Cognitive Psychology concepts

Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

• Cognitive psychology is relevant to everyday experiences.
• Cognitive psychology has practical applications.
• It is possible to study the inner workings of the mind indirectly.
• The cognitive revolution marked a significant shift in the field.
• There exists a connection between computers and studying the mind.

What is Cognition?

• "Cognoscere" means "to know" in Latin
• "Cognition" refers to the processes of transforming, reducing, elaborating, storing, recovering, and utilizing sensory input
• Ulric Neisser's 1967 book, Cognitive Psychology, is a seminal work in the field.

Complexity of Cognition

• Cognition includes perception, paying attention, remembering, distinguishing items in a category, visualizing, understanding and producing language
• Cognition includes problem solving, reasoning, and decision-making
• All cognitive processes include "hidden" processes that may not be consciously aware
• Cognitive psychology studies the mind scientifically
• Cognition concerns mental processes like perception, attention, and memory

Thinking About the Mind

• The mind is involved in forming and recalling memories.
• It solves problems, considers possibilities, and makes decisions.
• The mind helps us survive and function normally.
• The mind is a symbol of creativity and intelligence.
• It creates representations of the world so we can act in it

Early Work in Cognitive Psychology

• Donders, in 1868, measured the time it takes a person to make a decision.
• Reaction time (RT) experiments measure the the interval between presentation of a stimulus and a person's response to the stimulus
• A Simple RT task involves participants quickly pushing a button when a light appears.
• A Choice RT task involves pushing one button when a light is on the right and another if the light is on the left.
• Donders's reaction time experiment involved (a) the simple reaction time task and (b) the choice reaction time task

Donders's Study of Reaction Time

• Difference between choice RT and simple RT indicates the time required to make a decision
• In Donders's experiment, choice RT was 1/10th of a second longer than simple RT
• Therefore, it took 1/10th of a second to make a decision.
• Mental responses are not directly measurable but can be inferred from behavior.

Wundt: Structuralism and Sensations

• In 1879, Wundt established the first scientific psychology lab at the University of Leipzig, Germany.
• Wundt developed structuralism as an approach
• Structuralism posits that overall experience is determined by combining basic experience elements, called sensations
• Analytic introspection was used, where participants are trained to describe their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli.

Ebbinghaus: Memory and Forgetting

• Ebbinghaus, in 1885/1913, read lists of nonsense syllables aloud
• He determined the number of repetitions needed to repeat the list without errors.
• After taking a break, he relearned the list,
• Shorter intervals resulted in fewer repetitions necessary to relearn the list
• Ebbinghaus learned different lists with different retention intervals
• Savings = (Original time to learn list) - (Time to relearn list after delay)
• A savings curve shows savings as a function of retention interval
• When Ebbinghaus first learned his list of nonsense syllables, it took 1,000 seconds
• 19 minutes later it took 400 sec
• 1 day later it took 650 sec
• 6 days later it took 730 sec
• Therefore the savings after 19 min:
  • (1000-400)/1000 = 60%
• Therefore the savings after 1 day:
  • (1000-650)/1000 = 35%

William James's Principles of Psychology

• James was an early American psychologist and taught the first psychology course at Harvard.
• Observations were based on functions of his own mind, without experiments.
• He considered many topics in cognition, including thinking, consciousness, attention, memory, perception, imagination, and reasoning.

Watson and Behaviorism

• John Watson identified two problems with the analytic introspection method:
  • Results were highly variable person to person
  • Results were hard to verify because of the focus was on invisible inner mental processes
• Watson proposed behaviorism as a new approach.
• Behaviorism: eliminate the mind as a topic of study and study directly observable behavior instead.

Watson's "Little Albert" Experiment

• Watson and Rayner (1920) conducted the "Little Albert" experiment.
• 9-month-old Albert became afraid of a rat when a loud noise was paired with it everytime the rat was presented
• Pairing one stimulus with another affected behavior.
• The experiment demonstrated that behavior can be analyzed without reference to the mind

Classical Conditioning

• The "Little Albert" experiment used classical conditioning methods.
• Classical Conditioning pairs a neutral event with an event that produces a specific outcome
• After many pairings, the neutral event produces the outcome.
• Watson's experiment was inspired by Pavlov's research with dogs

Skinner: Conditioning and Behaviorism

• B. F. Skinner researched the relationship between stimuli and response
• Skinner coined "operant conditioning":
  • Shaping behavior by rewards or punishments
  • Rewarded behavior is more likely to be repeated
  • Punished is less likely to be repeated
• Behaviorism was the dominant approach from the 1940s through the 1960s.

