Cognition Textbook PDF
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This textbook provides an introductory overview of cognitive psychology, exploring core concepts such as visual and auditory recognition, attention, working memory, and long-term memory. It discusses encoding, retrieval, and various memory strategies, and relevant applications and research. This is a helpful resource for students in psychology-related courses.
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Editorial Director Veronica Visentin Assistant Editor Ethan Lipson Senior Editorial Manager Leah Michael Editorial Manager Judy Howarth Co...
Editorial Director Veronica Visentin Assistant Editor Ethan Lipson Senior Editorial Manager Leah Michael Editorial Manager Judy Howarth Content Management Director Lisa Wojcik Content Manager Nichole Urban Senior Content Specialist Nicole Repasky Production Editor Meghana Antony Photo Researcher Anindita Adiyal Cover Photo Credit © Lorna Roberts / Shutterstock This book was set in 10/12 TimesLTStd-Roman by SPi Global and printed and bound by Quad Graphics. Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been a valued source of knowledge and understanding for more than 200 years, helping people around the world meet their needs and fulfill their aspirations. Our company is built on a founda- tion of principles that include responsibility to the communities we serve and where we live and work. In 2008, we launched a Corporate Citizenship Initiative, a global effort to address the environmental, social, economic, and ethical challenges we face in our business. 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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data LCCN: 2018051254 Contents Prefacexv 1 An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology 1 Chapter Introduction, 1 What Is Cognitive Psychology?, 2 Historical Perspective on the Field, 4 Origins of Cognitive Psychology, 4 Wilhelm Wundt, 4 Early Memory Researchers, 5 William James, 5 Behaviorism, 5 The Gestalt Approach, 6 Frederic Bartlett, 7 Cognitive Revolution, 7 Cognitive Psychology in Present Times, 8 Mind, Brain, and Behavior, 9 Cognitive Science, 9 Artificial Intelligence, 9 Computer Metaphor of the Mind, 10 The Connectionist Approach, 11 Cognitive Neuroscience, 12 Brain Lesions, 13 Positron Emission Tomography (PET Scan), 13 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 14 Event-Related Potential Technique, 14 Magnetoencephalography (MEG), 15 Textbook Overview, 15 Chapter Preview, 16 Themes in the Book, 17 Theme 1: Cognitive processes are active, rather than passive, 17 Theme 2: Cognitive processes are remarkably efficient and accurate, 17 Theme 3: Cognitive processes handle positive information better than negative information, 18 Theme 4: Cognitive processes are interrelated with one another; they do not operate in isolation, 18 Theme 5: Many cognitive processes rely on both bottom-up and top-down processing, 18 How to Use Your Book Effectively, 18 Chapter Outline, 18 Chapter Introductions, 18 Demonstrations, 19 Individual Differences Focus, 19 Application, 20 Section Summaries, 20 v vi Contents End of Chapter Review Questions, 20 Keywords, 20 Keywords List & Glossary, 20 Recommended Readings, 20 Section Summary Points, 21 Chapter Review Questions, 21 Keywords, 22 Recommended Readings, 22 Answer to Demonstration 1.4, 22 2 Visual and Auditory Recognition 23 Chapter Introduction, 23 Overview of Visual Object Recognition, 24 The Visual System, 24 Organization in Visual Perception, 26 Theories of Visual Object Recognition, 27 Feature-Analysis Theory, 27 The Recognition-by-Components Theory, 29 Top-Down Processing and Visual Object Recognition, 30 Bottom-Up versus Top-Down Processing, 31 Top-Down Processing and Reading, 32 “Smart Mistakes” in Object Recognition, 33 Change Blindness, 33 Inattentional Blindness, 35 Specialized Visual Recognition Processes, 36 Neuroscience Research on Face Recognition, 36 Applied Research on Face Recognition, 37 Speech Perception, 39 Characteristics of Speech Perception, 40 Word Boundaries, 40 Variability in Phoneme Pronunciation, 40 Context and Speech Perception, 41 Visual Cues as an Aid to Speech Perception, 41 Theories of Speech Perception, 42 The Special Mechanism Approach, 42 The General Mechanism Approaches, 43 Section Summary Points, 43 Chapter Review Questions, 44 Keywords, 45 Recommended Readings, 45 3 Attention and Consciousness 46 Chapter Introduction, 46 Overview of Attention, 47 Divided Attention, 47 Selective Attention, 48 Dichotic Listening, 48 The Stroop Effect, 49 Visual Search, 51 Eye Movements in Reading, 53 Overview of Eye Movements in Reading, 53 Selective Attention in Reading, 54 Contents vii Neuroscience of Attention, 55 The Orienting Attention Network, 56 The Executive Attention Network, 56 Theories of Attention, 57 Early Theories of Attention, 57 Feature-Integration Theory, 57 Consciousness, 59 Thought Suppression, 61 Blindsight, 61 Section Summary Points, 62 Chapter Review Questions, 63 Keywords, 64 Recommended Readings, 64 4 Working Memory 65 Chapter Introduction, 65 Classical Research on Short-Term Memory, 66 Short-Term Memory Capacity Limits, 67 The Brown/Peterson & Peterson Technique, 67 Serial Position Effect, 68 Semantic Similarity of the Items in Short-Term Memory, 69 Atkinson & Shiffrin’s Model of Information Processing, 70 The Turn to Working Memory, 71 Evidence for Components with Independent Capacities, 73 Phonological Loop, 74 Neuroscience Research on the Phonological Loop, 75 Visuospatial Sketchpad, 76 Research on the Visuospatial Sketchpad, 76 Neuroscience Research on the Visuospatial Sketchpad, 77 Central Executive, 77 Characteristics of the Central Executive, 77 The Central Executive and Daydreaming, 78 Neuroscience Research on the Central Executive, 78 Recent Views of the Central Executive, 78 Episodic Buffer, 79 Applications of Working Memory, 80 Working Memory and Academic Performance, 80 Working Memory Abilities in Clinical Populations, 80 Working Memory and Major Depression, 80 Working Memory and ADHD, 81 Working memory and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, 82 Summary, 82 Section Summary Points, 82 Chapter Review Questions, 83 Keywords, 84 Recommended Readings, 84 5 Long-Term Memory 85 Chapter Introduction, 85 Overview of Long-Term Memory, 86 Encoding in Long-Term Memory, 87 Levels of Processing, 87 viii Contents Levels of Processing and Memory for General Material, 88 Levels of Processing and the Self-Reference Effect, 88 Encoding-Specificity Principle, 90 Research on Encoding Specificity, 90 Levels of Processing and Encoding Specificity, 91 Retrieval in Long-Term Memory, 92 Explicit Versus Implicit Memory Tasks, 92 Anxiety Disorders and Explicit and Implicit Memory Tasks, 93 Individuals with Amnesia, 94 Autobiographical Memory, 95 Schemas and Autobiographical Memory, 96 Source Monitoring and Reality Monitoring, 96 Flashbulb Memories, 97 Eyewitness Testimony, 99 Example of Inappropriate Eyewitness Testimony, 99 The Post-Event Misinformation Effect, 99 Factors Affecting the Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony, 101 The Relationship Between Memory Confidence and Memory Accuracy, 101 Special Topics in Long-Term Memory, 102 Expertise, 102 The Context-Specific Nature of Expertise, 102 How Do Experts and Novices Differ?, 102 Own-Ethnicity Bias, 103 Emotions and Memory, 104 The Recovered-Memory/False-Memory Controversy, 107 The Two Contrasting Positions in the Controversy, 107 The Potential for Memory Errors, 108 Arguments for False Memory, 108 Arguments for Recovered Memory, 109 Both Perspectives Are At Least Partially Correct, 109 Section Summary Points, 109 Chapter Review Questions, 110 Keywords, 111 Recommended Readings, 111 6 Memory Strategies and Metacognition 112 Chapter Introduction, 112 Memory Strategies I: Memory Strategies Informed by Memory Concepts, 113 Divided Attention, 113 Working Memory, 113 Levels of Processing, 114 Elaboration, 114 Distinctiveness, 114 Encoding Specificity, 115 Memory Strategies II: Practice and Mnemonics, 116 Memory Strategies Emphasizing Practice, 116 Distributed Practice Effect, 116 Testing Effect, 116 Test Anxiety, 117 Mnemonics Using Imagery and Organization, 118 Imagery, 118 Contents ix Organization, 119 Prospective Memory, 121 Comparing Prospective and Retrospective Memory, 121 Absentmindedness and Prospective Memory Failures, 122 Suggestions for Improving Prospective Memory, 122 Metamemory, 123 Accuracy of Metamemory, 124 Metamemory: Estimating the Accuracy for Total Score Versus the Accuracy for Individual Items, 124 Metamemory: Estimating the Score Immediately Versus After a Delay, 125 Metamemory About Factors Affecting Memory Accuracy, 126 Metamemory and the Regulation of Study Strategies, 126 Allocating Time When the Task Is Easy, 126 Allocating Time When the Task Is Difficult, 127 Conclusions About the Regulation of Study Strategies, 127 Tip-of-the-Tongue and Feeling-of-Knowing Effects, 127 Tip-of-the-Tongue Effect, 127 Feeling of Knowing, 129 Metacomprehension, 129 Metacomprehension Accuracy, 129 Improving Metacomprehension, 130 Section Summary Points, 131 Chapter Review Questions, 132 Keywords, 132 Recommended Readings, 133 Answer to Demonstration 6.4, 133 7 Mental Imagery and Cognitive Maps 134 Chapter Introduction, 134 Classical Research on Visual Imagery, 135 Overview of Mental Imagery, 135 Mental Rotation, 136 Subsequent Research on Mental Rotation, 138 Cognitive Neuroscience Research on Mental Rotation Tasks, 139 The Imagery Debate, 139 Visual Imagery and Ambiguous Figures, 140 Individual differences in mental imagery, 142 Summary, 143 Factors That Influence Visual Imagery, 143 Distance and Shape Effects on Visual Imagery, 143 Visual Imagery and Interference, 144 Visual Imagery and Other Vision-Like Processes, 145 Gender Comparisons in Spatial Ability, 145 Auditory Imagery, 146 Auditory Imagery and Pitch, 147 Auditory Imagery and Timbre, 147 Cognitive Maps, 148 Distance and Shape Effects on Cognitive Maps, 150 Distance Estimates and Number of Intervening Cities, 150 Distance Estimates and Category Membership, 150 Distance Estimates and Landmarks, 151 Cognitive Maps and Shape, 151 x Contents Relative Position Effects on Cognitive Maps, 152 The Rotation Heuristic, 152 The Alignment Heuristic, 153 Creating a Cognitive Map, 154 The Spatial Framework Model, 154 The Situated Cognition Approach, 155 Section Summary Points, 155 Chapter Review Questions, 156 Keywords, 157 Recommended Readings, 157 8 General Knowledge 158 Chapter Introduction, 158 Background and Approaches to Semantic Memory, 159 Background Information, 159 The Prototype Approach, 161 Characteristics of Prototypes, 162 Levels