Cognition Midterm Feldman

This is the idea that mind and body are fundamentally different substances or processes.

Dualism

This person is responsible for Cartesian Dualism

Descartes Ca 1650

Descartes claimed that the mind and body interacted with each other through the use of the....

Pineal Gland

This approach claims that the universe is only made up of one kind of atomic material

Monism or Materialism

According to this man, these empty spaces in the brain were thought to hold higher thought processes and even possibly where the soul sits.

Descartes and Ventricles

According to this man, people are machines with mechanical systems such as plumbing, ventilation and temperature control etc.

De La Mettrie (1748)

L' homme Machine was written by this person.

De La Mettrie (1748)

This person said that all biological structures are "Devices" that are adapted to serve the survival of that organism.

Charles Darwin
Origin of Species (1850)

In cognition, a mechanistic theory is one on which every element is understood interims of the combination of

simpler or "Stupider" elements

We reduce things we do not understand to

combinations of things we do understand

This term represents the imaginary man inside the head of the alien in the movie Men in Black.

Homunculus
Latin means little man

If a theory of cognition relies on a Homunculus as an essential intelligent component then it is

Cheating

How do we describe weather ?

Very complex combinations of basic elements interacting causally

How do we describe complex mental events?

We break them down into beliefs, ideas, memories, perceptions which are like weather, combinations of complex elements interacting causally.

Describe Holistic vs Reductionist

Holistic looks at the whole picture as reductionist looks as the little picture to minute details.

Macro is to cognitive psychology as Micro is to

Neuroscience

Our goal is to explain intelligence as many...

dumb components working together

This theory states that we possess innate ideas, organizing tendencies or cognitive mechanisms which determines the nature of human knowledge

Rationalism (science derived from reason)
Plato and Socrates

This Theory states that knowledge is acquired through sensory experience.

Empiricism
Means experience
Aristotle
Often referred to as the "Blank Slate"

This man stated that we are born with the mechanism for forming associations but the initial source of knowledge about the organization of the external world is through sensory information

John Locke

Rationalism (realism) began with who?

Socrates and Plato (Having innate ideas and organizing tendencies)

Empiricism began with who?

Aristotle (Plato's student) which means "experience"

Who coined "syllogism" and what does it mean?

Aristotle:
A chain of deductive reasoning or sequence of ideas which have a logical relationship with each other.

Premise: All People are mortal
Premise: Socrates is a man
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal

This is the study of understanding the mechanisms of thought

Cognitive Psychology

who wrote "Investigation of the Laws of thought"?

George Boole

Who transported Math into psychology?

George Boole 1854 "Boolian Algebra" or propositional calculus.

George Boole said that propositions are

a statement that is true or false. This leads to a way of "calculating" with ideas instead of with numbers, called Propositional Calculus or Boolean algebra

How do we put propositions together?

With logical connectives

A^B means

A is true and B is true (Conjunction)

AvB means

A is true or B is true or both (Disjunction)

~A means

Not A or A is not true (Negation)

A ==> B means

If A is true then B is also true. Implication / Conditional/ Entailment

(Equivalent to ~(A∧~B), which is equivalent to ~A∨B ..not really a separate connective)

Who is known for the Analytical Engine?

Charles Babbage 1830

Who created the Turing Machine?

Alan Turing

Turing is famous for what 3 ideas?

1. Turing Machine
2. Turing test
3. Samual Checkers game Program

What did the turing Machine do?

It can:
• Read symbols to the tape
• Write symbols to the tape
• Move the tape left or right Make (logical) conditional decisions about which of the above to do.

What is the Turing Test?

It's a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

What are the 4 lobes of the brain?

FPOT
Frontal
Parietal
Occipital
Tempotal

What does Occipital perform?

Vision

What does Frontal Lobe perform?

Executive decision

What does Parietal Lobe do?

Attention, Volition and conscious processing

What does Temporal Lobe do?

Auditory

All four lobes are located where?

Inside cortex

Brocus Area

first area of specialised function. Speech and Language

1/4 brain power used for what?

vision

Frontal lobe involves

planning, who will I marry

Corpus Callosum does what?

Connects left and right hemisphers

What are the color of cones?

Blue, green, red

Fovea has a high concentration of what

cones

Retina has more what?

Rods

Fovea is the central part of what?

Retina with mostly cones

What does BOLD stand for?

Blood Oxygen Level Dependency

What is Perceptual Ambiguity?

The proximal stimulus does not have enough information to tell you what is in the outside world.

Each 2D stimulus is consistent with ...

an infinite number of 3d objects (distal stimuli)

What are the three dimensions to the humam color response?

Blue/Yellow
Red/Green
Light / Dark (Saturation)

What allows you to recognise your grandmother's face?

Spacial vision (vision for organization of the image,shape and form)

What is lateral inhibition?

If light equally hits excitatory and inhibitory area, the cell won't respond (base line)

Proximal v Distal Images

Proximal image is what you see reflected on your retina and Distal Image is the actual physical object .

Viewer Centered coordinate system

Viewpoint Dependent

Object Centered Coordinate System

viewpoint independent

Object recognition is

viewpoint dependent

monism/materialism:

The universe is made of only one kind of physical material (atoms), everything else in the universe is just physical material, that's all there is, what all scientists BUT cognitive scientists believe

Who was responsible for syllogism and what is it?

