LCog read ch 1
1. Key concepts:

Behaviorism: the school of psycholgical thought that looks at all behavior in terms of stimulus and response pairs. It was
founded by John Watson and profligated by Skinner and Pavlov. It refuses to deal with cognitions and only discusses
observable and quantifiable behaviors. Emphasized the study of learning.

Cognitive neuroscience: the branch of psychology that deals with cognitions on the neurological level: that is, describing the
interactions of neurons and other nervous system components to discuss behavior. This is a reductionistic school.

Conditioning: a learning situation in which a subject exhibits a response because of or in order to obtain a stimulus.
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Determinism: the idea that human behavior is governed by laws and environment.
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Hypothesis: an educated guess about a phenomenon in order to explain it. It is scientifically testable.

Information Processing: the branch of psychology that compares the activities of the mind to that of a computer. It is primarily
concerned with the system of cognition, that is: the architecture or structure or internal make up of the cognitive process.
(founded by Alan Turing; read Turing test).

Innate: present from conception--genetically determined behaviors that need not be learned. They are instinctive or reflexive.

Instinct: Innate behaviors that are complex, difficult to change, don't seem to occur in people (as opposed to reflexes).
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Learning: a relatively permanent change in behavioral potential as a result of practice (experience) (as per Kimble (1961)).
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Maturation: the natural act of physical growth. Behaviors based on maturation are NOT learning.
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Memory: any internal record of previous experience: how well or how long learning remains or is maintained.
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Operational definition: a definition given to a concept which is verifiable and objective. The definition should be precise enough
that everyone should be able to recognize examples of the concept given the definition.

Reductionism: the act of reducing concepts to their sub-causes. How low do you go in psych? No body knows for sure.
Example of reductionist psychology: cognitive neuroscience.
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Reflex: an innate, yet changeable and simple behavior. E.g., salivating at the smell of cookies.

Reinforcement: the process of increasing the frequency of a behavior by presenting a positive or negative stimulus after it
occurs.
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Response: any objectifiable behavior or aspect of that behavior.

Stimulus: any event that causes a change or reaction.
2. Different causes of behaviors: Learning, innate, state change, maturation.
3. Wagging tail: seems to be an innate behavior rather than a learned one. Almost all dogs every where wag their tails given the
same stimuli which suggests that tail wagging is a reflex. A dog does not have to learn to wag its tail. Also, it seems to be a reflex
in that it involves a limited number of muscles and a dog could be trained to wag its tail to a conditioned stimulus.
4. What causes learning?: repeated experiences/practice. This practice can be either reinforced or not. Also, a organism doesn't
even have to be aware that learning is taking place. Associations have to be made between the stimuli and the response. When this
occurs, learning has occurred.
5. How do we know that learning has occurred?: Learning may occur without us knowing. Learning is only verifiable when
the learned behavior is performed in a given situation. For example, in Tolman's study, rats displayed latent learning--they
demonstrated their learning when they were motivated to.
6. Instinct vs. Learning: Instincts are behaviors that vary quite little across members of the same species; that is, all members
seem to possess the same behavior. Also, instincts are determined by genetic factors. Learning bx vary widely among
individuals--learning is a result of individual experiences. Learned behaviors can change when new behaviors are learned. Instincts
to do change or change very little.
7. Better not to learn?: depends on what things are being learned.
8. Stimulus: we know something is a stimulus when we can verify that is has causes some sort of reaction in a organism.
9. Response: a behavior is a response when it is objectively verifiable.