cog ch 1

Introduction to the Concept of Consciousness

• Background: Sam has been in a coma for 16 years after an accident, showing no signs of awareness or communication.

• Central Questions:

  • Does Sam's lack of response indicate no cognitive function?

  • Is he perceiving the world in some capacity?

• Research Conducted by Lorina Naci (2014, 2015):

  • Sam was placed in a brain scanner and shown an excerpt from Alfred Hitchcock's "Bang. You’re Dead."

  • The film depicts dangerous situations involving a boy and a gun, creating suspense and viewer tension.

• Findings:

  • Healthy participants showed significant brain activity correlated with the film's suspenseful moments.

  • Surprisingly, Sam exhibited similar patterns of brain activity, indicating possible consciousness and awareness despite his clinical state.

• Conclusion: Sam's brain activity suggests he might possess awareness, challenging the assumption that a lack of response equals a lack of mind.

The Hidden Nature of the Mind

• Key Message: The mind operates beneath our awareness, capable of complex processes even when conscious access is absent.

• Comparative Analysis:

  • Sam's experience symbolizes the broader human condition: our mental processes are often hidden.

  • Many mental functions occur without conscious influence.

• Mind as a System:

  • The mind creates thoughts, perceptions, and actions, often compared to a computer in its complexity and processing capabilities.

  • Importance of understanding what the mind does in relation to consciousness.

• Cognitive Psychology's Goal: Explore the mind's multifaceted nature and how cognitive functions evolved.

Page 3: Defining the Mind

• Understanding "Mind": Common usages illustrate various cognitive functions including memory, problem-solving, and decision-making.

• Definitions:

  1. Mind's Role: Creates and manages mental functions like perception, attention, memory, and reasoning.

  2. Mind as System: Facilitates action by creating representations of the world.

• Extraordinary Vs. Routine Minds: Even ordinary cognitive processes are remarkable; cognitive psychology aims to study all mental activities, not just unusual abilities.

Early Work in Cognitive Psychology

• 19th Century Perspectives: Dominance of skepticism surrounding the study of the mind.

• Franciscus Donders: Conducted one of the first cognitive studies measuring decision-making through reaction time experiments.

  • Simple Reaction Time: Participants pressed a button upon stimulus presentation.

  • Choice Reaction Time: Participants had to decide between two stimuli.

• Outcomes: The decision-making process adds measurable time; an indication of cognitive processing.

Donders’s Experiment Significance

• Inferences from Behavior: Mental processes, like decision-making, must be inferred from observable behavior rather than directly measured.

• Wundt's Contributions: Founding the first psychology laboratory in 1879 introduced structuralism and analytic introspection, measuring basic mental elements through controlled observations.

• Limitations: Analytic introspection was not consistently reliable and largely fell out of favor.

Ebbinghaus’s Memory Research

• Study Focus: Hermann Ebbinghaus focused on memory and forgetting patterns.

• Methodology: Utilized nonsense syllables to eliminate meaning, allowing for a quantifiable measure of memory retention.

  • Savings Method: Evaluated the speed of relearning to quantify forgotten material.

• Findings: Demonstrated the rapid decline of memory over time, laying groundwork for future memory studies.

William James’s Contributions

• Observation over Experimentation: William James made key observations about the mind's functions based on his introspective analysis.

• Attention Insights: Attention requires a withdrawal from other stimuli, emphasizing selectivity in cognitive processes.

• Impact: James’s work remained influential through modern explorations into attention and cognitive psychology.

Abandoning the Study of the Mind

• Shift to Behaviorism: John Watson, influenced by introspective unreliability, pioneered behaviorism, focusing solely on observable behavior.

• Watson’s Rejection of the Mind: Emphasized prediction and control of behavior over the study of consciousness.

• Behaviorism’s Dominance: Defined the psychology field's focus for decades, sidelining introspection and mental processes.

Watson to Skinner

• Behaviorism Foundations: Watson's classical conditioning experiment with Little Albert exemplified behavioral focus over mental state considerations.

• B.F. Skinner's Contributions: Developed operant conditioning, examining how reinforcement influences behavior, maintaining behaviorism's stronghold.

Events Leading to the Rebirth of Cognitive Study

• Tolman’s Cognitive Maps: Introduced cognitive processes indirectly through experiments highlighting latent learning and mental representations.

• Chomsky’s Critique: Challenged Skinner on language acquisition, emphasizing innate cognitive structures over conditioning.

Signs of Cognitive Emergence

• Cognitive Revolution: Transition from behaviorism to cognitive psychology in the 1950s characterized by a focus on the mind's complexity and capabilities.

• Emergence of New Technologies: Development of digital computers provided a new model for understanding cognitive processes like information processing.

Artificial Intelligence Conferences

• 1956 Dartmouth Conference: Focused on programming machines to mimic human intelligence, marking the first use of the term artificial intelligence.

• Substantial Advances in Cognitive Psychology: Simon and Newell's successes indicated the feasibility of understanding cognitive processes outside of traditional behaviorist frameworks.

Information-Processing Approach

• Introduction of Flow Diagrams: Research on attention led to the analysis of cognitive information processing stages, fundamentally altering the study of cognition.

• Cherry and Broadbent’s Models: Analyzed selective attention, enhancing understanding of cognitive filtering processes.

Evolution Beyond Behaviorism

• Research Expansion: Shifted understanding included both real-world application studies and acknowledgment of cognitive limits.

• Palmer’s Perception Experiment: Showcased how knowledge influences perception, indicating cognitive operations extend beyond immediate stimuli.

Modern Cognitive Psychology

• Integrated Physiological Approaches: Eye towards understanding the physiological basis of cognition alongside cognitive models.

• Current Trends: Rich interplay of experimental data, cognitive models, and neurophysiological insights drive modern cognitive psychology.