Cognitive Psychology Chapter 1

Mind

• Creates and controls mental functions

• Creates representations of the world

Cognitive Processes Examples

• Perception

• Attention

• Memory

• Decision Making

• Conceptual Knowledge

• Visualizing

• Language

• Problem Solving

How are mental processes studied in research?

• Inferred from behavior

Donder Button-Pushing Experiment

• Had participants push a button when they saw a light

• Then, had them choose between pushing a button on either the left or right, which took a tenth of a second

• Thus, Donder inferred decision-making takes a tenth of a second

Wundt and Structuralism

• Experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience called sensations

• Studied via analytic introspection: participants were trained to describe their thoughts and experiences in response to stimuli

Ebbinghaus Memory Experiment

• Participants learned a list of words, and then tried to learn them again after a time delay

• Measure savings= amount of time needed to learn something the first time, minus the amount of time needed to learn something after the delay

• Sharp decline of memory within a week, but flattened out over time

Why did the study of cognitive psychology decline?

• Focus on behaviorism

  • First, Watson’s classical conditioning: Pavlov’s dogs

  • Then, Skinner’s operant conditioning: punishments/rewards

• Behaviorism later fell out of favor for failing to answer why people responded differently to different stimuli

Tolman Rat Maze Experiment

• Rat explores maze to find cheese

• When the rat is put in a different spot, it was able to return to the same spot to find cheese

• Rats had a cognitive map: representation of the maze that helped them navigate

Theories of Language Acquisition

• Skinner argued speech is learned by imitating the speech of others

  • Correct speech is rewarded, bad speech is punished

• Chonsky: children say things that they have not heard before, also say incorrect things, and have not been rewarded

  • Thus, speech has in-born, biological elements

Information Processing Approach

Mind as processing info through stages

Input → Input Processor → Memory Unit → Arithmetic Unit → Output

Limits to Information Processing

• We can’t hold more than 7 (give or take 2) things in our minds simultaneously, as highlighted by Miller

Memory Types

• Episodic: events

• Semantic: facts

• Procedural: step-by-step

Memory Model

Research Models

• Structural: representation of a physical structure

• Process: represent steps involved in mechanisms

• Resources: focus on mental effort