I. INTRODUCTION to COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
11:05 PM
Guide Questions:
1. What is cognitive psychology?
2. How did psychology develop as a science?
3. How did cognitive psychology develop from psychology?
4. How have other disciplines contributed to the development of theory and research in cognitive
psychology?
5. What methods do cognitive psychologist use to study how people think?
6. What are the current issues and various fields of the study within cognitive psychology?
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
 the study of how people perceive, learn, remember, and think about info
 how people perceive various shapes, why they remember some facts but forget others, how they
learn languages
PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY: RATIONALISM VERSUS EMPIRICISM
 Where and when did the study of cognitive psychology begin?
 Approaches to understand the human mind;
o Philosophy
o Physiology
PHILOSOPHY:
Understand the general nature of many aspects of the world, in part through introspection, the
examination of inner ideas and experiences
INTROSPECT - intro ("inward, within") and spect ("look")
PHYSIOLOGY - study of life-sustaining functions in living matter, primarily through empirical
observations
RATIONALISM and EMPIRICISM
PLATO and ARISTOTLE - affected modern thinking in psychology and many other fields
-disagreed on how to investigate ideas
PLATO (RATIONALIST)
 route to knowledge is through thinking and logical analysis
 does not need experiments to develop new knowledge
 reason is a source of knowledge or justification
ARISTOTLE (EMPIRICIST)
 we acquire knowledge via empirical evidence
 obtain evidence through experience and observation
 design experiment and conduct studies in which they would observe
the behavior and processes of interest to them
AVAILABILTY HEURISTIC- examples immediately come to mind
HEURISTICS- mental shortcuts to process info
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Understanding cognitive psychology can help us understand much of what goes on in our
everyday lives.
WHY STUDY THE HISTORY OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY?
 If we know where we come from, we may better understand
where we are heading. In addition, we can learn from past mistakes.
 Fundamental questions are the same but ways of addressing issues have changes
DIALECTIC - approaches and ways scientist study
issues cognitive psychology change over time
 developmental process whereby ideas evolve over time
DIALECTICAL PROCESS:
 A thesis is proposed
o Thesis - statement of belief
 An antithesis emerges
o Antithesis - counters thesis
 A synthesis integrates the viewpoints
o debate between thesis and antithesis which integrate the most credible features of each
view
 The dialectic is important bcuz we may be tempted to think that if one view is right, another
seemingly contrasting view must be wrong
RATIONALISM
 important in theory development
 rationalist theories without any connection to observations gained through empiricist methods
may not be valid
 mountains of observational data without an organizing theoretical framework may not be
meaningful
RENE DESCARTES
 French Rationalist
 reflective method as being superior to empirical methods
for finding the truth
 Cogito, ergo sum ( I think, therefore I am"
 only proof of his existence is that he was thinking and doubting
 one could not rely on one's senses because those very senses have often
proven to be deceptive (optical illusions)
JOHN LOCKE
 British empiricist
 believed that humans are born without knowledge and therefore must seek knowledge through
empirical observations
 tabul rasa (blank slate)
 life and experience "write" knowledge in us
 study of learning was the key to understanding the human mind
 there are no innate ideas
NURTURE WORKS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
 Asian cultures
o dialectical in thinking
o Tolerant of holding beliefs that are contradictory
o Resolution will resolve the conflict in their beliefs
 European and North American
o
o
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Linear
Belief system is consistent
Western cultures
o process objects independently of the context
Eastern cultures
o Look at objects embedded in their surrounding context
Asians
o Emphasize the context more than the objects embedded in those context
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If a synthesis advances our understanding of a subject, it then serves as a new thesis. A new
antithesis then follows it, then a new synthesis, and so on.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGINS IN COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
 Cognitive psychology has roots in many different ideas and approaches
 Approaches that will be examined include early approaches such as structuralism and
functionalism, followed by a discussion of associationism, behaviorism and Gestalt psychology
EARLY DIALECTS IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION
 Psychology only recently emerged as a new independent field of study developed in a dialectical
way
 an approach to studying the mind would be developed; people then would use it to explore the
human psyche
UNDERSTANDING THE STRUCTURALISM OF THE MIND

STRUCTURALISM