of Categorization, 163 Conclusions About the Prototype Approach, 164 The Exemplar Approach and Semantic Memory, 164 Comparing the Prototsype and Exemplar Approaches, 166 Network Models of Semantic Memory, 167 Anderson’s ACT-R Approach, 167 The Parallel Distributed Processing Approach, 169 Schemas and Scripts, 172 Background on Schemas and Scripts, 173 Schemas and Scripts, 173 Identifying the Script in Advance, 174 Schemas and Memory Selection, 174 Schemas and Boundary Extension, 176 Schemas and Memory Abstraction, 178 The Constructive Approach, 178 The Pragmatic Approach, 179 The Current Status of Schemas and Memory Abstraction, 179 Schemas and Memory Integration, 179 The Classic Research on Memory Integration, 180 Research About Memory Integration Based on Gender Stereotypes, 180 Section Summary Points, 184 Chapter Review Questions, 184 Keywords, 185 Recommended Readings, 185 Answer to Demonstration 8.1, 186 9 Language I: Introduction to Language and Language Comprehension 187 Chapter Introduction, 187 Overview of Psycholinguistics, 188 Relevant Terminology and Background on Language, 188 Basic Facts About Human Language, 189 A Brief History of Psycholinguistics, 190 Chomsky’s Approach, 190 Reactions to Chomsky’s Theory, 191 Contents xi Psycholinguistic Theories that Emphasize Meaning, 191 On-line Sentence Comprehension, 192 Negation and the Passive Voice, 192 Syntactic Complexity, 193 Lexical and Syntactic Ambiguity, 195 Lexical Ambiguity, 195 Syntactic Ambiguity, 195 Good-Enough Processing, 197 Brain and Language, 198 General Considerations, 198 Aphasia, 199 Revisiting Broca’s Area, 200 Hemispheric Specialization, 201 The Mirror System, 203 Reading, 203 Comparing Written and Spoken Language, 204 Reading Words: Theoretical Approaches, 205 The Direct-Access Route, 205 The Indirect-Access Route, 205 Implications for Teaching Reading to Children, 206 Discourse Comprehension, 207 Forming an Integrated Representation of the Text, 208 Drawing Inferences During Reading, 209 The Constructionist View of Inferences, 209 Factors That Encourage Inferences, 210 Higher-Level Inferences, 211 Teaching Metacomprehension Skills, 211 Section Summary Points, 212 Chapter Review Questions, 213 Keywords, 213 Recommended Readings, 213 Answer to Demonstration 9.1, 214 10 Language II: Language Production and Bilingualism 215 Chapter Introduction, 215 Speaking I: Overview of Production Processes, 216 Producing a Word, 216 Speech Errors, 217 Types of Slip-of-the-Tongue Errors, 217 Explanations for Speech Errors, 217 Producing a Sentence, 218 Producing Discourse, 219 Speaking II: Language Production and Naturalistic Communication, 219 Using Gestures: Embodied Cognition, 219 The Social Context of Language Production, 222 Common Ground, 222 Directives, 224 Framing, 224 Language Production and Writing, 225 The Role of Working Memory in Writing, 225 Planning a Formal Writing Assignment, 226 Sentence Generation during Writing, 226 xii Contents The Revision Phase of Writing, 227 Bilingualism, 227 Background on Bilingualism, 228 The Social Context of Bilingualism, 229 Advantages (and Minor Disadvantages) of Bilingualism, 230 Proficiency and Second Language Acquisition, 231 Second Language Proficiency, 232 Vocabulary, 232 Phonology, 232 Grammar, 232 Simultaneous Interpreters, 234 Section Summary Points, 235 Chapter Review Questions, 236 Keywords, 236 Recommended Readings, 237 11 Problem Solving and Creativity 238 Chapter Introduction, 238 Understanding the Problem, 239 Methods of Representing the Problem, 240 Symbols, 240 Matrices, 241 Diagrams, 241 Visual Images, 242 Situated and Embodied Cognition Perspectives on Problem Solving, 243 Situated Cognition, 243 Embodied Cognition, 244 Problem-Solving Strategies, 244 The Analogy Approach, 245 The Structure of the Analogy Approach, 245 The Means-Ends Heuristic, 246 Research on the Means-Ends Heuristic, 246 Computer Simulation, 247 The Hill-Climbing Heuristic, 247 Factors That Influence Problem Solving, 248 Expertise, 248 Knowledge Base, 248 Memory, 248 Problem-Solving Strategies, 249 Speed and Accuracy, 249 Metacognitive Skills, 249 Mental Set, 249 Functional Fixedness, 250 Gender Stereotypes and Math Problem Solving, 251 Research with Asian American Females, 251 Potential Explanations, 252 Insight versus Noninsight Problems, 253 The Nature of Insight, 253 Metacognition during Problem Solving, 254 Advice about Problem Solving, 254 Creativity, 255 Contents xiii The Nature of Creativity, 255 Motivation and Creativity, 256 Section Summary Points, 257 Chapter Review Questions, 258 Keywords, 259 Recommended Readings, 259 Answer to Demonstration 11.3, 259 Answer to Demonstration 11.5, 259 Answer to Demonstration 11.6B, 259 Answer to Demonstration 11.7A, 260 Answer to Demonstration 11.7B, 260 12 Deductive Reasoning and Decision Making 261 Chapter Introduction, 261 Deductive Reasoning, 262 Overview of Conditional Reasoning, 263 Factors That Cause Difficulty in Reasoning, 264 Belief-Bias Effect, 265 Confirmation Bias, 266 The Standard Wason Selection Task, 266 Concrete Versions of the Wason Selection Task, 267 Applications in Medicine, 267 Further Perspectives, 267 Decision Making I: Overview of Heuristics, 268 Representativeness Heuristic, 268 Sample Size and Representativeness, 269 Base Rate and Representativeness, 270 The Conjunction Fallacy and Representativeness, 271 Availability Heuristic, 272 Recency and Availability, 273 Familiarity and Availability, 273 The Recognition Heuristic, 274 Illusory Correlation and Availability, 274 Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic, 275 Research on the Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic, 276 Estimating Confidence Intervals, 276 Current Status of Heuristics and Decision Making, 277 Decision Making II: Applications of Decision Making Research, 278 Framing Effect, 278 The Wording of a Question and the Framing Effect, 279 Overconfidence about Decisions, 280 General Studies on Overconfidence, 280 Overconfidence about Completing Projects on Time, 281 Overconfidence in Political Decision Making, 281 Reasons for Overconfidence, 282 Hindsight Bias, 282 Explanations for the Hindsight Bias, 283 Decision-Making Style and Psychological Well-Being, 283 Section Summary Points, 284 Chapter Review Questions, 285 Keywords, 286 xiv Contents Recommended Readings, 286 Answer to Demonstration 12.1, 286 Answer to Demonstration 12.6, 286 13 Cognitive Development throughout the Lifespan 287 Chapter Introduction, 287 The Lifespan Development of Memory, 288 Memory in Infants, 288 Recognizing Mother, 289 Conjugate Reinforcement, 289 Memory in Children, 291 Children’s Working Memory, 291 Children’s Long-Term Memory, 292 Children’s Memory Strategies, 294 Children’s Eyewitness Testimony, 295 Children’s Intellectual Abilities and Eyewitness Testimony, 297 Memory in Elderly People, 297 Working Memory in Elderly People, 298 Long-Term Memory in Elderly People, 298 Explanations for Age Differences in Memory, 300 The Lifespan Development of Metamemory, 301 Metamemory in Children, 301 Children’s Understanding of How Memory Works, 301 Children’s Awareness That Effort Is Necessary, 302 Children’s Judgments about Their Memory Performance, 302 Children’s Metamemory: The Relationship between Metamemory and Memory Performance, 302 Metamemory in Elderly People, 304 Beliefs about Memory, 304 Memory Monitoring, 304 Awareness of Memory Problems, 304 The Development of Language, 305 Language in Infants, 305 Speech Perception during Infancy, 305 Language Comprehension during Infancy, 306 Language Production during Infancy, 307 Adults’ Language to Infants, 307 Can Infants Learn Language from a DVD?, 308 Language in Children, 308 Words, 309 Morphology, 310 Syntax, 310 Pragmatics, 311 Section Summary Points, 312 Chapter Review Questions, 313 Keywords, 313 Recommended Readings, 314 Glossary 315 References 333 Index 404 Preface The 1st edition of this textbook was published in 1983, and was followed by eight more editions published over the course of roughly three decades. Margaret W. Matlin was the sole author of the 1st through 8th editions. After 30 years of dedication to this and other textbooks, Margaret has retired from the text- book writing enterprise. In the wake of her retirement, Thomas A. Farmer, Lecturer in Psychology at California State University—Fullerton, was contracted by Wiley to carry out the revision and updating process starting with the 9th edition of the textbook (2015). Margaret Matlin and Thomas Farmer thus share authorship for this 10th edition of Cognition. Message from Author Thomas Farmer I took Cognitive Psychology during the Spring Semester, 1999, as an undergraduate Psychology major at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Margaret Matlin’s Cognition was the assigned textbook, and at that point in time, it was in its 4th edition. I remember the textbook as engaging, thought provoking, and highly accessible. In hindsight, I think that Cognition helped ignite my interests in topics related to the mind–body–environment relationship, and certainly contributed to my decision to pursue research opportunities in the cognitive sciences. I am thus immensely grateful for the opportunity to carry this textbook into its 10th edition. The revisions and updates that I instituted in this edition of Cognition are additive in nature. For the most part, I did not remove discussions of key concepts, debates, theoretical topics, or methodological consid- erations. Instead, I supplemented the existing text with additional explanation, examples, and up-to-date citations. I expanded more heavily in certain places, aiming to provide readers with an overview of both classical and more contemporary treatments of a concept or theoretical framework. Additionally, I have increased the number of experiments discussed, the amount of detail embedded in their discussion, and have made a concerted effort to highlight basic components of experimental design and behavioral testing methodologies. My hope is that these additions will facilitate a greater appreciation for the rigorous experi- mental research so characteristic of the field. I think that these additions will aid students in the development of their ability to critically assess links between experimental design and the conclusions drawn from their results. In the preface to the 8th edition of Cognition, Margaret noted that the field of cognitive psychology has changed in many ways over the past decade. She then discussed three of these changes: (1) an increase in reliance on neuroscience and neuroscientific testing methods in the scientific study of human cognition, (2) an increase in the interdisciplinary nature of research on cognitive processes, and (3) a