The Rise of Behaviorism

• 1868: Donders first performs reaction time experiments
• 1879: Wundt established a scientific psychology laboratory.
• 1885: Ebbinghaus created the forgetting curve.
• 1890: James publishes Principles of Psychology
• 1913: Watson establishes Behaviorism
• 1938: Skinner publishes research on operant conditioning

The Reemergence of the Mind in Psychology

• Tolman (1938) trained rats to find food in a four-armed maze.
• When he placed a rat in a different arm of the maze, it successfully went to the specific arm where it previously found food.
• Tolman believed the rat had created a cognitive map which is a representation of the maze in its mind
• That map helped the rat to navigate the maze
• Tolman rejected the behaviorist perspective for the rat's actions
• Figure 1.7 shows the maze used in Tolman's experiment
  • (a) The rat initially explores the maze.
  • (b)The rat learns to turn right to obtain food at B when starting at A
  • (c) When placed at C, the rat turns left to reach the food at B
  • Precautions were taken to avoid the rat knowing the food location by things like smell

The Decline of Behaviorism

• A controversy arose over language acquisition.
• Skinner (1957), in "Verbal Behavior" claimed children learn language through operant conditioning
  • Children imitate speech they hear
  • Correct speech is rewarded

Chomsky's Critique of Behaviorism

• Chomsky (1959) argued against Skinner, pointing out that children say things they've never heard and cannot be imitating.
• Chomsky also said that children say incorrect things that they have not been rewarded for
• Ultimately he believed that language must be determined by an inborn biological program.

Studying the Mind

• To understand complex cognitive behaviors:
  • Measure observable behavior
  • Make inferences about underlying cognitive activity
  • Consider what this behavior indicates about how the mind works

Information Processing

• Information processing shifted away from stimulus-response behaviorism
• Information process attemped to explain behavior in terms of the mind
• Information-processing studies the mind based on insights from digital computers.
• The information-processing approach states the mind's operation occurs in stages

Attention and Flow Diagrams

• Cherry (1953) based attention research on James's ideas.
• A message A was played in the left ear and message B was played in the right ear
• Subjects could understand the details of message A despite receiving message B
• Broadbent (1958) developed a flow diagram to show what occurs as a person directs attention to one stimulus.
• Unattended information does not pass through the filter.

The Cognitive Revolution

• 1948: Tolman develops cognitive maps
• 1953: Cherry performs attention experiments
• 1954: The first commercially avaiable digital computer is established
• 1956: Dartmouth and MIT conferences
• 1957: Skinner publishes Verbal Behavior
• 1958: Broadbent releases his flow diagram
• 1959: Chomsky releases his review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior
• 1967: Neisser publishes the first ever cognitive psychology textbook

Artificial Intelligence and Information Theory

• Artificial Intelligence is "Making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so Behaving." (McCarthy et al.,1955)
• Newell and Simon created the Logic Theorist program, which could create formal proofs of math theorems using logical principles.

Memory: A Higher Mental Process

• Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) created a three-stage model of memory:
  • Sensory memory (less than 1 second).
  • Short-term memory (a few seconds, limited capacity).
  • Long-term memory (long duration, high capacity).
• Information to remember is pulled from long-term memory into short-term memory.
• Tulving (1972, 1985) divided long-term memory into three components:
  • Episodic: Life events
  • Semantic: Facts
  • Procedural: Physical Actions

The Physiology of Cognition

• Neuropsychology studies of the behavior of with brain damage
• Electrophysiology is how the nervous system, including brain neurons, is studied
• Brain imaging includes:
  • Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
  • Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
• Both PET and fMRI show which brain areas are active during specific cognitive episodes.

Test your understanding of core cognitive psychology concepts, including cognitive processes, reaction time experiments, mental representations, and the impact of brain damage on cognitive functions. These questions explore the methodology for improving reaction time and cognitive abilities.