Midterm 1

Question 1

What Is Cognitive Science?

Answer 1

•The study of cognitive processes involved in the acquisition, representation and use of human
knowledge.
•The scientific study of the mind, the brain, and intelligent behavior, whether in humans, animals,
machines or the abstract.

Question 2

Introspection (until 19th century)

Answer 2

process of self-reflection

• could only be done by carefully trained individuals
• allowed for ability to observe conscious experience

Question 3

Experimental psychology (1879-)

Answer 3

• Wundt
• discipline of psychology separates from philosophy
• Trained ”observers”
• Measured reaction times & word associations
• Rigidly controlled experimental procedure for describing sensations (e.g. “experimental conditions”, multiple repeated observations)

Question 4

Behaviorism

Answer 4

• John Watson
• attempted to replace ‘subjective’ with ‘objective’ data based purely on observation of behaviour
• focused on directly observable behaviours
• people are ‘responders’ whose responses are simply products of conditioning through their experience
• learning occurs as a result of consequences of behaviour

Question 5

Behaviourist Model

Answer 5

• Stimulus (in environment)
• Black box (can’t be studied)
• Response (behaviour)

Question 6

Tolman’s Cognitive Maps

Answer 6

• noted that conventional behaviourists can’t explain phenomena like knowledge, thinking, planning, etc. –> don’t believe in mental phenomena
• organisms do not require stimulus-response associations only by contiguity or reward –> they selectively take in info from environment and build cognitive maps as they learn

Question 7

Tolman: Latent Learning

Answer 7

• 3 groups of rats allowed to explore T-maze
• No reinforcement, regular reinforcement, reinforcement after 11 days
  Results: Reinforcement group showed steady improvement
  Reinforcement after 11 days showed sudden improvement after 11th day
  No reinforcement doesn’t appear to learn much

Question 8

BF Skinner’s response to Tolman

Answer 8

• mentalism: this way of thinking which he found flawed

- Tolman said one cannot directly observe cognitive maps they are inferred from behaviour

Question 9

Minsky: Steps toward AI

Answer 9

computer program capable of describing structures would need:

• terms for relations (inside, left, etc.)
• a way of specifying hierarchical level at which these relations are specified

Question 10

Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour

Answer 10

• behaviourist explanation of language development
• function: efficient way to get another individual to do something
• all other functions (communication, truth, logic, etc.) are derivatives of this primary function
• should only think of language behaviours in terms of measurable effect they have on human interaction

Question 11

Noam Chomsky and the Cognitive Revolution

Answer 11

• behaviourism is successful in describing low-level instinctual behaviour
• BUT language can’t be solely acquired by reinforcement –> must be innate structure that helps humans acquire language
• if language was only acquired through reinforcement then it would take longer than 2 years to understand basic structure

Question 12

Two observations about language learning

Answer 12

• poverty of stimulus: even while hearing a finite amount of sentences, can produce an infinite number
• constraints and principles cannot be learnt: children don’t know anything about grammar or syntax but can produce grammatical sentences

Question 13

Aspects of a theory of language/syntax

Answer 13

• makes infinite use of finite means
• languages differ enormously
  Central Tension: ease of language acquisition (innate?) and linguistic diversity (acquired?)

Question 14

Chomsky’s Proposal

Answer 14

Infants are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

• helps them use input more effectively
• provides little bit of knowledge about how human languages work to get started

Question 15

Criticisms of LAD

Answer 15

• how could it work? (black box)
• languages are so diverse that such universality is rare
• only seems to touch on syntax/structure and not semantics

Question 16

What fields did Chomsky’s refutation of Skinner’s views of language revolutionize?

Answer 16

• cognitive psychology
• linguistics
• computer science
• analytic philosophy

Question 17

Bottom up processing

Answer 17

start with distal stimulus
(sensory data) and build
up representation

Question 18

Top-down processing

Answer 18

start with expectations & 
context to help sense/interpret incoming data stream
Later stages of processing 
affect earlier stages
(ex: 3D shape perception)

Question 19

Top-Down Processing: the Single Light Source Assumption

Answer 19

• visual systems’ interpretation of shape is constrained by the rule
  that there can only be one light source
• seems to have the built-in assumption that light is
  shining from above

Question 20

Cigarette size: influence on perceptual judgment

Answer 20

• high smoking need: deprived of smoking in class before study
• low smoking need: permitted to smoke immediately before study
  Results: low smoking need participants judged length of cigarette to be shorter than those is high smoking need condition

Question 21

stimulation-onset asynchrony (SOA)

Answer 21

separation between the onsets of the two stimuli in double-stimulation paradigm

Question 22

serial info processing model

Answer 22

• items tested one at a time

- predicts linear increase in response time as set size increases

Question 23

parallel info processing model

Answer 23

• items tested simultaneously

- if response time increases as memory set increases, then not parallel processing

Question 24

Single channel hypothesis

Answer 24

• first piece of info must be cleared before second can be processed
• mind can only deal with one piece of info at a time
• when several pieces are received in rapid succession, bottleneck is formed (causing slowing of decision making)

Question 25

Double-stimulation paradigm

Answer 25

If we detect a stimulus (S1) but we are still processing
that information when a second stimulus (S1) occurs, we will be unable to process the second stimulus until we
have finished processing the first on

Question 26

Sternberg Task

Answer 26

• give subjects short list of items to remember

- subjects decided quickly whether a new item was on the list or not

Question 27

psychological refractory period (PRP)

Answer 27

slowing of RT2

Question 28

Marr’s Approach

Answer 28

• Distinguished different explanatory tasks at different levels
• Gave a general theoretical framework for combining these levels

Question 29

Computational Level

Answer 29

•Form of task analysis of a cognitive system
(a) Identify the specific information-processing
problem that the system is configured to solve (inputs, outputs)
(b) Identify general constraints upon any solution to that problem

Question 30

Algorithmic Level

Answer 30

•Explains how the system actually performs the information-processing
task
• identifies input information and output information
• identifies algorithm for transforming input into required output
• specifies how information is represented

Question 31

Physical Implementation

Level

Answer 31

•Physical realization of the 
system (e.g. the neural 
hardware)
• Identify neural structures 
realizing the basic 
representational states to 
which the algorithm applies 
[e.g. populations of neurons]
• Identify neural mechanisms that transform those representational states according to the algorithm

Question 32

Which level is critical from an information-processing pov?

Answer 32

computational level

Question 33

Marr’s analysis of the visual system

Answer 33

• identified two key jobs to perform
• -> provide a 3D representation of the visual environment
• -> provide object-entered rather than viewer-entered frame of reference