History and Introduction

Chapter 1

Cognitive psychology

A denition:

The scientic study of mental processes such as perceiving, remembering, using language, reasoning, and solving problems.

The formal discipline of Cognitive Psychology started in the mid-1900s during the cognitive revolution, and the term cognitive psychology did not emerge until 1967. Its roots can be traced back much further. Intimately intertwined with the history of experimental psychology.

History

Timeline showing early experiments studying the mind in the 1800s and events associated with the rise of behaviorism in the 1900s

Donders (1868)

Interested in how long it takes to make a decision. Used Reaction Time (RT) to measure decision making.
Simple Task Choice Task

Franciscus Donders 1818-1889

subtractive method Simple RT = stimulus perception + response ! 220 ms Choice RT = stimulus perception + decision + response ! 320 ms Decision = Choice RT - Simple RT ! 320 ms - 220 ms = 100 ms

From philosophy to science

Donders experiment is important because it illustrates that mental process cannot be measured directly, they must be inferred...

from behavior. from biological changes. from behavioral differences associated with biological differences. We use multiple methodologies to triangulate answers...

Donders

Early experimental psychology: Structuralism

Inuential gures: Wundt & Titchner Focused on identifying the basic building blocks of conscious experience.

Tried to make a periodic table of the mind.

Wilhelm Wundt 1832-1920

Main method: Analytic Introspection under controlled conditions. Contribution to Cognitive Psychology

Emphasized systematic, controlled observation. Importance of the understanding the structure of the mind and higher cognitive processes.

Limitation Reliance on introspection. Too Subjective.

Edward Titchner 1867-1927

Wundt

Donders

Titchner

Early experimental psychology

(% Savings)

Read lists of nonsense syllables (e.g., ZIF, DAX) aloud many times to determine number of repetitions necessary to repeat list without errors Independent Variable

Time between tests.

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)

Dependent Variable Savings = [(Initial repetitions)-(Relearning repetitions)]

Initial repetitions

= [(4)-(2)] = 2 = 50% 4 4

Wundt

Ebbinghaus

Donders

Titchner

Early experimental psychology: Functionalists

Guiding Principles:

Function of the mind, not the structure of the mind, is paramount Introspection still ok, but should be describing behavior

Contribution to Cognitive Psychology Helped translate the relevance of experimental psychology to other human endeavors

William James 1842-1910

William James

wrote Principles of Psychology, using introspection as his primary method, and presaged many of the things that weve studied for the 100+ years since

John Dewey

Best known for impact on education. Popularized studentcentered, non-traditional approaches to education.

John Dewey 1859-1952

von Helmholtz Wundt Ebbinghaus James

Donders Fechner

Dewey

Titchner

Psychophysics Fechner color effect:

Gustav Fechner 1801-1887

http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/~zawischa/ITP/benhamtop.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benham%27s_top

Fechners Law: a subjective sensation (S) is proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus intensity (I)

S = K Log I

S: Psychological sensation I: Physical intensity of the stimulus

I*3=S+S I*3*3=S+S+S

Geometric increase in stimulus intensity leads to an additive increase in sensation.

Gustav Fechner 1801-1887

Inuenced Ebbinghaus, Wundt, Helmholtz The mind and body are different sides of one reality.

Attempted to discover a mathematical relation between mind and body (mathematical modeling).

Every sensation presents itself as an indivisible unit; and it is quite impossible to read any clear meaning into the notion that they are masses of units combined. criticism: stimuli may be composite, sensations are not.
William James 1842-1910

Hermann von Helmholtz 1821-1894

Unconscious inference (studying vision)

Some of our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions we make about the environment

We infer much of what we know about the world

Helmholtz Wundt Ebbinghaus James

Donders Fechner

Dewey

Titchner

Pavlov

Thorndike

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

Classical conditioning (using dogs) CS UCS UCR CR

Law of effect (using cats) Puzzle box Precursor of operant or instrumental conditioning Alpha, Beta Tests (ASVAB; armed forces test) Active Learning
Edward Thorndike (1874-1959)

von Helmholtz Wundt Ebbinghaus James

Donders Fechner

Dewey

Titchner

Pavlov

Thorndike

Early experimental psychology: Behaviorism

Inuential gures:

John B. Watson B. F. Skinner

Guiding Principles: Only focus on behavior which is observable. Explain behavior; not thought, the mind, consciousness, etc.

Burrhus Skinner 1904-1990

Contribution to Cognitive Psychology Emphasis on rigorous experimentation. Powerful theories of learning

Classical Conditioning (from Ivan Pavlov)

e.g., Pavlovs dog learned relationship between bell and food.

