1. Thought and Computation in Psychology Andrea Grams

2. Psychology and Computation  Behaviorism-1950’s and 60’s  Ian Pavlov-Classical Conditioning  Cognition and consciousness abandoned, focus was on physiologic functions of brain  Able to predict and control some functions of brain

3. Motor Functions  Basic motor functions can be explained mechanistically  Controlled by changes in chemical and/or hormonal levels in body

4. Cognitive Science  Logic and Inferences -use logic and rules to deduce what makes the most sense  Intelligence and Knowledge -follow rules and procedures to make decisions  Concept Formation -acquiring information and applying already known rules to formulate an idea  Analogies –new information is applied to already known information and mapped in the brain  Images –scan and associate an image with a concept  Neural Connections –link different parts of brain together to function as whole (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

5. Reading The Jabberwocky’s Song Twas brillig and the slothy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves And the momeraths outgrabe. -Lewis Carroll  The brain uses different mechanisms to discriminate between reading, comprehending, translating and decoding  Computers use such differentiating algorithms as well  The poem is able to be decoded, but words do not conjure meaningful images. (Wren, p.3-5)

6. Speaking  Freudian Slip -an error in speech caused by one’s subconscious mind  Example: A speaker in Parliament accidentally said, “This meeting is now closed.” What he was supposed to say was, “This meeting is now open.”  In a Freudian Dictionary, closed and open are far apart. In a Webster’s dictionary the are as far apart as the listings for C and the listings for O. But in a computational dictionary – such as we have in the human mind – closed and open are designated by the same symbol, separated by a sign of opposition. Closed equals ‘minus’ open. To substitute closed for open does not require the notion of ambivalence or conflict. When the substitution is made, a bit has been dropped. A minus sign has been lost. (Turkle, p.2)