Outline

 The Science of the Mind    Introspectionism Behaviorism

Cognitive Psychology

  Models of the Mind – – – Black box Jukebox The mind box Sternberg task

Introspectionism

 Method: – ask your subjects  Strength: – First-Person Privileged Access

Edward Titchener (1867-1927)

 Shortcomings: – – It provides access to products of thinking, rather than the processes that underlie it.

It relies on

conscious report

: Many interesting mental events are unconscious (e.g. memory retrieval, or visual processes that lead to perceptual illusions ).

Behaviorism

 Method: – Study stimulus-response relations

Stimulus Response

Example of Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning 1. sight of food 2. bell & food together 3. bell alone STIMULUS    salivation salivation salivation  RESPONSE

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

Behaviorism

 Emphasis on what can be directly observed.

– Stimuli  Responses – Reinforcements / Rewards  Ignore the mind (unobservable).

Behaviorism

Strengths: – rigorous scientific observation – – controlled laboratory settings Applicable to certain areas (e.g., learning: pairing of stimuli and responses)

Behaviorism

Shortcomings:  Limiting science to observable things is a bad idea. Theories are about unobservables  Can’t account for much of human behavior.

Behaviorism

Cannot explain: – – – Language Attention Spatial learning & Cognitive Maps

Behaviorism

Cannot explain: – Language (Chomsky, 1959)  Novel words, over-generalizations, no feedback – ‘mano’ (hand) -> ‘nano’ ( meaningless ) – ‘no mas’ (no more) -> ‘ma no’  Vs. Associative Learning (Baldwin, 1992) – Referential looking Noam Chomsky

Behaviorism

Cannot explain: – Attention  Change blindness – Two different stimulus -> same perception – Same stimulus -> different perception

Behaviorism

Cannot explain: – Spatial learning & Cognitive Maps Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959)

What do Tolman’s Maps look like?

learning can occur without reinforcement:

Such ‘latent learning’ goes against standard behavioristic principles, which claim that learning comes only from outcomes

Rats learn to follow this path … later they can deduce the

shorter

path.

X X

this ability cannot be explained only by links between stimuli and responses. A better explanation is to pose the existence of an

internal

spatial map

Cognitive Maps in Bees , von Frisch 1967  behavior of bees returning to hive after locating nectar  Can use a symbolic form of communication  Different patterns of dances represent different meanings   Round dance: source less than 100 yards from hive Figure 8 dance: greater distances

Behaviorism

Stimulus Response

Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT attempt to understand unobservable mental processes

Behaviorism

Stimulus Response

Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT attempt to understand unobservable mental processes

Cognitive Psychology

Stimulus Response

Study stimulus-response relations to infer the underlying mental processes. The contents of the mind CAN be studied scientifically

How to investigate Perception & Cognition

 Ask your subjects (Introspectionism)  Look at S-R patterns (Behaviorism)  Infer mental processes (Cognitive Psychology) – – from S-R patterns (Reaction Time, Accuracy) from neural patterns (cognitive neuroscience)

Next ….

How cognitive psychologists make inferences about what’s inside the black box...