W1_lec3 Flashcards
Describe cognition
a collection of mental processes as well as the act of using those mental processes
What is the significance of Wilhelm Wundt wrt cognition?
He developed the idea of introspection. Which is the idea of reflecting on your own thinking and coming up with theories based on those observations
What is the significance of William James wrt cognition?
He developed the idea of functionalism. Which emphasizes the fxns of the mind over its structure
What is the significance of Hermann von Ebbinghaus wrt cognition?
He was the first man to attempt to study cognition empirically by measuring how many times he had to repeat a word for a certain number of days until he remembers it, also known as the Forgetting curve.
What is the significance of B.F. Skinner wrt cognition?
He used the central tenet = the idea that response/behavior to a certain stim is learned through association. He studied this using classical and operant conditioning.
B.F. Skinner mentioned that what was important was what could be observed. He stated that the ‘Black Box’ was irrelevant all that mattered was what type of stim/input resulted in what type of response/output. Draw a flowchart of the association b/w input, the black box, and output. Make sure to write which part is observable vs not. What does the ‘Black Box’ represent?
The black box referred to the mental processing that occurs within the mind after an input but before an output is made.
B.F. Skinner refers to infants as ‘Tabula Rasa’ what does this mean?
This directly translates to a blank slate. Skinner believed that all ppl were born with no innate abilities therefore their behaviors must all be shaped through simple conditioning
Wrt B.F. Skinner’s idea of operant conditioning describes the following terms
a) positive
b) negative
c) Reinforcement
d) Punishment
e) Escape
f) Avoidance
a) presence of a stim
b) absence of a stim
c) encouraging a behaviour
d) discouraging a behvaiour
e) removing a stim
f) preventing a stim
What was the significance of Noam Chomsky wrt cognition?
He brought back the importance of the ‘Black Box’ (mental processing) arguing that Behaviourism could not account for the complexity of language.
What are the 3 central Assumptions of Cog psyc?
- the idea that mental processing exits
- that ppl actively process info
- that mental processing can be studied scientifically even if not explicitly observable
If one cannot observe the black box (mental processing) how is it studied?
you measure the behaviour of the subject(s) and then make inferences on what mental processes would be needed in order to carry out those behaviours.
