Intro to cognitive psych- chap 1

cognitive science

• the study that deals w the acquisition, representation, and application of human knowledge’
  • representation
  • eg. series of math problems; there’s an underlying representation guiding you to solve those problems
• cultures shapes the way we think
  • holistic type of thinking
  • eastern culture; more analytical as compared to western cultures
  • cognition is a process of the actions carried out by the brain
• AI
  • create a machine that thinks like the brain
• disciplines
  • the confluences of these disciplines have helped the development of cog psych itself

the complexity of cognition

• eg. gaming
  • involves perception
  • attention is going to drive how you perceive those things
  • memory is going to make you much more skilled and how well you play the game (remember the combos and keys w motor skills)
  • problem solving- more conscious to solve the issue
  • decision making- x,y,z
  • reasoning- what the consequences of these decisions are
  • language- down talking other players, dealing w the interface, gaming lingo

initial questions to consider

• how is cog psych relevant to everyday experience
  • pilot
  • interface design
  • brightspace (IN structural design) to facilitate learning
• practical applications
  • vaccines in the US (base rates); blood clotting from airplane is more likely yet ppl downplayed the facts and turned down vaccines
• study inner workings of the mind
  • clear and clever to measure cognitive processes indirectly and see what’s going on in the brain
• connection btwn computers and study of the mind
  • psychos would use computers as an analogy to describe the mind

relevant history

• philosophy
  • aristotle
  • any associations made are associated with other experiences
  • rene descartes
  • partisian
  • mind and body are 2 diff things
  • nervous systems were a set of tubes that work like hydraulics
  • mind is just a property of physical actions
  • symmetry in the brain but the pionial gland is a single entity
• rationalism vs empiricism
  • reasoning is necessary for you to learn
  • empiricism- experience is imp for you to learn

psychophysical roots

• light flash- you are perceiving the light
  • dim light- low sensation intensity leads to low physical stimulus intensity
• thresholds
  • difference thresholds
  • eg. applying pressure to a point on your arm, how much pressure do i need to add to notice a diff
• the study of psychological phenomena being pushed in a more scientific direction and developing methods

neuroanatomical antecedents

• phrenology- pseudoscience (franz joseph gall)
  • valley and ridge can predict personality trait or skill/feature
  • some part of the brain is responsible for actions that underly behavioral processes
• J.P Flourens
  • destroyed parts of animal brains and verified certain areas responsible for certain functions
  • how specific lesions would affect certain functions
  • he couldn’t identify where is memory in the brain
  • memory in the brain is like ‘roadkill; splattered all over the brain
• J. Muller
• law of specific energies
• stimulate optical nerve then see flashes of light even though the light isn’t out there in the real world
• stimulate the auditory nerve and hear a phantom sound

first cog psycho

• franciscus donders
  • ophthalmologist
  • used an apparatus (slide 8) to measure reaction time

donders study

• mental chronometry

subtraction methodology

• fmri usage is an example of subtraction method
• have different rection time across diff ss
• subtract the reaction time
• conclude that it take a certain amount of time for a decision making process

introspection

• wundt interested in structuralism
• analogy- he was trying to create a periodic table of sensations that identified different behaviors
• used an approach called analytical introspection
• stimulus variability (limit of analytical intro)
• does not account for unconscious processes

a quant approach

• use of nonsense syllables is challenging
• w/in 19 mins of learning, you only rmbr abt 60% of the info

James’s principles of psychology

• his ideas and thoughts didn’t emphasize the idea of structuralism but rather the functions of the cognitive capacity that we have

shift away

• what does behavior tell us about the stimuli and the environment
• shift away from the mind

the rise of behaviorism

• classical conditioning

reemergence of the mind in psych

• why behavior cannot account for everything
• tolman- typical animal experiments (experiment w rat)

tolman and the cog map

• 3 grps of rat (slide 26)
• 1st grp: control
• grp 2: no reinforcement (10 days)
• grp 3: reinforcement (on 10th day)

controversy over lang acquisition

• salt in the face of behaviorist ideas
• while there are processes and functions that aid in language processing there is no specific function for language acquisition

cognitive revolution

• developments of computer served as an analogy for how the mind might work
• information processing approach (allen newell and herbert simon)
  • aimed to create AI
• donal broadbent- first process model
• test the hypothesis whether this kind of info flow holds up and test if the behavior aligns

role of models in cog psych

• process models
• structural models
• connectionist models