Presentation is loading. Please wait.

Presentation is loading. Please wait.

What is cognition? (book definition)

Similar presentations


Presentation on theme: "What is cognition? (book definition)"— Presentation transcript:

1 What is cognition? (book definition)
Cognition comprises the mental processes that are involved in: Perception Attention Memory Problem solving Reasoning Decision making

2 Why should you care? Many of you may be interested in clinical, school, or social psychology Many of these fields study personality What is personality at the lowest level? How we perceive things How/what we remember How we make decisions etc. These are all based in our cognition

3 Why else should you care?
Billions of neurons to create the smartest animals on the planet But we don’t know how it works! “The three-pound enigma.”

4 The complexity of cognition
Walking to class today Memory - Remembering what building class is in Perception & attention - Looking at a campus map to find the building Language - Asking someone for directions Reasoning - Finding the best route to get to the room It all seems so automatic!

5 Automaticity can get in the way
Example: Stroop effect Instructions: Read the words on the next slide out loud Example: WATER APPLE

6 Stroop

7 Stroop effect Instructions: Read the ink color on the next slide out loud and ignore the word Example: GLASS BOOK

8 Stroop

9 Deconstructing the Stroop effect
Reading is highly automatic We generally learn color naming first Cannot stop reading even after lots of practice! So cognition is pretty automatic Right? INSERT: But how automatic is it? SHOW: Change blindness - Harborside Video

10 Sometimes your eyes can lie…

11 The Flash-Lag effect An object is flashed at the same instant that a moving object arrives at same position Perceived to spatially lag the moving object Moving objects processed more slowly than static objects? Or, do we make predictions of where a moving object will be? INSERT: But how automatic is it? SHOW: Change blindness - Harborside Video

12 What is cognition? (simple definition)
The behind the scenes functioning of the mind How the mind creates behaviors that are similar to all people How the mind creates behaviors that are not similar to all people (individual differences)

13 Cognitive Science: The big picture
Cognitive science: The study of the mind, approached from many disciplines COGNITIVE SCIENCE Just one piece of the picture Cognitive Psych

14 Disciplines of cognitive science
Psychology: Scientific study of behavior produced by the mind Neuroscience: Studies the anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of the brain Philosophy: How our mind constructs reality, questions of consciousness Linguistics: Scientific study of origins and development of language

15 Applications: Human factors
Human factors: Designing systems within the limits of human cognition Don’t overload memory Don’t make words hard to see Real-world examples Medical technology Three Mile island Early fighter planes

16 Applications: Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence: The development of technology that performs functions similar to human thought Relates to philosophy What is consciousness? How does our brain create consciousness?

17 History: Back in the day…
Aristotle BC Tabula rasa (“blank slate”) Structure of the mind already in place?

18 Fast forward to the 1860s Franciscus Donders - measured the speed of thought 1868 Reaction time experiments

19 What is reaction time? The time elapsed between some stimulus and the person’s response Typically measured in milliseconds Considered a measure of difficulty Space Bar Time (ms) Person’s Reaction Time

20 Donders’ Subtraction Simple reaction time See light, press button
Figure 1.3 (p. 6) A modern version of Donders’ (1868) reaction time experiment. (a) the simple reaction-time task; and (b) the choice reaction-time task. For the simple time reaction text, the participant pushes the J key when the light goes on. For the choice reaction time test the participant pushes the J key if the left light goes on, and the K key if the right light goes on. The purpose of the Donders experiment was to determine the time it took to decide which key to press for the choice reaction time test. Simple reaction time See light, press button Choice reaction time See light, which button?

21 Measuring the speed of thought
Simple Reaction Time experiment: Stimulus: The light Mind: Sees light Response: Press button Choice Reaction Time experiment: * Stimulus: The light Mind: Sees light Mind: Which button? Response: Press button

22 Measuring the speed of thought
Example: Choice Reaction Time experiment: 500 ms - Simple Reaction Time experiment: 350 ms DISCUSSION: Why might this not work? ANSWER: Pure insertion 150 ms 150 ms for the extra stage in choice RT: 150 ms to choose which button to press

23 What does this tell us? Specifically:
How long it takes for the mind to choose a response

24 What does this tell us? Generally:
Mental responses cannot be measured directly Must infer mental processing through behavior Behavioral measures Reaction times Accuracy/error rates What’s wrong with this? The assumption of pure insertion

25 Discussion time! Has anyone thought of a potential flaw in this logic?
Clue: Imagine cooking something and inserting a new step. What happens to the final recipe? The assumption of pure insertion

26 Hemholtz’s Unconscious Inference (1860s)
Figure 1.5 (p. 8) The display in (a) looks like (b) a gray rectangle in front of a light triangle; but it could be (c) a gray rectangle and a six-sided figure that are lined up appropriately.