Operant Conditioning (from Edward Thorndike) e.g., A dog learns to sit for a treat.

John Broadus Watson 1878-1958

Give me a dozen healthy infants, wellformed, and my own specied world to bring them up in and Ill guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years. [Behaviorism (1930), p. 82]

John Broadus Watson 1878-1958

The Decline of Behaviorism

A controversy over language acquisition Skinner (1957)

Argued children learn language through operant conditioning

Children imitate speech they hear Correct speech is rewarded

Opposition from Chomsky (linguist).

The Decline of Behaviorism

Noam Chomsky (1959)

Argued children do not only learn language through imitation and reinforcement, they generate.

Children say things they have never heard and can not be imitating Children say things that are incorrect and have not been rewarded for

Language must be determined by inborn biological program (LAD) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

Syntax vs. semantics

Edward Chace Tolman 1886-1959

What happens when the rats are placed in a different arm of the maze? The rats navigated to the specic arm where they previously found food

Supported Latent Learning, not stimulus-response learning

Tolman (1938)

(a) Rat initially explores the maze (b) Learns to turn right to obtain food at B when it starts at A (c) when placed at C, the rat turns left to reach the food at B.

Limitations of Behaviorism

Failures to account for aspects of human behavior

Over-emphasis on animal experimentation Language

Skinner suggested language was learned through basic principles of operant conditioning (1957).

i.e., we learn to say what is rewarded

Fails to account for Generativity of language. The creation of novel utterances that have never been rewarded in the past. e.g., Chomsky (1959; linguist)

Failure to consider intervening mental processes

Behaviorism:
!"#$%& '()*+,)()

Cognitive Psychology:
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Stimulus (memorize this list)

lion, onion, Bill, reghter, carrot, zebra, John, clerk, Tom, nurse, cow

Response (recall) lion, zebra, cow, onion, carrot, reghter, clerk, nurse, John, Bill, Tom

Mental Processes Strategies, grouping, reorganization, etc.

The Cognitive Revolution

Throughout the 1950s there was a shift in emphasis from behaviorists stimulusresponse relationships to an approach that attempts to explain behavior in terms of the mind

Overview of Different Approaches

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Philosophy

Think about mental processes

Structuralism (Introspection) Try to directly tap into mental processes The What of experience

Behaviorism Study stimulus-response relationships Ignore mental processes

Cognitive Psychology Study stimulus-response relationships Make inferences about mental processes The How of experience

The rebirth of the study of the mind

The digital revolution

Information Processing: inputs are transformed in stages to generate outputs. Flow diagrams for digital computers.

Flow diagrams for the mind Colin Cherry (1953): selective attention. Broadbents information processing model of attention.

Broadbents lter model for selective attention (1958)

How can you stay focused on your conversation?

You must lter out extraneous information.

Hey Matt! Attention can still be broken into (we will explore these ideas more in chapter 4).

Inputs

Cocktail party (Cherry, 1953)

Filter

Detector (semantic)

To memory

Studying the Mind

To understand complex cognitive behaviors:

Measure observable behavior. Make inferences about underlying cognitive activity. Consider what this behavior says about how the mind works.

Researching the Mind

Behavior approach measures relationship between stimuli and behavior. Physiological approach measures relationship between physiology and behavior. Both contribute to our understanding of cognition.

Researching the Mind: Memory Consolidation

Memory for recent events is fragile. If processing is disrupted, recent memories can fail to be consolidated. New information can interfere with memory consolidation.

Muller & Pilzecker (1900) Two different groups learned 2 lists of items.

Immediate and delay groups.

Interference!

Consolidation!

Gais et al. (2007) Tested memory for word pairs in two groups: Sleep and awake Sleep slept immediately after studying. Awake studied, stayed up for 10 hours, then slept. Equally rested before testing. Sleep group remembered more.

Memory consolidation: Physiology

Injecting rats with protein synthesis inhibitors prevents the formation of memories (Flexner et al., 1963). The effect of sleep on memory consolidation in the hippocampus (Gais et al., 2006, 2007).

Hippocampus

Synthesis essay

Memory impairment

Korsakoffs Anterograde/retrograde amnesia

Neural processing Mirror neurons

Disorders Phantom limb syndrome Prosopagnosia Athletes and, e.g., memory disorders (TBI) Memory savants Autism

Attention Cell phones and driving ADHD

Language Acquisition Disorders (e.g., Brocas aphasia)