0010 Week 1 — Intro & Common Questions

What are the three central questions of CPSY 0010 (mind, brain & behavior)?

1) What are the bases of perceptions, thoughts, memories, feelings, and our subjective sense of self? 2) How does the mind usually allow us to function effectively in the world? 3) Why does the mind occasionally function so ineffectively in the world?

Define critical thinking.

Systematically evaluating information to reach reasonable conclusions.

What does it mean to be an "amiable skeptic"?

To be a savvy consumer of scientific research: humans are intuitive scientists, but you should question whether claims made by research studies are fact or fiction rather than accepting them at face value.

Contrast the nature-only and nurture-only views of who we are.

Nature-only: who we are comes from inborn tendencies and genetically based traits. Nurture-only: we are all essentially the same at birth, and we are the product of our experiences.

How does the course resolve the nature vs nurture debate?

Nature and nurture are interdependent, not dichotomous — "nature through nurture": the environment constantly interacts with biology to shape who we are and what we do.

Name the four levels of analysis for explaining behavior.

Biological level; individual level; social group level; cultural level.

Why is rigidly adhering to one school of thought or level of analysis a problem?

No single perspective tells the whole story — it invariably leads to incomplete explanations. Instead, use science and critical thinking and make connections between different perspectives/levels.

List the faculties of mind named in the intro lecture.

Attention, Learning, Memory, Perception, Consciousness, Executive Control, Categorization, Language, Decision Making, Problem Solving, Emotion & Motivation, Social Behavior.

What are the two key questions the course asks about the faculties of mind?

Do these different faculties share any properties? How do they interact and influence each other?

Name the five common questions/themes that run through CPSY 0010.

Nature-Nurture Influences; Categorical Nature of Representation; Context Effects; Neural Specialization; Biases and their Influences.

What is the course textbook?

Phelps, Berkman & Gazzaniga (2022), Psychological Science, 7th ed. (W. W. Norton) — selected chapters via the Canvas inclusive-access ebook.

What is a mental representation?

An internal stand-in for something in the world — an object, event, or idea — encoded in a format the mind can operate on.

Why are representations central to the computational theory of mind?

The computational theory holds that thinking is computation over representations: mental operations transform representations, so without representations there would be nothing for mental processes to work on.

Why is it misleading to think of the faculties of mind as completely independent of one another?

The faculties interact and influence each other (e.g., attention shapes perception, memory guides decision making) — treating them as isolated modules misses how the mind actually works.

What do inattentional blindness and change blindness tell us about looking vs consciously perceiving?

That directing your eyes at something is not enough for conscious perception — you can fail to consciously see even salient stimuli right in front of you, so perception requires more than mere sensory input (e.g., attention).

How can prior knowledge or expectations HELP perception?

They let the system rapidly and accurately interpret ambiguous or incomplete sensory input — top-down knowledge constrains interpretation toward the most likely meaning.

Under what circumstances can prior knowledge or expectations lead to perceptual ERRORS?

When the expectations are wrong or misleading: the system imposes an incorrect interpretation on the sensory data (e.g., illusions driven by misapplied assumptions).

What is meant by cognitive control?

The ability to regulate thought and action in line with current goals — especially overriding automatic or prepotent responses.

Why is cognitive control necessary when different sources of information produce conflicting responses?

Without it the mind would simply follow the strongest automatic response; cognitive control resolves the conflict by prioritizing the goal-relevant source of information over the competing one.

Where are the midterm review questions posted, and what is Festa's advice for using them?

Linked on the Canvas Home Page. Use them to identify the major concepts, distinctions, and findings to be comfortable with — NOT as an exhaustive list of possible exam questions. Also review lecture slides, your notes, and the assigned readings.

Which topics will Festa add review questions for as the course progresses?

Learning, Attention, and Executive Control — check back for updates.

What does it mean to describe the mind as an information-processing system? Distinguish input, mental operations, and output.

Input = information taken in from the environment (e.g., via the senses); mental operations = the internal transformations performed on that information (e.g., attending, remembering, reasoning); output = the resulting behavior, decisions, or stored knowledge.