Models and key figures

Question 1

What does the mind control?

Answer 1

Mental functions called cognitive domains.

Question 2

What is top down processing?

Answer 2

Looking for a cognitive response or seeking information to be processed involves high processing. E.g. looking for a friend in a crowd.

Question 3

What is bottom up processing?

Answer 3

Cognitive information that just comes to a person without looking out for it, involves less processing. E.g. bumping into a friend without knowing or searching for them.

Question 4

How would rationalism be defined?

Answer 4

Reason is the chief source of knowledge, reality is logically structured.

Question 5

How would empiricism be defined?

Answer 5

All concepts originate in experience.

Question 6

Who was the first cognitive experiment by and when?

Answer 6

Franciscus Donders, 1868.

Question 7

What did Franciscus Donders study?

Answer 7

How long it takes to make a decision, light bulbs lit up in two variations. Mental function was measured in differences, theory still used today in things such as PET scans.

Question 8

Why was Wundt important?

Answer 8

He was the first psychologist to introduce structuralism in his methods developing scientific method. He used introspection in order to study cognition.

Question 9

What is structuralism?

Answer 9

Finding different types of consciousness and building new variations (a periodic table approach) which are now called domains.

Question 10

What did Herman Ebbinghaus study?

Answer 10

He studied memory using quantitative methods.

Question 11

How did Ebbinghaus study?

Answer 11

He used random nonsense syllables and studied how long they needed to be perceived before they could be memorised.

Question 12

Why did Ebbinghaus use random syllables?

Answer 12

In order to avoid links to previous knowledge.

Question 13

What did Ebbinghaus invent that is still relevant to today’s knowledge?

Answer 13

The forgetting retention curve.

Question 14

What is functionalism?

Answer 14

That the mind is based on observations.

Question 15

Why was cognitive studies abandoned for behaviourism after the first textbook of cognition was published in 1890?

Answer 15

Due to behaviourists introducing the lack of objective findings from cognition the study of the mind was abandoned for behaviourism.

Question 16

What does behaviourists lack to consider that cognitive psychologists study?

Answer 16

Language, perception and memory.

Question 17

What is the cognitive revolution?

Answer 17

The time period between 1950-1960 in which behaviourists rose in popularity causing a hiatus to cognition study.

Question 18

What is the information processing approach?

Answer 18

Using a computer in order to depict the mind and its internal workings.

Question 19

What is a structural model?

Answer 19

They show the appearance of an objects, such as the brain.

Question 20

What is a process model?

Answer 20

model usually depicted in boxes and arrows which shows a process/action.

Question 21

What were the two conditions of Donders experiment?

Answer 21

• Reaction time only included one light

- Then compared reaction time difference to the choice reaction time involving two lights.

Question 22

What is savings?

Answer 22

Used in cognition savings is the idea of using subtracts to calculate time in which it takes to do an action or mental process. E>g. Ebbinghaus subtracted the memorising time from the recall time in order to find out how long the mental process of recall took a participant.

Question 23

What was the first ever psychology textbook published?

Answer 23

Principles of Psychology in 1890 by William James.

Question 24

What was Tolman’s rat experiment in 1938?

Answer 24

Rat placed in maze, food placed at opening of maze, once rat learnt location of food (classical conditioning turn right and be rewarded with food) , it was placed at the opposite entrance of the maze, rat immediately turned left showing and found food.

Question 25

What did the findings of Tolman’s rat experiment show?

Answer 25

That the rat must’ve made a mental maze of the rat as the results went against behaviourism showing a more in depth explanation of learning that aligned more with the study of cognition than behaviourism.

Question 26

Why does Chomsky believe not all language is learnt through conditioning and reinforcement?

Answer 26

Because he pointed out that incorrect grammar is repeated by children which cannot be from reinforcement or through imitation, similarly to inappropriate sentences or words that are not positively reinforced.

Question 27

What did Chomsky suggest was the reason for language rather than conditioning?

Answer 27

That language was a product of the way the mind was constructed, it is an inborn biological process that is innate rather than conditioned.

Question 28

What experiments were conducted in the cognitive revolution linked to auditory clips?

Answer 28

Cherry conducted an experiment which uncovered that people can listen to two auditory clips and block out one while understanding the other. Broadbent adapted this in order to construct the first model which depicted input , filter and output.

Question 29

What did Miller theorise about the capacity of memory?

Answer 29

That the mind can only hold 7+-2 things at a time which leads to the theory that memory isn’t passive.

Question 30

What did miller theorise about storing more complex memories?

Answer 30

That they must be stored in the long term memory store in the deeper mind.

Question 31

Which was the first textbook to include cognitive psychology?

Answer 31

Neisser’s textbook in 1967, titled Cognitive Psychology.

Question 32

What is an example of a process model?

Answer 32

The multi store model.

Question 33

What is the multi resource model?

Answer 33

Refers to a cube model which covers a multitude of different processes in which different resources are required. E.g. Perception, spatial activities, verbal activities and auditory information.