Theoretical Psychology- all modules

Who invented tabula rasa, and associationism

Aristotle

What is associationism

We think and process based on the mental associations we’ve made from stimuli we’ve received

What is law of contiguity

If 2 things repeatedly occur together, eventually, the occurrence of 1 will remind us of the other (think conditioning)

Who are the main voices of empiricism

Aristotle and Locke

What is empiricism

Born w blank brain, obtain knowledge through senses

Who are the main voices of nativism

Plato and Descartes

What is nativism

Humans have innate mental abilities, we’re not born blank

4 assumptions of Locke’s association theory:

1. Blank slate- born head empty

2. Sensoristic- senses provide knowledge

3. Atomistic- elementary knowledge is built upon for complex knowledge

   1. Associative- complex knowledge built via associations

What did Hebb contribute to contiguity?

“When neurons fire simultaneously, synaptic changes occur”- essentially long term potentiation.

What is association called now, and what’s the main difference?

It’s connectionism now, which formalizes associative networks w computer programs

What are horizontal and vertical faculties?

Horizontal faculties: Things like associative memory work the same in all domains (language, math, etc.)

Vertical faculties: “Memory” for all faculties doesn’t exist, each domain has it’s own memory

Who were the main supporters of horizontal faculties, and of vertical?

Horizontal: Aristotle and Locke

Vertical: Franz-Joseph Gall

What are the 4 pseudo-science?

1. Physiognomy: your character is reflected by your facial features

2. Mesmerism: magnets can cure mental disorders

3. Spiritualism: mediums can contact the dead

4. Mental healing: “thinking correctly” can heal mental illness

Flourens proposed ___, contesting Gall’s ____.

Flourens proposed holism, contesting Gall’s localizationism.

How did Flourens support his main theory?

He supported holism by making lesions on rabbits and pigeons- regardless of the lesion, they moved worse; evidence against localization

What is Wernicke’s take on localization?

Wernicke’s area stores auditory images of words for comprehension, and Broca’s area stores motor images for production. They’re connected by a fiber tract, but are separate, and thus, localized.

What is embodied cognition

You visualize an object’s perceptual features and how to interact w it whenever you think of it

What is chronometry

measuring time of mental processes

What is the subtraction method

Measuring the speed of 4 mental processes: perception, recognition, choice, and action, by performing 3 tasks that involve the different processes to then subtract the time taken in 2 of them to isolate either recognition time, or choice time (both 50 ms)

Who founded the subtraction method, and who was he inspired by?

Donders invented it inspired by Helmholtz

What did Sternberg create?

The additive method, inspired by Donders, where you reverse engineer the tests to figure out which mental processes were used for tasks based on the times

What is Weber’s law

A formula for the minimum difference in weight between 2 objects so that you can blindly, and confidently say that 1 is heavier than the other

What is Fechner’s law

Deducing that Webber’s law would be logarithmic

What did Fodor find

Modularity theory, combining vertical faculties, localizationism, and holism: modules are localized and vertical, but central systems (that mediate them) are holistic.

What did John Anderson contribute?

The idea that we retrieve declarative memory by thinking about how you’d interact w it as well (like embodied cognition)

Who founded scientific psychology?

Wilhelm Wundt, the goat.

Reflexive vs apperceptive reactions

Reflexive reactions: Automatic/associative reactions from modular inputs

Apperceptive reactions: Deliberate (slower) reactions via a central sustem

What are drive actions?

Voluntary movements that eventually become instinct

What was Wundt’s stance on experimental approaches for mental processes?

You can only test complex processes (like language and culture) w non-scientific, and comparative research.

Elementary processes can be tested w reaction time!

Ebbinghaus’ main contribution

Forgetting curve: most forgetting is in the first hours, which then levels off (logarithmic)

Georg Muller’s theory

Retroactive interference: Learning X after A impacts consolidation of A

What operation did HM undergo?

Bilateral hippocampus removal

What amnesia does bilateral hippocampus removal cause?

Anterograde amnesia, and some retrograde amnesia

Which types of memory did HM still have intact despite the surgery?

Procedural memory, and motor memory.

What did Kulpe and Watt show and how?

Complex processes can be experimental

Showing an apple and asking “what is this” will yield a direct answer w the strongest association. “Name a part” and “name the category” while primed w/ the word apple steers them toward an answer- this design tested for introspection

What is imageless thought

No mental images mediating response (you answer instinctively, before even picturing)

What results did the Watt Test yield that differed from classical association theory?

Classical association theory posits that the strongest association would be the answer. The participants however, thought further and gave answers that fit the prompt best thought

Which test did Posner and Raichle add on to?

The Watt Test, and Donders’ subtraction method

What did Posner and Raichle find and how?

They localized perception and conceptualization of visual words (by subtracting PET scan of looking elsewhere from scan of looking at word)

• Articulation = Broca’s area

• Conceptualization= lateral temporal cortex

Which part of the brain controls the direction of association

Anterior cingulate cortex

What is the associative theory of goal-direction association?

“Name the category” you think of furniture, clothes, fruit, etc.

*You see apple* you think red, sweet, fruit, etc.

Fruit gets double activation.

What did Selz find?

More rules than association: Symbolic/ procedural theory of goal-direction association (you visualize procedural memory while thinking of directive. IS-A apple retrieved via HAS-A skin, as an IF-THEN procedure.

