Week 1 - Lecture Flashcards
Rene Descartes
- Cogito, ergo sum
- I Think, Therefore I am.
- He found that he could not doubt that he himself existed, as he was the one doing the doubting in the first place.
- 17th Century
Cognitive Psychology
- We are looking at what the brain does (mind) rather than how it does it (physiology)
What does the mind do?
- Mental Processes such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, decision making, thinking and reasoning.
- Creates a representation of the world so we can interact with it.
Donders 1868
- Interested in how long it takes a person to make a decision
- Found Processes with complicated mental processes had longer reaction times (RT)
- Simple RT was the time it takes someone to make a decision
- Choice RT was about 1/10th longer than Simple RT
Reaction Times
- Processes with more mental requirements have longer reaction times
Wilhelm Wundt 1879
- Established first Psychology lab in leipzig Germany
- Developed Structuralism
- Used the method of Analytic Introspection
Behaviourism
- Invisible mental processes are not really valid
- Study what we can observe
Watson & Rayner 1920
- Behaviourists
- Little Albert
- Pairing one stimulus with another can affect behaviour
- Behaviour can be analysed without refering to the mind
BF Skinner
- Developed Operant Conditioning
- Behaviour is shaped by the outcome of rewards or punishments
- Studied pigeons who turned three times in order to get food
Information Processing - The mind as a Flowchart
- Input → Input Processor → Memory Unit → Arithmetic Unit → Output
- Input → Filter → Detector → To Memory → Output
Two main types of Models in Cognitive Psychology
- Structural Models - Represent Structures in the brain and how they are connected
- Process Models - Illustrates how a mental process operates
Inferring in Psychology
- Mental Processes are invisible and cannot be measured
- We can infer mental processes based on observing behaviour
- We can infer mental processes by measuring brain reactions via fMRI or EEG Scans
Tulving - Long Term Memory Model
- Divides Long-Term Memory into 3 components
- Episodic Memory - Events
- Semantic Memory - Facts
- Procedural Memory - Physical Action
Ebbinghaus (1885)
- Interested in how quickly things we learn are lost over time
- Learned a list of nonsense words and counted how many repetitions it took to memorise the list
- Then later he would try to recall the list.
- Remembered words were called Savings
- Savings = (original time to learn a list) - (Time to relearn list after delay)
William James (1890)
- Wrote Principles of Psychology
- Used observations of his own mind
- considered cognitive topics of what the mind does eg: thinking, consciousness, attention, memory, PAMELDT
- Developed Functionalism
Ebbinghaus (1885)
- Interested in how quickly things we learn are lost over time
- Learned a list of nonsense words and counted how many repetitions it took to memorise the list
- Then later he would try to recall the list.
- Remembered words were called Savings
- Savings = (original time to learn a list) - (Time to relearn list after delay)
Behaviourism
- Psychology should only study observable behaviour
- Thought the mind and mental functions were less important
Operant Conditioning
- Suggests behaviour is shaped by outcomes of other behaviours like punishment and reward
- Developed at a time when nearly all psychology was behavioural psychology
Cognitive Psychology Timeline
Tolman Cognitive Map
- Found rats who were exposed to a map before having food placed in it learned to find food faster than rats who had no prior knowledge of the maze
- Rats generated maps of the maze without any kind of reinforcement
- learning was already present even without the food reward - (operant conditioning)
In learning and behaviour we try to show “what happened before” that has influenced “what happened after”
Chomsky (1959)
- Argument that everyone is born with an innate ability to learn language
- This deals a heavy blow to behaviouralism
- States that a mental process exists without behavioural influences
- Some say that Chomsky’s criticism of Skinner was not objective and Skinner never rebuffed his criticism
Behavioral psychologists now recognise that we need to factor in the mind when we are studying behaviours
Learning and behaviour plays a huge role in cognitive processes
Successful therapies have been developed by combining cognitive and behavioural theories together as well as separately
How does cognitive psychology talk about the mind in a scientific way?
- Information processing similar to a computer
- Input ⇒ Input Processor ⇒ Memory Unit ⇒ Arithmetic Unit ⇒Output
- Input ⇒⇒⇒ Filter ⇒Detector ⇒ To Memory
Types of models of information processing
- Structural Modes
- Process Models
Structural Models of Information Processing
Represent Structures in the brain and how they are connected
eg: lens to retina to receptors to brain
Structural Models of Information Processing
Represent Structures in the brain and how they are connected
eg: lens to retina to receptors to brain
Process Models of Information Processing
Demonstrate how a Process works and operates
eg: Input ⇒ Sensory Memory ⇒ Short-Term Memory ⇒ Long-Term Memory ⇒ Output
Atkinson & Schiffrin
- STM has limited capacity only holds info for a short time
- Information can be retained is STM via Rehearsal
- Some info from STM can be passed to LTM
Input ⇒Sensory Memory ⇒Short-term Memory OR Output ⇒ Long-term Memory
Tulving 1972
- Long Term Memory Model breaks LTM further into three components
- Episodic Memory - Life Events
- Semantic Memory - Facts
- Procedural Memory - Physical Actions
Physiology of Cognition
- All behaviour and mental processes have a foundation in the physical body
- Research on the body, mind and brain support each other
Combining Behaviour, Brain and Mind
- Changes in brain physiology must be observed with changes in behaviour
- Palmer 1975 - Presented context scene experiment
What is the Forgetting Curve
- Measures the decline memory retention over time.
- Information is lost over time when there is no effort to retain it.
What is Latent Learning
- Edward Tolman
- “learning which is not apparent in the learner’s behavior at the time of learning, but which manifests later when a suitable motivation and circumstances appear.
OR
- Learning that occurs that is not demonstrated until there is a need or circumstance that prompts recall of that learning. eg tolman’s rats
What is a Cognitive Map?
- Edward Tolman
- A mental representation of the layout of one’s environment
