Chapter 1: History

Question 1

mind vs. brain

Answer 1

mind = cannot be touched, not physical
brain = can be touched, physical

Question 2

What is Cognition?

Answer 2

Cognition is the process that happens inside your head during memory, thinking, learning etc.

Question 3

Empiricism

Answer 3

position that all science should be based on observation

Question 4

What was the first cognitive psychology experiment and who conducted it?

Answer 4

reaction time experiment - How long does it take to make a decision? By Donders

Question 5

Donders experiment about decision making measured reaction time (how long it took for participant to respond to stimulus) by using two different methods simple reaction time (participants push button as soon as they see stimulus) and choice reaction time (two stimuli presented and participant is told which one to press). What were the significant conclusions/results from this research experiment?

Answer 5

1) It takes 1/10th of a second to make a decision
2) Mental responses cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participant’s behaviour.
3) First cognitive psychology experiment
4) Choice reaction time was longer by 1/10th of a second compared to simple reaction time

Question 6

The study of behaviour that provided different insights into functioning of different parts of the brain is ________________________.

Answer 6

Neuropsychology

Question 7

Cognitive psychology is the study of ___
a) human-computer interaction
b) the brain and its functions
c) human behaviour
d) the mind and its functions

Answer 7

D, the MIND and its functions

Question 8

Why can we not use the results of Donder’s go/no-go experiment to infer decision time?

Question 9

What is cognitive psychology

Answer 9

Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes by which sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used

Question 10

What is response accuracy?

Answer 10

response accuracy measures whether or not a participant makes a correct response in a specified period of time when placed in a challenging situation

Question 11

What are process models?

Answer 11

Represent the processes that are involved in cognitive mechanisms

Question 12

What was Donder’s experiments of reaction time? Describe his most recent one.

Answer 12

reaction time experiments & most recent one was = go/no-go (presented with two shapes and press button only when desired shape appears (no-go), presented with two shapes and press button when any shape appears (go)) = this was a better study because he fixed mistakes from previous study but the quality of decision being made was poor so can’t infer decision making time from this study

Question 13

what were the findings in Donder’s go/no-go task experiment

Answer 13

go/no-go task had longer reaction times compared to simple go condition

Question 14

Who is Aristotle? What did he believe?

Answer 14

He was an empiricist, stated that we need to observe the world in order to learn about the world
-He thought that the mind is blank at birth and it must be learned thru experience
(we use experience to learn things about the world)

Question 15

What were Aristotle’s laws of association?

Answer 15

1. Contiguity: if A and B appeared together, experience of A will elicit recall of B
   (If two things appear together at the same place and same time, that is enough for mind to form an association)
2. Similarity: if A and B are similar, experience of A will elicit recall of B
   (Ex: If I hear the song today that’s similar to the one I heard last week, hearing the song today will elicit a memory from Wednesdays class where a similar song was played)
3. Contrast: if A and B are opposites, experience of A will elicit recall of B
   (Ex: if I experience something very hot I will think of very cold things (me in the summer thinking about the winter))

Question 16

The law of frequency states ___________________.

Answer 16

the probability that the experience of A elicits B increases with the frequency that A and B appeared together before (example: If I see two people together once I may or may not form an association btw them but if I keep seeing the same two people again and again more likely to form strong association)

Question 17

What did Descartes believe?

Answer 17

Mind-body dualism (view that separation between mind and body) = he separated the mind from the body and said they are distinct but related,

Question 18

Who developed the approach called structuralism

Answer 18

Wundt (Wilhelm Wundt)

Question 19

What is structuralism?

Answer 19

Structuralism is a theory of consciousness states overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of
experience (mental images, feelings, etc.) called sensations

Question 20

What was analytic introspection? What this good or bad?

Answer 20

An technique that Wundt used to train participants to self-reflect so that, when presented with external stimuli, they can explain their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and sensations

not a good approach and was abandoned b/c data collected could not be verified (no reliable results), and data was highly subjective

Question 21

Name two scientists that studied behaviour to determine properties of the mind and what were those properties?

Answer 21

1. Wundt = ability to retain information
2. Donders = decision making

Question 22

What did William James conclude?

Answer 22

He did not experiments and reported observations based on his own experiences

Question 23

What happened in John Watson’s experiment “Little Albert”?

Answer 23

Watson used classical conditioning to argue that behaviour can be analyzed without any reference to the mind /Studied behaviour directly by paring one stimulus (rat) with another (loud noise) affected behaviour (Albert).

subjected a 9-month-old boy named Albert to a loud noise every time a rat came close to the child (the child originally liked the rat) but after being exposed to loud noise several times the child reacted by crawling away as fast as possible when the rat came close

Question 24

Following the initial popularity of the work of Wundt, Ebbinghaus, & James, Watson argued for
the importance of ___
a) analytic introspection
b) behaviourism
c) structuralism
d) functionalism

Answer 24

B, behaviourism

Question 25

Which one of the following argued for structuralism vs. behaviourism? Explain with evidence/experiments.

A) Wundt
B) Watson

Answer 25

A) structuralism - analytic introspection
B) behaviourism - “little albert”

Question 26

What is behaviourism?

Answer 26

Eliminate the mind as a topic of study and instead, study directly observable behaviour

Question 27

What was the significant of Tolman’s experiment involving rats?

Answer 27

introduced the idea of cognitive maps that led to resurgence of the mind in psychology

Question 28

In 1938, Tolman published his study on how rats learned a maze.
Contrary to the predictions of behaviourism, the rats ______.

(a) Were not able to learn the maze
(b) Learned to always turn right (from the rats perspective), regardless
of the location it started from
(c) Learned to always turn to where the food was, regardless of the
location it started from
(d) Did not need a cognitive map of the maze in order to find the food

Answer 28

C, learned to always turn to where the food was, regardless of the location it started from

(Food stayed in same location, it was the rat that was placed at a different location on the maze so, when the rat kept finding the food it meant the rat knew the layout of the maze (developed a cognitive map) and that’s how it was able to find the food from different locations on the maze)

Question 29

What is the information processing approach?

Answer 29

we process information in the mind in a series of stages, led to divided attention experiments