cognitive psychology - behaviourism + attention

who introduced the first psychological lab

• wilhelm wundt

• 1879

what is structuralism

• the analysis of the mind in terms of it’s basic elements - introspection

who was structuralism introduced by

• wundt & titchener

what is psychoanalysis

• analysis of internal, mostly unconscious psychological forces

who was psychoanalysis introduced by

• freud

what is functionalism

• to study functions (of consciousness) rather than structure

what is behaviourism

• environmental control of behaviour through learning

• humans are products of their learning experiences

who introduced behaviourism

• john b (broadus) watson

what are features of classical conditioning

• unconditioned stimulus

• unconditioned response

• conditioned stimulus

• conditioned response

examples of classical conditioning in everyday life

• phobias

• avoiding harmful food

• music

• smells

• advertising

what is the idea of the ‘horse that could count’/clever hans

• the idea that the horse was not counting to a specific number, but instead noticed subtle cues in body language in order to stop tapping his hoof

neobehaviourism 1930-1960

• skinners box

• reward and punishment

what is positive reinforcement

• giving something positive

• increasing a behavioural response to a stimulus because it elicits a reward

what is negative reinforcement

• taking something negative

• increasing a behaviour response to a stimulus because it stops an averse stimulus

what is positive punishment

• giving something negative

• decrease a behavioural response to a stimulus by presenting an aversive stimulus

what is negative punishment

• taking something positive

• decrease a behavioural response to a stimulus by taking away a positive stimulus

what is operant conditioning

• shaping

• reward for behaviour that is closer to a desired outcome

reinforcement schedules for operant conditioning

• ratio - after a certain amount of times the behaviour has been presented

• interval - after a certain amount of time

• fixed - after every behaviour

• variable - more difficult to extinct

operant vs classical

• classical - association of one stimulus with the automatic response to another stimulus

• operant - association of a behaviour with a stimulus - reward/punishment

who is tabula rasa

• suggests that humans learn behaviour from environmental stimuli

issues with behaviourism

• thought and consciousness

• complexity of behaviour

what is verbal behaviour

• language learnt through shaping

who is noah chomsky

• father of modern linguistics

• poverty of stimulus

• innate component

• language can not be explained through reinforcement

what is vigilance in terms of attention

• sustained attention

what are the types of attention

• vigilance (sustained)

• selective (focused)

• divided

what is a disjunctive task

• target has a unique feature - not shared by others

• quicker to spot

• parallel processing - pre-attentive, fast

what processing does a disjunctive task use

• parallel

what is a conjunctive task

• target group have unique combinations - shared with each other

• hard to spot which one

• serial processing - slow, RT depends on array size

what processing does a conjunctive task use

• serial

what is the theory of feature integration

• targets defined by a unique feature pop out easily regardless of number of distractors

• treisman and gelade - 1980

wickens 3 dimensional structure of human processing

what did cherry - 1953 suggest

we perceive information from unattended channels

what is inattentional blindness

• the failure to notice an unexpected or unexplored stimulus that is in our visual field when other tasks are being performed

what is attention capture

• salience of a stimulus results in attention shift

• for focused and selective attention we are monitoring task irrelevant info less - unless it pops up

explanations for inattentional blindness

• visual perception of unattended objects is incomplete or limited

• attention capture

external factors that can affect perception efficiency/attention

• distractors, salience of stimulus, semantic category, distance

internal factors that can affect perception efficiency/attention

• practice, expertise/interests, fears

what is cognitive insight

• choice requires awareness of decision making

• people are often unable to report causes of decisions

• people are often unaware of the influence of a cause - nisbett and wilson 1977

decision making diagram - wegner 2002

what influences decisions

• salience

• heuristics

• priming

what is salience

• when particular objects in the environment attract our attention more than other objects

  • attentional capture

what is gleitmans theory

• the way options are described has an influence on our decision making

what is framing

• the way options are described has an influence of our decision making - gleitman

• our decision is influenced by the way information is phrased

what are heuristics

• a strategy for making judgements quickly at the price of occasional mistakes

  • mental shortcuts

what is availability bias

• items that are more readily available in memory are judged as having occurred more frequently

what is priming

• when exposure to one stimuli influences the response to a later one