History Of Cognitive Science Lecture 2 PDF

History of Cognitive Science Psych 85, Lecture 2 Fall 2024 Julia Schorn, Instructor Agenda History of Cognitive Science Structuralism Functionalism Behaviorism Cognitive revolution Learning Objectives By the end of this lecture, you...

History of Cognitive Science Psych 85, Lecture 2 Fall 2024 Julia Schorn, Instructor Agenda History of Cognitive Science Structuralism Functionalism Behaviorism Cognitive revolution Learning Objectives By the end of this lecture, you will be able to describe… The three historical approaches (structuralism, behaviorism,cognitive) to studying the mind & their methodologies The Turing Test The findings and major events that led to the cognitive revolution Philosophical Approach What is “mind”? Is it separate from the body? How do we come to know things? How much knowledge is hard-wired, and how much is learned? (nature vs. nurture) A brief history of cognitive science The Psychological Approach Structuralism (Wilhelm Wundt & Edward Titchener) Goal: identify “mental elements” (inspired by chemistry) Method: introspection (means “inward looking”) + Show participants object → ask them about their + subjective experience Alter size and exposure to experimentally change experience Free associations: first thing that comes to mind Hot dog → ketchup dog → cat Structuralism Strengths: First scientific attempt at studying the mind (e.g., using experimental methods) Criticisms: Introspection is an inexact measure Mental experiences may change over time (even seconds) The act of introspecting may change the experience itself Individual differences Never able to compile a short list of mental elements (like chemical elements) Functionalism Associated with William James (1842-1910), often credited as being the founder of modern psychology Mind is not elements, but rather a “dynamic process” Consists of a stream of consciousness Emphasized the adaptive nature of cognition “…it is obvious and palpable that our state of mind is never precisely the same. Every thought we have of a given fact is, strictly speaking, unique, and only bears a resemblance of kind with our other thoughts of the same fact. When the identical fact recurs, we must think of it in a fresh manner, see it under a somewhat different angle, apprehend it in different relations from those in which it last appeared.” (James, 1890) The Tao of Cognitive Psychology Structures Functions 1. Wundt 1. James 2. representation 2. processes 3. brain areas 3. cognitive e.g. operations hippocampus e.g. memory 4. neurons 4. activation This is the "Wundt & James: Structuralism & Functionalism" video from "Psychology 101: The Animated TextVook". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW6nm69Z_IE  A brief history of cognitive science Rejection of internal Rise of behaviorism states Elements of a Good Hypothesis Well-formed hypotheses attempt to describe a very specific pattern of results in the world. They: Have observable and measurable results Are falsifiable Explain cause-effect relationship Can be used to make predictions about the world Example: Students who drink caffeine do better in Psych classes How do we test this? Behaviorism Psychology in the US between 1920 and 1960 was dominated by behaviorism Behaviorists had rejected the introspective approach of early psychologists in favor of a focus on observable behavior Best exemplified by the work of B.F. Skinner & Watson Explanation was in terms of associations between inputs (stimuli) and outputs (behavior) Behaviorism Little to no focus on “mind” or brain but rather behaviors The mind is a “black box” – unexplainable and unmeasurable Focused on observable and quantifiable measurements Knowledge and behaviors are learned, not innate through processes like classical conditioning and instrumental/operant conditioning Classical conditioning Associating a stimulus with an outcome Instrumental/Operant Conditioning Skinner box Behaviorism: What Is It Like To Be Human? Logical version: there are only behavioral dispositions to associate certain inputs with certain outputs. food approach predator fight/flee loud noise freeze smell of food salivate red light stop “what’s up?” reply Empirical version: internal states are not scientifically accessible, hence irrelevant. The Turing Test The Imitation Game (1950) Put a judge (a person) in one room connected to a computer in a second room and a human in a third room If the judge can’t tell which one is the computer and which is the human, then the computer is intelligent Turing Test Competition Google’s LaMDA passed the Turing test recently (2022) Since then, ChatGPT (GPT-4) has also passed the Turing test (2023) Is AI Sentient? Is AI Sentient? Chatbots talking to each other https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W8aBAEWBFk&t=115s&ab_channel=EmbodyDi Is the Turing Test a good test? All possible conversations The too-smart argument https://theconversation.com/googles-powerful-ai-spotlights-a- human-cognitive-glitch-mistaking-fluent-speech-for-fluent- thought-185099 Is imitation of human language the same as understanding human