Lecture 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology PDF

Chapter 1 Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Spring 2025 Some Questions to Consider How is cognitive psychology relevant to everyday experience? Are there practical applications of cognitive psychology? How is it possible to study the inner workings of the mind when we can’t really see...

Chapter 1 Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Spring 2025 Some Questions to Consider How is cognitive psychology relevant to everyday experience? Are there practical applications of cognitive psychology? How is it possible to study the inner workings of the mind when we can’t really see the mind directly? What was the cognitive revolution? What is the connection between computers and the study of the mind? Syracuse University 2 What is Cognition? Cognoscere means “to know” in Latin “The term ‘cognition’ refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. “ Ulric Neisser. (1967). Cognitive Psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Syracuse University 3 The Complexity of Cognition (1 of 2) Cognition involves – Perception – Paying attention – Remembering – Distinguishing items in a category – Visualizing – Understanding and production of language – Problem solving – Reasoning and decision making ▪ All include “hidden” processes of which we may not be aware Syracuse University 4 The Complexity of Cognition (2 of 2) Cognitive Psychology – The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind – Cognition refers to the mental processes, such as perception, attention, and memory, that are what the mind creates Syracuse University 5 Thinking About the Mind The mind … – is involved in forming and recalling memories – solves problems, considers possibilities, makes decisions – helps us to survive and function normally – is a symbol of creativity and intelligence – creates representations of the world so we can act in it Syracuse University 6 Early Work in Cognitive Psychology Donders (1868) measured how long it takes a person to make a decision Reaction time (RT) experiment – Measures interval between stimulus presentation and person’s response to stimulus – Simple RT task: participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears – Choice RT task: participant pushes one button if light is on right side, another if light is on left side Syracuse University 7 Donders’s Study of Reaction Time (1 of 3) Figure 1.1 A modern version of Donders’s (1868) reaction time experiment: (a) the simple reaction time task and (b) the choice reaction time task. In the simple reaction time task, the participant pushes the J key when the light goes on. In the choice reaction time task, the participant pushes the J key if the left light goes on and the K key if the right light goes on. The purpose of Donders’s experiment was to determine how much time it took to decide which key to press in the choice reaction time task. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 8 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Donders’s Study of Reaction Time (2 of 3) Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 9 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Donders’s Study of Reaction Time (3 of 3) Choice RT − Simple RT = time to make a decision – Choice RT = 1/10th sec longer than Simple RT – 1/10th second to make decision – Mental responses cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participant’s behavior Syracuse University 10 Wundt: Structuralism and Sensations Wundt (1879) established first scientific psychology lab at University of Leipzig, Germany Developed approach called structuralism: – overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations Used method of analytic introspection: – participants trained to describe experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli Syracuse University 11 Ebbinghaus: Memory and Forgetting (1 of 2) Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) read list of nonsense syllables aloud to determine number of repetitions necessary to repeat list without errors After taking a break, he relearned the list – Short-break intervals = fewer repetitions necessary to relearn list – Learned many different lists at many different retention intervals Syracuse University 12 Ebbinghaus: Memory and Forgetting (2 of 2) – Savings = (Original time to learn list) − (Time to relearn list after delay) – Savings curve shows savings as a function of retention interval Figure 1.3 Calculating the savings score in Ebbinghaus’s experiment. In this example, it took 1,000 seconds to learn the list of nonsense syllables for the first time. This is indicated by the lines at 0. The time needed to relearn the list at delays of (a) 19 minutes, (b) 1 day, and (c) 6 days are indicated by the line to the right of the 0 line. The red arrows indicate the savings score for each delay. Notice that savings decrease for longer delays. This decrease in savings provides a measure of forgetting. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 13 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Ebbinghaus, Memory and Forgetting Figure 1.4 Ebbinghaus's savings curve. Ebbinghaus considered the percent savings to be a measure of the amount remembered, so he plotted this versus the time between initial learning and testing. The decrease in savings (remembering) with increasing delays indicates that forgetting occurs rapidly over the first 2 days and then occurs more slowly after that. (Based on data from Ebbinghaus, 1885/1913.) 1000 − 400 1000 − 650 60% = 100 × 35% = 100 × 1000 1000 Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 14 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. William James’s Principles of Psychology James was an early American psychologist who taught the first psychology course at Harvard University Observations based on the functions of his own mind, not experiments Considered many topics in cognition, including thinking, consciousness, attention, memory, perception, imagination, and reasoning. Syracuse University 15 Watson and Behaviorism John Watson noted two problems with analytic introspection method: – Extremely variable results per person – Results difficult to verify due to focus on invisible inner mental processes Proposed a new approach called behaviorism – Eliminate the mind as a topic of study – Instead, study directly observable behavior Syracuse University 16 Watson’s “Little Albert” Experiment Watson and Rayner (1920) – 9-month-old Albert became frightened by a rat