Cognitive Psychology Lecture Notes PDF

07Cognitive psychology Montag, 4. November 2024 08:16...

07Cognitive psychology Montag, 4. November 2024 08:16 HISTPSY_S7 _Cognitiv... Recap behaviourism: Classical Behaviorism (John B. Watson) Focus: Observable behavior and the relationships between stimuli and responses. Core Idea: All behavior is learned through interactions with the environment via conditioning. Mental States: Generally ignored or considered irrelevant. Radical Behaviorism (B.F. Skinner) Focus: Both observable behaviors and the environmental factors that influence them. Core Idea: Behavior is influenced by its consequences, with reinforcements and punishments playing a key role. Mental States: Acknowledged but considered as behaviors that can be studied scientifically. Skinner introduced concepts like operant conditioning. Purposive Behaviorism (Edward C. Tolman) Focus: Goal-directed behavior and the cognitive processes underlying it. Core Idea: Behavior is purposeful and goal-oriented. Cognitive maps and latent learning are key concepts. Mental States: Emphasized the importance of cognitive processes in guiding behavior. Adding cognition to behaviour After 2nd World war(1945), voices against behaviourism grew louder-> new movement- cognitive psychology One of the first significant happenings in this area, 1948, California Institute of technology A mutlidisciplinary field of science Conference on "cerebral mechanisms* in behaviour", the hixon symposium folie *Cerebral mechanisms refer to the processes and functions of the brain that underlie various cognitive and Opening speaker: John von Neumann, mathematician: forged a striking comparison physical activities. These mechanisms involve complex interactions between different brain regions, neural circuits, and neurotransmitters. between a electric computer and the brain Next spaeker: Warren mcCulloch, mathematician & neurophysiologist: launched a discussion how the brain processes information- both him and neumann wanted to exploit certain paralells between nervous system and "logical devices"("Logische Geräte") Next Speaker: Karl Lashley, psychologist: speaking on "The Problem of serial Order in Behaviour" with this theme he challenged the doctrine/dogma that had dominated psychological analysis for decades -> laid out new agenda for research Mathematical and technological advances questioning the behavourist tenets -> while this time when cognition came up it was a age of new technical advances, during ww2 there was a change concerning the skills of technological machines, code cracking, communication, information handling was needed and engineers had to find ways to make this work and make the machines able to have more than one skill-> this could be transmitted very well to the human body/head, handling information through the neuron system etc. ! This ideas of the human head processing information was against skinners radical behaviourism Information can be represented as logical operations Logical Operations: The text explains how information can be represented through logical operations using the values 0 and 1, known as Boolean operations. George Boole: It mentions George Boole, who invented these operations. Alan Turing: The text describes how Alan Turing proved that simple machines based on Boolean logic could simulate more complex machines. Early Computers: By the end of World War II, the first practical applications of computers became visible, which could store and transform information using algorithms. The brain can do Boolean operations 1943: Warren mcCulloch and Walter Pitts publised an article comparing the human brain to computers Strings of S-R connections cannot be used to represent human thinking Idea of Karl Lashley: viability (Durchführbarkeit) of behaviourists S-R models (Stimulus- Response) The idea failed, a computer/machine cannot be programmed after the S-R Modell and work the same way it does functioned as a turing machine (wouldn't be able to write or read languges) The liberating metaphor of computers After the 1948 California workshop there was a string of new ideas about behaviourism and computers. A new explanation of the purposiveness of behaviour (Zweckgerichtetheit des Verhaltens) One problem always was that behaviour is always influenced by peoples goals in life which -ä they deliberate choose, this direct their behaviour. Seemed to require existence of a homunculus sitting in the brain having a free will to steer(steuern) behaviour. -> the homunculus Problem also appeared at Tolamns cognitive map in rats experiments when skinner accused him of failing to explain who was supposedly reading and deciding over these maps. -> it also already appeared at Decartes "ghost machine" -> leaded often to distinction between body and soul The computer age came and computers showed intelligence function compareable to the Informationsrückkopplung ist der Mechanismus, bei dem das aktuelle human ones, as said before, without needing any humunculus Leistungsniveau mit dem gewünschten The answer: Information feedback Endzustand verglichen wird und die Abweichung genutzt wird, um die Leistung näher an den angestrebten Endzustand zu Information feedback increased the similarity between human and machine processing, bringen; wichtig für die Psychologie, weil es eine Vielzahl zielgerichteten Verhaltens allowing