PSYC 3580: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Sept 10
Sec 1.1: Studying the Mind
The Complexity of Cognition
- Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of
the mind.
- It is the study of mental processes, which includes determining the characteristics and
properties of the mind and how it operates.
- Cognition is the mental processes, eg., perception, memory, paying attention,
visualizing, problem solving (cog psych tries to study this)
What is the mind?
- Mind is the system that creates the representations of the world so that we can act on it
and achieve goals
- It involves forming and recalling memory
- It helps us solve problems (simplest ones)
- Making decisions
- Helps us to survive and function
- Symbol of our creativity and intelligence
- Creates representations of the world so we can act in it
Donder’s Study of Reaction Time
- Was studying how long it takes for a person to make a decision
- He measured a) simple reaction time by asking participants to push a button as rapidly
as possible when they see a light go on
- He measured b) choice reaction time by asking the participants to push the left button
when they see the left light go on, and push the right button when they see right light go
on
- Presenting the stimulus (light flashing) causes mental response (perceiving the light),
leading to a behavioral response (pushing the button)
- Choice RT - simple RT = time to make a decision
- 1/10th second to make a decision
- Mental decisions cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participant’s
behavior
Wilhelm Wundt: Structuralism and Sensations
- According to structuralists, overall experience is based on combining the basic elements
of experience (sensations)
- Experience are made of building blocks
- He wanted to create a “periodic table of mind” which would include all of the basic
sensations involved in creating experiences
- Analytic introspection: participants were trained to describe experiences and thought
process in response to stimuli
, - Structuralists: describe your own experiences
Ebbinghaus: Memory and Forgetting
- Ebbinghaus wanted to determine the nature of memory and forgetting – specifically how
long rapidly information that is learned is lost over time
- He read a list of nonsense syllables aloud to determine number of repetitions necessary
to repeat the list without errors
- After taking a break, he relearned the list:
- short break intervals = fewer repetitions necessary to relearn the list
- learned many different lists at many different retention intervals
William James’ Principles of Psychology
- James’ observations were based on the results of experiments but on observations of
the operations of his own mind
- “My experience is what i agree to attend to”
- Observation that paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things still
rings true and has been topic of many modern studies of attention
Sec 1.2: Abandoning the Study of Mind
Watson and Behaviorism - John B. Watson - observable behavior provides the only valid data
for psychology
Classical Conditioning - A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that
elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response; a learning process where
an individual learns to associate two stimuli (dog and bell)
Skinner: Conditioning and Behaviorism
- Skinner was interested in determining relationship between stimuli and response
- Operant conditioning - shape behavior by rewards and punishments; rewarded behavior
more likely to repeat; punished behavior less likely to repeat
- 1940s-1960s
The Reemergence of Mind in Psychology - Tolman trained rats to find food in a four-armed
maze
The Decline of Behaviorism
- Controversy over language acquisition
- Skinner argued that children learn language through operant conditioning (imitate
speech they hear, correct speech is rewarded)
- Chomsky argued that children say things they have never heard before, that are
incorrect and that are not rewarded
Sec 1.3: The Rebirth of the Study of Mind
- Cognitive revolution: a shift in psychology from the behaviorist’s focus on stimulus–
response relationships to an approach whose main thrust was to understand the
operation of the mind
, - Information-processing approach: ways to study the mind based on insights associated
with the digital computer, states that operation of the mind occur in stages
Attention and Flow Diagram - Broadbent developed flow diagram to show what occurs when a
person directs attention to one stimulus
Artificial Intelligence and Information Theory - “making a machine behave in ways that would be
called intelligent if a human were so behaving” (McCarthy et al., 1955)
Sec 1.4: The Evolution of Cognitive Psychology
Memory: a higher mental process - Atkinson and Shiffrin developed a three stage model
memory: sensory, short-term, long-term
The Physiology of Cognition
- Neuropsychology studies behavior of people with brain damage
- Electrophysiology studies electrical responses of the nervous system including brain
neurons
- Brain imaging: positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) show which brain areas are active during specific episodes of cognition
Sept 17
Cognitive Neuroscience: the study of physiological basis of cognition
Sec 2.1: Levels of Analysis
- We do not examine topics of interest from a single perspective; we look at them from
multiple angles and different point of views
- Each “viewpoint” can add small amounts of information that when considered together
can lead to greater understanding
Basic Principles
Nerve Nets and Neurons Doctrine
- Early concept of interconnected neurons creating a nerve net, similar to a highway
network
- He coloured the neurons and discovered that they send signals to other neurons
- They do not act like a city full of streets, but like branches on a tree. They grow to reach
each other and pass the information as signals
Building Blocks of the Nervous System
