Cognitive Psychology Lesson 1 PDF

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY COURSE SCOPE: an Physiology seeks a scientific study of INTRODUCTION to the general topic life-sustaining functions in living of “how people think” (this course is matter, primarily thro...

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY COURSE SCOPE: an Physiology seeks a scientific study of INTRODUCTION to the general topic life-sustaining functions in living of “how people think” (this course is matter, primarily through empirical an overview of a broad range of (observation-based) methods. topics) A rationalist believes that the route to MEMORY - the mental processes of knowledge is through thinking and acquiring and retaining information for logical analysis. That is, a rationalist later retrieval and the mental storage does not need any experiments to system in which these processes develop new knowledge. A rationalist operate. who is interested in cognitive processes would appeal to reason as COGNITION - the collection of mental a source of knowledge or justification. processes and activities used in perceiving, learning, remembering, In contrast, aristotle (a naturalist and thinking, and understanding, and the biologist as well as a philosopher) act of using those processes. was an empiricist. An empiricist believes that we acquire knowledge COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY via empirical evidence. In order to DEFINED explore how the human mind works, empiricists would design experiments COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY - is the and conduct studies in which they study of how people perceive, learn, could observe the behavior and remember, and think about processes of interest to them. information Empiricism therefore leads directly to empirical investigations of A cognitive psychologist might study psychology. how people perceive various shapes, why they remember some facts but HISTORY OF COGNITIVE forget others, or how they learn PSYCHOLOGY language. RATIONALISM (PLATO) Ultimately, cognitive psychologists Plato (ca. 428-348 B.C, The hope to learn how people think by Republic): studying how people have thoughts Plato posits a tripartite division within about thinking. the self: Philosophy seeks to understand the The rational soul (mind or intellect), general nature of many aspects of the The spirited soul (will or volition). world, in part through introspection, The appetitive soul (emotion or the examination of inner ideas and desire) experiences (from intro-, “inward, within,” and-spect, “look”) RATIONALISM - knowledge is acquired through logical analysis. EMPIRICISM (ARISTOTLE) STRUCTURALISM - seeks to Aristotle (384-322 B.C.): understand the structure (configuration of elements) of the EMPIRICISM - acquisition of mind and its perceptions by analyzing knowledge through experience and those perceptions into their observation -> (Locke) “tabula rasa” constituent components (affection, (blank slate). attention, memory, sensation, etc.) The contrasting ideas of rationalism and empiricism became prominent Consider, for example, the perception with the French rationalist Rene of a flower. Structuralists would analyze this perception in terms of its Descartes (1596-1650) and the constituent colors, geometric forms, British empiricist John Locke size relations, and so on. In terms of (1632-1704). the human mind, structuralists sought to deconstruct the mind into its Descartes viewed the introspective, elementary components; they were reflective method as being superior to also interested in how those empirical methods for finding truth. elementary components work The famous expression “cogito, ergo together to create the mind. sum” (I think, therefore I am) stems UNDERSTANDING THE from Descartes. He maintained that PROCESSES OF THE MIND: the only proof of his existence is that FUNCTIONALISM he was thinking and doubting. Functionalism seeks to understand Descartes felt that one could not rely what people do and why they do it. on one’s senses because those very This principal question about senses have often proven to be processes was in contrast to that of the structuralists, who had asked deceptive (think of optical illusions, for what the elementary contents example). (structures) of the human mind are. Locke believed that humans are born Functionalists held that the key to without knowledge and therefore understanding the human mind and must seek knowledge through behavior was to study the processes empirical observation. Locke’s term of how and why the mind works as it for this view was tabula rasa does. (meaning “blank slate” in Latin). PRAGMATISM The idea is that life and experience William James suggested that the “write” knowledge on us. For Locke, mind’s primary purpose is to help then, the study of learning was the humans adapt to their environment. key to understanding the human Pragmatists believe that knowledge is mind. He believed that there are no validated by its usefulness: what can innate ideas. you do with it? PHYSIOLOGICAL ANTECEDENT Pragmatists are concerned not only OF CP with knowing what people do; they also want to know what we can do with our knowledge of what people do. For example, pragmatists believe in Observational learning. the importance of the psychology of learning and memory. GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY - states that we best understand AN INTEGRATIVE SYNTHESIS: psychological phenomena when we ASSOCIATIONISM view them as organized, structured wholes. Associationism examines how elements of the mind like events or The maxim “the whole is more than ideas, can become associated with the sum of its parts” aptly sums up one another in the mind to result in a the Gestalt perspective. form of learning. EMERGENCE OF COGNITIVE CONTIGUITY - associating things PSYCHOLOGY that tend to occur together at about the same time COGNITIVISM - is the belief that much of human behavior can be SIMILARITY - associating things with understood in terms of how people similar features or properties think. CONTRAST - associating things that It rejects the notion that psychologists show polarities, such as hot/cold, should avoid studying mental light/dark, day/night. processes because they are unobservable. Another influential associationist, Edward Lee Thorndike (1874–1949), EARLY ROLE OF held that the role of “satisfaction” is PSYCHOBIOLOGY the key to forming associations. Karl Spencer Lashley (1890–1958), Thorndike termed this principle the brashly challenged the behaviorist law of effect (1905): A stimulus will view that the human brain is a tend to produce a certain response passive organ merely responding to over time if an organism is rewarded environmental contingencies outside for that response. the individual (Gardner, 1985). Instead, Lashley considered the brain IT’S ONLY WHAT YOU CAN SEE to be an active, dynamic organizer of THAT COUNTS: FROM behavior. ASSOCIATIONISM TO BEHAVIORISM Donald Hebb (1949) proposed the concept of cell assemblies as the BEHAVIORISM - focuses only on the basis for learning in the brain. Cell relation between observable behavior assemblies are coordinated neural and environmental events or stimuli. structures that develop through The idea was to make physical frequent stimulation. whatever others might have called “mental”. They develop over time as the ability of one neuron (nerve cell) to stimulate IVAN PAVLOV’S CLASSICAL firing in a connected neuron CONDITIONING THEORY increases. OPERANT CONDITIONING - involving the strengthening or weakening of behavior, contingent on the presence or absence of reinforcement (rewards) or punishment—could explain all forms of human behavior.  ADD A DASH OF TECHNOLOGY: ENGINEERING, COMPUTATION, AND APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY By 1956 a new phrase had entered our vocabulary. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the attempt by humans to construct systems that show intelligence and, particularly, the intelligent processing of information (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003). Chess-playing programs, which now can beat most humans, are examples of artificial intelligence.