sharp increase in the application of research in the cognitive sciences to real-world problems. I strongly agree with her observations, and have continued her mission to integrate these recent advances into this textbook. Indeed, cognitive neuroscience, interdisciplinary collaboration, and real-world application were three of the fac- tors that motivated my decisions about how to revise and update material in this edition of the book. In her textbooks, Margaret repeatedly demonstrates a keen ability to provide comprehensive treatments of complex research topics while writing in a style that makes them understandable to a wide range of undergraduate audiences. Although I could never perfectly mirror Margaret’s elegant writing style, I tried my best to imitate it. Thus, I strived to maintain the clarity and accessibility so characteristic of Margaret’s work. In the remainder of this preface, I (1) provide an overview of the more substantial content-based addi- tions to this edition, (2) highlight the features and organization of the book, and (3) acknowledge the many individuals who have contributed to this and previous editions. xv xvi Preface Content-Based Additions to the 10th Edition As noted above, very few topics were eliminated in my updating and revision of this textbook. Instead, most content-based revisions and updates involve the addition of information detailing more recent con- ceptualizations of key concepts and principles. Some of the more substantial changes include the follow- ing: Chapter 1 now includes a discussion of the magnetoencephalography (MEG) cognitive neuroscientific testing method, along with a more comprehensive historical overview of individuals who have contributed to the emergence of the field of experimental psychology. Chapter 2 includes an enhanced explanation of the speech recognition process and an extended discus- sion of deficits in face recognition (prosopagnosia). Chapter 3 includes an updated discussion of research involving the Stroop task. Chapter 4 was modified to include a more in-depth overview of the manner in which individual differ- ences in working-memory capacity map onto variability in performance on an array of cognitive tasks. Additionally, the section on working-memory abilities in clinical populations has been extended to include a discussion of the relationship between working memory and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Chapter 5 now details recent research on the effects of different amnesias on cognitive processing, as well as an extended discussion of expertise effects. Chapter 6 now includes a discussion of test anxiety. Chapter 7 now discusses research on individual differences in cognitive style, and provides a corre- sponding overview of cognitive neuroscientific research supporting these style differences. Chapter 8 contains an updated overview of research involving the implicit attitude test, along with a discussion of more recent methodological extensions of the paradigm. Chapter 9 includes the reintroduction of “good enough processing,” along with a more integrative dis- cussion of the cognitive neuroscience of language. Chapter 10 now provides an overview of research supporting a compelling role for gesture in learning, as well as a more up-to-date overview of controversy regarding the bilingual advantage. Chapters 11 and 12 contain updated references to the classical problem solving and decision-making effects detailed in these chapters, along with a discussion of more recent research involving these effects. Chapter 13 continues to provide an overview of research on lifespan developmental questions as they pertain to memory, language, and metacognitive abilities. Features of This Textbook I genuinely believe that cognitive psychology can have practical applications that stretch far beyond the classroom. Therefore, students must be able to understand and remember the material. Here are some of the ways in which I consider this textbook to be student-oriented: 1. The writing style is clear and interesting, with frequent examples to make the information more concrete. Indeed, over the years, Margaret has received letters and comments from hundreds of students and professors expressing enthusiasm for the accessibility and clarity of the writing. This edition of the textbook has been line-edited in order to ensure precision and clarity. 2. The text demonstrates how our cognitive processes are relevant in our everyday, real-world experiences. 3. The book frequently examines how cognition can be applied to other disciplines, such as clinical psychology, social psychology, consumer psychology, education, communication, business, medicine, and law. 4. The 1st chapter introduces five major themes that are repeatedly emphasized throughout the book. Because the current research in cognitive psychology is so extensive, students need a sense of continuity that helps them appreciate the connections among many diverse topics. 5. An outline appears before each chapter, providing a helpful framework for understanding the new material. 6. Each new term is presented in boldface print. Every term is also accompanied by a concise definition that appears in the same sentence. In addition, pronunciation guides are provided for new Preface xvii terms with potentially ambiguous pronunciation. If students are hesitant about pronouncing terms such as schema and saccadic, they will be reluctant to use these words or ask questions about them. 7. Many easy-to-perform demonstrations illustrate important research in cognition, and they clarify central concepts in the discipline. These demonstrations were designed so that they would require equipment that undergraduate students typically have on hand. 8. Each chapter concludes with point-by-point summaries for each section of a chapter, followed by comprehensive review questions and a list of new terms. These features provide students with additional opportunities to review material and to identify knowledge gaps. 9. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings, along with a brief description of each resource. This feature should be useful if students are searching for a topic for a literature-review paper. Furthermore, professors can consult these resources when they want to update a specific lecture. 10. A glossary at the end of the book provides a definition of every keyword. I tried to include additional contextual information wherever it might be useful, in order to clarify the terms as much as possible. For example, the word antecedent can be used in many contexts. Accordingly, my definition for antecedent begins with the phrase, “In conditional reasoning....” 11. The subject index is comprehensive and detailed. Students can quickly locate the keywords, because they appear in boldface. The Textbook’s Organization A textbook needs to be interesting and helpful. It must also reflect current developments in the discipline, and it should allow instructors to adapt its structure to their own teaching plans. The following features should therefore be useful for professors: 1. The tenth edition of Cognition offers a comprehensive overview of the field, including chapters on perceptual processes, memory, imagery, general knowledge, language, problem solving and creativity, reasoning and decision making, and cognitive development. 2. Each chapter is a self-contained unit. For example, terms such as heuristics, schema, and top- down processing are defined in every chapter where they are used. This feature allows professors considerable flexibility in the sequence of chapter coverage. Some professors may wish to discuss the topic of imagery (Chapter 7) prior to the three chapters on memory. Others might want to assign the chapter on general knowledge (Chapter 8) during an earlier part of the academic term. 3. Each section within a chapter can stand as a discrete unit, especially because every section concludes with a section summary. Professors may choose to discuss the individual sections in a different order. For example, one professor may want students to read the section on schemas prior to the chapter on long-term memory. Another professor might prefer to subdivide Chapter 13, on cognitive development, so that the 1st section of this chapter (on memory) follows Chapter 5, the 2nd section (on metacognition) follows Chapter 6, and the 3rd section (on language) follows Chapter 10. In summary, these separate sections provide professors with additional flexibility. 4. In previous editions, Margaret went to great lengths to emphasize the importance of individual differences in the study of cognitive processes. I carry on this tradition by exploring individual differences in each cognitive process discussed in this book. I take great care to emphasize to the reader how an individual difference effect can further inform our understanding of a process as it relates to theories of cognition, as well as to other clinical and social issues. 5. In all, the bibliography contains over 2,000 references, over half of which have been published since the year 2005. As a result, the textbook provides a current overview of cognitive psychology. 