after a loud noise was paired with every presentation of the rat – Examined how pairing one stimulus with another affected behavior – Demonstrated that behavior can be analyzed without any reference to the mind Syracuse University 17 Classical Conditioning “Little Albert” experiment used classical conditioning methods Pair a neutral event with an event that naturally produces some outcome After many pairings, the “neutral” event now also produces the outcome Watson’s experiment was inspired by Pavlov’s research with dogs Syracuse University 18  Classical Conditioning Syracuse University 19 Pavlov’s Discovery: Classical Conditioning Figure 1.5 In Pavlov’s famous experiment, he paired ringing a bell with presentation of food. Initially, presentation of the food caused the dog to salivate, but after a number of pairings of bell and food, the bell alone caused salivation. This principle of learning by pairing, which came to be called classical conditioning, was the basis of Watson’s “Little Albert” experiment. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 20 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Skinner: Conditioning and Behaviorism B. F. Skinner interested in determining the relationship between stimuli and response Operant conditioning – Shape behavior by rewards or punishments – Rewarded behavior more likely to be repeated – Punished behavior that less likely to be repeated Behaviorism approach was dominant from the 1940s through the 1960s Syracuse University 21 The Rise of Behaviorism Figure 1.6 Time line showing early experiments studying the mind in the 1800s and the rise of behaviorism in the 1900s. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 22 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. The Reemergence of the Mind in Psychology Tolman (1938) trained rats to find food in a four-armed maze When a rat was placed in a different arm of the maze, it went to the specific arm where it previously found food – Tolman believed the rat had created a cognitive map, a representation of the maze in its mind – The map helped the rat navigate to a specific arm despite starting the maze from a different spot – Rejected the behaviorist perspective for the rat’s actions Syracuse University 23 Tolman’s Maze and Cognitive Mapping Figure 1.7 Maze used by Tolman. (a) The rat initially explores the maze. (b) The rat learns to turn right to obtain food at B when it starts at A. (c) When placed at C, the rat turns left to reach the food at B. In this experiment, precautions are taken to prevent the rat from knowing where the food is based on cues such as smell. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 24 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. The Decline of Behaviorism (1 of 2) A controversy over language acquisition Skinner (1957) – Verbal Behavior – Argued children learn language through operant conditioning ▪ Children imitate speech they hear ▪ Correct speech is rewarded Syracuse University 25 The Decline of Behaviorism (2 of 2) Chomsky (1959) – Argued that children do not only learn language through imitation and reinforcement ▪ Children say things they have never heard and cannot be imitating ▪ Children say things that are incorrect and have not been rewarded for – Language must be determined by inborn biological program Syracuse University 26 Studying the Mind To understand complex cognitive behaviors: – Measure observable behavior – Make inferences about underlying cognitive activity – Consider what this behavior says about how the mind works Syracuse University 27 Information Processing Shift from behaviorist’s stimulus–response relationships to an approach that attempts to explain behavior in terms of the mind Information-processing approach – Way to study the mind based on insights associated with the digital computer – States that operation of the mind occurs in stages Syracuse University 28 Attention and Flow Diagrams Cherry (1953) built on James’s idea of attention – Present message A in left ear and message B in right ear – Subjects could understand details of message A despite also hearing message B Broadbent (1958) developed flow diagram to show what occurs as a person directs attention to one stimulus – Unattended information does not pass through the filter Syracuse University 29 Flow Diagrams Figure 1.8 (a) Flow diagram for an early computer. (b) Flow diagram for Broadbent’s filter model of attention. This diagram shows many messages entering a “filter,” which selects the message to which the person is attending for further processing by a detector and then transfer to short-term memory. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 30 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. The Cognitive Revolution Figure 1.9 Time line showing events associated with the decline of the influence of behaviorism (above the line) and events that led to the development of the informationprocessing approach to cognitive psychology (below the line). Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 31 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Artificial Intelligence and Information Theory Artificial Intelligence – “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 that could create proofs of mathematical theorems involving logic principles Syracuse University 32 Memory: A Higher Mental Process (1 of 3) Arkinson and Shiffrin (1968) developed 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 we remember is brought from long-term memory into short- term memory Tulving (1972, 1985) divided long-term memory into three components Syracuse University 33 Memory: A Higher Mental Process (2 of 3) Figure 1.10 Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) model of memory. See text for details. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology, 5th Edition. © 2019 Cengage. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or Syracuse University 34 duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. Memory: A Higher Mental Process (3 of 3) Long-term memory – Episodic ▪ Life events – Semantic ▪ Facts – Procedural ▪ Physical actions Syracuse University 35 The Physiology of Cognition Neuropsychology studies behavior of people with brain damage Electrophysiology studies electrical responses of the nervous system including brain neurons Brain imaging – positron emission tomography (PET) – functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) – both technologies show which brain areas are active during specific episodes of cognition Syracuse University 36