Chapter 1 (IN PROGRESS)

Question 1

mind

Answer 1

the mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning

the mind is a system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals

Question 2

cognition

Answer 2

the mental processes such as perception, attention, memory, and so on, that are what the mind does

Question 3

Franciscus Donders

Answer 3

Dutch physiologist
conducted the first cognitive psychology experiment in 1868
11 years before the first psychology lab, and 100 years before the term “cognitive psychology” was used

Question 4

Donders’ experiment

Answer 4

How long does it take to make a decision?
measured reaction time
Test 1: press a button when a light shines (simple reaction time test)
Test 2: press a left or right button when shown a light on the right or on the left (choice reaction time test)
Difference in time between Test 1 and Test 2 equals the time it takes to make a decision
Mental responses can’t be measured directly, but must be inferred from behavior

Question 5

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 5

1885/1913

Question 6

Ebbinghaus’ experiment

Answer 6

How is learned information lost over time?
Used nonsense syllables (DAX, QEH, LUH, ZIF)
Learned the sequence of syllables in a list until he made no errors
After learning, retested at increasing intervals
Used savings method to analyze results
Savings were greater for short intervals

Question 7

Similarity of Donders’ and Ebbinghaus’ experiments

Answer 7

both measured behavior to determine a property of the mind

Question 8

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 8

1879 founded first psychology lab
At University of Leipzig, Germany
Wundt’s approach called structuralism
Used technique called analytic introspection

Question 9

structuralism

Answer 9

our overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations

Question 10

analytic introspection

Answer 10

a technique in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli

Question 11

William James

Answer 11

Early American psychologist
Taught Harvard’s fisrt psychology course
Wrote textbook Principles of Psychology (1890)
His observations were based on introspection, not experiments

Question 12

John Watson

Answer 12

Received PhD in 1904 for University of Chicago
Founded behaviorism
“Little Albert experiment” - baby + rat + loud noise (classical conditioning)
Only interested in how stimulus affects behavior

Question 13

Behaviorism

Answer 13

Eliminate study of the mind, and instead study behavior
Founded by John Watson
“Psychology … is a purely objective, experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction an control of behavior”
“…making behavior, not consciousness, the objective point of our attack.”
Dominated psychology in the US from 1940s through 1960s

Question 14

B.F. Skinner

Answer 14

Introduced operant conditioning

Behaviorist

Question 15

classical conditioning

Answer 15

how pairing a (positive or negative) stimulus with neutral stimulus causes changes in the response to the neutral stimulus
Watson

Question 16

unconditioned stimulus (US)

Answer 16

…

Question 17

unconditioned response (UR)

Answer 17

…

Question 18

conditioned stimulus (CS)

Answer 18

…

Question 19

conditioned response (CR)

Answer 19

…

Question 20

operant conditioning

Answer 20

how behavior is strengthened by the presentation of positive reinforcers or the withdrawal of negative reinforcers
Skinner

Question 21

Edward Chance Tolman

Answer 21

Researcher at UC Berkeley 1918-1954

Called himself a behaviorist, but used behavior to infer mental processes

Question 22

Tolman’s experiment

Answer 22

1938
Introduced the word cognitive
Rat in a maze
Rat created a cognitive map of the maze

Question 23

Noam Chomsky

Answer 23

MIT linguist
Disagreed with Skinner’s operant conditioning for language development (1959)
Argued that language developed by an inborn biological program, as a product of the way that the mind is constructed

Question 24

the cognitive revolution

Answer 24

a shift in psychology away from behaviorism back to study of the mind beginning in the 1950s

Question 25

information-processing approach

Answer 25

an approach that traces the sequence of mental operations involved in cognition

Question 26

Colin Cherry

Answer 26

1953

Question 27

Cherry’s experiment

Answer 27

selective attention (noisy party) experiment
attended message
unattended message

Question 28

Donald Broadbent

Answer 28

1958
British psychologist
created filter model of attention based results of noisy party experiments
input–>filter–>detector–>memory

Question 29

artificial intelligence

Answer 29

“making a machine
behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving” (McCarthy
et al., 1955)

Question 30

Herb Simon and Alan Newell

Answer 30

1956

created first AI program, called “Logic Theorist”

Question 31

George Miller

Answer 31

1956
Harvard psychologist
“The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2”
the information processing of the human mind is limited to about 7 items

Question 32

1956

Answer 32

the beginning of a shift in psychology from behaviorism to the study of the mind
“the birthday of cognitive science”

Question 33

Ulrich Neisser

Answer 33

1967
published a textbook with the title Cognitive Psychology
coined the term cognitive psychology

Question 34

memory consolidation

Answer 34

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