- Several ideas on mental capabilities go back to the time of the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato. Plato compared storing memories to writing on a wax tablet.
- The philosophers of the 17th-19th centuries (Locke, Hume, Mill, Descartes, Berkeley, and Kant also debated the nature of mind and knowledge.
- Empiricism - emphasizes the role of experience in the attainment of knowledge
- Empiricists believe that knowledge comes from individual's personal experiences. They also emphasize our malleable, or changeable, aspects.
- Association - a connection or link between two units or elements
- Nativism - emphasizes the role of instinctive factors in the attainment of knowledge
- Nativists pose that some cognitive functions are instinctual and come built-in just because we are human. It has been proven that some functions, i.e. short-term memory, are present at birth and not learned, formed or created based on experiences.
- Structuralism - focused on the search for the simplest possible mental elements and the laws governing the ways in which they could b
- The founding of the psychology field of science only officially dates
- back to 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt started the first institute for research in experimental psychology. Wundt used a type of investigation called introspection, which is a methodological technique in which trained observers are asked to reflect and report on their conscious experience while performing cognitive tasks.
- There are four properties of sensations:
- mode - visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory
- quality - color, shape, and texture
- intensity
- duration
- Wundt's focus was on what the elemental components of the mind are, not why the mind works the way it does.
- The founding of the psychology field of science only officially dates
- Functionalism - emphasizes questions such as why the mind or a particular cognitive process works the way it does
- William James was an American psychologist. He believed psychology's purpose was to explain human experience. He asked the question why does the mind work as it does? James answered this by saying the mind works by functions, the purposes of its different operations.
- Functionalists believe that the most important thing the mind does is let individuals adapt to their environment.
- Structuralism vs. Functionalism
- Behaviorism - seeks to define psychological research in terms of observable measures, emphasizing the scientific study of behavior
- Behaviorism took hold in the United States in the 1930s and dominated the field until the 1960s. Behaviorists rejected introspection
- mental representations - internal depictions of information
- Gestalt Psychology - emphasizes the study of whole entities rather than simple elements
- This school of thought began in 1911 in Germany. Gestalt translated from German means configuration or shape. Gestalt psychologists believed that an observer did not construct a coherent perception from simple, elementary sensory aspects of an experience but instead apprehended the total structure of an experience as a whole. They rejected structuralism, functionalism, and behaviorism.
- Gestalt Psychology
- Genetic Epistemology - emphasizes the intellectual structures underlying cognitive experience at different devolopmental points and the ways in which the structures adapt to environmental experience.
- Piaget studied the cognitive development of infants, children, and adolescents. He did this through the process of genetic epistemology. His studies confirmed that a child's intellectual structures differ qualitatively from those of a mature adult.
- If a child under a certain age sees these circles, he/she might report that the second row of circles has more just because it is spread out.
- Piaget studied the cognitive development of infants, children, and adolescents. He did this through the process of genetic epistemology. His studies confirmed that a child's intellectual structures differ qualitatively from those of a mature adult.
- Genetic Epistemology
- Individual Differences - stable patterns of performance that differ qualitatively or quantitatively across individuals
- Individual difference was studied by Sir Francis Galton and his followers. Galton's half-cousin was Charles Darwin and therefore read and stemmed his research off of Darwin's writings on evolution. Galton noticed that intelligence ran in families, but also realized that this could be explained by genetics or environment (nature vs. nurture).
- Cognitive Revolution - a movement in psychology that culminated after World War II, characterized by a belief in the empirical accessibility of mental states and events
- human factors engineering - an applied area of research that focuses on the design of equipment and technology that are well suited to people's cognitive capabilities
- i.e. not having the brake and the landing gear levers near each other in the cockpit of a plane
- person-machine system - the idea that machinery operated by a person must be designed to interact with the operator's physical, cognitive, and motivational capacities and limitations
- limited-capacity processor - a system that acquires, stores, manipulates, and/or transmits information but has fixed limits on the amount or rate of processing that it can accomplish
- basically says that a human can only do so many things at one time
- In the study of language, linguistics, developments revealed that people often process enormously complex information. Generative grammar, which is a mentally represented system of rules, tells us when a sentence doesn't make sense.
