Evolution of Cognitive Psychology

Question 1

cognition

Answer 1

mental processes involved in perception, attention, reasoning, decision-making, problem-solving, language, emotions

Question 2

cognitive psychology

Answer 2

study of mental processes involved in perception, attention, reasoning, decision-making, problem-solving, language, emotions

Question 3

reaction time

Answer 3

how long it takes to respond to presentation of a stimulus

Question 4

simple reaction time

Answer 4

time it takes to respond to a single stimulus

Question 5

choice reaction time

Answer 5

time it takes to respond to one of two or more stimuli

Question 6

structuralism

Answer 6

idea that our experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience (sensations)

Question 7

analytic introspection

Answer 7

trained participants describe their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli

Question 8

savings curve

Answer 8

plot of savings versus time after initial learning

Question 9

cortical equipotentiality

Answer 9

idea that the brain operates as an indivisible whole

Question 10

william james

Answer 10

1890
first psychology textbook
observations based on his own mind

Question 11

hermann ebbinghaus

Answer 11

1885
quantitative measurement of mental processes
memorising random letters
nature of forgetting

Question 12

wilhelm wundt

Answer 12

1879
founded first lab of scientific psychology
structuralism - analytic introspection

Question 13

franciscus donders

Answer 13

1868
1st scientific cognitive experiment
interested in how long it takes to make a decision - simple and choice reaction time

Question 14

what is cognitive neuroscience, and why is it necessary?

Answer 14

• Study of the neural (physiological) basis of cognition
• Shows the relationship between sensation and the different nerve impulses - different qualities of nerve impulses, and activating different areas in the brain

Question 15

How did behaviorism affect research on the mind?

Answer 15

There was a move to understanding that mental responses cannot be measured but must be inferred from behaviour

Question 16

What method did William James use to study the mind?

Answer 16

• Observations of the operation of his own mind
• First psychology textbook 1890

Question 17

What do Donders’s and Ebbinghaus’s experiments have in common?

Answer 17

both measured behaviour to determine a property of the mind

Question 18

Why could we say that Donders and Ebbinghaus were cognitive psychologists, even though in the 19th century there was no field called cognitive psychology?

Answer 18

• because they were both interested in the scientific study of mental processes of the mind
• their experiments indicate that mental responses cannot be directly measured but must be inferred from behaviour

Question 19

What are two ways of defining the mind?

Answer 19

• Where it creates a representation of the world so we can achieve our goals
• system that processes mental functions including perception, attention, reasoning, problem solving, language, emotion, decision making

Question 20

Distributed representation

Answer 20

looking at something activates many areas of the brain - looking, remembering, thinking, emotion, sound, smell etc

Question 21

brain imaging 1977

Answer 21

PET and fMRI

Question 22

Double dissociation

Answer 22

damage to one area of brain causes function A to be absent/function B present → damage to another area causes function B to be absent/function A present

Question 23

Prosopagnosia

Answer 23

inability to recognise faces

Question 24

what is Wernicke’s area (Carl Wernicke 1879)

Answer 24

damage to temporal lobe - produce fluent and grammatically correct speech but incoherent

Question 25

what is Broca’s area (Paul Broca 1861)

Answer 25

in frontal lobe shown to be responsible for language production

Question 26

Localization of function

Answer 26

Specific areas of the brain serve different functions
Early evidence of localization came from the study of behaviour of people with brain damage → Broca’s area

Question 27

Contemporary cognitive psychology involves

Answer 27

• sophisticated flow diagrams of the mind
• consideration of higher mental processes
• large amount of physiological processes
• increasing amount of research on cognition in real-world situations

Question 28

Neuropsychology

Answer 28

study of people with brain damage

Question 29

Electrophysiology

Answer 29

measuring electrical responses of the nervous system

Question 30

Episodic memory

Answer 30

for events in your life

Question 31

Semantic memory

Answer 31

for facts

Question 32

Procedural memory

Answer 32

for physical actions

Question 33

Model of memory

Answer 33

1968
Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin
Sensory memory > short term > long term

Question 34

Ulrich Neisser

Answer 34

1967
First cognitive psychology textbook
- highlights the central topics in modern cognitive psychology (gaps in his book)
- study of higher mental processes
- study of physiology of mental processes

Question 35

Ulrich Neisser

Answer 35

1967
First cognitive psychology textbook
- highlights the central topics in modern cognitive psychology (gaps in his book)
- study of higher mental processes
- study of physiology of mental processes