)
> Keller and Just (2015)
- structural changes in hippocampus after 45 minutes learning
- > neuroplasticity
- > information is stored and available for later use
How did Edward Tolman’s cognitive model of latent learning differ from the operant model?
> Tolman’s model was seen as stimulus-stimulus associations through an exploration process
- vs. Pavlov’s stimulus-stimulus classical conditionning
> Tolman saw the intervening variable/process as essential to explain observations of latent learning
- vs. radical behaviourists who denied existence of intervening processes, as unnecessary for exploration
> For Tolman: reinforcement drove animal’s behaviour as motivation by prospect of reward
- spatial learning
What was Edward Tolman’s cognitive theory and model?
The intervening variables/processes (mediating internal representations) fundamentally transform the input/ouput relationship:
- stimulus/environment processing; information storing; spatial representation / cognitive map
- processes to plan and execute an adaptive behavioural response - motivated by reward
How is Edward Tolman’s model of information processing and storage considered today?
> As a basis for many cognitive models of animal and human behaviour
How is Edward Tolman considered today?
As neobehaviourist and major influence of a cognitive behaviourist tradition still present today within cognitive psychology
What is studied in cognitive psychology?
> Mental structures
How knowledge is processed to enable adaptive behaviour
= Unobservable entities
- ‘black box’ between input-output
What is implied in the idea of “hypothetical constructs” in cognitive psychology?
Explicit acknowledgement that we do not know for sure whether these constructs exist or not
- empirically testable models
-> ‘surplus meaning’
How do behaviourists consider the “hypothetical constructs” of cognitive psychology?
As unnecessary “intervening variables”
-> no ‘surplus meaning’
What does the idea of ‘surplus meaning’ in cognitive psychology represent historically?
Answer to criticism of behaviourists in mid 20th century
What is the meaning of ‘surplus meaning’ in cognitive psychology?
We can use induction to position the construct’s existence and use scientific deduction to hypothesise and reveal new knowledge through experiments
-> new theories and models
What does Greenwood propose in his work “understanding the Cognitive Revolution in Psychology” (1999)?
‘Surplus meaning’ in science is essential to the development of theory and knowledge
- provided it’s open to empirical scrutiny that supports or refutes it
- theory without ‘surplus meaning’ is closed and sterile
What are the 3 cognitive building blocks on which cognitive psychology models are based?
- Cognitive domains (functions)
- perception, language, attention, learning, memory, decision making, problem solving, judgement and reasoning, action
- > Psychology seeks to encompass all of them in an overarching framework - Cognitive structures (forms and representations)
- knowledge, symbols, images, concepts, interpretations, appraisals, rules/heuristics (conscious/unconscious), schemas, beliefs - Cognitive processes (operations and transformations)
- association, comparison, discrimination, categorisation, evaluating, appraising, encoding, storing, retrieval
What is the link between cognition and the brain?
There is no need to assume that a particular cognitive structure or process has an equivalent physical representation within brain structures or systems
How did ‘surplus meaning’ launch cognitive neuroscience?
It stimulated brain science to investigate the biological basis of cognitive models of navigation and mental maps
What does cognitive neuroscience bring to emerging evidence?
How does that impact on cognitive neuroscience?
Confidence that models and theories are correct and that hypothetical constructs have validity
-> Cognitive neuroscience is the fastest growing areas of cognitive science today
What did Sternberg study in his work ‘High-speed scanning in human memory’ (1966)?
How is symbolic information retrieved from memory?
- short term memory
- seconds rather than minutes or hours
- symbolic info. = numbers
What is Sternberg’s ‘Memory scanning’ paradigm (1966)?
> Number sequences
- each sequence: between 1 and 6 digits
- auditory warning signal after each sequence, followed by presentation of target number
- when target present, push lever
> Systematic variation of the length of original sequence, and where in the sequence the target number occurred
- target equally distributed over the different positions across all trials
> Limit of accurate recall = immediate memory span
What is Sternberg’s empirical question in his ‘Memory scanning’ study (1966)
What were the results?
> What is the effect of the length of the list (numbers) on time to decide
> Results: long list = longer reaction time
What did the results of Sternberg’s ‘Memory scanning’ study (1966) regarding the serial or parallel nature of the search of the target?
> Strong linear relationship between reaction time and list length
-> serial search model
> Scanning and comparison of items in memory task takes 40 milliseconds for each task
What is the difference between a serial search and a parallel search?
> Serial search: item by item
> Parallel search: whole set search
What did the results of Sternberg’s ‘Memory scanning’ study (1966) regarding the self-terminating or exhaustive nature of the search of the target?
Search is exhaustive:
- it continues even when a match has been made
What did Sternberg’s ‘Memory Scanning’ study (1966) show?
How does it differ from Kant and introspectionists?
For short lists of items held briefly in memory, when we access our memory to make decisions, we a use serial, exhaustive process
How did Sternberg’s ‘Memory Scanning’ study (1966) go beyond early cognitivism and overcome behaviourist objections?
We can reliably gain access to and study our internal processes empirically
- which Kant rejected
- which introspectionnists tried to do but with severe constraints
- which behaviourists said to avoid
What did the experiment of Shepard and Metzler ‘Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects’ (1971) study and relie on?
> Processing of internal representation (mental image)
> Relied on reaction times to make simple decisions
- while systematically manipulating an element of the task repeatedly over many trials
- and across many research objects
-> mental chronometry (pioneered by Weber)
What did Shepard and Metzler ‘Mental rotation’ of 3-D objects consist of (1971)?