6. TEST BANK: Professors who teach courses in cognitive psychology consistently emphasize the importance of a high-quality Test Bank. The multiple-choice questions must be clear and unambiguous, and they must not focus on relatively trivial details. Most of the questions should be conceptually rich, rather than requiring brief, obvious answers. Furthermore, each chapter in xviii Preface the Test Bank should contain a large number of questions, so that professors can select a different sample every time they create an examination. The Test-Bank questions available here to instructors emphasize conceptual knowledge, as well as applications to real-world situations. Furthermore, I have rated each question as “easy,” “moderate,” and “difficult.” These difficulty ratings can help professors to create a test that is appropriate for the students in their classes. For more information, professors should contact their Wiley sales representative about the Test Bank for the tenth edition of Cognition. They can also visit the Wiley website for this book, www.wiley.com/ college/matlin. Acknowledgments I offer my sincerest thanks to the many great minds who provided me with countless hours of academic guidance and support over the years, including: Morten Christiansen, Kenny Coventry, Melissa Fergu- son, Fernanda Ferreira, Barbara Finlay, John Henderson, Florian Jaeger, Sheena Rogers, Michael Spivey, Michael Tanenhaus, Richard West, and Jason Zevin. I’m honored and truly lucky to have had the oppor- tunity to learn from each one of you. I would also like to thank the many individuals at John Wiley & Sons for their substantial contributions to the development and production of the 10th edition of Cognition, especially Veronica Visentin for her guidance in the updating and revision of this textbook (and to Chris Johnson for his support during the 9th edition revision process). Additionally, I thank all of the Wiley sales representatives for their excellent work and enthusiastic support, and especially Marti Mount for her years of service in Iowa City and its surrounding areas. Many thanks are also in order for the graduate students who have served as Teaching Assistants for my Introduction to Cognitive Psychology course: Kimberly Halvorson, Valerie Beck, Francis Smith, Caglar Tas, and Sharong Yan. Your commitment to excellence in the classroom was always apparent. I also express an especially large amount of gratitude to Caitie Hilverman for her unwavering friendship and hours of fun and stimulating academic conversation. In the preface to the 8th edition, Margaret offered thanks to a number of students who have provided useful input, feedback, and suggestions to various editions of Cognition. She also thanked a number of colleagues for making suggestions about references and for providing feedback on various passages over time. Given their valuable contributions to previous editions, I would also like to offer my thanks to these individuals: Ned Abbott, Laura Aizpuru, Drew Appleby, Jennifer Balus, Alesya Borisyuk, Tim Bowersox, Mary Jane Brennan, Stacey Canavan, Angela Capria, Elizabeth Carey, A. Eleanor Chand, Lindsay Ciancetta, Kristina Condidorio, Melissa Conway, Amanda Crandall, Ganie DeHart, Lucinda DeWitt, Thomas Don- nan, Miriam Dowd, Elizabeth Einemann, Connie Ellis, K. Anders Ericsson, Beverly Evans, Michelle Fischer, Hugh Foley, Sarah Gonnella, Moises Gonzales, Mark Graber, Katie Griffin, Laurie Guarino, Ben- jamin Griffin, Sven Halstenburg, Elliot D. Hammer, Heather Henderson, Douglas Herrmann, Eve Higby, Jessica Hosey, Don Hudson, Hideaki Imai, Ken Kallio, Peter Kang, Becky Keegan, Jay Kleinman, Kristen Kolb, Maria Korogodsky, Jessica Krager, Patricia Kramer, Mary Kroll, Leslie Lauer, Eun Jung Lim, Rod- rigo Liong, Jean Lu, Colin M. MacLeod, Edwardo Martinez, Sally Matlin, Pamela Mead, Kristen Merkle, Pamela Mino, Kaveh Moghbeli, Jacquilyn Moran, Michelle Morante, Monica Morris, Lisbet Nielsen, Jennifer Niemczyk, Paul Norris, Danielle Palermo, Jill Papke, Dorin Parasca, Matt Pastizzo, Christopher Piersante, Heather Quayle, Alison Repel, Judith Rickey, Mary Riley, Margery Schemmel, Brooke Schurr, Bennett L. Schwartz, Laura Segovia, Richard Slocum, John Tanchak, Brenna Terry, Sherri Tkachuk, Nancy Tomassino, Laura Uribarri, Dan Vance, Lori Van Wallendael, Douglas Vipond, Sara Vonhold, Julia Wagner, Heather Wallach, Melissa Waterman, Alan Welsh, Lauren Whaley, Rachelle Yablin. Many reviewers have provided invaluable feedback on one of multiple editions of the 1st nine editions of this textbook. Both Margaret and I would like to express our appreciation for these reviewer contributions. I list each reviewer’s name and affiliation below, noting that affiliations were accurate at least until the publication of the 8th edition of Cognition: Lise Abrams, University of Florida; John Agnew, University of Colorado, Boulder; Tom Alley, Clemson University; Harriett Amster, University of Texas, Arlington; Mark Ashcraft, Cleveland State University; Kurt Baker, Emporia State University; Heather Bartfeld, Texas A&M University; James Bartlett, University of Texas at Dallas; Richard Block, Montana State University; Kyle Cave, University of Southampton (United Kingdom); Stephen Christman, University of Toledo; Tim Curran, University of Colorado; Lucinda DeWitt, University of Minnesota; Mike Dodd, University of Preface xix Nebraska, Lincoln; Francis T. Durso, University of Oklahoma; Susan E. Dutch, Westfield State College; Randolph Easton, Boston College; James Enns, University of British Columbia; Ira Fischler, University of Florida; Kathleen Flannery, Saint Anselm College; John Flowers, University of Nebraska; Nancy Franklin, SUNY Stony Brook; Joanne Gallivan, University College of Cape Breton; Linda Gerard, Michigan State University; Barbara Goldman, University of Michigan, Dearborn; Sallie Gordon, University of Utah; Richard Gottwald, University of Indiana, South Bend; Kenneth R. Graham, Muhlenberg College; Catherine Hale, University of Puget Sound; Mark Hale, Rowan University; Harold Hawkins, University of Oregon; Morton A. H eller, Winston-Salem State University; Joseph Hellige, University of Southern California; Richard High, Lehigh University; Philip Higham, University of Northern British Columbia; Robert J. Hines, University of Arkansas, Little Rock; Mark Hoyert, Indiana University Northwest; Matthew Hunsinger, Mary Baldwin College; Margaret Intons-Peterson, Indiana University; Timothy Jay, North Adams State College; Kathy E. Johnson, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; James Juola, University of Kansas; Gretchen Kambe, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Richard Kasschau, University of Houston; and R. A. Kinchla, Princeton University; Joseph Lao, Teachers College, Columbia University; Susan Lima, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Christine Lofgren, University of California, Irvine; Bill McKeachie, University of Michigan; Anita Meehan, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; Eduardo Mercado, University at Buffalo, SUNY; Heather Mong, Laurentian University; Julien Musolino, Rutgers University; Janet Nicol, University of Arizona; Michael W. O’Boyle, Iowa State University; William Oliver, Florida State University; David G. Payne, SUNY Binghamton; W. Daniel Phillips, Trenton State College; Thomas Piccin, Loyola University Maryland; Joan Piroch, Coastal Carolina University; David Pittenger, Marietta College; Dana Plude, University of Maryland; Catherine Powright, University of Ottawa; Sara Ransdell, Nova Southeastern University; David Rapp, Northwestern University; Andrea Richards, University of California, Los Angeles; Tony Ro, Rice University; Michael Root, Ohio University; Jonathan Schooler, University of Pittsburgh; Mithell Serman, University of Wisconsin, Stout; Matthew Sharps, California State University, Fresno; Greg Simpson, University of Kansas; Louisa M. Slowiaczek, Loyola University, Chicago; Albert Smith, Cleveland State University; Donald A. Smith, Northern Illinois University; Patricia Snyder, Albright College; David Somers, Boston University; Garrett Strosser, Southern Utah University; Margaret Thompson, University of Central Florida; Jyotsna Vaid, Texas A & M University; James P. Van Overschelde, University of Maryland; Christian Vorstius, Florida State University; Richard K. Wagner, Florida State University; Thomas B. Ward, University of Alabama; Paul Zelhart, East Texas State University. I conclude by expressing much gratitude to my loving, patient, and supportive husband Giuseppe Vez- zoli. We’ve had a great run, and I look forward to the future. I also send my sincerest regards to the mem- bers of my family who have offered much love, guidance, and support over the years, including my parents Thomas and Catherine Farmer, my sister Amy Farmer, and grandparents Charlotte Estep, Patricia Farmer, Raymond Farmer, and H. B. Estep. In the 8th edition of Cognition, Margaret concluded the preface with the following words of thanks to members of her family. I conclude by carrying them over to the preface of Cognition, 10th edition: The final words of thanks belong to my family members. My husband, Arnie Matlin, encouraged me to write the first edition of this book during the early 1980s. His continuing enthusiasm, superb sense of humor, and loving support always bring joy to my writing, and certainly to my life! Our daughters and their husbands now live in other parts of the United States, but I always value their perspectives. I’d like to thank Sally Matlin and Jay Laefer, who now live in the San Francisco Bay area. Thanks also to Beth Matlin-Heiger, Neil Matlin-Heiger, and our grandchildren, Jacob and Joshua Matlin-Heiger), who live in the Boston area. Their continuing pride in my accomplishments makes it even more rewarding to be an author! Last, I would like to express my gratitude to four other important people who have shaped my life, my parents by birth and my parents by marriage: Helen and Donald White, and Clare and Harry Matlin. Thomas A. Farmer Palm Springs, California 1 An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Chapter Introduction What Is Cognitive Psychology? Historical Perspective on the Field Origins of Cognitive Psychology Cognitive Revolution Cognitive Psychology in Present Times Mind, Brain, and Behavior Cognitive Science Computer Metaphor of the Mind Cognitive Neuroscience Textbook Overview Chapter Preview Themes in the Book How to Use Your Book Effectively Chapter Introduction Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of experimental psychology focused on investigating the mental processes that give rise to our perceptions and interpretations of the world around us. In this chapter, we first explore a definition of cognition before walking through an example designed to provide clarity regarding the topics covered in the remainder of this textbook. We then examine a handful of historical developments that contributed to the emergence of cognitive psy- chology as a coherent subdiscipline of experimental psychology. Indeed, understanding the historical events that occurred prior to the emergence of cognitive psychology will help you appreciate how a cognitive approach differs from other approaches. In the third section of this chapter, we review con- tributions from multiple fields outside of psychology that have served as the basis for recent spikes in our current understanding of how the mind works. As you can imagine, recent advances in the field of neuroscience have had an immeasurable effect on our current understanding of how neural systems support mental processes. We conclude this chapter with an overview of the general themes that you will encounter time and time again throughout this textbook. Additionally, we detail the large number of learning features that are built into this textbook. Their design is based on research in areas of cognitive psychology, such as human memory, and will help you to maximize the amount of information that you maintain as you read. 1 2 An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology What Is Cognitive Psychology? The term cognition, or mental activity, refers to the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowl- edge. Although