Chapter 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Joel Cooper

University of Utah

Bias

• To influence in a particular, typically unfair direction; prejudice.

• Everyone is biased.• This class deals with fundamental questions

such as– Learning, memory, attention, knowledge, language,

creativity, decision making and intelligence.

• This is a science class and offers an explanation for these phenomenon from that perspective.

Accretion of Knowledge

• 100,000 years of modern man

• 6,000 years with the wheel

• 110 years with the car

• 55 years with the jet

• Why wasn’t the wheel invented earlier?

• Why the recent explosion in technology?

A graphical rendering of knowledge accumulation

Time

Dissemination of Knowledge in the World

Dis

tanc

e

Arbitrary amount of background knowledge needed for the invention of the wheel

What speeds the buildup of knowledge?

• Those things which increase the amount of information that can be stored over time and shared across distance.– Knowledge that cannot be stored is lost.– Knowledge that cannot be shared is not

augmentive.

Knowledge Growth

• Keys to knowledge growth– Storage– Transmission

• The knowledge feedback loop creates exponential growth in the knowledge base from which knowledge is created. Each new device speeds the process of growth by increasing the amount of information that can be shared across distance and time.

Knowledge

• Builds based on what’s available

• There is no simple or obvious advancement

• Little available knowledge in societies:– Without writing– With little inter-group contact– Groups with low population density

• Role of the elderly was very different then

Recent contributors to the buildup of knowledge

• Agriculture– Trade– Class divisions

• Horses• Writing• Medical technology• Automobiles• Phones• Airplanes• Internet

Cultural transmitters of knowledge

• Songs

• Dance

• Oral traditions

• Mythology

• Religion

• Science

Conflicts among cultural transmitters

• Song, dance and oral traditions change in the telling and may share conflicting information

• Mythologies can conflict• Religions can conflict• Science can conflicts• They can all conflict with each other but

they are not all have the same explanatory power.

How does Science differ from other structures that disseminate

and advance knowledge?

• Testable

• Replicable

• Falsifiable

Scientific knowledge is never set, never certain and always growing.

Science: The only objective method to the advancement of knowledge.

• Objective – Treating or dealing with facts without distortion by personal feelings or prejudices

• Subjective - Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world- Particular to a given person

Science and the study of “mind”

• Other cultural traditions offer stable information on the mind

• Science offers an uncertain account• Other explanations may feel “warm” and intuitively

appealing• Scientific explanation may at first feel “cold”

– Oxytocin the “love drug”

• Scientific explanation for the mind is rich, elaborate and based on solid objective principles.

• Scientific explanation for the “mind” is dynamic and continues to grow (which I find exciting).

Dialectic Progression of Ideas: Hegel

Thesis Antithesisflaws/alt idea

Synthesis: best of both

New Thesis flaws/alt idea

RationalistLogic & reasoning is key

Empiricist Experience & observation is key

Philosophical Roots

Cognitive Psychology Is…• The study of how people perceive, learn,

remember, and think about information.

Problem Solving

Attention

Memory Decision Making

IntelligenceLanguage

Perception

Cognitive Methods

• Experiments

• Psychobiological studies

• Self report

• Case studies

• Naturalistic Observation

• Computer Simulations

In an Experiment…• Random sample of participants

• Manipulate the Independent Variable– Create experimental group– Create control group– Randomly assign participants

• Measure the Dependent Variable– Same for all groups

• Control all other variables– Prevent confounds

Typical Independent Variables

• Manipulate stimulus materials– Compare words to non-words– Compare color diagrams to black and white– Compare Yes questions to No questions

• Control how participants process materials– Use imagery to study versus repetition– Vary speed of presentation of materials

Typical Dependent Variables

• Reaction Time (milliseconds)– Mental events take time

• Accuracy/Error analysis – How well the participant does on a task

Psychobiological Studies

• Postmortem studies– Examine the cortex of dyslexics after death

• Brain damaged individuals and their deficits– Study amnesiacs with hippocampus damage

• Monitor a participant doing a cognitive task– Measure brain activity while a participant is

reciting a poem

Self Report Studies

• Verbal Protocol– Participants describe their conscious thoughts

while solving a story problem

• Diary Study– Participants keep track of memory failures

• Naturalistic Observation– Monitor decision making of pilots during flights

Case Studies

• Intensive studies of individuals– May examine archival records, interviews,

direct observation, or participant-observations • Creativity of successful individuals• The deficits of a neglected child

Computers in Research

• Analogy for human Cognition– The sequence of symbol

manipulation that underlies thinking

– The goal: discovery of the programs in humans’ memory

• Computer simulations of Artificial Intelligence

– Recreate human processes using computers

Pop Quiz

25 Questions

Studies have shown that eyewitness testimony is valid and accurate, especially with highly stressful (i.e., memorable) events.

False -- Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, particularly when the observer is in a highly aroused state.

As of January 7, 2006 172 wrongly convicted prisoners have been released from death row because they were factually innocent of the crime. Most were committed on the basis of eye witness testimony.

25 Questions

We use only about 10% of our brain.

