PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Course Outline PDF

PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Teaching assistant Instructor Alyssa Randez: Wed 12:30-2:00PM Prof. Sébastien Hélie Th 11:45AM -1:15PM Email: [email protected] Phone: (765) 496-2692 OFFICE: PRCE 365B Office: PRCE 359 C...

PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Teaching assistant Instructor Alyssa Randez: Wed 12:30-2:00PM Prof. Sébastien Hélie Th 11:45AM -1:15PM Email: [email protected] Phone: (765) 496-2692 OFFICE: PRCE 365B Office: PRCE 359 CONTACT: [email protected] Lectures: Tu & Th, 1:30-2:45 AM, UC 114  PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Objectives The main goals in this class are to (1) increase your knowledge in cognitive psychology and (2) show you how the scientific method can be used to study psychological processes. Course format The information in this course is presented by lectures. Each week, you will also be assigned recommended reading assignments in the optional textbook that complements the lectures. Lectures will not be recorded.  PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Optional textbook Goldstein, E. B. (2018). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. Fifth Edition. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.  PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology I will not take attendance but I expect you to be here; Contacting us ([email protected]): 1. *** READ THE SYLLABUS *** 2. Try contacting the teaching assistant: Come to office hours; Send an email; Make an appointment. 3. DO NOT: Show up at one of our offices outside of office hours without an appointment; Send us questions the last day before a quiz.  PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Exam and grading: 1. 4 quizzes (18% each = 72% of your total grade) Multiple choices Covers material since the previous quiz 2. 8 homework (12% of your grade) About 1/2 page summary, 1.5% each 3. 10 possible CogLab online experiments (16% of your grade + BONUS): Each Coglab experiment is worth 2%, so you need to do 8 PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology  PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Exam and grading: 1. 4 quizzes (18% each = 72% of your total grade) Multiple choices Covers material since the previous quiz 2. 8 homework (12% of your grade) About 1/2 page summary, 1.5% each 3. 10 possible CogLab online experiments (16% of your grade + BONUS): Each Coglab experiment is worth 2%, so you need to do 8 The deadline for each coglab is at 11:59 PM Eastern on the posted date.  PSY 200: Cognitive Psychology Class etiquette: – Arrive on time; – Turn-off noise-making technology; – Do not chit chat. Purdue honor pledge: “As a boilermaker pursuing academic excellence, I pledge to be honest and true in all that I do. Accountable together – we are Purdue.” There will be no make-up Quiz but replacement work for the points can be made available IF YOU CONTACT THE INSTRUCTOR AHEAD OF TIME AND HAVE A SATISFACTORY DOCUMENTED EXCUSE. QUESTIONS??  Topic 1 History of Cognitive Psychology  The Complexity of Cognition Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes (or cognition) using the scientific method; Cognition involves – Perception – Attention – Memory – Knowledge representation – Problem-solving – Reasoning and decision-making All these may include “hidden” processes of which we may not be aware.  Scientific method 1. Characterization: Observing or measuring a phenomenon; 2. Hypotheses: Theoretical explanation of the observations; 3. Predictions: Reasoning based on the hypotheses; 4. Experiments: 1. Independent variables (factors): What is being manipulated by the experimenter; 2. Dependent variables: What is being measured. A or B?  Rule-based categorization A B Orientation Orientation Bar Width Information-integration categorization  Reading a graph Independent variables Dependent variables  Reading a graph Dependent variables Questions??  The First Cognitive Psychologists Donders’ (1868) substractive method – Mental chronometry Measuring how long a cognitive process takes – Reaction time (RT) experiment Measures interval between stimulus presentation and the participant’s response to a stimulus  The First Cognitive Psychologists Donders (1868) – 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 Caption: A modern version of Donders’ (1868) reaction-time experiment: (a) the simple reaction-time task; and (b) the choice reaction-time task.  The First Cognitive Psychologists Donders (1868) – Choice RT – Simple RT = Time to make a decision Choice RT = 100 msecs longer than Simple RT 100 msecs to make decision – Mental responses cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participant’s behavior How to measure RTs in 1860? Phonautograph Tuning fork  Donder's experiment Make a sound at the beginning of the trial; Make a sound when the stimulus is detected or a decision is made. Mark the beginning and end sounds; Align the markings with a sound wave produced by the tuning fork (261 Hz); Count the number of cycles between the beginning and end signal (261 Hz ~ 4 msec accuracy).  The First Cognitive Psychologists Ebbinghaus (1885) – Read list of nonsense syllables aloud many times to determine number of repetitions necessary to repeat list without errors – After some time, he relearned the list Short intervals = fewer repetitions to relearn – Learned many different lists at many different retention intervals  The First Cognitive Psychologists Ebbinghaus (1885) – Savings = (initial repetitions) – (relearning repetitions) – Forgetting curve shows savings as a function of retention interval – Forgetting is not directly observable but can be inferred Caption: Ebbinghaus’s retention curve, determined by the method of savings. (Based on data from Ebbinghaus, 1885.)  The First Cognitive Psychologists Wundt (1879) – First psychology laboratory – University of Leipzig, Germany  The First Cognitive Psychologists Wundt (1879) – Approach Structuralism: experience is determined by combining elements of experience called “sensations” – Method Analytic introspection: participants trained to describe experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli  The First Cognitive Psychologists William James taught the first psychology course at Harvard University: – Wrote “Principles of Psychology” (1890) Made important and insightful observations about the mind However, James did not run experiments All observations were based on his own introspection.  