many have argued that nonhuman animals also have cognitive abilities, our focus here is on the inner workings of the human mind. You will likely have the opportunity to learn more about nonhuman animal cognition in other courses offered by the Psychology and Biology departments at your university. Cognition is inescapable. At any point that you are awake, your cognitive processes are at work. They grant you the ability to recognize and interpret stimuli in your environment and to act (or react) strategi- cally to environmental input. Cognitive processes afford you the ability to plan, to create, to interact with others, and to process all of the thoughts, sensations, and emotions that you experience on a daily basis. Your cognitive abilities operate together in intricate and highly coordinated ways to create your conscious experiences. While reading this paragraph, for example, you are performing multiple cognitive tasks at the same time. In order to reach this paragraph, you used pattern recognition to create words from an assortment of squiggles and lines that form the letters on this page. You also consulted your memory and your knowledge about language to search for word meanings and to link together the ideas in this paragraph. Addition- ally, right now, as you think about these cognitive tasks, you are engaging in another cognitive task called metacognition—you were thinking about your own thought processes. Perhaps you made an inference such as, “This book may help me learn to study more effectively.” You may have also used decision making by saying to yourself, for instance, “I’ll finish this section of the book before I eat lunch.” If cognition operates every time you acquire some information, place it in storage, transform that infor- mation, and use it…then cognition includes a wide range of mental processes! This textbook will explore many of these mental processes, such as perception, memory, imagery, language, problem solving, reason- ing, and decision making. Cognitive psychology has two meanings: (1) Sometimes it is a synonym for the word cognition; (2) Sometimes it refers to a particular theoretical approach to psychology. Specifically, the cognitive approach is a theoretical orientation that emphasizes people’s thought processes and their knowledge. For example, a cognitive explanation of ethnic stereotypes would emphasize topics such as the influence of these stereotypes on the judgments we make about people from different ethnic groups (Whitley & Kite, 2010). I took Introduction to Cognitive Psychology during my junior year of college. I remember quite vividly that I had enrolled for the course because it was required, but I honestly had no idea what the term “cogni- tive psychology” meant. Even after our brief discussion of a definition of cognition, some of you may still not have a strong sense of what a cognitive psychologist really studies. Below, I offer a brief demonstra- tion that should help you gain a stronger sense of what you’re in store for over the course of the semester. Open up a Web browser, pull up a recent episode of a television show or a random video clip, and do the following: 1) Watch one minute of the video; 2) Exit your Web browser; and 3) In only two minutes, write down (or type) everything that you experienced as you watched the TV or video clip. Go ahead…give it a shot. It will only take you a total of three minutes. I just completed the demonstration myself. I went online and selected a random music video, and I watched one minute of it. Here’s what I was able to type in two minutes after closing the Web browser: There was a strong bass line. I have never heard this song before. Approximately 20 people were standing close together. Music was playing but no one was moving. One person at the center of the group of people was female, and she was wearing a turquoise dress that looked kind of fancy. The camera moved from left to right but remained focused on the 20 or so people standing in a group. Somebody coughed in the next room (not in the video, but in the room next to where I’m sitting and watching this video). A female voice started to sing. She’s singing in a language that I don’t know. It sounds like it could be Swedish, but I don’t know. What Is Cognitive Psychology? 3 Most of you were probably able to generate a list of bullet points. Now focus on the list and think about everything that you had to do in order to produce it. Or, if you didn’t really complete the exercise yourself, think about all of the types of processes that I had to complete in order to produce the list above. Importantly, I had to create a rich internal interpretation of the video in order to have a meaningful, conscious experience of it. In order to do so, I had to process auditory information (the music), linguistic information (the lyrics, although I couldn’t really understand them), and visual information (the visual images that accompanied the music in the video). I also had to rely heavily on information that is stored in my memory as a guide for how to interpret the auditory and visual streams of information I encountered while watching the video. Many of you are likely to be in your early 20s. That means that you have had approximately 20 years of experience with the world around you. Based on that experience, you’ve come to possess knowledge about facts (such as, “Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City”), and about patterns that are embedded in environmental stimuli (for example, the word “the” rarely comes before a verb). Crucially, notice how important this stored knowledge is for your ability to interpret and understand the video you watched. In the case of my video, I had to know which features of a person are characteristic of males versus females. If I lacked this knowledge, I would not have been able to list the 4th bullet point above. I also wouldn’t have been able to note that a female voice was singing (as per the 7th bullet point above). Linking the physical characteristics of the auditory and visual streams you processed to knowledge stored in your memory was thus necessary for you to create a meaningful interpretation of the video. Attentional processes also contributed to my interpretation, and thus experience, of the video. Do you think that I remembered every detail of the video well enough to be able to precisely describe it? Probably not. I had to perceive and interpret information from the environment (the video) on a very fast timescale. Under such time pressure, I had to strategically allocate my attention to elements and events occurring in the video that seemed most relevant and important. I also noted that I heard someone in a room next to me cough. This cough had nothing to do with the video I was watching, and yet I still processed it (enough to report my perception of the cough after the video was complete... it was part of my experience watching the video). And, in order to type the list of bullet points, I had to access my stored memories about the video, trans- form those memories into a linguistic code, and then move my fingers around a keyboard in order to type linguistic descriptions of my memories. After thinking about your experience with this demonstration, do you have a stronger sense of what is meant by the term “cognition?” Information from the environment was taken in through sensory systems, and it was linked to knowledge that you possess. New memories (of your experiences while watching and interpreting the video) were created. And, they were accessed at a later point in time in order for you to write out descriptions of your interpretation of the video. In this sense, you acquired, stored, transformed, and used knowledge that you gleaned from experience. Why should you and other students learn about cognition? One reason is that the cognitive approach has widespread influence on other areas of psychology, such as clinical psychology and psychotherapy (e.g., Erdelyi & Goldberg, 2014; Gu, Strauss, Bond, & Cavanagh, 2015; Snyder, Miyake, & Hankin, 2015), educational psychology (O’Donnell & King, 2014; Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015), and social psychol- ogy (e.g., Seyfarth & Cheney, 2015; Srull & Wyer, 2015; Todd, Thiem, & Neel, 2016). Let’s consider an example from clinical psychology. One cognitive task asks people to recall a specific memory from their past. People who are depressed tend to provide a general summary, such as “visiting my grandmother.” In contrast, people who are not depressed tend to describe an extended memory that lasts more than one day, such as “the summer I drove across the country” (Wenzel, 2005). Whether a person is depressed or not thus influences an individual’s ability to access and report experiences from their memories. Relatedly, cogni- tive psychology also influences interdisciplinary areas. A journal called Cognitive Neuropsychology, for example, publishes research that examines specific neurological problems—such as an extreme difficulty in recognizing people’s faces—when other cognitive skills are normal (e.g., Wilson et al., 2010). Another reason to study cognitive psychology is that cognition occupies a major portion of human psychology as it relates to your daily life experiences. In fact, almost everything you have done in the past hour required you to perceive, remember, use language, or think. As you’ll soon see, psychologists have discovered some impressive information about every topic in cognitive psychology. Even though cognitive psychology is extraordinarily central in every human’s daily life, many college students cannot define this term accurately (Maynard, 2006; Maynard et al., 2004). For a demonstration of this point, try Demonstration 1.1. 4 An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Demonstration 1.1 Awareness About Cognitive Psychology Locate several friends at your university or college who have not When Amanda Maynard and her coauthors (2004) asked intro- enrolled in any psychology courses. Ask each person the following ductory psychologists to define “cognitive psychology,” only 29% questions: provided appropriate definitions. How adequate were the responses 1. How would you define the term “cognitive psychology”? that your own friends provided? 