unit 1: intro to cog. psychology

Question 1

What is cognitive psychology?

Answer 1

A subdiscipline of psychology that focuses on studying mental processes

Question 2

What is cognitive science?

Answer 2

An interdisciplinary approach to understanding the mind

Question 3

Who is cognitive science studied by?

Answer 3

Cognitive Psychologists
Neuroscientists
Linguists
Artificial Intelligence
Anthropologists

Question 4

What are the important roots of cognitive psychology (and of psychology in general)?

Answer 4

Philosophy: mental processes are lawful and predictable
- Rationalism: knowledge through reasoning
Physiology: the body is a machine and the inner workings can be studied scientifically
- Empiricism: knowledge through observation

Question 5

Psychophysics

Answer 5

Studying the relationship between physical properties of a stimulus and the subjective experience of it

Question 6

Structuralism

Answer 6

Studying how people consciously experience the world; breaking down to its “basic elements” (sensations, images, feelings) via introspection

Question 7

Functionalism

Answer 7

Trying to determine the functions/purposes of the mind

Question 8

Gestalt Psychology

Answer 8

-Importance of organizational processes in perception & problem solving
-“Gestalt” → “configuration” “shape”
-The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
-Importance of examining cognitive processes

Question 9

Behaviorism

Answer 9

-Studied observable responses and their relation to observable stimuli
-“Consciousness” should not be studied at all
-Rejected the idea that consciousness could be scientifically studied
-Focused on stimulus-response connections; the “black box” in the middle (mental processes, consciousness) can’t be usefully studied.

Question 10

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 10

-He meticulously studied his own memory, using lists of nonsense syllables (CVC trigrams): BUP, ZAS, PID, etc.
-Difficulty increases as list length increases
-More repetitions = better memory

Question 11

Savings with relearning

Answer 11

Difference in number of trials required to learn something compared to the time or number of trials required to learn it originally

Question 12

Forgetting curve

Answer 12

Recall is dependent on the frequency of retention intervals

Question 13

Sir Frederick Bartlett

Answer 13

Studied meaningful material like stories and folktales because…
he objected to tightly controlled lab procedures → doesn’t generalize to memory functioning in real life

Question 14

Memory is reconstructive

Answer 14

Memory is reconstructive, not reproductive (what people recall is not like a video)

Question 15

Memory is schema-based

Answer 15

-General knowledge structures about how events/situations typically unfold
-Based on prior experience

Question 16

Premises of Behaviorism

Answer 16

1. Learning occurs by responding
2. Responses are elicited by stimuli
3. S-R associations are strengthened by reinforcement

Question 17

Rat maze

Answer 17

-If reinforcement (cheese) occurs after response (running through the maze), this association will become stronger with more trials (“learning”)
-Rat runs to cheese faster and faster
-responding and reinforcing is crucial to learning

Question 18

Learning without reinforcement

Answer 18

Latent learning - even without cheese until the 11th day, the rats still had a drastic improvement on the 12th day in finding the cheese

Question 19

Learning without responding

Answer 19

A child observing their parents’ actions, but may only demonstrate the act at a later time when it is needed

Question 20

Complex, skilled behavior (like playing a piano)

Answer 20

Karl Lashley - skilled behavior is too complex for a S-R account

Question 21

The creativity and productivity of linguistic expression

Answer 21

Noam Chomsky - Linguistic expression is too creative and productive for an S-R account

Question 22

Information Processing Metaphors

Answer 22

-Computer: Input, processing, storage, output
-humans are symbol manipulators
-human thought as active, interpretive
-processing is step-by-step; stages can be isolated
-Brain: nodes, networks, activation, strengthening of connections
-cognitive processes occur in parallel-like networks of neurons distributed throughout the brain

Question 23

Common Dependent Variables in Cog. Psychology

Answer 23

-Speed
Reaction time (RT): time elapsed between some stimulus and a response to the stimulus (measured in milliseconds)
-Accuracy
-Physiological measures

Question 24

Speed-Accuracy Takeoff

Answer 24

-inverse relationship between speed and accuracy
faster speed, less accuracy
slower speed, better accuracy