o first major school of though in Psychology
o understand the STRUCTURE (configuration of elements of the mind) and its perceptions
o analyzing perceptions into teir constituent comnents
 affection
 attention
 memory
 sensation
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WHILHELM WUNDT
o German psychologist
o contributed to development of structuralism
o often viewed as founder of structuralism on psychology
o used INTROSPECTION as meethod in research
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INTROSPECTION - conscious observation of one's own thinking process
 look at the elementary component of an object or process
METHODS to GAIN KNOWLEDGE
 RATIONALISM - reflective thinking and logicl analysis
 EMPIRICISM - through observation
 SYNTHESIS - use of observation, thinking and logical analysis
ROOTS of COGNITIVE PSYCH:
APPROACHES to STUDYING the MIND - Method Used- What is Studies
 STRUCTURALISM - Introspection - Structure of Mind
 FUNCTIONALISM- depends - process of how mind works
 PRAGMATSM- various - research applied to real world
 SYNTHESIS (Associationism)- Ebbbinghaus used himself
as a subject; Throndlike used cats and humans
-how learning takes place by associating things with each other
 BEHAVIORISM(extreme associationism)- use of animals and humans in research; quantitative
analysis- relations between observable behavior and environmental events/stimuli
 GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY- introspection, experiments- psychological phenomena studies as
organized wholes
 SYNTHESIS(Cognitivism) - experiments computer simulation, protocol analysis - understand
behavior through the ways people think
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Intro of introspection as an experimental method was an important change in the field
Main emphasis in the study of the mind shifted from rationalist approach to empiricist approach
of observing behavior to draw conclusions about the subject
Experiments involving introspection, indivs reported on their thoughts as they were working on a
given task
CHALLENGES is the METHOD OF INTROSPECTION:
1. May not always be able to say exactly what goes through thei mind or may not be able to put it
into words
2. What they say may niot be accurate
3. People working on a task may alter the processes
EDWARD TITCHENER
 follower of Wundt
 firstt full-fledgd structuralilst
 helped bting structualism to the US
 use introspection in research
 explore sych from vantage point of the experiencing individual
UNDERSTANDING THE PROCES OF THE MIND:
FUNCTIONALISM
 developed as an alternative to structuralism
 "psychologists should focus on the processes
of thought rather than its contents
 understand what people do and why they do it
 FUNCTIONALIST- study the process of how and
why the mind works, rather than study the
structural contents and elements of the mind
PRAGMATISTS
 believe that knowledge is validated by its usefulness
 want to know what we can do with our knowledge of what people do
WILLIAM JAMES
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leader in guiding functionalism toward pragmatism
Principles in Psychology
core topics in the field: ATTENTION, CONSCIOUSNESS,
PERCEPTION
JOHN DEWEY
 early pragmatist
 influenced contemprary thinking in cogni psych
 pragmatic approach to thinking and schooling
AN ALTRNATIVE SYNTHESS:
ASSOCIATIONISM
 influential way of thinking than rigid school of psych
 examine how elements of the mind (events/ ideas), can become associated with one another in
the mind to result in a form of learning
May result from:
 contiguity - occur together at about the same time
 similarity - similar features or properties
 contrast - things that show polarities (hot-cold, light-dark, day-night)
*Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve - show that fist few repetitions result in steep learning curve. Later
repetitions result in slower increase of remembered words
HERMANN EBBINGHAUS
 first experimenter to apply accociationist principles systematically
 studied his own mental processes
 made up list of nonsense syllables
 studied how people learn and remember material through rehearsal
 REHEARSAL - conscious repetition of material to be learned
 found that frequent repetition can fix mental association more firmly in memory
 repetition aids in learning
EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE
 "Satisfaction" is the key to forming associations
 Law of Effect - stimulus tend to produce a certain response over time if an organism is rewarded
for that response
 It's Only What You Can See That Counts: Associationism to Behaviorism
BEHAVIORISM - focus only on the relation between observable behaviorand environmental events or
stimuli
 Make physical whatever others might have called "mental"
IVAN PAVLOV
 Nobel Prize winning physiologist
 studied involuntary learning behavior
 began with the observation that dogs salivate in response to the sight of lab tech that fed them
Classical Conditioning Learning - dogs had no conscious control
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involves more than an association based on temporal contiguity
effective conditioning requires contingency on the presentation of the conditioned stimulus
contingencies in form of reward and punishment are still used in the 21st cent.
