Theoretical psychology week 2

week 2

birth year of psychology

1879

Wundt

* argued that apperception is missing in Wernicke’s language model
* reflexive actions: proceed directly from perception (input module) to action (output module)
* apperceptive actions: step between perception and action involving the central system

→ active and non-associative mechanism

* A-Task: turn fast, reflexive reactions into long, perceptive reactions by asking participants to pay attention to the stimulus in the task
* apperceptive function: the relating function, which is involved when we recognize the identity between a stimulus and the remembered image of it

Wundt’s scientific psychology

* experimental scientific approaches: based on introspection and the measurement of reaction time; fits for mental processes of perception and action
* non-experimental scientific approaches: using comparative research and logical analyses; fits best for higher mental processes (language, thought)

Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve

* rate of forgetting decreases with time
* was his own and only participant: learned a list of nonsense syllables until he could repeat it perfectly, then relearned the list later

→ recorded the time needed for the initial learning and relearning and determined the percentage saving, e.g., initially took 15 min, relearning 19 min later, took 6 min (15 - 6 = 9/15 = 60%)

→ finding: most forgetting occurs in the first few hours after learning and then levels off

Georg Müller

* retroactive interference: new learning interferes with old learning

→ experiment with interference vs. control condition: subjects’ recall of nonsense syllables was worse in the interference condition than in the control condition

→ Explanation: learning (list A) requires consolidation in memory and learning of a new list hampers this consolidation process -> explains shape of the forgetting curve: if memories consolidate over time, they become more resistant to forgetting with time, so the rate of forgetting decreases over time

Hippocampus

* responsible for consolidation (formation of new memories)

multiple memory systems

Külpe

* interested in the question how associative processes can be directed, e.g., not retrieving the strongest association when we see an object, but a less strong one, such as fruit (category) instead of apple (object)

Watt’s research on how association is controlled

* asked participants to name categories/parts of the object
* mental set (“Einstellung”): includes appropriate responses to a task based on the instruction; e.g., name a category → “fruit”
* imageless thought: mental images were no always present
* against classic association theory: subjects produce the association that is most appropriate to the instruction instead of that is the strongest; not all mental contents are made up of perceptual/motor images

Dondersian subtraction

* determine the location of mental processing stages in the brain

→ localisation of the articulation of words (Broca’s area) = PET image when words are read silently - PET image when participants passively look at a fixation cross

→ localisation of areas for concepts and for the control of the direction of association (e.g., produce the association that is appropriate to the instruction) = PET image when expressing a use for the object (e.g., “eat for apple”) - PET image for reading words aloud

anterior cingulate cortex

controls the direction of the association

lateral temporal cortex

contains areas for concepts

Müller - associative theory of goal directed association

The stimulus word apple will activate the directly associated response “apple” but also the indirectly associated responses “fruit”, “skin”, “eat”, and so forth; “fruit” was already activated by the instructions (“name the category”) and therefore it receives double activation and will be produced as response

Otto selz - symbolic/procedural theory of goal directed association

* disagreed with Müller
* declarative memory contains symbolic associative information representing the relation between nodes by labelling the links, e.g., “IS-A” link between APPLE and FRUIT and “HAS-A” between APPLE and SKIN
* goal directed retrieval is achieved by procedural knowledge consisting of IF-THEN rules; IF specifies the task goal (e.g., name the category) and tests for the presence of the appropriate symbolic label in declarative memory (e.g., IS-A label for the task “name the category”)

→ Rule: IF the task is to name the category AND x IS-A y is in declarative memory THEN select the word y

William James

* father of American psychology
* stream of consciousness: consciousness is an unstable flow, which is directed by habits and selective attention (executive control)

The deathbed experiment

* James’ and Myer’s ultimate test on spiritualism
* whoever was to die first should immediately send a message to the other

→ Myers died first and the notebook of James was left empty

Mary (Whiton) Calkins - episodic memory test

* subjects learned multiple paired associates (e.g., blue-4, red-7, etc.) and then were shown the prompts one at a time (e.g., blue) and had to produce the corresponding response (i.e., “four”)

The data-driven approach of G. Stanley Hall

* “Child study movement”

→ not successful, probably because it entailed data collection without a guiding theory

* inspired interest in studying children

Michael Posner

* theory of development of attention in the first six years of a child’s life
* attention consists of three abilities:

1) Alerting: ability to reach a maintained alertness over an extended period of time

2) Orienting: ability to move the focus of perceptual processing from one spatial location to another, either covertly (without eye movements) or overtly (with eye movements)

3) executive control: ability of goal-directed processing and responding, especially in the face of distraction; concerns control of cognition AND emotion

Structuralism - Titchener

* understand the structural content of the mind
* analyse consciousness into elementary images by using introspection
* four volumes: 2 for qualitative experiments using introspection, 2 for quantitative experiments using reaction time measures and psychophysical methods

Functionalism - James R. Angell

* emphasis on mental operations, not images
* psychophysical psychology: understand the relation between mental functions and the brain

the book of “experimental psychology”/ “The columbian bible” - Woodworth

* defended the existence of mental set and imageless thought (Watt)
* popularised the terms “independent” and “dependent” variables

Resisting distraction in thought

* Donders: distraction during the appearance of a stimulus prolongs the process
* Tower of Hanoi requires executive control to resists temptations and avoid easy moves in favour of less obvious moves

→ research: let participants think aloud while trying to solve the puzzle

* Tower of London tests planning ability and executive control in clinic patients

→ assess at what level of difficulty patients fail

If-then rules control thought

* Selz: goal-directed processing emerges from procedural condition-action rules

Stroop’s hit experiment

* inspired by Cattell: reading goes faster than naming colors
* Stroop color and word test: makes use of three cards, with 100 stimuli each

→ Card 1: contains color words printed in black ink (neutral)

→ Card 2: contains rectangles in different colors (neutral)

→ Card 3: contains color words printed in incongruent colors (incongruent)

* results: overall naming colours takes longer than reading words and time in both cases time increases in the incongruent task

neural basis of stroop test: influences on blood supply to the brain

* anterior cingulate cortex more active (more blood flow to this area) in incongruent trials than in congruent trials (executive control area)

→ dorsal part controls cognition (e.g., red in incongruent green vs. congruent red ink)

→ ventral part controls emotions (e.g., “murder” in red vs. “house” in red)