psychologists to address information-processing issues without relying on the erklärte, das zuvor eine Homunkulus- concept of a homunculus. Erklärung zu erfordern schien.” Simulation of human thinking They could start simulate the hypothesised psychological processes in computer programs. -> with a ideal computer program that would pass the turing test -> AI Psychologists as software engineers Psychologists as programmers working on the humans software Algorithms as lists of instructions converting a given input- via a fully defined series of intermediate steps-into the desired output The emergence of cognitive psychology 1956 was seen as the turning point. When behaviourisms era was over. George Miller (Havard center for cognitive studies folie) published his article on the limits of short-term memory. -> one of the "new age" publications in 1956 Psychology got large input from the outside (maths, computioning, neuroscience, politics, linguistics) folie 20 But psychological experiments were missed. Compared to behaviourists who insisted on the importance of verifiable evidence based on well done experiments, there was no evidence to convince of the potential of the new movement ->Miller reviewed the first experimentical evidence from the "new age" in his publication: Indicating that humans could report only seven (+/- 2) unrelated items, presented at a rate about 1 stimulus per second (prework for this discovery: Wundt, James;ebbinghaus;Jacobs;Binet) -> first empirical evidence that human can be considered as a computer with "limited working memory" Psychologists were more sensitive(empfänglich) to this argument, because computers had few central processing capacity and with the time the capacity increased what gave new ideas how to think about human mind. Neisser's (1967) Cognitive psychology Publication of his book "cognitive psychology" was also a important moment for the new movement ->By the mid 1970s academic psychologist identified themselves ppredominantly as cognitive psychology (instead of behaviourism) summary Seite 1 summary Seite 2 Specific features of cognitive psychology -> why it differs from ist predecessors 1. Accepted a separate level of mental representation, to which algorithms were applied 2. Introduced more complex information manipulations than the simple associations before & had formed the basis of human knowledge since the days fromempiricism and associationism 3. Congi psych. Also differs from pre-behaviourist psychology (but not from behaviourism) by insistence on verifiable predictions and experimental tests of the hypothesised mechanism Information processing on the basis of mental representation Mental representation became a layer different from the outside world and brain, it was startet to examine how information could be transformed by means of algorithms. -> the information that was encoded, transformed, integrated with previously stored information and in turn, saved. This aspect of information handling was called: information processing -> cognititve psychologists started to make models based on that theory Two approaches were taken: 1. boxes-and-arrows diagrams: -> first of these diagrams came from the british researcher D.Broadbent Flowchart of how he thought selective attention worked: 2. Computational models More complex procedures were needed than foreseen and top -down processes hat to be introduced it became clear that a computer can't process everything the same way than a human does. Language/ translation for example: a computer can get all the words/language and dicitonarys etc. but ist not that easy make the computer understand the context when words have different meanings for example, a human can do that easily -> there is a lot of background information the humans have but the machine don't (Machines could't do that at the time) So cognitive psychology came to new elements f.e. the top-down processes Bottom-Up-Verarbeitung Definition: Dies ist ein datengetriebener Ansatz, bei dem die Wahrnehmung beim sensorischen Input, dem Reiz, beginnt. Im Wesentlichen beginnt es mit den Details und bewegt sich dann auf die höheren Ebenen der kognitiven Verarbeitung. Beispiel: Wenn du ein Bild ansiehst, erfassen deine Augen die Formen, Farben und Muster. Diese sensorischen Details werden verarbeitet, und dann bildest du ein kohärentes Bild in deinem Geist. Top-Down-Verarbeitung Definition: Dies ist ein konzeptgesteuerter Ansatz, bei dem die Wahrnehmung durch vorheriges Wissen, Erfahrungen und Erwartungen beeinflusst wird. Es beginnt damit, dass das Gehirn anwendet, was es weiß und erwartet zu sehen. Beispiel: Wenn du einen Satz mit fehlenden Buchstaben oder einem durcheinander geworfenen Wort liest, nutzt dein Gehirn den Kontext und vergangene Erfahrungen, um die Lücken zu füllen und die Bedeutung zu verstehen, ohne jedes Detail zu benötigen. Interaktion zwischen den beiden Integrierte Verarbeitung: Im echten Leben verwenden wir oft eine Kombination beider Prozesse. Zum Beispiel, wenn du das Gesicht eines Freundes in einer Menge erkennst, nutzt du die Bottom-Up-Verarbeitung (visuelle Details) zusammen mit der Top-Down- Verarbeitung (Wissen und Erwartungen an die Merkmale deines Freundes). Verifiable predicitions and experimental tests of the hypothesis processes To research the informationn processing cognitive psychology relied again on the experimental