doing something (repeatedly) to have someone react a certain way when that action is done =
repeated action to stimulate response*
RADICAL BEHAVIORISTS
 any hypothesis about internal thoughs and ways of thinking are nothing more than speculation
 tried to influence the way people handle problems in everyday life, from chld-rearig, to schooling,
even to close personal rel.
PROPONENTS OF BEHAVIORISM:
JOHN WATSON
 father of radical behaviorism
 no use for internal mental contents (thoughts) or mechanisms
 believed tha psyschologists should concentrate only on the study of observable behavior
 dismissed thinking as nothing more than sub-vocalized speech
RADICAL BEHAVIORISM
B.F. SKINNER
 radical behaviorist
 virtually all forms of human behavior, not just learning, could be explained by reactions to the
envi.
 researched primarily with nonhuman subjects
 rejected mental mechanisms
 operant conditioning
Operant Conditioning
 involving the strengthenig or weakening of behavior
 contingent on the presence or absence of reinforcement (reward) or punishments
 could explain all forms of human behavior
 applies experimental analysis of behavior to many psychologiclal phenomena (learning, language
acquisition, problem solving)
CRITICISMS OF BEHAVIORISM
1. Behaviorism did nor account as well for complex mental activities (language learning & problem
solving)
2. wanting to know what went on inside the head
3. using techniques of behaviorism to study nonhuman subjects was often easier than studying
humans
*Behaviorists Daring to Peek into the Black Box
Behaviorists regarded the mind as a black box that is best understood in erms of its input and
output, but whose internal processes cannot be accurately described because they are not
observable
EDWARD TOL-MAN
 critic
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though that understanding behavior required tking into account the purpose of, and the pla for,
the behavior
all behavior is directed toward a goal
viewed as forefather of modern cognitive psychology
The Whole is More than The Sum of its Parts
Gestalt Psychology
 We best understand osychological phenomena when we view them as organized, structured
wholes
 we cannot fully understand behavior when we only break phenmena down into smaller parts
GESTATLTISTS
 studied insight to understand the unobservable mental event by which someone goes from having
no idea about hot to solve a problem to understanding it fully in what seems a mere moment of
time
EMERGENCE OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
1950's = "cognitive revolution" movement; in reponse to behaviorism
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COGNITIVISM
-most human behavior explains how people think
 rejects behavioristicnotio that psychologits should avoid studying mental processes just becaue
they are unobservable
 synthesis of earlier forms of analysis, such as behaviorism and Gestaltism
 adopts precise quantitative analysis to study how people learn and think
 like Gestaltism; emphasizes internal mental processes
EARLY ROLE OF COGNI. NEUROSCIENCE
KARL SPENCER LASHLEY
 challenged behaviorist view that the human brain is a passive organ merely responding to
environmental contingencies outside the indiv.
