Topic 1: introduction to cognitive psychology Flashcards
What is cognitive psychology?
- the study of the mind/ mental architecture
Features of thought/ behaviours that need to be accounted for
Systematic
Productive
- Systematic relationships
- Continual generation of new forms (productive)
- information processing must be systematic and productive*
- requires mental architecture*
Different types of information
Biological
Experiential
Biological information
- domain-specific information
- nature
Experiential information
- domain-general
- nurture
we use both types of information
how do we investigate the mind (information processor)
- current data types for investigating mental activity are:
- Phenomenal (introspection)
- Behavioural
- Brain and other physiological activity
Early cognitive investigations
Introspection (Wundt)
Process:
experimental manipulation -> mental activity -> thought -> verbal behaviour -> data
how transparent is the mental activity revealed in the data?
- Low reliability
- Nesbitt & Wilson identified that we say more than we know
- artifact of language
- access
still a heavy reliance on self-report measures in psychology
Behaviourism
Logical positivism
- Behaviourists focus on function
- Logical positivists said we cant scientifically investigate the unobservable which was adopted by the behaviourists
- The only innate elements included
- association
- registration of frequency
- sensory properties (only information-specific)
- intital motor response (as a baby)
- basis for reinforcement
What factors influenced the return to cognitivism
- human factors (attention and memory)
- not everything could be freely associated (Garcia)
- computers (3 levels of analysis)
- developments in linguistics (generative grammar and the ability to compile sentences separate frommemory)
Cognitivism builds models (theories) of the unobservable, by using falsifiable hypotheses
Levels of analysis
Computer analysis
- Functional level (computational): behavioural and phenomenal
- Procedural level (algorithmic): cognitive psychology
- Physical level (implementational): brain activity
Microstructure
Classical approach
- operations governed by form (lego blocks)
- input re-formatted into pre-existing usable forms (indirect perception/ interpretation of the world)
- mixture of special-purpose and general purpose domains
- hypothesis generation… belief states
Classical approach continued
- can have an infinite number of thoughts but only of a finite type (finite expressive power)
- inherent systematicity and productivity
- learning is the process of triggering innate knowledge and hypothesis generation
- discrete functions and systematic breakdowns
- uniform competence within a species
Connectionist approach
microstructure
- consists of no formal representations
- no information-sepcific rules
- input-output functions based on associative strength
- information presented by distinct patterns of activation such as spreading activation
- connection weights change with experience (learning)
- meaing defined by association. Identification involves pattern association
- infinite expressive power
Problems for connectionist and classical approaches
Connectionist
- one-off learning and no inherent constraint on learning
- retroactive intereference
- how is any innate/ biolgoical architecture realised?
- systematicity = serendipity
Classical
- agency
- frame and binding problems
- much may be indefinable
- more complicated architecture
Mental architecture (from micro-structure to macro-structure)
schemata
modules
associationist/ connectionist
- have common processes which translate to knowledge-based domains (schemata)
classical
- have specialised processes (lego blocks) that translate to competence-based domains, which are defined by what they do (modules)
Evidence for some competence based-domains
- learnability problem (impoverished input)
- systematic constraint and breakdown
- cross-cultural consistency
- illusions (why we are susceptible)
Modularity hypothesis (connectionist)
- event (stimulus) ->
- transducers (sensory input) ->
- inpute modules ->
- central system (thought) ->
- output modules ->
- muscles (motor output) ->
- behaviour
Modules
(modularity hypothesis)
- modules are unconscious
- domain specific (only respond to certain types of input)
- informationally encapsulated
- indirect representation of the world (computational)
- attributes non-sensory features through demonstrative inference
- infers about the world in regards to stimulus it recieves (input onto an output)
- can be scientifically studied
central system
modularity theory
- general problem solver
- belief fixation via non-demonstrativ inference (induction)
- each event is uniquely represented
- isotropic principle
- quinean principle
neuroscience
- cells migrate to form neural aggregates
- rhese form brain areas with dedicated mental functions
reference to left and right brain is simply a gross reflection of localised function
Localisation of function
motor cortex and somatosensory cortex
- motro cortex is the output
- somatosensory cortext is the input
parvo- and magno-cellular pathways
(perception-action theory)
- parvo-cellular pathway (what)
- magno-cellular pathways (where)
- causation = what/where compromise
clinical neuropsychology
- aphasias (Broca’s, Wernicke’s) inability to understand or produce speech
- alexia, agraphia… dyslexia
- amnesias (retrograde and anterograde)
- apraxia (loss of motor control as a result of intentionality)
- visual agnosia (prosopagnosia)
- spatial neglect
- commissureotomy (split brain)
- akinetopsia (non-continuous motion)
Learnability principle
need negative and positive evidence
Autism
symptoms
theories
- developmental disorder
- defined by behaviour of narrowing of relationships to oneself
- primary symptoms
- socialistation
- communication
- pretend play is less than repetition/ routine
- theories of autism:
-
nurture (environmental basis
- refrigerator parents (emotionally withdrawn parents have children with autism)
-
nature
- biological (evidence for biology)
-
nurture (environmental basis
need to look at mental architecture rather than just behaviour
theory of biolgical development of autism
Theory of mind
how to measure ToM
- mentalising
- mind blindness = no ToM
Measuring ToM:
- false belief tasks
- picture sequencing tasks
Information processing approach
autism
- secondary symptoms
- executive impairment (working memory and bias towards the literal and details)
- perceptual impairment (perceptions are more truthful)
Reasons to study mental activity
- species issues (only 0.1% of human genome is free to vary)
- individual issues (clinical cases)
- from the natural to artificial