- localization of function - the "mapping" of brain areas to different cognitive or motor functions; identifying which neural regions control or are active when different activities take place.
- computer metaphor - the basis for the information-processing view of the brain. Different types of psychological processes are thought to be analogous to the workings of a computer processor.
- computers have to be fed data; humans have to attain information
- artificial intelligence - a branch of computer science concerned with creating computers that mimic human performance on cognitive tasks
- human factors engineering - an applied area of research that focuses on the design of equipment and technology that are well suited to people's cognitive capabilities
- Summary:
- structuralism - what are the elementary units and processes of the mind?
- functionalism focus on the larger purposes and contexts that cognitive processes serve
- behaviorism - challenged psychologists to develop testable hypotheses and avoid unresolvable debates.
- gestalt - pointed out that understanding individual units don't lead to understanding whole processes and systems
- Piaget considered how cognition develops and evolves.
- Galton established that people differ in their cognitive processing.
Section 3: Paradigms of Gognitive Psychology
What is a paradigm?
- Body of knowledge structured according to what its proponents consider important and what they do not.
- frames that guide investigators in studying and understanding the phenomena
* include assumptions that investigators make in a study
* specify the kinds of experimental methods and measures appropriate
There are four major paradigms that cognitive psychologists use in planning and executing their research
1) Information-Processing Approach
- dominated in the 1960's and 1970's, remains influential today
- focuses on the functional aspects of cognition
- draws an analogy between human cognition and computerized processing of information
- thought of as information passing through a system
- assume that information is processed in stages and that it is stored in specific places while being processed
* the goal is to determine what these stages and storage places are and how they work
- cognition occurs in stages
* one process occurs, feeding information into the next process, which feeds into the next and so on.
*Parallel, many at the same time
- assume that people are like computers
* perform cognitive feats by applying a few mental operations to symbols
* stored, and the way it is coded and stored affects how easy it is to use later
- psychologist are interested in relating individual and
developmental differences to differences in basic capacities and processes
* use experimental and quasiexperimental techniques in their investigation
2) Connectionist Approach
- aka parallel-distributed proccessing, or PDP
- derived from models depicting cognition as a network of connections among simple processing units
* each unit is connected to other units in a large network
* units have some level of activation at any particular moment in time
* the exact level of activation depends on the imput to that unit from the environment and other units which it is connected
* connection between units have weights, positive and negative
- positively weighted connection causes one unit to raise the level of activation of units to which it is connected
- negatively weighted connections lowers to activation of connected units
- assume that there is no need to hypothesize a central processor that directs the flow of information from one process or storage area to another
- different patterns of activation account for the various cognitive processes
- knowledge is stored within connections between units
- Learning occurs when new connective patterns are established that change the weight of connection between units
-individual neurons compute by being appropriately connected to large numbers of similar units
-draws from structuralism, interest in the elements of cognitive functioning
- psychologist look at neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience for information to help them construct their theories and models
* models more concerned with how processes could actually be carried out by the brain
3) Evolutionary Approach
- some cognitive abilities and achievements, such as the ability to perceive three-dimensional objects and understand and produce language
* computers lack the ability to easily carry out these functions
- centers on questions of how a cognitive system or function has evolved over generations
4) Ecological Approach
- comes from psychologist and anthropologist
-overlaps with the evolutionary approach
- stresses the need to consider the context of any cognitive process to understand more completely how that process functions in the real world
- cognitive activities are shaped by the culture and by the context in which it occurs
- Lave, Murtaugh, and de la Rocha studied how people use arithmetic in their everyday lives
* it was found that people's methods of calculations varied with the context
- J.J. Gibson, known for his work on perception, played a major role of this approach
-influenced by the functionalist and the Gestalt schools on the ecological approach
- relies on naturalistic observation and field studies to explore cognition
A. Hindbrain: the part of the brain containing some of the most evolutionary primitive structures, that is responsible for transmitting information from the spinal cord to the brain, regulating life support functions, and helping to maintain balance.