What was there empirical question?
> Task: decide wether 2 objects are the same
- if rotation on physical plane is possible
> Matching based on internal process
- mental rotation
> Is there a relationship between time to make positive match and angle of rotation?
What were the findings of Shepard and Metzler’s ‘Mental rotation’ of 3-D objects study?
> Support serial process
> Access and transformation of internal representations to allow judgement
- mental manipulation speed “mimics” real 3D manipulation speed
-> Mental image follows principles similar to that in the real world (Euclidean properties)
Which debate did the study of Shepard and Metzler ‘Mental rotation’ of 3-D objects set off?
What does the current evidence support?
Debate within cognitive psychology:
- spatial coding
vs.
- propositional coding (e.g. above-below, left-right)
- evidence supports existence of information coded spatially in the brain
- > credibility to mental maps
What did Craig and Tulving study in their experiment on ‘Depth of processing’ and verbal memory recall (1975)?
Does the depth of processing of verbal impact the ability to subsequently recall that information?
What was the paradigm of Craig and Tulving’s experiment on ‘Depth of processing’ and verbal memory recall (1975)?
> Present list -> Memorise -> Recall
- level of recall reflects efficiency of learning
> Hypothesis: the deeper the processing, the better retrieval
> No instructions
> Participants had to answer 1 of 3 types of question
- on the meaning (semantic content) - best retention level
- on the sound (rhyme) - better retention level
- on the physical feature (case) - low retention level
> Participants were shown 120 words
- 60 old
- 60 new
- > Which did they recognise?
What were the results of Craig and Tulving’s study on ‘Depth of processing’ and verbal memory recall (1975)?
The more we elaborate information the better it is recalled
What are the possible disadvantages of deep-level processing?
> Negative memories repeatedly processed may become clearer and stronger
> Dwelling and rumination in people with anxiety and/or depression
> Memory of negative events in depression
> Memory bias
What did Immanuel Kant, Jean Piaget, and Ulric Neisser have in common?
Studied schemas
What is a cognitive schema?
An organised abstract representation of knowledge about a particular situation or thing
What are the characteristics of cognitive schemas?
> Built up over time
- direct experience
- indirect knowledge (communication with others, medias)
> Culturally relative
> Triggers activate schemas
- quick pattern match
- stored template
What happens when contradictory schemas are activated?
Ambiguity -> ‘Cognitive dissonance’
- > adjustment of perception or interpretation
- fix one alternative schema, or combine the two to form a new one
What is the evidence that some schemas are innate?
> Some emerge early in development
> Schemas seem to cross animal species boundaries
> ‘Baby face’ schemas share facial features
- physical form has evolved to benefit survival: mammalian and bird species are dependent on adult parents for survival and protection
- > Baby face schemas have evolved to encourage parenting response
What did the study of Sprengelmeyer et al. suggest regarding the baby faces (2009)?
Response to baby faces is influenced by level of female reproductive hormons
- on/off contraceptive pill; menopause
What did the study of Glocker et al. using MRI show regarding baby faces (2008)?
Cuteness of baby face images associated to increased activity in nucleus accumbens (reward, motivated behaviour)
What did the study of Borgi et al. (2014) show regarding the baby schema and the ‘ahh-cute’ response?
Children and adults both tended to find the young human faces compared to adult faces AND high baby schema faces cuter then low schema faces
-> baby / ‘cuteness’ schema is possessed from early age
What creates cognitive dissonance with the baby schema?
Mixing adult and child-like features
What was Ulric Neisser’s hypothesis on schema and perception (1967)?
Process of perception = cyclical process resulting in the final conscious perception
- automatic bottom-up processes influence conscious top-down feedback processes
-> constructive processes where schemas are assumed to play a crucial role in them
What are the 4 components of Ulric Neisser’s model of cyclical constructive process (1967)?
- Feature analysis
- automatic, unconscious, in parallel
- do the features match the perceptual templates (schemas) - Schema
- preattentive: automatic, unconscious - Active perceptual exploration search for expected features
- to get more information
- guided by info. from the activated alternative schemas, which creates ambiguity - Sensory cues / features from stimulus environment
- to resolve the ambiguity (cognitive dissonance)
- consciously collecting more info.
- to identify the object
What is “one-shot learning”?
Schema, once formed, remains available to be activated at a later date
What did Brewer and Treyens (1981), and Bower and Black (1979) show regarding schema and memory?
> Participants waited in room for 35 seconds set up as office
- not knowing it was part of the experiment
- 61 items
> Were tested for memory of items
> Results:
- remembered obvious (expected) items
- remembered unexpected (salient) items
- falsely remember expected items that were not there
-> Memory is a constructive process, where you fill in the gaps
What is an event schema?
> Relates to behaviour in specific situations
> Scripts
- stored and automatically accessed to guide our behaviours
What happens if we do not possess an appropriate event schema for a situation?
We rely on the next best match or consciously work out what to do
- e.g. by observing others
What is a role schema?
Set of attributes/functions that broadly define an individual to other people in specific situations
- dichotomised characteristics
- can include specific negative attributes attached to particular roles
What do role schemas including negative attributes provide?
A cognitive model that can explain prejudice, in terms of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours
What is a self-schema?
> Perceptions we have of ourselves
> How we act in different situations, consciously and unconsciously
How do negative self-schemas impact us?
> Increase vulnerability to mental health problems
> Can maintain mental health problems when occurring
-> Identification and modification of negative maladaptive self-schemas is a common goal of psychological therapy