Aristotle
● syllogism : a chain of deductive reasoning, system of ideas that are connected to each
other
● example of deductive reasoning sequences of an idea:
○ premise: all men are mortal
○ premise: Socrates is a man
○ conclusion: Socrates is mortal
● the truth of the conclusion is logically correct

Locke would say his Nature vs Nurture is based on

○ Empiricism/Associationism
■ Based on experience
● Learn associations among sensory impressions ■ Blank slate/tabula rasa
● The mind stars as a blank slate
● The only mechanism of learning is the formation of associations

This is the dominant school of psychology from 1930-1960 (Watson, Skinner)
■ Mind starts as a blank slate
■ Learn associations between behaviors and reinforcement (reward) - i.e.
stimulus and response

Behaviorism

Who said that we do more of the behaviors that are reinforces the Law of Effect? -
■ Only mechanisms of learning is modification of S-R pairings
● And denigrates all consideration of "what's going on inside the box"
○ General learning mechanism

Thorndike

Implications of both empiricism and behaviorism

All knowledge comes from experience
One general learning mechanism shared among all domains of learning, all species, all ages - rats, children...
But what about...
Species-specific learning biases
Critical periods for
Bird song
Human language?
These phenomena suggest that innate aspects of brain structure play an important role in learning (-> nativism)

This man was famous for Cognitivism
and argued that S-R reinforcement was mathematically insufficient to explain behavior that involves an infinite number of "responses"
There must be some internal process of calculation to generate novel responses
For which computers (Turing machines) provide a model
Domain-specific innate modules

Chomsky (1959)

What does the occipital lobe do?

Vision

Temporal lobe is responsible for

Audition (auditory processing), language recognition

This part of the lobe is responsible for Attention

Parietal lobe
"motor homunculus"
"Sensory homunculus"

This lobe is responsible for executive function and decision making

Frontal lobe

This connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Corpus callosum

The cortex has been compared to a

Cortex = "rind"

What happens once the Corpus Callosum is severed?

Sperry: Split-brain patients
Once the corpus callosum is cut, the two hemispheres are mostly independent, like two brains in one head

What is the difference between contralateral and Ipsilateral?

Contralateral: opposite side
Ipsilateral: same side

Empiricism / Associationism are based on what and by whom?

Experience, Learned associations among sensory impressions
Blank Slate / Tabula Rasa
The only mechanism of learning is the formation of associations
John Locke (Nurture)

Who stood behind Behaviorism and explain the subtleties.

Watson, Skinner believed in Nurture
The dominant school of Psychology from 1930-1960
Mind starts as a blank slate
Learned associations between BEHAVIORS AND REINFORCEMENT i.e. stimulus and response.

Who coined the idea that individuals perform more behaviors which are reinforced AKA Law of Effect?

Thorndike (Behaviorist) Nurture

Which school of thought supports the idea that only mechanisms of learning are modifications of S-R pairings and this denigrates all consideration of "What's going on inside the box"?

Behaviorism

What are the implications of both Empiricism and Behaviorism?

All knowledge comes from experience
One general learning mechanism shared among all domains of learning of all species, all ages, rats and children.

According to Empiricism and Behaviorism, do species have specific learning biases?

Yes, Critical periods for bird songs to be learned and human language.

Because species have specific learning biases this suggests that

These phenomena suggest innate aspects of brain structure play an important role in learning known as NATIVISM.

These individuals believed in Nature

Descartes and Kant

Rationalism is based on what?

reason / innate knowledge / Nativism

This theory or doctrine that concepts, mental capacities, and mental structures are innate rather than acquired or learned.

Nativism

This guy argued that the S-R reinforcement was mathematically insufficient to explain behavior that involves an infinite number of "responses".

Chomsky

Who said there must be some internal process of calculation to generate novel responses?

Chomsky

The brain has how many neurons?

10^11 neurons

The first clear evidence that "Higher Thought" was localized in the cortex was when Broca's patients with left hemisphere damage and lost the power of what?

Speech

Split Brain Patients:
Left Hemisphere sees and controls what?

Right visual hemifield and controls the right arm

Split Brain Patients:
Right Hemisphere sees and controls what?

Left Visual hemifield and controls the left arm.

What are the 2 types of Neuroimaging or brain scans?

PET
Positron Emission Tomography
FMRI
Function Magnetic Resonance Imaging

What do the FMRI and PET scans read in the brain?

Both read BOLD
Blood Oxygen Level Dependent

Perception:
This is inherently ambiguous and is consistent with many interpretations

Proximal Stimulus

What is the Proximal stimulus?

The proximal stimulus is generally defined as the pattern of energy impinging on the observer's sensory receptors. This energy is associated with a distal stimulus. The observer depends most directly on proximal stimuli, not distal stimuli, in perceiving his world.

What is the goal of perception?

To guess the properties of the world (Distal Stimulus) based on the evidence of the proximal stimulus.

What is a veridical representation?

a true representation

What is depth ambiguity?

Each 2D stimulus (proximal stimulus) is consistent with an infinite number of 3D objects (Distal Stimuli)

When one looks at something what does one see?

The interpretation not the image