1. Medulla Oblongata: transmits information from the spinal cord to the brain and regulates life support functions such as a respiration, blood pressure, coughing, sneezing, vomiting and heart rate.
2. Pons:acts as a neural relay center, facilitating the "crossover" of information between the left side of the body and the right side of the brain and vice versa; also involved in balance and in the processing of both visual and auditory information; from the Latin word "bridge"
3. Cerebellum: governs balance and is involved in general motor behavior and coordination.
B. Midbrain: the part of the brain containing structures that are involved in relaying information between other brain region, or in regulating levels of alertness
C. Forebrain: the part of the brain containing the thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and the cerebral cortex
1. Thalamus: switching station, involved in relaying information, especially to the cerebral cortex, involved in memory
2. Hypothalamus: controls the pituitary gland and so called homeostatic behaviors, such as eating, drinking, temperature control, sleeping, sexual behaviors, and emotional reactions
3. Hippocampus: involved in learning, memory and emotions, located in the medial temporal lobe. damage or removal can result in amnesia
4. Amygdala: modulates the strength of emotional memories and is involved in emotionasl learning
5. Cerebral Cortex: carries information between the cortex and the thalamus, surface of the cerebrum, contains both sensory and motor nerve cell bodies
A. Faculty Psychology: theory that different mental abilities, such as reading or computaion, were independent and autonomous functions, carried out in different parts of the brain
B. Phrenology: a now discredited that psychological strengths and weaknesses could be precisely correlated to the relative sizes of brain areas
C. Aphasia: a disorder of language, thought to have neurological causes, in which either language production, language reception, or both are disrupted Aphasia Patient
Chapter 3- Perceiving Objects and Recognizing Patterns
-Perception
- Taking sensory input and interpreting it in a meaningful process.
Helpful Website:
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsyperception.html
-Distal Stimulus & Proximal stimulus
-Distal stimulus is the real world objects and events, and proximal stimulus is the reception of information and its registration by a sense organ.
Looking at this photograph just concentrate on the house.
The distal stimulus is the object itself. Using your visual system the waves reflect from the photo to the back of each eye (Retina) and through this a retinal image is formed. The original object is three-dimensional, but you see it in a two-dimensional form, in addition the image is upside down and reversed with respect to the left and right. After this process you recognize this as a house this is the Percept (the interpretation of the stimuli). Your recognition of this image being a house is called pattern recognition. (The first image is the original object, the second image is what you technically see).
Gestalt Approaches to Perception
-Specific nodes are activated when a sound (or letter, or word) is perceived. This activates the associated nodes which in turn allows you to recognize the appropriate sound (or letter, or word). According to this principle if one node is excited then it excludes other nodes which allows you to see the word TABLE instead of the word CHAIR when reading.
- Scientists Petersen, Fox, Snyder and Raichle, through the help of PET scans on 8 different adults determined that we, as humans, show more activity in our left hemisphere than our right hemisphere of the brain when presented with real words and "pseudowords" than when we are presented with a string of letters with no vowels or words that share the same features as the English alphabet but are not.
Chapter 4-Paying Attention
How can one drive a car while talking on the phone, listening to the radio, etc? The main concerns of cognitive psychologists when studying attention is cognitive resources and its limitations.
People only have a certain amount of mental energy to deal with certain tasks.
The more complex the task is, the more mental energy needs to be spent.
When a task is habitually practiced, it becomes an automatic performance. When this occurs you can devote your attention to another task while still performing the automatic one. This is known as divided attention.
Selective Attention
We tend to focus all our attention on one or few tasks instead of many. We shut out any competing tasks.
Example: Do you notice the way your clothes feel against your skin? Did you notice this before your attention was drawn to it?
We process information differently depending on whether or not we have been actively focusing on a stimulus.
How the Body Works-Selective Attention
The dichotic listening task is another example of selective attention and is used to explain theories of selective attention.
Procedure: A participant listens to an audiotape through headphones. There are two different messages on the tape which are heard at the same time. One message is heard in the right ear, the other message in the left ear. The participant is asked to shadow—repeat aloud—one of the messages.
