Cognitive Psychology Chapter 1

Behaviorism

the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2).

Cognitive Psychology

the scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning

Cognitive Science

The interdisciplinary study of thinking, language, intelligence, knowledge creation, and the brain.

Computer Simulation

a type of mathematical model that expresses ideas about mental processes in precise ways

Connectionist Models

A network of interconnected items and how they are placed together in the mind - spreading activation

Empiricism

the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation

Functionalism

early school of thought promoted by William James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish

Gestalt Psychology

early perspective in psychology focusing on perception and sensation, particularly the perception of patterns and whole figures - We MUST have a mind in order to perceive things

Human Factors

A scientific discipline concerned with understanding how humans interact with elements of a system. It can also be considered the practice of designing products, systems or processes to take account of the interaction between them and their users. It is also known as comfort design, functional design and user-friendly systems.

Hypothesis

A testable prediction, often implied by a theory

Introspection

A method of self-observation in which participants report their thoughts and feelings

Mental Representation

internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate

Occam's Razor

The simplest answer that requires the least amount of untestable assumptions is most likely correct

Parallel Distributed Processing

An approach to understanding object recognition in which various elements of the object are thought to be simultaneously analyzed by a number of widely distributed, but connected, neural units in the brain.

Process Model

A model that represents the processes involved in cognition. The information _______ model has an input, processing, and output

Psychophysics

The study of how physical stimuli are translated into psychological experience.

Rationalism

belief in reason and logic as the primary source of knowledge

Reaction Time & Behavioral Errors

Measuring how long it takes to respond and analyzing mistakes to understand cognition - the two things to analyse in cognitive psychology

Serial Processing

carrying out one operation at a time, such as visual sensation

Spreading Activation (priming)

Occurs when one item brought into working memory triggers an activation of related memory

Structuralism

early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection to reveal the basic elements that make up the structure of the mind

Theory

an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes data and predicts behaviors or events

Transfer of Training

Effective application of principles learned in training to what is required on the job

Allen Newell & Herbert Simon

Creators of the Process Model, focused on the idea that if one can make a computer perform the same actions as a person given the same input, then one can approximate human information processing.

B. F. Skinner & John B. Watson

The Founders of Behaviorism

Donald Broadbent

developed the encoding Filter Theory that states unimportant information is dropped and relevant information is encoded

Fredric Bartlett

Famous for his contributions with the study schema theory - prior knowledge helps us interpret new experiences.

Edward C. Tolman

Rats in a maze - behavioral psychologist who identified proposed cognitive maps and latent learning

Edward L. Thorndike

Famous for Law of Effect and associative learning - All learning is based in classical conditioning

George Miller

made famous the phrase: "the magical number 7, plus or minus 2" when describing human memory, came up with the idea of Chunking

Gustav Fechner & Ernst Weber

Psychophysicists that came up with weber's law - that the size of a JND is proportional to the intensity of the stimulus. The JND is large when the stimulus intensity is high and is small when the stimulus intensity is low

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Forgetting curve - most information learned is lost in the first hour, then stabilizes

Ivan Pavlov

Russian physiologist who observed conditioned salivary responses in dogs (1849-1936)

Kurt Koffka, Max Wertheimer, & Wolfgang Kohler

3 names credited with founding Gestalt Psychology

Noam Chomsky

theorist who believed that humans have an inborn or "native" propensity to develop language - opponent of the behaviorism movement

Paul Fitts

Law of Human Movement - you slow down when trying to press small targets

Skill acquisition in three steps: First you learn how to do something, then you become skilled at it, then it's subsconscious.

Ulric Neisser

father of cognitive psychology - wrote the first textbook

Wilhelm Wundt

Started the first Psychology laboratory

William James

founder of functionalism; studied how humans use perception to function in our environment