Lecture 1

1. Describe Historical Contributions

Wilhelm Wundt and Structuralism (1932-1920)

The ‘first’ psychology

Investigated the elements of immediate experience via analytic introspection → a technique to study the contents of consciousness.

He developed some of the first ideas about

  • experimentation

  • attention

  • memory

  • language

Titchener brought Wundt’s ideas to America in the form of Structuralism. But this also brought criticism.

William James and Functionalism (1842-1910)

Father of American psychology

Interested in studying the purpose of thought rather than its elements

→ prediction and control through direct observation

The Scientific Method

  1. empiricism → gain knowledge through observation

  2. determinism → must assume everything has a cause

  3. testability → must be able to test your theory

  4. parsimony → take the simplest solution, update as needed

Issue of needing to study the observable by inferring unobservable entities.

Behaviourism

Study publicly observable functions of the mind

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

Described groundwork for what became behaviourism → classical (Pavlovian) conditioning

John Watson (1878-1958)

Concerned with behaviour as a series of stimuli and responses.

→ brain processes are unimportant

→ animals can be a good substitute to study human behaviour

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Developed operant conditioning → behaviour modification still frequently used today.

2. Explain Transition Away from Behaviourism

Behaviourism had a major impact on modern psychology as the scientific study of behaviour. But, there was some parts unexplained by behaviourism.

E.C. Tolman (1886-1959)

Brought idea of latent learning → behaviour is not just a result of cause and effect.

The study of the mouse in the maze where the piece of cheese moves.

Noam Chomsky

Did not believe language could be simply a result of stimulus and response. This lack of a stimulus argument was impossible for behaviourists to explain

3. Explain the Contribution of Computers

Around WWII, computers were being developed that could perform tasks to replicate human performance → unobservable computations were knowable.

Alan Turing (1912-1954)

First proposed the Turing Machine → the goal was to carry out what a human mind could do.

A computer is a machine that uses a function to produce an output based on an input.

Newell and Simon

Among the first to design a ‘non war’ computer program.

Logic Theorist (1956) was the first ‘thinking machine’

4. Define Major Themes

1. Representationalism

Describes how the unobservable mind can act on the real world

Cognition may be caused by the brain but that’s not what it’s about

The aboutness of a mental process involves representations that stand for what the processes are about in the real world

  • perceptions are about the physical world; they represent objects in the physical world

  • thoughts are about possible real situations; they represent possible real situations

2. Computation

Assumes the mind is an information processor

Quote

if computer process information and information processing is what characterizes minds, then maybe the mind is computational - Marr

input → store → manipulate → output

Information processing systems use rule-based operators to move from one state to the next → the goal is to discover what the function is that allows the progression from input to output

3. The biological perspective

Believes information is represented as patterns of activity between interconnected neurons in a way similar to the brain

4. Embodied cognition

Is the study of cognition as we interact with the world

5. Explain Different Research Methods

  • case studies → typically study individuals with brain damage

  • correlational studies → doesn’t give causal relationship difference

  • experiments → typically gives causal inference

  • computer stimulations → link to computing

6. Define Important Terms

Independent Variable: manipulated by the experimenter

Dependent Variable: measured – depends on the independent variable

Confounding Variable: outside variables that can affect the dependent variable → usually controlled by using representative and random samples

7. Explain Response Measures

Accuracy: how many of the participants responses are correct

Response Time: how quickly the participants respond