Lecture 5 - Week 3 Tuesday - Cognitive Perspective

Critical Period - What is a critical period?

This is a phenomenon where an animal is able to learn particular information rapidly and with little exposure within a specific time window. If this window is missed, the animal has a much harder time learning the behavior and may never learn it at all.

Following Behavior & Critical Periods - What is "following behavior" and how does it relate to the critical period concept?

Following behavior occurs when a baby bird hatches and follows the first large object it sees, imprinting on it without needing a reward. It is related to the critical period because this imprinting must happen within a specific hourly window after hatching to be successful.

Fixed Action Patterns - What is a fixed action pattern, and what are examples in animals and humans?

A fixed action pattern is a complex behavior that emerges essentially out of nowhere rather than being learned. In animals, male stickleback fish perform threat displays to rivals even if they've never seen another male before; in humans, the "eyebrow flash" or certain flirting tics serve as examples.

Ethology vs. Behaviorism - What is the relevance of fixed action patterns and critical periods to behaviorism?

These concepts are important because they cannot be explained by behaviorist theories, which rely on gradual shaping and rewards. Their existence caused scientists to second-guess if behaviorism was truly the best way to understand learning.

Behaviorist Language Theory - What was the initial explanation for how language is learned?

Introduced in 1957, behaviorists argued that language is "shaped," meaning children are reinforced for making sounds that gradually approximate real words and sentences.

Chomsky’s Critique - What was Chomsky’s response to the behaviorist view of language, and what flaws did it expose?

In 1959, Chomsky argued that almost everything we hear or say is novel; therefore, we can't be simply repeating reinforced behaviors. He exposed that behaviorism fails to account for the internal grammatical rules we use to generate infinite new sentences.

Memory Strategies - Why does the use of strategies in memory experiments poke holes in behaviorism?

Humans use internal mental strategies to remember things, but because these strategies are "in the head" and not directly observable, behaviorists had no way to account for them in their stimulus-response framework.

Abstract Constructs - What is an abstract construct?

It is a mental process or a representation (like a strategy or a memory of a rule) used as part of an explanation for observed data.

Inspiration for Constructs - What were the two disciplines that psychologists got inspiration from to use abstract constructs?

They drew inspiration from Artificial Intelligence, which showed how programs use internal logic to solve problems, and Neuroscience, which observed how brain damage can disconnect thoughts from the words used to represent them.

Behaviorists vs. Cognitive Psychologists - What is the primary difference between behaviorists and cognitive psychologists?

Behaviorists focus strictly on observable stimuli and responses, whereas cognitive psychologists—while still interested in behavior—allow themselves to use abstract constructs (the mind) to explain how that behavior happens.

The Goal of Cognitive Psychology - What is the goal of cognitive psychology?

The goal is to identify the specific processes and representations (abstract constructs) that support human thought.