2. Can you list some of the topics that would be included in a course in cognitive psychology? The final reason for studying cognition is more personal. Your mind is an impressively sophisticated piece of equipment, and you use this equipment every minute of the day. If you purchase a new cellphone, you typically receive a brochure that describes its functions (or nowadays, at least a link to a website with this information). No one ever issued, however, a brochure for your mind when you were born. In a sense, this textbook is like a brochure or owner’s manual, describing information about how your mind works. Understanding cognition = understanding the abilities that provide you with the experience of a rich inter- nal mental life. Historical Perspective on the Field The cognitive approach to psychology traces its origins to the classical Greek philosophers and to devel- opments that began in the 19th century. As we will also see in this section, however, the contemporary version of cognitive psychology emerged within the last 60–70 years. In this section, we first consider a set of historical developments that led to the emergence of the field of experimental psychology. We then focus briefly on a series of events that contributed to the emergence of cognitive psychology—a field that is widely viewed as a key subdiscipline of psychology. To conclude this section, we consider the nature of cognitive psychology as it exists in present times. Origins of Cognitive Psychology Philosophers and other theorists have speculated about human thought processes for more than 23 centu- ries. For example, the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) examined topics such as perception, memory, and mental imagery. He also discussed how humans acquire knowledge through experience and observation (Barnes, 2004; Sternberg, 1999). Aristotle emphasized the importance of empirical evidence, or scientific evidence obtained by careful observation and experimentation. His emphasis on empirical evidence and many of the topics he studied are consistent with 21st-century cognitive psychology. In fact, Aristotle can reasonably be called the first cognitive psychologist (Leahey, 2003). Psychology as a disci- pline in and of itself did not emerge, however, until the late 1800s. Wilhelm Wundt Most scholars who study the history of psychology believe that Wilhelm Wundt (pronounced “Voont”) should be considered the founder of experimental psychology (Benjamin, 2009; Pickren & Rutherford, 2010). Wundt lived in Leipzig, Germany, between 1832 and 1920. Students traveled from around the world to study with Wundt, who taught about 28,000 students during the course of his lifetime (Bechtel et al., 1998; Benjamin, 2009; Fuchs & Milar, 2003). Wundt proposed that psychology should study mental processes, and advocated the use of a technique called introspection in order to do so. In this case, introspection meant that carefully trained observ- ers would systematically analyze their own sensations and report them as objectively as possible, under standardized conditions (Blumenthal, 2009; Pickren & Rutherford, 2010; Zangwill, 2004b). For example, observers might be asked to objectively report their reactions to a specific musical chord, and to do so without relying on their previous knowledge about music. Wundt’s introspection technique sounds subjective, not objective, to most current cognitive psycholo- gists. As you’ll see throughout this textbook, our introspections are sometimes inaccurate (Wilson, 2009; Historical Perspective on the Field 5 Zangwill, 2004b). For example, you may introspect that your eyes are moving smoothly across this page of your textbook. As we will discuss in Chapter 3, however, cognitive psychologists have determined that your eyes actually move in small jumps while you are reading. Early Memory Researchers One of the earliest (1850–1909) systematic investigations of a cognitive process came from the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus (Baddeley et al., 2009; Schwartz, 2011). Ebbinghaus was interested in human memory. He examined a variety of factors that might influence performance on memory tasks, such as the amount of time between two presentations of a list of items. He frequently chose nonsense syl- lables (e.g., DAX), rather than actual words. This precaution reduced the potentially confounding effects of people’s previous experience with language on their ability to recall information from their memories (Fuchs & Milar, 2003; Zangwill, 2004a). Meanwhile, in the United States, similar research was being conducted by psychologists such as Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930). Calkins reported a memory phenomenon called the recency effect (Schwartz, 2011). The recency effect refers to the observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli (such as a list of words or numbers). In addition, Calkins emphasized that psychologists should study how real people use their cognitive processes in the real world, as opposed to in artificial laboratory tasks (Samelson, 2009). Calkins was also the first woman to be president of the American Psychological Association. In connection with that role, she developed guidelines for teach- ing college courses in introductory psychology (Calkins, 1910; McGovern & Brewer, 2003). During her career, Calkins also published four books and more than 100 scholarly papers (Pickren & Rutherford, 2010). William James Another central figure in the history of cognitive psychology was an American named William James (1842–1910). James was not impressed with Wundt’s introspection technique or Ebbinghaus’s research with nonsense syllables. Instead, James preferred to theorize about our everyday psychological experi- ences (Benjamin, 2009; Hunter, 2004a; Pickren & Rutherford, 2010). He is best known for his textbook Principles of Psychology, published in 1890. Principles of Psychology provides clear, detailed descriptions about people’s everyday experiences (Benjamin, 2009). It also emphasizes that the human mind is active and inquiring. James’s book fore- shadows numerous topics that fascinate 21st-century cognitive psychologists, such as perception, atten- tion, memory, understanding, reasoning, and the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (Leary, 2009; Pickren & Rutherford, 2010). Consider, for example, James’s vivid description of the tip-of-the-tongue experience: Suppose we try to recall a forgotten name. The state of our consciousness is peculiar. There is a gap therein but no mere gap. It is a gap that is intensely active. A sort of wraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a given direction, making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness and then letting us sink back without the longed-for term. (James, 1890, p. 251) Behaviorism The work of early memory researchers such as Ebbinghaus and Calkins appealed to the notion that information is somehow stored in the mind. Their work suggested that internally stored knowledge about words or objects was one important component of cognitive processing. During the first half of the 20th century, however, behaviorism became the most prominent theoretical perspective in the United States. According to the principles of behaviorism, psychology must focus on objective, observable reactions to stimuli in the environment, rather than on subjective processes such as introspection (Benjamin, 2009; O’Boyle, 2006). The most prominent early behaviorist was the U.S. psychologist John B. Watson (1913), who lived from 1878 to 1958. Watson and other behaviorists emphasized observable behavior, and they typically studied nonhuman animals (Benjamin, 2009). Most behaviorists believed that it was inappropriate to theo- rize and speculate about unobservable components of mental life. As a result, the behaviorists did not study concepts such as a mental image, an idea, or a thought (Epstein, 2004; Skinner, 2004). Instead, the 6 An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology behaviorists focused heavily on learning. That is, they were particularly interested in quantifying the man- ner in which changes in an organism’s environment produced changes in its behavior. It is possible to objectively quantify how well an organism has learned about properties of its environ- ment. For example, consider placing a rat in a complicated maze—the end of which contains a piece of cheese for the rat to enjoy as a reward for making it through the maze. Rewarding rats for successfully navigating to the end of a maze provides researchers with an opportunity to objectively measure learning. For example, researchers may choose to count the number of errors made by the rat (such as a turn down a dead-end path) while completing the maze on each of 30 consecutive days. A decrease in error rate over time, in this case, is interpretable as representing an increase in learning. Because researchers can quantify learning over time, they also have the ability to systematically manipulate properties of the learning task, such as maze complexity, in order to determine what factors influence the speed of learning. Note here, however, that in behaviorist experiments, clear and quantifiable manipulations of the learning environment were implemented in order to examine how they influenced a quantifiable metric of learning. The behav- iorists never argued or otherwise appealed to the notion that a rat may be storing information about the spatial layout of the maze (and thus, internally representing visual and spatial components of the maze) as they learned about its layout over time. The lack of a willingness to acknowledge that information about one’s environment is stored and can be accessed at some later point in time led to a reaction against strong versions of behaviorist doctrine. In fact, examples of “pure behaviorism” are now difficult to locate. For instance, the Association of Behav- ioral Therapy is now known as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. Recent articles in their journal, Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, have focused on using cognitive behavioral therapy for a variety of clients, including people with eating disorders, elderly adults with posttraumatic stress disorder, and severely depressed adolescents. Although the behaviorists did not conduct research in cognitive psychology, they did contribute sig- nificantly to contemporary research methods. For example, behaviorists emphasized the importance of the operational definition, a precise definition that specifies exactly how a concept is to be measured. Similarly, cognitive psychologists in the 21st century need to specify exactly how memory, perception, and other cognitive processes will be measured in an experiment. Behaviorists also valued carefully con- trolled research, a tradition that is maintained in current cognitive research (Fuchs & Milar, 2003). We must also acknowledge the important contribution of behaviorists to applied psychology. Their learning principles have been used extensively in psychotherapy, business, organizations, and