False -- We use all or our brain all the time. Even small brain lesions can result in significant cognitive impairment. The distributed neuronal cell loss with age amounts to up to 25% of the brain volume and accounts for many effects of cognitive aging.

25 Questions Someone who learns something when they are drunk will

subsequently remember it better when they are drunk than when they are sober.

True -- State dependent learning demonstrates the importance of the “cognitive environment” in the formation and retrieval of episodic memories. When there is a match between context, retrieval is good.

25 Questions

Studies of divided attention have demonstrated that driving while using a cell phone is not impaired.

False -- Studies show that using a cell phone significantly interferes with driving. In fact, several studies show that you are more impaired when driving and talking on a cell phone than when you are driving drunk.

25 Questions

Recent evidence supports some of the claims of Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) advocates.

False -- In controlled “double-blinded” studies, no systematic evidence has been obtained for ESP.

25 Questions

Memory aids do not really improve our memory.

False -- Mnemonic techniques work. They organize the information, make the material less susceptible to forgetting or interference, and provide a useful retrieval structure.

25 Questions

Backwards messages hidden in music influence our behavior.

eslaF -- There is no evidence that this information is processed, let alone influences our behavior.

25 Questions

Speed reading techniques can dramatically improve reading speed without sacrificing comprehension.

False -- Human performance is governed by the speed-accuracy tradeoff -- Going faster results in lower accuracy. However, good old fashioned practice can improve the efficiency of reading.

25 Questions

Freud's "free association" technique tells us something about the organization of memory.

True -- This is similar to the semantic priming studies with spreading activation. Individual differences can reflect enduring predispositions (or partial patterns of activation) that bias the semantic network in one way or another.

25 Questions

Information can be stored in long-term memory even if you never attended to it.

False -- Attention is necessary for the creation of long-term (and short-term) memories. Information that falls outside of attention is lost.

25 Questions

Advertising using subliminal perception is very effective.

False -- Effects of subliminal perception are, at best, minimal. There is little evidence that stimuli presented below the observer’s threshold influence motives, attitudes, beliefs, or choices.

25 Questions

We should try to avoid using heuristics (rules of thumb) during decision making.

False -- Heuristics help speed the decision making process and unburden working memory. However, these simplifying rules or short-cuts do create biases in decision making.

25 Questions There is no basis for the claim that eating carrots will help

your night vision

False -- The rods use the photopigment rhodopsin (which is made up of vitamin A, also found in carrots). People with a vitamin A deficiency can have poor night vision which can be corrected by supplemental vitamins.

25 Questions

Infant’s ability to discriminate between the phonemes of language is actually better than that of adults.

True -- As language develops, infants loose the ability to discriminate or produce phonemes that are not in their language.

25 Questions

There is no limit on how much information can be stored in long-term memory.

True -- No one has ever filled up long-term memory. There may be limits on what information is initially stored (attentional limitations), but once stored, the memories are permanent (although they may not be accessible).

25 Questions People who are color blind are missing one or more types of

cones in the retina

True -- Trichromatic theory suggests that normal color vision depends on three cone types with different colors made up by the ratio of activation of these receptors. However, some forms of color vision can also be due to damage to cortical areas.

25 Questions The arrangement of displays and controls in cars, airplanes,

etc. is arbitrary because we can learn to use any configuration with practice.

False -- There are some configurations that result in interference that simply can’t be practiced away. It is up to Human Factors professionals to root out these bad design principles.

25 Questions

People are always biased.

True -- Our expectations and memories color the way that we perceive and remember the world. This accounts for many of the individual differences between people.

25 Questions

Practice always improves performance.

False -- Learning capitalizes on the statistical regularities of the environment. Most of the time there are consistencies in the environment that facilitate learning, but in some cases there are irregularities or inconsistencies that impede learning.

25 Questions

Our expectations influence our perceptions and memories.

True -- Expectations and other “top-down” processes play a major role in what we perceive and remember. Often, differences in what two observers see or remember are due to the effects of top down processing.

25 Questions

The difference between $500 and $1000 is psychologically greater than the difference between $10,500 and $11,000.

True -- The mental representation of magnitude is compressed at the high end of the scale. 500 vs. 1000 is a greater psychological difference than 10500 vs. 11000

25 Questions

If someone is blind in one eye, they will have no depth perception.

False -- There are pictorial cues (e.g., size, interposition, etc) and movement cues that provide depth information. The use of both eyes provides binocular cues -- random dot stereograms make use of binocular visual information.

25 Questions

With enough practice it is possible to do two things at the same time as well as doing each thing by itself.

True -- Under very specific task combinations, people can do two things (playing piano and reading a novel) as well as either in isolation. This is called “Perfect Timesharing”.

25 Questions

During the movement of the eyes while reading, the processing of visual information is temporarily suppressed.

True -- This is called saccadic suppression. Not only is the processing of visual information suppressed, but higher level cognitive thoughts also appear to be put on hold.

25 Questions It is possible to have a permanent memory that influences

your behavior even though you are not consciously aware of that memory.

True -- The distinction between implicit and explicit memory suggests that implicit memory is very important to out everyday behavior, even though we may be unaware of these memories.