Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

• Cognitive psychology is the study of mental events and knowledge.
• Key cognitive processes include perception, attention, memory, knowledge representation, language, problem-solving, and reasoning/decision-making.
• The study of cognition involves "hidden" processes, meaning processes we might not be aware of.
• Cognitive psychology uses empirical investigation.

What is Cognitive Psychology?

• Broad definition: The investigation of mental events and knowledge involved in tasks like identifying objects, recalling names, understanding concepts, and solving problems.
• Specific definition: The study of mental processes used in perception, remembering, thinking, and using those processes.

Some Questions to Consider

• Cognitive psychology's relevance to everyday experience.
• Practical applications of cognitive psychology.
• Studying mental processes, despite their unobservable nature.
• The connection between computers and the study of the mind.

The First Cognitive Psychologists

• Donders (1868):

  • Developed mental chronometry, measuring the time taken for cognitive processes.
  • Conducted reaction-time experiments (RT experiments).
  • The difference in time between simple and choice RT tasks revealed the time required to make a decision.

• Helmholtz (~1860s):

  • Proposed "unconscious inference."
  • Some of our perceptions result from unconscious assumptions we make about our surrounding environment.

• Ebbinghaus (1885):

  • Conducted experiments related to memory using nonsense syllables.
  • Determined the number of repetitions necessary to memorize a list.
  • Measured memory retention over time.
  • Computed "savings" in relearning the list.

• Wundt (1897):

  • Established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany.
  • Introduced structuralism: The belief that experience is the combination of sensations.
  • Used "analytic introspection" to analyze experiences and thought processes.

The Rise of Behaviorism

• John Watson (1920):

  • Introduced behaviorism, emphasizing observable behavior over mental processes.
  • Conducted the "Little Albert" experiment demonstrating classical conditioning.

• Classical conditioning: Pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that naturally produces a response, so the neutral stimulus eventually elicits the response.

• Pavlov's discovery: A classic example of the experimental work showing classical conditioning.

• Skinner (1950s):

  • Focused on operant conditioning: Modifying behavior through rewards (reinforcement) and punishments.

The Decline of Behaviorism

• Chomsky (1959):
  • Critiqued Skinner's ideas about language acquisition.
  • Argued that children's language abilities can't be solely explained by imitation and reinforcement.
• Tolman (1938):
  • Found evidence for cognitive maps in rats, challenging the purely behavioral explanation of learning.

Studying the Mind

• Behavior approach: Investigating observable behaviors and making inferences about underlying cognitive processes.

• Physiological approach: Exploring the relationship between brain activity and behavior using methods like fMRI scans.

Cognitive Revolution

• Shifted emphasis from stimulus-response relationships to an understanding of cognition in terms of mental processes.
• Information-processing approach: Applying insights from computers to study mental processes as a series of information processing stages.

Researching the Mind - Memory Consolidation

• Memory for recent events is fragile.
• Processing disruption can hinder memory consolidation.
• New information can interfere with the consolidation process.
• Studying memory processes also highlights the behavioral approach, using studies like the one conducted by Muller and Pilzecker.
• Memory consolidation also uses physiological measures, specifically brain imaging to investigate brain activity during encoding and retrieval processes.