language and having original thoughts? Behaviorism Strengths: Objective measures Use of scientific method (falsifiable, replicable) Criticisms: Could not explain complex behaviors (perception, high-level thought, attention) Neglected mind and mental representations, which can be present without measurable behavior Rats in a Maze Reinforcement learning: based on rewards Rats in a Maze “According to this view, […] there are incoming calls from sense-organs; and outgoing messages to muscles. Those connections which result in the animal's going down the true path become relatively more open to the passage of nervous impulses”. Tolman (1948) Psych. Rev. 1940s: Tolman’s Rats Days 1-4: Day 5: food start Tolman (1948) Psych. Rev. 1940s: Tolman’s Rats Days 1-4: Day 5: 10 9 11 8 12 7 block 6 5 food 13 4 14 15 3 16 17 2 18 1 start start Tolman (1948) Psych. Rev. 1940s: Tolman’s Rats Day 5: 10 9 11 8 12 7 block 6 5 13 4 14 15 3 16 17 2 18 1 Tolman (1948) Psych. Rev. 1940s: Tolman’s Rats Day 5: start Tolman (1948) Psych. Rev. A brief history of cognitive science “Believing that psychology is behaviorism is like believing physics is meter reading” Cognitive Approach: Mind is an Active Process Reaction to behaviorism, which considered the mind to be passive and simply focused on stimulus → response Cognitive science views mind as an active process What did you have for dinner on Tuesday? If this question is hard, you may think about where you ate, what you normally eat on a Wednesday, what you have in the fridge, etc Memory is not passive, but reconstructive Cognitive Revolution – 1950s Applying scientific method to study mental processes indirectly What is actually going on in the mind to produce these behaviors? Invisible processes have visible consequences (delays in producing a response, accuracy of performance, errors produced) Develop and test hypotheses about what mental processes must have been The cognitive revolution Several events in the 1950’s led to a rapid shift away from behaviorism and towards the development of cognitive science: George Miller’s studies of verbal short-term memory (1956) George Miller’s question: What is capacity of immediate memory? Simple exp: read loudly digit strings on the screen report # of digits that you can remember Please get a piece of paper on which you can write 1234 58353  X 4723 8903 5835 62967 395 2317 How many digits did you remember: A. 1~4 B. 5~8 C. 9~12 D. 13~16 E. 17~20  X X 2024 1776 1492 90024 911 0110 How many digits did you remembers: A. 1~4 B. 5~8 C. 9~12 D. 13~16 E. 17~20 1st run 2nd run 2024 1776 1492 90024 911 0110 The cognitive revolution Several events in the 1950’s led to a rapid shift away from behaviorism and towards the development of cognitive science: George Miller’s studies of verbal short-term memory (1956) Showed that human short term memory was capacity was limited to 7 ± 2 ‘chunks’ of information The cognitive revolution Several events in the 1950’s led to a rapid shift away from behaviorism and towards the development of cognitive science: George Miller’s studies of verbal short-term memory (1956) Showed that human short term memory was capacity was limited to 7 ± 2 ‘chunks’ of information Newell & Simon’s Logic Theorist (1956) A program that performed logic proofs Was able to prove 38 of the first 52 theorems in Principia Mathematica Used heuristic methods similar to those used by humans The cognitive revolution Several events in the 1950’s led to a rapid shift away from behaviorism and towards the development of cognitive science: George Miller’s studies of verbal short-term memory (1956) Showed that human short term memory was capacity was limited to 7 ± 2 ‘chunks’ of information Newell & Simon’s Logic Theorist (1956) A program that performed logic proofs Was able to prove 38 of the first 52 theorems in Principia Mathematica Used heuristic methods similar to those used by humans Chomsky’s critique of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1959) Argued against Skinner’s notion of language as a complex set of conditioned responses (i.e., words produced in response to particular objects or situations) Postulated that humans have an innate linguistic endowment that affords us with the internal structure (universal grammar) needed for language learning Revolutionized linguistics by framing syntax as a formal set of cognitive rules separate from meaning Language rules are separate from meaning “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” (Noam Chomsky) compare with “Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.” “Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe” (L. Carroll ‘Jabberwocky’) Illustrates that sentences can be syntactically correct, even when meaningless.  Summary of Psychological Approaches Structuralism: find Functionalism: focus Behaviorism: focus on “mental elements” on functions/processes observable behavior Criticism: too much focus Criticism: not enough Criticism: not enough focus on structure, not enough focus on structure on mental processes on processes Cognitive approach: mind as an information processor A brief history of cognitive science