- Neurons: cells specialized to create, receive, and transmit information in the nervous
system
- Each neurons has a cell body (keeps the cell alive), axon (its a tube that transmits the
electrical signal to other neuron), and dendrites (are projections that receive a lot of
information from other cells)
How Neurons Communicate
- A neuron receives information from the environment and other neurons, it goes down the
dendrites, and gets processed or transmitted to another neuron
- It is based on changes at its membrane potential: depolarization (decrease in potential),
repolarization (return to resting potential after depolarization), hyperpolarization
(increase in potential)
, - Potassium and sodium keep us alive
- Inside the neuron, there is high concentration while outside, its low (when it comes to
potassium)
- In sodium’s case, outside is high concentration and inside is low
- Excitatory - depolarization of the membranes
- Inhibitory - hyperpolarization of the membrane
- The resting potential is maintained by potassium moving in and out of the membrane
Sec 2.2: Representation by Neural Firing
Principle of Neural Representation
- States that everything a person experiences is based on the person’s representation in
that person’s nervous system
- Keyword representation being that everything we experience is the result of something
that stands for that experience
- Feature detectors - neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation,
movement, and length; neurons that respond best to a specific stimuli
- Experience dependent plasticity: structure of the brain is changed by experiences
- Eg., kittens exposed to vertical only stimuli coils only perceive verticals in normal stimuli
- Hierarchical processing - when we perceive different objects, we do so in a specific
order from lower to higher areas of the brain; the ascension from lower to higher areas of
the brain corresponds to perceiving objects that range from lower to higher level of
complexity
Sensory Coding - refers to how neurons represent various characteristics of the environment
1. Specificity coding: Represented in the brain by the firing of a specific neuron
2. Population coding: the mental representation occurs by the pattern of firing of a large
number of neurons
3. Sparse coding: somewhere in between. The mental representation occurs by the firing of
a small group of neurons
Sec 2.4: Localized Representation
- Specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain
- Some aspects of the mind are localized. Most of the high level cognition is not localized.
- Discovered in early neurological studies
- There is a difference between understanding and producing speech
- Broca’s and wernicke's
Brain’s lobes: occipital (back), parietal (top & back), frontal (front), temporal (near our temples),
Frontal lobe: master coordinator of everything (decision making, problem solving, motor control)
Temporal: hearing
Occipital: vision
Parietal: processes touch, sensation, pain
Localization of Function: Language
Sept 10
Sec 1.1: Studying the Mind
The Complexity of Cognition
- Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of
the mind.
- It is the study of mental processes, which includes determining the characteristics and
properties of the mind and how it operates.
- Cognition is the mental processes, eg., perception, memory, paying attention,
visualizing, problem solving (cog psych tries to study this)
What is the mind?
- Mind is the system that creates the representations of the world so that we can act on it
and achieve goals
- It involves forming and recalling memory
- It helps us solve problems (simplest ones)
- Making decisions
- Helps us to survive and function
- Symbol of our creativity and intelligence
- Creates representations of the world so we can act in it
Donder’s Study of Reaction Time
- Was studying how long it takes for a person to make a decision
- He measured a) simple reaction time by asking participants to push a button as rapidly
as possible when they see a light go on
- He measured b) choice reaction time by asking the participants to push the left button
when they see the left light go on, and push the right button when they see right light go
on
- Presenting the stimulus (light flashing) causes mental response (perceiving the light),
leading to a behavioral response (pushing the button)
- Choice RT - simple RT = time to make a decision
- 1/10th second to make a decision
- Mental decisions cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participant’s
behavior
Wilhelm Wundt: Structuralism and Sensations
- According to structuralists, overall experience is based on combining the basic elements
of experience (sensations)
- Experience are made of building blocks
- He wanted to create a “periodic table of mind” which would include all of the basic
sensations involved in creating experiences
- Analytic introspection: participants were trained to describe experiences and thought
process in response to stimuli
, - Structuralists: describe your own experiences
Ebbinghaus: Memory and Forgetting
- Ebbinghaus wanted to determine the nature of memory and forgetting – specifically how
long rapidly information that is learned is lost over time
- He read a list of nonsense syllables aloud to determine number of repetitions necessary
to repeat the list without errors
- After taking a break, he relearned the list:
- short break intervals = fewer repetitions necessary to relearn the list
- learned many different lists at many different retention intervals
William James’ Principles of Psychology
- James’ observations were based on the results of experiments but on observations of
the operations of his own mind
- “My experience is what i agree to attend to”
- Observation that paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things still
rings true and has been topic of many modern studies of attention
Sec 1.2: Abandoning the Study of Mind
Watson and Behaviorism - John B. Watson - observable behavior provides the only valid data