 brain- an active, dynmic organizer of behavior
 sought to understand how macro-org of human brain made possible complex, planned
activities(musical, gaming, using language)
DONALD HEBB
 propose concept of cell assemlblies as basis for learning in the brain
 cell assemblies = coordinated neural structures that develop through freq. simulation
 develop over time as ability of one neuron(nerve cell) to stimulate firing in a connected neuron
increases
NOAM CHOMSKY (linguist)
 wrote a scathing review of Skinner's ideas
 stressed both bio basis and the creative potential of language
 pointed out the infinite numbers of sentences we can produce with ease
 defied behaviorist notions that we learn language by reinforcement
TURING
 soon it will be hard to distinguish communication of machines from that of humans
TURING TEST - judges whether a computer program's output v.s. output of humans
 interrogator communicates via computer and keyboard with real human and computer; find out
who is the computer by asking questions
ARTIFICAL INTELIGENCE (AI)
 human attempts to construct systems that show intelligence processing info
"THE MAGIC NO. 7"
GEORGE MILLER
 no.7 appeared in many diff. places in cogni psych. (literature on prception and memory)
 hidden meaning in frequent reappearance?
JERRY FODOR
 Conceptof the modularity of the mind
 mind has distinct modules , special-purpose systems, to deal with linguistics and possible other
info
 MODULARITY - processs that are used in one domain of processing(linguistic or perpetual domain)
operate independently of processes in ther domains
FRANZ JOSEPH GALL (PHRENOLOGIST)
 patterns of bumps and swells on skullis associatedwith one's pattern of cogni skills
 not scientifically valid; mental catography lingered and gave rise to ideas of modularity based on
modern scientific techniques
RESEARCH METHODS IN COGNI PSYCH
 Laboratory or other controlled experiments
 Neuro scientific research
 Self-Reports
 Case Studies
 Naturalisic Observation
 Computer Simulations
 AI
DATA GATHERING
 reflects empirical aspect of the scientific enterprise
THEORY
 organized body of general explanatory principles; based on observation
HYPOTHESIS
 tentative proposals regaring expected empirical consequences of the theory, such as the
outcomes of research and is tested through experimentation
 must be subjected to statistical analysis and determine stat significance
STATISTCAL SIGNIFICANCE
 indicates the likelihood that a given set o results would obtain if only chance factors were in
operation
INVESTIGATIVE CYCLE
 theories give rise to hypotheses that can be tested and often lead to a revision of the theory
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DEDUCTION
o HYPOTHESES/PREDICTIONS
OBSERVATION
o TEST HYPOTHESES/ PRED.
o DATA GATHERING
o STAT ANALYSIS
INDUCTION
o REVISION OF THEORY
EXPERIMENTS ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR
 Controlled experimental designs- laboratory setting
 Two kinds of variables
a. Independent - individually manipulated or carefully regulated by the experimenter other
aspects are constant
b. Dependent- outcome responses, values of which depnde on how one I.V affect the
participants
OUTCOMES
 when the experimenter manipulates I.V, they control for the effect of the irrelevant variables and
observe the effects on the D.V
CONTROL VARIABLES
 irrelevant variables held constant
CONFOUNDING VAR.
 type of irrelevant var. that has been left uncontrolled in the study
 ex: time of day
(refer to p. 20 *print out)
TWO COMMON DEPENDENT VARABLES:
1. PERCENT CORRECT (additive inverse, error rate)
2. REACTION TIME - uses subtraction method
a. Subtraction Method - estimating the time a cognitive process takes by subtracting amount
of the information processing takes with the process from the time it takes without the
process
*Researcher investigates how many items the participant can answer correctly, or how long
*Can tell investogator, respectively, the accuracy and speed of mental processing
CORRELATION CHART
 Negative (upper left to lower right- descending)
 Zero
 Positive (lower left to upper right-ascending)
*ranges from -1 to 0 to 1
NEUROSCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
 investigators study the relationship between cogni performance and cerebral events and
structures
Categories of the techniques used in neuroscientific research
1. Studying individual's brain ppostmortem(after death), relate to individual's cognitive function
before death to observable features of the brain
2. sudy images showing structures of or activities in the brain of an indiv. who is known to have a
particular cognitive deficit
3. obtaining info about cerebral processes during normal performance of a cognitive activity
POSTMORTEM STUDIES
 offered some of the first insights into how specific lesions (areas of injury in the brain) may be
assoc. with particular cogni deficits
 continue to provide useful insights into how the brain influeces cogni function
STUDYING NORMAL COGN FUNCTIONING
 cerebral activity in animal subjects
 researchers use animals as subjecs involving neurosurgical procedures that cannot be performed
on humans becuase uch procedures would be difficult, nethical, or impractical
OTHER METHODS used to obtain richly textured info about prticular indiv. think in a broad range of
contexts:
