Chapter One - Introduction

Question 1

What is cognitive science?

Answer 1

-study of relationships among integration of cog. psychology, biology, anthropology, comp sci, linguistics, philosphy

Question 2

What are 8 critical areas of research for cog science?

Answer 2

1. consciousness
2. intelligence
3. thinking
4. language
5. knowledge of representation
6. memory
7. learning
8. perception

Question 3

What is cognitive psychology?

Answer 3

• branch of psychology

- scientific study of the mind

Question 4

Cognition involves… (8)

Answer 4

1. perception
2. paying attention
3. remembering
4. distinguishing items in a category
5. visualizing
6. language
7. problem solving
8. reasoning + decision making

Question 5

Why was it not possible to study the mind in the 1800s? (3)

Answer 5

• philosophers thought the mind couldn’t study itself
• people did not associate cog. abilities with mind
• thought mind couldn’t be measured

Question 6

Who did one of first cognitive psych experiments in 1868 ?

Answer 6

Franciscus Donders

Question 7

What was Donder’s experiment?

Answer 7

-reaction time (RT) experiment

Question 8

What is the RT experiment?

Answer 8

-measures interval between stimulus presentation + one’s response to stimulus

Question 9

What is the difference between the simple RT and the choice RT?

Answer 9

simple: response to stimulus
choice: choose whether stimulus is on right or left side

Question 10

How did they infer decision time?

Answer 10

RT(choice)-RT(simple)

Question 11

According to Donder’s, can mental responses be measured directly?

Answer 11

• no, they can be inferred from behavior

- holds true for all research in cog. psych

Question 12

Who founded the first psych laboratory?

Answer 12

Willhelm Wundt

Question 13

What approach did Wilhelm Wundt use?

Answer 13

structuralism

Question 14

What is structuralism?

Answer 14

-experience is determined by combining elements of experience called sensations
“periodic table of the mind”

Question 15

What method did Wilhelm Wundt use?

Answer 15

analytic introspection

Question 16

What is analytic introspection?

Answer 16

-participants trained to describe experiences + thought processes in response to stimuli

Question 17

What are some problems with analytic introspection?

Answer 17

• creates a binary
• no way to verify
• vocabulary means different things to different people

Question 18

Who investigated the time course of forgetting?

Answer 18

Ebbinghaus

Question 19

What kind of method did Ebbinghaus use?

Answer 19

quantitative

Question 20

What was Ebbinghaus’s experiment?

Answer 20

• read list of nonsense syllables aloud

- determine how many repetitions necessary to repeat list without errors

Question 21

What was the result from Ebbinghaus’s experiment?

Answer 21

-short intervals = fewer repetitions to relearn

Question 22

What are some problems with Ebbinghaus’s experiment?

Answer 22

• subject of his own experiment
• could become better with practice
• may not be related to memory on a general sense

Question 23

What is the Ebbinghaus curve?

Answer 23

• Savings curve
• function of percent savings v. time
• high percent of savings during early hours because less time to forget

Question 24

Who taught the first psychology course at Harvard?

Answer 24

William James

Question 25

What were James' observations based on?

Answer 25

his own mind, not experiments | functionalism

Question 26

Who found problems with analytic introspection?

Answer 26

John Watson

Question 27

What were the 2 problems John Watson found with analytic introspection?

Answer 27

1. extremely variable results | 2. results difficult to verify

Question 28

What was the new approach proposed by Watson?

Answer 28

behaviorism

Question 29

What is behaviorism?

Answer 29

- eliminate mind as topic of study | - study directly observable behavior

Question 30

What experiment did Watson and Rayner conduct?

Answer 30

"Little Albert" experiment

Question 31

What was the Little Albert Experiment?

Answer 31

- classical condition of fear | - conditioning 9 month old to be afraid

Question 32

Who was inspiration for Watson's work?

Answer 32

Ivan Pavlov

Question 33

What did Ivan Pavlov do?

Answer 33

- pavlov's dogs | - pari neutral event with even that naturally produces some outcome

Question 34

Who studied operant conditioning?

Answer 34

BF Skinner

Question 35

What is Operant conditioning?

Answer 35

- behavior shaped by rewards or punishments | - rewarded behavior more likely to be repeated, punished behavior less likely

Question 36

Who were the first 6 psychologists that lead to the rise of behaviorism?

Answer 36

1. Donders 2. Wundt 3. Ebbinghaus 4. William James 5. Watson 6. Skinner

Question 37

Who trained rats in a maze?

Answer 37

Tolman

Question 38

What was Tolman's maze?

Answer 38

- rats initially explored maze - rat placed in A, food placed in B - rat learned quickly to turn right to get food

Question 39

What was the new discovery from Tolman's maze?

Answer 39

- when food placed in C rat turned left to get food | - formation of a cognitive map

Question 40

According to behaviorists, what would happen when the food was placed in C

Answer 40

rat would turn right because that's what it learned

Question 41

How did the decline of behaviorism happen?

Answer 41

-controversy over language acquisition

Question 42

What did Skinner argue in Verbal Behavior (1957)?

Answer 42

-children learn language through operant conditioning

Question 43

Who argued against Skinner's Verbal Behavior?

Answer 43

Noam Chomsky

Question 44

What did Chomsky argue about language?

Answer 44

- children do not only learn language through imitation + reinforcement - children say things they never heard - determined by inborn biological program

Question 45

What is the 1950s cognitive revolution?

Answer 45

- shift from behaviorists stimulus-response relationships | - new goal to understand operations of mind

Question 46

How did computers process information?

Answer 46

- in stages | - input, input processor, memory unit, arithmetic unit, output

Question 47

What is the information-processing approach?

Answer 47

- way to study mind like it is a computer | - separate stages

Question 48

What was Cherrys' experiment?

Answer 48

-"dichotic" listening

Question 49

What is dichotic listening

Answer 49

- present different messages in R/L ear - shadow one message - participants able to focus only on message they were shadowing

Question 50

What did Broadbent contribute?

Answer 50

-flow diagram representing what happens as a person directs attention to one stimulus

Question 51

What are the 3 stages of Broadbent's flow diagram?

Answer 51

1. input 2. filter 3. detector 4. to memory

Question 52

Who was John McCarthy?

Answer 52

- asked whether it would be possible to program computers to mimic operation of human mind - organized summer conference in 1956 on AI

Question 53

What did Newell and Simon create?

Answer 53

- logic theorist program - could apply rudimentary logic to creating mathematical theorems - more than crunch numbers

Question 54

What are the 5 steps of research as it progresses question to question?

Answer 54

1. start with what is known 2. ask questions 3. design experiments 4. obtain and interpret results 5. Go to 1

Question 55

What are models in cognitive psychology?

Answer 55

- representations of structures or process | - help visualize/explain structure/process

Question 56

What are the 2 types of models?

Answer 56

1. structural models: represent strucutres in brain that are involved in spec. functions 2. process models: illustrate how a process operates

Question 57

Are models identical replicas of real thing?

Answer 57

-no, simplifications