expertises of behaviourism. They noticed that ist possible to research imperceptible phenomena by examing the influences of these processes on perceptible phenomena. One motivation for these researches was broadbents model -> the theory of this model seemed to be contradicten by the fact that people manage only the perception of several (f.e. 4) elements when they see a row of numers/objects/letters…for a short time (Array) -> like already shown by wundt. Georg sperling examined this contradiction (untersuchte diesen Wiederspruch) His theory was that the stimuli reported by the participants fade very fast in the short term store while the participant names the elements so memory trace gets lost (Er vermutete, dass die geringe Anzahl der von den Teilnehmern berichteten Reize darauf zurückzuführen sein könnte, dass die Spuren im Kurzzeitspeicher schnell verblassen, während der Teilnehmer die Elemente benennt, sodass nur wenige benannt werden können, bevor die Gedächtnisspur verloren geht.) So he wanted to show if ist possible that humans can report more stimuli if they don't have to name them. So he investigates a 12 letter display: Participants had to look at the display but they didn't had to name as many letters as seen instead they had to remind a specific row by giving them a specific tone for each row: top row - high tone, bottom tone- low tone It was shown that the participants could remember and the experiment was predictes by broadmens model-> full information storage for a brief period of time Chomasky LAD -> language aquisition d Innate knowledge -> baseline for Language aquisition = (at least pa This innate knowledge makes lan grammatical information is necce information is what we learn from Has behaviourism been replaced by cognitive psychology just like behaviourism defeated structuralism and functionalism? Dates for the revoulutions: - 1913 for behaviourism - 1956 for cognitive psychology Continuity despite(trotz) the "behaviourist revoulution" The behaviouristic revoulution overlooks the experimental research, done since the time of wundt and the advances in applied psychology (f.e. intelligence research, development of therapies) -> the fact that behaviourism never was a all-dominating paradigm is ignored -> behaviourism never had the same impact in europe or canada as in the USA In Europe, especially Germany Gestalt psychology was a subject for example -> During the course of 2. WW Gestalt Psychology came from Germany to the USA where it also influenced the growth of cognitive psychology Tolman (purposive behaviourism) was also very interested in Getsalt psychology even before J.Ridley Stroop who introduced the Stroop Effect- today one of the main techniques used in cognitive psychology also had impact from gestalt psychology (in social psychology the influence of behaviourism can also be found) Continuity despite the cognitive revoulution Some reseachers hat the point that behaviourism has strengths that wuld get lost if behaviourism would be just replaced by cognitiv psychology f.e Chiesa offered 1994 elements radical behaviourism still has offered to psychology: 1. Cognitive psychology overlooks, compared to behaviourism the fact that much behaviour is the result of environmental factors 2. Radical behaviourism promotes an inductive scientific method rather than a hypothetico- deductive method->behaviourism is more based on experiemts, observations etc. while cognitive psychology is very theoretic and full of guesses 3. Radical behaviourism sees the environmental influences on behaviour as direct and not mediated(vermittelt) by invisible cognitive or physiological factors (f.e. a reflex, in the skinnerian system describes a particular kind of correlation between stimulus and response) 4. Cognitive psychologists studies are more interested in averages of groups and populations while behaviourists are interested in the individuals and their stories. -> Cognitive psychology is focusing to much on average data while radical behaviourism developed methods that accept and incorporate notions of individuality ( the conecept of cognition does not enter dawinism or other biological concepts, also ist accused of not going together with Quetelet eventhough they still continue in his tradition) Current research on structuralist and functionalist questions -> there are still questions from these "eras" researched, f.e. definition of consciousness? or what can be concluded from introspection? Conclusion: Sometimes the fact gets overlooked that scientific research can be done in different ways and is not necessarily incompatible because of that it can even be reinforcing to each other. summary Seite 3  device r grammar understanding is innated artly) Biological nguage aquisition possible so no specific knowledge of essary to understand some things the grammatical m our environment summary Seite 4 Current research on structuralist and functionalist questions -> there are still questions from these "eras" researched, f.e. definition of consciousness? or what can be concluded from introspection? Conclusion: Sometimes the fact gets overlooked that scientific research can be done in different ways and is not necessarily incompatible because of that it can even be reinforcing to each other. summary Seite 5 summary Seite 6 summary Seite 7 summary Seite 8 summary Seite 9 summary Seite 10