education (Craske, 2010; O’Boyle, 2006; Rutherford, 2009). Try Demonstration 1.2 before you read further. The Gestalt Approach Behaviorism thrived in the United States for several decades, although it had less influence on European psychology (G. Mandler, 2002). An important development in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century was gestalt (pronounced “geh-shtahlt”) psychology. Gestalt psychology emphasizes that we humans have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see, and furthermore, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Benjamin, 2009). Demonstration 1.2 An Example of Gestalt Psychology Quickly look at the figure below and describe what you see. Keep your answer in mind until the next page, when we will discuss this figure. Historical Perspective on the Field 7 Consider, for example, the figure represented in Demonstration 1.2. You probably saw a human face, rather than simply an oval and two straight lines. This figure seems to have unity and organization. It has a gestalt, or overall quality that transcends the individual elements (Fuchs & Milar, 2003). Gestalt psychologists valued the unity of psychological phenomena. As a result, they strongly objected to Wundt’s introspective technique of analyzing experiences into separate components (Pickren & Rutherford, 2010). They also criticized the behaviorists’ emphasis on breaking behavior into observable stimulus–response units and ignoring the context of behavior (Baddeley et al., 2009; Benjamin, 2009). Gestalt psychologists constructed a number of laws that explain why certain components of a pattern seem to belong together. In Chapter 2, we’ll consider some of these laws, which help us to quickly recognize visual objects. Gestalt psychologists also emphasized the importance of insight in problem solving (Fuchs & Milar, 2003; Viney & King, 2003). When you are trying to solve a problem, the parts of the problem may initially seem unrelated to each other. However, with a sudden flash of insight, the parts fit together into a solu- tion. Gestalt psychologists conducted most of the early research in problem solving. In Chapter 11 of this textbook, we will examine their concept of insight, as well as more recent developments. Frederic Bartlett In the early 1900s, the behaviorists were dominant in the United States, and the gestalt psychologists were influential in continental Europe. Meanwhile in England, a British psychologist named Frederic Bartlett (1886–1969) conducted his research on human memory. His important book Remembering: An Experimental and Social Study (Bartlett, 1932) is considered one of the most influential books in the history of cognitive psychology (Benjamin, 2009). Bartlett rejected the carefully controlled research of Ebbinghaus (Pickford & Gregory, 2004). Instead, he used meaningful materials, such as lengthy stories. Bartlett discovered that people made systematic errors when trying to recall these stories. He proposed that human memory is an active, constructive process, in which we interpret and transform the information we encounter. We search for meaning, trying to integrate this new information so that it is more consistent with our own personal experiences (Benjamin, 2009; Pickford & Gregory, 2004; Pickren & Rutherford, 2010). Bartlett’s work was largely ignored in the United States during the 1930s, because most U.S. research psychologists were committed to behaviorism. However, about half a century later, U.S. cognitive psychologists discovered Bartlett’s work and admired his use of naturalistic material, in contrast to Ebbinghaus’s artificial nonsense syllables. Bartlett’s emphasis on a schema-based approach to memory foreshadowed some of the research we will explore in Chapters 5 and 8 (Benjamin, 2009; Pickford & Gregory, 2004). Cognitive Revolution By the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, psychologists were becoming increasingly disappointed with the behaviorist outlook that had dominated U.S. psychology in previous decades. It was diffi- cult to explain complex human behavior using only behaviorist concepts such as observable stimuli, responses, and reinforcement (G. Mandler, 2002; Neisser, 1967). Research in human memory began to blossom at the end of the 1950s, further increasing the disenchantment with behaviorism. Psy- chologists proposed models of human memory instead of focusing only on models of animal learning (Baddeley et al., 2009; Bower, 2008). The behaviorist approach tells us little about numerous psycho- logically interesting processes, such as the thoughts and strategies that people use when they try to solve a problem (Bechtel et al., 1998), or how people access their stored knowledge about language in order to produce a sentence. Another influential force came from research on children’s thought processes. Jean Piaget (pronounced “Pea-ah-zhay”) was a Swiss theorist who lived from 1896 to 1980. Piaget’s books began to attract the attention of U.S. psychologists and educators toward the end of the 1950s, and his perspectives continue to shape developmental psychology (Feist, 2006; Hopkins, 2011; Pickren & Rutherford, 2010). According to Piaget, children actively explore their world in order to understand important concepts (Gregory, 2004b). Children’s cognitive strategies change as they mature, and adolescents often use sophisticated strategies in order to conduct their own personal experiments about how the world works. 8 An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Research and theory from other academic and intellectual fields also increased the emerging popular- ity of the study of human cognition (Bermudez, 2014). For example, new developments in linguistics increased psychologists’ dissatisfaction with behaviorism (Bargh & Ferguson, 2000; Bower, 2008). The most important contributions came from the linguist Noam Chomsky (1957), who emphasized that the structure of language was too complex to be explained in behaviorist terms (Pickren & Rutherford, 2010; Pinker, 2002). Chomsky and other linguists argued that humans have an inborn ability to master all the complicated and varied aspects of language (Chomsky, 2004). This perspective clearly contradicted the behaviorist perspective that language acquisition can be entirely explained by the same kinds of learning principles that apply to laboratory animals. The growing support for the cognitive approach is often referred to as the “cognitive revolution” (Bruner, 1997; Shiraev, 2011). This term refers to a strong shift away from behaviorist approaches to the study of human behavior. Instead, experimental psychologists began to focus on how organism-internal processes, such as memory, attention, and language, work together to give rise to the human ability to consciously perceive, interpret, and act in the world around them. We have traced the historical roots of cognitive psychology and provided a brief overview of reasons that psychologists became disenchanted with the behaviorist worldview. But, when was the field of cog- nitive psychology actually “born”? Cognitive psychologists generally agree that the birth of cognitive psychology can be listed as 1956 (Eysenck & Keane, 2010; G. Mandler, 2002; Thagard, 2005). During this prolific year, researchers published numerous influential books and articles on attention, memory, lan- guage, concept formation, and problem solving. In 1967, an influential psychologist named Ulric Neisser (1928–2012) published a booked called Cognitive Psychology. The publication of this book served as one of the first comprehensive treatments of cognitive processing. It is seen as one of the most important fac- tors contributing to the emergence of cognitive psychology as a field. In fact, because Neisser was the first person to use the term “Cognitive Psychology,” he has often been called “the father of cognitive psychol- ogy” (e.g., American Psychological Science, n.d.). Cognitive Psychology in Present Times Since the cognitive revolution and the onset of cognitive psychology as a field, cognitive psychology has had an enormous influence on the discipline of psychology. For example, almost all psychologists now recognize the importance of mental representations, a term that behaviorists would have rejected in the 1950s. Indeed, all areas of psychology incorporate key principles from cognitive psychology in their models of human development and behavior. For instance, psychologists are also studying how cognitive pro- cesses operate in our everyday social interactions (e.g., Cacioppo & Berntson, 2005a; Cameron, Payne, & Doris, 2013; Critcher, Inbar, & Pizzaro, 2013; Easton & Emery, 2005; Neel, Neufeld, & Neuberg, 2013; Todd & Burgmer, 2013). Demonstration 1.3 illustrates the important influence of cognitive psychology in many other areas of psychological inquiry. Cognitive psychology has its critics, however. One common complaint concerns the issue of ecological validity. Studies are high in ecological validity if the conditions in which the research is conducted are similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied. In contrast, consider an experiment in which participants must memorize a list of unrelated English words, presented at 5-second intervals on a white screen in a barren laboratory room. Half of the people are instructed to create a vivid mental image of each word; the other half receive no instructions. The experi- ment is carefully controlled. The results of this experiment would tell us something about the way memory operates. However, this task is probably low in ecological validity because it cannot be applied to the way people learn in the real world (Sharps & Wertheimer, 2000). How often do you try to memorize a list of unrelated words in this fashion? Demonstration 1.3 The Widespread Influence of Cognitive Psychology Locate a psychology textbook used in some other class. An intro- cognition or cognitive, and locate the relevant pages. Depending on ductory textbook is ideal, but textbooks in developmental psy- the nature of the textbook, you may also find entries under terms chology, social psychology, abnormal psychology, etc., are all such as memory, language, and perception. suitable. Glance through the subject index for terms beginning with Mind, Brain, and Behavior 9 Most cognitive psychologists prior to the 1980s did indeed conduct research in artificial laboratory environments, often using tasks that differed from daily cognitive activities. However, current researchers frequently study real-life issues. For example, Chapter 3 describes how people are much more likely to make driving errors if they are talking on a handheld cell phone (Folk, 2010). Furthermore, Chapters 