27 What does this tell us? Specifically:
How does our mind recognize objects that are occluded by other objects? Some kind of automatic filling-in process Object recognition: we’ll talk about this in a few weeks

28 What does this tell us? Generally:
Some of our perceptions are the result of automatic processes beyond our control Like reading the Stroop task Cognitive psychology can help to unmask the automatic processes

29 Foundations of cognition
These early researchers developed some basic principles: Donders: Mental processes must be inferred from behavior Hemholtz: Mental processes are automatic and often unseen

30 Willhelm Wundt First experimental psychology laboratory (Europe) Leipzig, Germany ~1879 Controversy regarding whether Wundt or James established first psychological lab

31 Edward Titchener 1867-1927 Born in England
Studied in Germany under Wundt Stories

32 Structuralism (Wundt and Titchener)
The study of the structure of the conscious mind Focus on the sensations, images, and feelings that are elements of consciousness

33 Conscious “structure” of an apple
Red Cold Crisp Sweet

34 Wundt’s Introspection
How to study the mind? Introspection: “Self-observation” Subjects looks carefully inward and report on inner situations and experiences Example: Describe the experience of hearing a 5-note chord on the piano Hear one sound or individual notes?

35 Wundt’s introspection criteria
The subject must know when the experience begins and ends Subject is master of situation The subject must maintain "strained attention” Mind does not wander Scientific method: observation, measurment, hypothesis testing, replication, inductive/ deductive reasoning Criterion important for “methodical” aspect of Introspection. Compare to methods of chemistry physics Required specially trained observers to perform. Concrete example… 1. Contrast with stream of consciousness approach

36 Problems with structuralism
Observers were highly trained, but self-reports were not consistent across people How can psychologists draw clear conclusions when introspection produces such varied data?

37 Behaviorism A response to Wundt’s introspection
The scientific study of observable behavior only Behaviorism is “antimentalistic” Since mental processes can’t be seen, they have no place in psychology Explanations like classical conditioning

38 John B. Watson 1878-1958 Professor of psychology
Founder of behaviorism Bonus points for guessing middle name: Broadus Raised in South Carolina Mom wanted him to become preacher Grad school at University of Chicago; studied psychology, neurology and philosophy Academic job at John’s Hopkins for 14 years. Kicked out of academia for relationship with grad student. Finished career in advertising. “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become the type of specialist I might select- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chief, and yes even beggarman and thief regardless of the talnets, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.”

39 B.F. Skinner 1904-1990 Professor of psychology Behaviorism
Operant conditioning Positive and negative reinforcements Burrhus Fredric Skinner Raised in Pennsylvania Graduate school at Harvard in psychology Eventually taught at Harvard

40 Classical conditioning
If Unconditioned Stimulus  Unconditioned Response (meat powder) (salivation) then pair Conditioned stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus (tone) (meat powder) then eventually Conditioned stimulus  conditioned response (tone) (salivation)

41 Operant conditioning It is possible for the animal to generate a response and for that response to have consequences: Act cute --> Get pet Poop on rug --> Get scolded

42 Cracks in the behaviorist framework
1960s: Criticisms of behaviorism Behaviorism could not explain some phenomenon Critical periods/early learning Language Inability to override instinctual behavior

43 Problems with behaviorism: Critical periods
Critical period: A time when an animal is able to learn particular information rapidly and with little exposure If the time window is missed, the animal learns with greater effort or not at all

44 Critical periods example
Some birds follow the first large thing that they see when they are hatched - usually first large thing is mom The tendency to follow the first large thing has a critical period What happens if the first large thing is not mom?

45 Critical periods: Lorenz as mom
Behaviorism cannot explain critical periods!

46 Problems with behaviorism: Language
The behaviorist account of language (Skinner, 1957): Children learn language through imitation and reinforcement. Appropriate speech is rewarded.

47 Criticism of behaviorist account of language
The response (Chomsky, 1959): Behaviorist accounts ignore that language is generative. This means that virtually everything you say and hear is novel. It can’t be the case that you understand it because of reinforcement in the past, because you’ve never heard it before.

48 Evidence that for non-behaviorist view of language
Generativity of language (production of novel sentences) Overextension of grammar “I hitted the ball.” This is never spoken by adults

49 Problems with behaviorism: Instinct/Fixed Actions
The Misbehavior of Organisms (Breland & Breland, 1961): Try to train raccoon to put two coins in a piggy bank Raccoon would instinctively rub coins together, like they would with shellfish No amount of reward would cause extinction of the rubbing response

50 The rise of something new…
Information processing approach The mind processes information as it comes into the brain Rebirth of cognitive psychology parallels development of computers

51 Cognition and Computation
Perception Attention Memory Problem solving Reasoning Decision making COMPUTATION Input from many sources Processing (memory, software) Output to many sources

52 Allen Newell and Herbert Simon
Computer science & artificial Intelligence Economics & mathematics Nobel Prize in economics for decision making

53 The mind as computer? Computer hardware diagram:
Figure 1.7 (p. 13) (a) flow diagram for an early computer; (b) flow diagram for an early computer program. Can we apply boxes and arrows to the mind?

54 Early IP experiment: attention
Example: Cherry’s (1953) attention experiments String of words presented to each ear Subjects attend to one ear only Unattended stream is not remembered

55 The mind as computer? Block diagram of mental processes:
Figure 1.8 (p. 13) Broadbent’s diagram depicting mental processes that occur as a person pays attention to one stimulus in the environment. This diagram shows that many messages enter a “filter” that selects the message to which the person is attending for further processing by a detector and then storage in memory. (Flow diagram of how attention works)

56 The End. Next class: Methods of cognitive psychology!
How do we measure behavior? How do we measure the brain? Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world?


Download ppt "What is cognition? (book definition)"

Similar presentations


Ads by Google