Cognitive ProcessesPSY 334

Chapter 1 – The Science of Cognition

Study Aids

On reserve at the library: An old edition of the textbook – page

numbers on the syllabus correspond to the current edition, not this one.

See pgs 5-6, Chapter 1: How to study this book. Pay special attention to the summary

statements highlighted between lines in the textbook.

Early History

Empiricism vs nativism (nurture vs nature)

Famous empiricists: Berkeley, Locke, Hume, Mill

Famous nativists: Descartes, Kant

Lots of philosophical speculation but no use of the scientific method to answer questions.

Scientific Psychology

Scientific study began in 1879: Structuralism – Wundt, Titchener and

systematic, analytic introspection. Functionalism -- William James’ armchair

introspection. Behaviorism (1920):

Thorndike – consciousness as excess baggage.

Watson – consciousness as superstition.

Early Mentalists

Gestalt psychologists (German): Wertheimer, Koffka, Kohler

Critics of behaviorism: Tolman

European psychologists: Bartlett Luria Piaget

Mind for Behaviorists

Input: Sensation Output: Behavior

What happens inside the “box” to produce the observed behavior?

Mind for Cognitive Theorists

Input: Sensation Output: Behavior

What happens inside the “box” to produce the observed behavior?

Mental Representations:

Goals, Expectations, Cognitive Maps

Processes

Three Important Influences

Human performance studies in WWII – information needed to train military.

Artificial intelligence – thinking about how machines accomplish things leads to more analytical thinking about how humans do.

Linguistics – behaviorist principles could not account for the complexities of language use.

Pioneers of Cognitive Psychology

Information theory Donald Broadbent

Artificial Intelligence Newell & Simon

Linguistics Chomsky Miller

Neisser’s book “Cognitive Psychology”

Sternberg’s Paradigm:

3 9 6Is “9” part of this number?

Concerns about Cognitive Models

Relevance – do lab-task processes operate in the same manner in real life?

Sufficiency – can simple theories explain complex processes? Cognitive architectures

Necessity – does the mind actually work as described by specific theories? Cognitive neuroscience

Other Approaches to Cognitive Psychology Connectionism (neural net models) –

can higher level functions be accomplished by connected neurons? Parallel distributed processing (PDP) --

Rumelhart & McClelland Situated cognition – the ecological

approach Gibson’s affordances Do we explain cognition in terms of the

external world or internal mind?

Cognitive Neuroscience

Pages 16-31 review basic concepts about the brain. If you have not taken PSY 210 and find

this material confusing, come see me. New methods permit study of normal

human functioning in more complex tasks: EEG Imaging techniques – PET & fMRI