1. SELF-REPORTS - an indiv's own acct. of cogni processes
2. CASE STUDIES- in-depth studies of indiv.
3. NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION - detaled studies of cogni performance in everyday situations and
non laboratory contexts
4. EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH - test hypotheses
5. SELF-REPORTS, CASE SUDIES ANDNATURALISTIC OBSERVATION- useful for formulation of
hypotheses
TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY - a condition that cannot be manipulated in humans in the lab
 when traumatic brain injury occurs, case studies are the onl way to gather info
VERBAL PROTOCOL- used in studying complex cogni processes, such as proble solving decision making
participants describe aloud all their thoughts and ideas during the performance of a given cogni task
ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY - findings in one environmental context may be considered relevant outside of
that context
ECOLOGY - stuudy of the interactive re;ationship between an organism and its envi
COMPUTER SIMULATIONS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DIGITAL
INFLUENCE OF COMPUTER;
1. Indirect - models of human cognition based on models of how compters process info
2. Direct - computer simulations and AI
COMPUTER SIMULATIONS- research program computers to imitate a given human function or process
BRUTE FORCE - researcehr constrict algorithm that considers extremely large numbers of moves in a
very shot period of time
COGNITIVE SCIENCE- cross-disciplinary filed that uses ideas and methods from cogni psych, cogni
neuroscience, AI, philosophy, linguistics and anthropology
OTHER COLLABS:
 SOCIAL PSYCH- motivation and emotion
 ENGINEERING PSYH- human-machine interactions
 CLINICAL PSYCH- psychological disorders
 PSYCHIATRIST - how brain works and how it influeces our thinking, feeling, reasoning
 ANTHROPOLOGISTS- explore how reasoning and perception process differ
 COMPUTER SPECIALISTS- develop computer interfaces that are highlyefficient
 TRAFFIC PLANNERS- plan and construct traffic situations that result in maximal overview for
trafffic through cogni psych
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS IN COGNI PSYCH
1. Empirical data and theories are both important;
data in cogni psych can only be fully understood in
context of an explanatory theory;
theories are empty without empirical data
2. Cognition is generally adaptive but not in all specific instances
3. Cogni processes interact with e/o and w/ noncogni processes
4. needs to be sudied through variety of scientific methods
5. all basic research in cogni psych may lead to applications, and all applied research may leas to
basic understandings
KEY THEMES:
1. NATURE VS NATURE
 explore how covariations and interactions in the envi adversely affec someone whose genes
otherwise might have led to success in a variety of tasks
2. RATIONALISM VS EMPIRICISM
 Combine theory with empirical methods to learn the most we can about cogni phenomena
3. STRUCTURES VS PROCESS
 instead of focusing solely on the study of the contents or of th processes of the mind; explore how
mental process operate on mental structures
4. DOMAIN GENERALITY VS DOMAIN SPECIFICITY
 explore which mightbe domain general and which might be domain spec.
5. VALIDITY OF CASUAL INFERENCES VS ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
 combne variety of methods, (lab and moore naturalistic ones) to converge on findings that hold
up, regardless of method
6. APPLIED VS BASIC RESEARCH
 combine 2 kinds of research so that basic research eads to applied research, which leads to further
basic research
7. BIOLOGICAL VS BEHAVIORAL METHODS
 synthesize biological and bahvioral methods so that we understand cogni phnomena at multiple
levels of analysis