Results: Because the message is given at such a rapid rate, the participant must actively focus on the attended message which leaves fewer resources for the unattended message. When asked what the unattended message contained, the participant could not repeat any of the content but was able to tell whether or not the person talking was male or female.
There are a few theories to explain the phenomenon of selective attention.
The filter theory
Broadbent’s filter theory states that there are limits on how much information a person can pay attention to.
If the amount of information someone is receiving exceeds the person’s capacity to process, the person uses an attentional filter to let some information through, and block the rest.
Only the information that gets through the filter can be analyzed for meaning.
The attenuation theory
The attenuation theory is a modification of the filter theory. Instead of unattended messages being completely blocked out, the messages are “turned down,” some meaning might be available from them.
Words that require little mental effort (your name, words that signal danger) may be heard when we are paying attention to something else.
Going back to the dichotic listening task; this theory suggests that when significant stimuli (name, danger words) is heard in the unattended message, the meaning can be recovered.
The late-selection theory
The late-selection theory states that all stimuli are processed for meaning and the act of responding to the stimuli happens in late processing.
All material is processed to a point, and the material judged to be most important is processed more fully.
Schema Theory
The schema theory suggests that we do not filter, attenuate, or forget unwanted material. Instead, we never acquire it to begin with.
Unwanted material is left out of our cognitive processing.
Inattentional blindness is the phenomenon of not perceiving a stimulus that might be right in front of you, unless you are paying attention to it.
We only perceive events that we attend to.
Neuroscienific Studies of Attention
Cognitive therapists are interested in which parts of the brain are activated when a person is paying attention to a stimulus or event.
The frontal lobe and the parietal lobe is one area of the brain activated when a person attends to something.
Damage to the parietal lobe may result in hemineglect, a condition in which the person is unaware of one side of their body and disinclined to try to attend to information from that one side.
When shown a picture of a clock, patients with this condition only attended to one side of the clock and when asked to draw it, left one side out of their drawing.
Networks of visual attention
Researchers have located 32 areas of the brain that become active during visual processing of an attended stimuli.
Posner and Raichle identified three areas and their corresponding processes. The posterior parietal lobe is activated when a person disengages their attention. The superior colliculus is activated when moving attention to another visual stimulus. The pulvinar is activated when greater attention is needed for a stimulus.
These findings support the idea that attention consists of several different processes that operate independently from each other.
Distinct areas of the brain underlie distinct cognitive functions.
The Stroop Task
A famous demonstration on the effects of practice on the performances of cognitive tasks, in this case reading.
We are so practiced at reading, it has become an automatic response, that when asked to name the colors we must really attend to the stimuli.
Blue
Yellow
Red
Green
Automatic processing
You must have three things:
1. It must occur without intention
2. It must occur without involving conscious awareness
3. It must not interfere with other mental activity
Automatic processing is used for easy tasks with familiar items. It can operate simultaneously with other cognitive processes.
Controlled processing is used when engaging in difficult and unfamiliar tasks. It usually operates serially, requires attention, its capacity is limited, and is under conscious control.
With massive amounts of practice, a task that once required controlled processing can become an automatic response.
Feature Integration Theory
The feature integration theory states that we perceive objects in two stages.
1. This stage is automatic. We register features of objects, such as color and shape.
2. In this stage, attention allows us to unify the features noticed in stage one and make a complete picture.
Attentional Capture
Attentional capture is when a certain stimuli causes an involuntary shift in attention.
It is believed to be a bottom-up process, driven almost entirely by the properties of a stimulus rather than the intention of the perceiver.
The stimulus somehow automatically captures our attention.
The Attention Hypothesis of Automatiation
Attention is needed in order to learn. It is used during the practice phase of a task and determines what is learned.
People tend to learn what they attend to.
Attention may affect what information gets encoded into the memory, and what information can be recalled later.
Divided Attention
Research and everyday life suggests that we can do more than one task at a time.
However there are serious limits on the number of things we can actually do at once.
When a task becomes more demanding, it becomes harder to focus on other tasks.
Dothetest (2008) Test Your Awareness: Do The Test. Retrieved September 14, 2009, From Youtube Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4