The First Cognitive Psychologists John Watson (Columbia University) noted two problems with introspective approaches: – Extremely variable results from person to person – Results difficult to verify Invisible inner mental processes The Rise of Behaviorism  The Rise of Behaviorism John Watson proposed a new approach called behaviorism – Eliminate the mind as a topic of study – Instead, study directly observable behavior  The Rise of Behaviorism Watson (1920) – “Little Albert” experiment – Classical conditioning of fear – 9-month-old became frightened by a rat after a loud noise was paired with every presentation of the rat  Classical Conditioning Pair a neutral event with an event that naturally produces some outcome After many pairings, the “neutral” event now also produces the outcome  Pavlov’s Discovery: Classical Conditioning Caption: Pavlov’s famous experiment paired ringing a bell with presentation of food. Initially, only 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.  The Rise of Behaviorism Watson (1920) – “Little Albert” experiment – Behavior can be analyzed without any reference to the mind – Examined how pairing one stimulus with another affected behavior Questions??  The Rise of Behaviorism Skinner (1950s) – Interested in determining the relationship between stimuli and responses – Operant conditioning Shape behavior by rewards or punishments Behavior that is rewarded is more likely to be repeated Behavior that is punished is less likely to be repeated Skinner box Ping-pong pigeons Play Skinner crib (1945) Caption: Timeline showing early experiments studying the mind in the 1800s and events associated with the rise of behaviorism in the 1900s  The Decline of Behaviorism A controversy over language acquisition Skinner (1957) – Argued that children learn language through operant conditioning Children imitate speech they hear Correct speech is rewarded  The Decline of Behaviorism Chomsky (1959) – Argued 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 innate biological programs  The Decline of Behaviorism The Misbehavior of Organisms (Breland & Breland, 1961) – Attempts to condition animal behavior did not work – Animals’ built-in instincts prevailed We have termed this phenomenon "instinctive drift." The general principle seems to be that wherever an animal has strong instinctive behaviors in the area of the conditioned response, after continued running the organism will drift toward the instinctive behavior to the detriment of the conditioned behavior and even to the delay or preclusion of the reinforcement. In a very boiled-down, simplified form, it might be stated as "learned behavior drifts toward instinctive behavior.”  The Decline of Behaviorism Tolman (1938) trained rats to find food in a four-armed maze  The Decline of Behaviorism Tolman (1938) trained rats to find food in a four-armed maze Two competing interpretations: – Behaviorism predicts that the rats learned to “turn right to find food” – Tolman believed that the rats had created a cognitive map of the maze and were navigating to a specific arm  The Decline of Behaviorism Tolman (1938) –What happens when the rats are placed in a different arm of the maze? –The rats navigated to the specific arm where they previously found food Supported Tolman’s interpretation Did not support behaviorism interpretation Questions??  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  The Cognitive Revolution Shift from behaviorist’s stimulus-response relationships to an approach that attempts to explain behavior in terms of the mind But do not rely solely on introspection!  Bottom-up learning The serial reaction time task 1 – 2 – 3 – 2 – 4 – 3… Curran, T. & Keele, S.W. (1993). Attentional and nonattentional forms of sequence learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 189-202.  Insight http://www.dushkin.com/connectext/psy/ch08/twostring.mhtml  Example: Choking under pressure Fact: Many people do not perform as well when under pressure: Missing a putt in a critical game Failing in an exam after studying a lot Bad decision during the Superbowl Hypothesis: Pressure uses working memory resources Experiment: Is there a remainder: (32 - 8) / 4? (32 – 6) / 4? Results: Participants did worse if they thought that they were videotaped (pressure condition).  Example: Choking under pressure New question: Is everyone equally affected by pressure? New experiment:  Example: Choking under pressure New results: Verbal reports suggest that low and high WM participants do not use the same strategy to achieve the task. Interpretation: Participants with HWM use a more complex strategy when there is low pressure than participants with LWM. However, pressure uses WM resources and HWM need to use a simpler strategy in high pressure situations. Questions??  Week summary (1) Cognitive psychology is concerned with the scientific study of the mind; Example topics include attention, memory, reasoning, etc.; Research aimed at making inference about cognitive processes by observing behavior started in the 19th century (e.g., Donders, Ebbinghaus); This lead to Wundt founding the first psychology laboratory using analytic introspection; Analytic introspection was criticized by Watson in the early 20th century as being unscientific;  Week summary (2) Psychologists abandoned cognitive research in favor of Behaviorism for ~ 50 years; In the 1950s, Skinner tried to apply Behaviorism to language learning; Chomsky reviewed Skinner’s work and proposed the poverty of stimulus argument; The 1960s were marked by a cognitive revolution and a renewal of interest in the scientific study of the mind; Modern cognitive psychology attempts to explain behavior in terms of the mind without relying solely on participants’ cognitive insight.  Example question Behaviorists believe that the presentation of_______ increases the frequency of behavior. a) reward b) punishment c) the color blue d) neurotransmitters