Chapter 14 Cognitive Psycholgoy

1. Define the term "cybernetics." Cybernetics is the application of concepts and theories from computer science and information theory to the brain/mind as a sort of computer that processes information.

Cybernetics is when the brain is referred to as a computer. Scientists use concepts and theories of computer science.

embodied cognition

Searle's view, that the mind depends on the structure and organization of the brain, foreshadowed a newer trend in cognitive psychology that is a rejection of the old cybernetic approach mind is not just a function of the brain but of the environment as well

Donald Broadbent

borrowed the concept of an electronic filter and used it as a metaphor for how attention works signal-to-noise ratio helped quantify an intelligible vs. unintelligible message Modern broadband internet connections can transmit over 100,000 bits/second

Goodwin

listed the discovery of the Stroop effect (Stroop, 1935), which demonstrated interference in attention-related processes

Sir Frederick Barlett

studies of long-term memory and how schemas affect our ability to recall events and stories

cybernetics

study of information processing systems, and analogizing the human mind / brain as something like a computer that processed information spawned a new field

Jean Piaget

used the concept of schemas to develop a cognitive explanation of child development

If the human mind can be conceptualized so successfully as operating like a computer, is it possible to program a computer to behave like a human?

artificial intelligence idea is that if we can figure out the cybernetic principles by which the human mind operates, it ought to be a trivial matter to design a computer that follows these principles Alan Turing took an essentially behaviorist approach with his Turing Test. To him, intelligence was nothing more than the ability of the computer to appear to possess intelligence cybernetic perspective, the brain is nothing but a biological computer. The synapses play the role of the circuitry, implementing various programs Proponents of Strong AI believe that all that needs to be known is the nature of the information and the rules for manipulating it Critics of Strong AI like Searle consider this dualism, because the approach is basically assuming that the mind is independent of its implementation; therefore the mind is independent of the brain Searle's Weak AI approach is that a computer can be a good simulation of the mind, but it is not the same thing because the mind is dependent on the brain

Karl Lashley

e famous search for engrams (the locus of memories in the brain), spent some time examining the ability of the behaviorist treatment of the reflex arc, as an S-R chain, to explain complex human behaviors like language and playing a musical instrument problem with the S-R chain approach is the rapidity of these behaviors. other major problem stemmed from a certain kind of speech error made famous, or infamous, by the Reverend William Archibald Spooner. errors, called Spoonerisms, were hard for the S-R chain theory to explain S-R chain theory could explain why sometimes a stimulus is followed by an incorrect response, but not why that incorrect response would be an anticipation of a phoneme that would not occur until later in the phrase

George Miller

One of the earliest cognitive psychologists who was a proponent of cybernetics significance for cognitive psychology is that his review reveals not only that processes like memory are measurable and quantifiable, but that the measurements are reliable used cybernetic concepts like recoding of information, which refers to our ability to organize data in flexible ways, and "chunk" items together in STM Miller, Galanter, and Pribram (1960) borrowed the concept of feedback control from systems engineering to develop their Test-Operate-Test-Exit (TOTE) model as a cognitive version of the reflex arc reaching to pick up a cup, the goal state is defined as the hand in contact with the cup. The current state is that the hand is not in contact with the cup, so an operation is performed to move the hand closer to the cup. During the reach, feedback information is used to test whether the hand is on target.

Paradigm shift applied to psychology

characterize behaviorism as a dominant paradigm, and that the paradigm shift to cognitive psychology was marked by a lot of brand new data that could not be accounted for by the behaviorist reflex arc two problems with analogy 1) behaviorism was not a totally dominant paradigm 2) calling cognitive psychology a revolution is determining that the ideas introduced during the relevant time frame represented brand new ideas

Thomas Kuhn

concept of scientific revolution scientists are people, with their own biases and expectations emphasized that we need to understand the role these biases have on science there is a dominant paradigm that shapes the way scientists view their field. It affects the nature of the questions that are asked, and the methods used to answer them new ideas result in new questions, and new data coined the term "paradigm shift" in reference to this event, and it is synonymous with the idea of scientific revolution Kuhn's definition of a scientific paradigm sets the boundaries on the kinds of ideas that can be discussed and work that can be done

Jenkins and Dallenbach

demonstrated the role of interference in forgetting and memory.

Noam Chomsky

made a case for a nativist approach to language in 1959, in response to Skinner's 1957 book Verbal Behavior, an attempt to explain language learning in terms of reinforcement argued that while the words of a language must be learned by imitation and reinforcement, the rules of language, its syntax, and grammar were far too complex to be explained in this way poverty of the stimulus. Children simply do not encounter a sufficient degree of grammatical variation within their first three years of life, but by then most children produce fairly sophisticated and grammatically fluent speech degeneracy of the stimulus. Children often hear examples of incorrect grammar and yet somehow the rules of grammar persist across generations. argued for linguistic universals: patterns in language and grammar that are common to all languages.

Paul Fitts

pioneered the application of the bandwidth concept to psychology To gain a bit of information means to remove some uncertainty from a previous situation H, associated with any event: H = log2 N N = the number of equiprobable outcomes interested in measuring the information capacity of the human visuo-motor system in performing a simple pointing task he instructed subjects to tap back and forth, using a pencillike stylus, between two rectangular targets, as shown in Figure 14.1. They were instructed to move as fast as they could but without missing the target. Fitts found that two factors, the amplitude, A, of the movement and the width, W, of the targets, affected the movement time (MT). As A increased, MT increased, and as W decreased, MT increased regression equation relating MT to ID became known as Fitts' Law: MT = a + b ID