Who is Wundt’s American counterpart?

William James

William James’ take on consciousness

It’s a stream directed by selective attention, which has survival value

What did Mary Calkins prove?

Anything can be associated (e.g. random numbers and colors, doesn’t need logic)

What did Stanley Hall contribute?

Inspired interest in child studies

What did Posner think attention was made of?

Attention= alerting+ orienting+ executive control

Structuralism vs functionalism

Structuralism: focusing on where functions are (formalizing introspection method)

Functionalism: focusing on how functions work

What did Woodworth contribute?

Popularizing terms “IV” and “DV” for studies

What did Herbert Simon invent?

Tower of Hanoi (for normal participants) and Tower of London tests (for all ppl)

What is the Stroop task?

The word “orange” in blue for instance- the time taken to say the color reflects attentional abilities

Who invented clinical psych

Witmer

Who founded forensic psych

Munsterberg

Who founded industrial psych

Munsterberg

Who founded educational psych

Thorndike

3 components of Freud’s consciousness theory

Superego: Moral principal (both conscious and unconscious)

Ego: Reality principle (conscious)

Id: Pleasure principle (unconscious- controlled by other 2)

Watson’s take on consciousness

Let’s focus on measurable behaviors instead of ‘consciousness’

Little Albert experiment

1 yr old conditioned to get scared of random pics when consistently paired w loud noises

What did Hull contribute?

Mathematically formulizing behavior prediction (i.e. hypothetico-deductive method)

What did Tolman and Skinner contest on?

Tolman’s study on rats found that they made cognitive maps to remember mazes and did things even if not motivated by a primal need- very not behaviorist

Skinner fought to defend behaviorism against those allegations

Law of effect and areas of brain that are involved

Behaviors w satisfying outcomes w be repeated (→ addiction)

• Basal ganglia (procedural memory)

  • Dopamine signals

What did Dehaene contribute?

Modern consciousness theory that working memory includes several specialized systems, but no ‘attention’-this combines Wundt and James’ ideas.

What is conscious awareness

Wundt’s idea that you needn’t pay attention to something for it to be perceived

What is blickpunkt

The spot that you actively pay attention to- however, the blickfeld (area) around it is also perceived, according to Wundt.

What are Victor Lamme’s distinctions between consciousness and attention?

1. Subliminal wo attention- weak stimulus

2. Subliminal w attention- weak stimulus

3. Preconscious- strong stimulus, but no attention paid

4. Conscious- strong stimulus, and attention paid

What 2-3 things did Galton contribute?

1. He started twin studies for nature vs. nurture!

2. Invented normal distributions

3. Invented standard deviation and correlation coefficients too

What did Cattel contribute?

Mental tests for elementary abilities (that had weak correlations).

Made Culture Fair Intelligence test, to measure G factor, intellectual reasoning wo language interference.

What did Binet contribute?

The prelims of an IQ test (wo the backing theory) to identify learning disabilities in kids

Who invented the original IQ test?

Sternberg

What was the original IQ test called, and how did it measure IQ?

Stanford-Binet test’s IQ is (test score/child’s age)

What did Wechsler contribute?

WAIS, which was an improvement of the Stanford-Binet test

What are the types of intelligences?

• Crystallized intelligence: Using acquired, declarative knowledge (improves w age)

• Fluid intelligence: Procedural ability to solve new problems wo prior knowledge

Which intelligences does the WAIS test

Both crystallized, and fluid. Unlike the Stanford-Binet.

Flynn effect

Test scores have increased linearly over the years (ppl are growing more intelligent!)

What is the variability hypothesis, who is it by, and whose theories is it based on?

The variability hypothesis, by Thorndike, and based on Darwin’s theories, is that men have greater variation in characteristics, so they’re more likely to either be VERY smart or VERY stupid

What did Hollingworth find?

Thorndike’s variability hypothesis may be inaccurate, men are just overrepresented in data

What did Helen Thompson find?

Women aren’t mentally inferior to men

Who founded social psych?

Kurt Lewin

What is Gestalt psychology?

Not measuring intelligence, but seeing HOW it works

What did Wolfgang Kohler observe

Chimps have insight, and trial & error

What are productive and reproductive thinking?

• Productive thinking: solving problems w insight, like fluid intelligence

• Reproductive thinking: solving problems w knowledge, like crystallized intelligence

What did Bartlett find?

How reconstructive memory works (see War of the Ghosts)

What did Chomsky find on language?

We have innate language acquisition device: children learn their first language(s) automatically

Tip of the tongue phenomenon

When you can almost recall a word/phrase

Flashbulb memories

You can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at the time of a traumatic event

What did George Miller find on memory?

7 ± 2 terms is the limit for short term memory UNLESS the terms are recoded to have logic (T H E O E R E U is harder than T R E E H O U S E)

What did Broadbent contribute

While conscious identification requires attention, you can filter through the noise

What did Simon add to introspection?

Thinking aloud while you do the Tower of Hanoi reveals a lot regarding your procedural problem-solving

Which lobes are used for intelligence?

Frontal and parietal

What did Alan Newell contribute?

AI→ computers w intelligent behavior!

What was the G Factor test called?

The Raven Test

What did Patricia Carpenter find?

Adding eye-tracking showed that participants broke problems into sub-problems to solve them!