5 and 6 discuss numerous methods for improving your memory (e.g., Davies & Wright, 2010a). Chapter 12 provides many suggestions about how to improve your decision-making ability (Kahneman, 2011). In general, most cognitive psychologists acknowledge that the discipline must advance by conducting both ecologically valid and laboratory-based research. Mind, Brain, and Behavior By the mid-1970s, the cognitive approach had replaced the behaviorist approach as the dominant theory in psychological research (Robins et al., 1999). But, cognitive psychology as it exists today has become an increasingly interdisciplinary pursuit. The rigorous experimental approach to psychological research that is characteristic of cognitive psychology has become increasingly supplemented by theories and method- ologies borrowed from other fields. In this section, we first consider the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. Indeed, researchers from many different fields have interests in how the human mind works. As we will see, cross-disciplinary research can produce synthetic contributions to our understanding of the human mind that transcend the contributions from any individual discipline. Next, we touch on theoretical questions concerning how the concept of “the mind” relates to the human brain. To conclude, we will pro- vide an overview of cognitive neuroscience methodologies. These methodologies allow us to gain insight into how our neural hardware supports different cognitive processes. Cognitive Science Cognitive psychology is part of a broad field known as cognitive science. Cognitive science is an inter- disciplinary field that tries to answer questions about the mind. Cognitive science includes contributions from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, and linguistics. In some cases, researchers in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and economics also make contributions to the field of cognitive science. This field emerged when researchers began to notice connections among a variety of disciplines, and thus began to collaborate with one another (Bermúdez, 2010; Sobel, 2001; Thagard, 2005). According to cognitive scientists, thinking requires us to manipulate our internal representations of the external world. Cognitive scientists focus on these internal representations. Cognitive scientists value interdisciplinary studies, and they try to build bridges among the academic areas. Both the theory and the research in cognitive science are so extensive that no one person can possibly master everything (Bermúdez, 2010; Sobel, 2001; Thagard, 2005). However, if all these different fields remain separate, then cognitive scientists won’t achieve important insights and identify relevant connections. Therefore, cogni- tive science tries to coordinate the information that researchers have gathered throughout each relevant discipline. Below, we examine just one of many examples that highlight the value of interdisciplinary communica- tion when trying to understand the inner workings of the human mind. More specifically, we look at how interactions between cognitive psychologists and computer scientists have produced deeper insight into cognition than would otherwise be possible. Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science. It seeks to explore human cognitive processes by creating computer models that show “intelligent behavior” and also accomplish the same tasks that humans do (Bermúdez, 2010; Boden, 2004; Chrisley, 2004). Researchers in artificial intelligence have tried to explain how humans recognize a face, create a mental image, and write a poem, as well as hundreds of additional cognitive accomplishments (Boden, 2004; Farah, 2004; Thagard, 2005). We need to draw a distinction between “pure AI” and computer simulation. Pure artificial intelligence is an approach that designs a program to accomplish a cognitive task as efficiently as possible, even if the computer’s processes are completely different from the processes used by humans. For example, the most 10 An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology high-powered computer programs for chess will evaluate as many potential moves as possible in as little time as possible (Michie, 2004). Chess is an extremely complex game, in which both players together can make about 10128 possible different moves. Consider a computer chess program named “Hydra.” The top chess players in the world make a slight error about every 10 moves. Hydra can identify this error—even though chess experts cannot—and it therefore wins the game (Mueller, 2005). Researchers have designed pure AI systems that can play chess, speak English, or diagnose an illness. However, as one researcher points out, “I wouldn’t want a chess-playing program speculating as to the cause of my chest pain” (Franklin, 1995, p. 11). As we have seen, pure AI tries to achieve the best possible performance. In contrast, computer simula- tion or computer modeling attempts to take human limitations into account. The goal of computer simu- lation is to program a computer to perform a specific cognitive task in the same way that humans actually perform this task. A computer simulation must produce the same number of errors—as well as correct responses—that a human produces (Carpenter & Just, 1999; Thagard, 2005). Computer simulation research has been most active in such areas as memory, language processing, problem solving, and logical reasoning (Bower, 2008; Eysenck & Keane, 2010; Thagard, 2005). For exam- ple, Carpenter and Just (1999) created a classic computer-simulation model for reading sentences. This model was based on the assumption that humans have a limited capacity to process information. As a result, humans will read a difficult section of a sentence more slowly. Consider the following sentence: The reporter that the senator attacked admitted the error. Carpenter and Just (1999) designed their computer simulation so that it took into account the relevant linguistic information contained in sentences like this one. The model predicted that processing speed should be fast for the words at the beginning and the end of the sentence. However, the processing should be slow for the awkward two-verb section, “attacked admitted.” In fact, Carpenter and Just demonstrated that the human data matched the computer simulation quite accurately. Surprisingly, people can accomplish some tasks quite easily, even though these tasks are beyond the capacity of computer simulations. For example, a 10-year-old girl can search a messy bedroom for her watch, find it in her sweatshirt pocket, read the pattern on the face of the watch, and then announce the time. However, no current computer can simulate this task. Computers also cannot match humans’ sophistication in learning language, identifying objects in everyday scenes, or solving problems creatively (Jackendoff, 1997; Sobel, 2001). Computer Metaphor of the Mind During the 1970s–1990s (and even still today), the computer has been a popular metaphor for the human mind. According to the computer metaphor, our cognitive processes work like a computer. That is, computers and human minds are both examples of complex, multipurpose machinery (Clark, 2013). Researchers acknowledge the obvious differences in physical structure between the computer and the human brain. Both human brains and computers may operate, however, according to similar general prin- ciples. For example, both humans and computers can compare symbols and can make choices according to the results of the comparison. Furthermore, computers have a processing mechanism with a limited capacity. Humans also have limited attention and short-term memory capacities. Chapter 3 details research clearly demonstrating that humans cannot pay attention to numerous tasks at the same time. Computer models need to describe both the structures and the processes that operate on these structures. Thagard (2005) suggests that a computer model resembles a recipe in cooking. A recipe has two parts: (1) the ingredients, which are somewhat like the structures; and (2) the cooking instructions for working with those ingredients, which are somewhat like the processes. Researchers who favor the computer approach try to design the appropriate “software.” With the right computer program and sufficient mathe- matical detail, researchers hope to imitate the flexibility and the efficiency of human cognitive processes (Boden, 2004). Beginning in the 1960s, psychologists began to create models of how information flows through cogni- tive systems. This information-processing approach argued that (a) our mental processes are similar to the operations of a computer, and (b) information progresses through our cognitive system in a series of stages, one step at a time (Gallistel & King, 2009; Leahey, 2003; MacKay, 2004). Information processing Mind, Brain, and Behavior 11 models of cognitive processes such as memory, visual object recognition, or language comprehension, share a series of general assumptions detailed below. 1. Stimuli (maybe a visual object such as a chair or a word from a sentence) occur or are present in one’s environment. Information about those stimuli is transported to your sensory receptors (your eyes, your ears, etc.) through a physical medium (light, sound waves). Your sensory receptors process that information, and are responsible for making sure that it gets to your brain. Note that taking in information about your environment through your senses is similar to inputting information into a computer (e.g., by typing a word and pressing the “Enter” key). 2. The information that is provided to your brain via your senses is processed and decoded over the course of multiple processing stages. For example, upon seeing a chair, your visual system seems to first process different features of the chair such as its color, its edges, and its size. After those features are recognized, information progresses to other parts of the visual object recognition system in order for the features to get bound together. Eventually, the visual information reaches a stage at which it has been processed enough in order for you to match it to your stored knowledge about objects in the world. At this stage, you have recognized the object in your environment as a chair. Notice here that under these types of approaches, information is processed in incremental stages. This stage-like processing is similar to how older computers worked. Specific sub- systems process input based on rules (or algorithms). After the information gets processed in that subsystem, it is sent to another subsystem so that it can be further processed and interpreted. 3. Even