for psychology
Classical Conditioning - A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that
elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response; a learning process where
an individual learns to associate two stimuli (dog and bell)
Skinner: Conditioning and Behaviorism
- Skinner was interested in determining relationship between stimuli and response
- Operant conditioning - shape behavior by rewards and punishments; rewarded behavior
more likely to repeat; punished behavior less likely to repeat
- 1940s-1960s
The Reemergence of Mind in Psychology - Tolman trained rats to find food in a four-armed
maze
The Decline of Behaviorism
- Controversy over language acquisition
- Skinner argued that children learn language through operant conditioning (imitate
speech they hear, correct speech is rewarded)
- Chomsky argued that children say things they have never heard before, that are
incorrect and that are not rewarded
Sec 1.3: The Rebirth of the Study of Mind
- Cognitive revolution: a shift in psychology from the behaviorist’s focus on stimulus–
response relationships to an approach whose main thrust was to understand the
operation of the mind
, - Information-processing approach: ways to study the mind based on insights associated
with the digital computer, states that operation of the mind occur in stages
Attention and Flow Diagram - Broadbent developed flow diagram to show what occurs when a
person directs attention to one stimulus
Artificial Intelligence and Information Theory - “making a machine behave in ways that would be
called intelligent if a human were so behaving” (McCarthy et al., 1955)
Sec 1.4: The Evolution of Cognitive Psychology
Memory: a higher mental process - Atkinson and Shiffrin developed a three stage model
memory: sensory, short-term, long-term
The Physiology of Cognition
- Neuropsychology studies behavior of people with brain damage
- Electrophysiology studies electrical responses of the nervous system including brain
neurons
- Brain imaging: positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) show which brain areas are active during specific episodes of cognition
Sept 17
Cognitive Neuroscience: the study of physiological basis of cognition
Sec 2.1: Levels of Analysis
- We do not examine topics of interest from a single perspective; we look at them from
multiple angles and different point of views
- Each “viewpoint” can add small amounts of information that when considered together
can lead to greater understanding
Basic Principles
Nerve Nets and Neurons Doctrine
- Early concept of interconnected neurons creating a nerve net, similar to a highway
network
- He coloured the neurons and discovered that they send signals to other neurons
- They do not act like a city full of streets, but like branches on a tree. They grow to reach
each other and pass the information as signals
Building Blocks of the Nervous System
- Neurons: cells specialized to create, receive, and transmit information in the nervous
system
- Each neurons has a cell body (keeps the cell alive), axon (its a tube that transmits the
electrical signal to other neuron), and dendrites (are projections that receive a lot of
information from other cells)
How Neurons Communicate
- A neuron receives information from the environment and other neurons, it goes down the
dendrites, and gets processed or transmitted to another neuron
- It is based on changes at its membrane potential: depolarization (decrease in potential),
repolarization (return to resting potential after depolarization), hyperpolarization
(increase in potential)
, - Potassium and sodium keep us alive
- Inside the neuron, there is high concentration while outside, its low (when it comes to
potassium)
- In sodium’s case, outside is high concentration and inside is low
- Excitatory - depolarization of the membranes
- Inhibitory - hyperpolarization of the membrane
- The resting potential is maintained by potassium moving in and out of the membrane
Sec 2.2: Representation by Neural Firing
Principle of Neural Representation
- States that everything a person experiences is based on the person’s representation in
that person’s nervous system
- Keyword representation being that everything we experience is the result of something
that stands for that experience
- Feature detectors - neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation,
movement, and length; neurons that respond best to a specific stimuli
- Experience dependent plasticity: structure of the brain is changed by experiences
- Eg., kittens exposed to vertical only stimuli coils only perceive verticals in normal stimuli
- Hierarchical processing - when we perceive different objects, we do so in a specific
order from lower to higher areas of the brain; the ascension from lower to higher areas of
the brain corresponds to perceiving objects that range from lower to higher level of
complexity
Sensory Coding - refers to how neurons represent various characteristics of the environment
1. Specificity coding: Represented in the brain by the firing of a specific neuron
2. Population coding: the mental representation occurs by the pattern of firing of a large
number of neurons
3. Sparse coding: somewhere in between. The mental representation occurs by the firing of
a small group of neurons
Sec 2.4: Localized Representation
- Specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain
- Some aspects of the mind are localized. Most of the high level cognition is not localized.
- Discovered in early neurological studies
- There is a difference between understanding and producing speech
- Broca’s and wernicke's
Brain’s lobes: occipital (back), parietal (top & back), frontal (front), temporal (near our temples),
Frontal lobe: master coordinator of everything (decision making, problem solving, motor control)
Temporal: hearing
Occipital: vision
Parietal: processes touch, sensation, pain
Localization of Function: Language
