Finish: Overview of the Course Organization then, History of Cognitive Psychology Psychology 355: Cognitive Psychology Instructor: John Miyamoto 3/31 /2015:

Finish: Overview of the Course Organization

then,

History of Cognitive Psychology

Psychology 355: Cognitive Psychology

Instructor: John Miyamoto

3/31/2015: Lecture 01-2

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2Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15

Outline

• Correct an error from yesterday's lecture

• What is cognitive psychology?

• Organization of topics in Psychology 355

BRIEF HISTORY OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

• Early cognitive psychology: Donder’s method of subtraction

Helmholtz’s concept of unconscious inference

• Behaviorist psychology – an opponent to cognitive psychology

• Rise of modern cognitive psychology

Correct Error from Yesterday

Possible end?


Grading Scheme

Sections & Add Codes

Date % Grade

Labs & Catalyst

Questionnaires

Assigned on 1st lecture day of the week. Due by 5 pm on Monday of the following week.

5

Quizzes Weekly on 1st lecture day 12

Midterm Exam I Monday April 20 25

Midterm Exam II Monday May 18 25

Final Exam Wednesday June 102:30 - 4:20 pm in MGH 389

33

Stated wrongly that the exam is on April 30.


More Questions About the Class Organization

• It’s ok to go to a different section from the one you are enrolled in,

BUT if we run out of room in a section, we will restricted

attendance to people who are actually enrolled in the section.

• I will be giving add codes to students on the waiting list for

Psych 355 as soon as other students drop the course. o Comment: During this quarter (Spr '15), a few additional students will get add

codes.

Course Outline: Weeks 1 - 5

5

Week Reading Assignment from Goldstein

1 Ch 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Ch 2: Cognitive Neuroscience

2 Ch 3. Perception

3 Ch 4. Attention

4 Ch 5. Short-Term Memory & Working Memory

5 Ch 6. Long-Term Memory: Structure

6 Ch 7: Long-Term Memory: Encoding & Retrieval

Ch 8. Everyday Memory & Memory Errors

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15

Course Outline

Course Outline, Week 6 - 10


Course Outline

Week Reading Assignment from Goldstein

7 Ch 9. Knowledge (Categorization)

8 Ch 10: Visual Imagery

Skip Ch 11. Language

9 Ch 12. Problem Solving

10 Ch 13. Reasoning and Decision Making

What Is Cognitive Psychology?

Any questions?


What is Cognitive Psychology?

• Cognitive psychology attempts to explain how humans

perform cognitive activities.

What are cognitive activities?o Seeing objects and events in one’s surroundings.o Remembering something, e.g., facts, personal experiences, etc.o Understanding what is happening in a situation.o Communicating through spoken and written language.o Learning something new, e.g., how to use a computer,

an Ipod, public transportation, introductory statistics, etc.o Solving problems, making decisions, drawing inferences.o Other examples: The mental activity that lets us perform specific tasks, e.g.,

reading, driving a car in traffic, play games like basketball, shop in a store, etc.

What is Cog Psych (continued)?


What is Cognitive Psychology? (cont.)

• Theory of human information processing including

perception, attention, memory, language, reasoning, learning,

development

Emphasis on ...

• ... experimental studies of human information processing

(behavioral studies)

• ... brain activity while humans engage in cognitive processing

(cognitive neuroscience)

• ... models of human information processing

(computational modeling)

De-emphasis on: motivation, emotion

Begin: History of Cognitive Psychology


Overview of the History of Cognitive Psychology

• Precursors to cognitive psychologyo Aristotle, Plato – epistemology, theory of ideas and their relation

to human action

• Experimental psychology begins in 19th century Germanyo Franciscus Donders (response time analysis, method of subtraction)o Hermann von Helmholtz (perception, unconscious inference)o Hermann Ebbinghaus (experimental study of memory)o Wilhelm Wundt (analytic introspection, analysis of conscious experience)

• Behaviorist hiatus in America: roughly 1920 – 1960o During the behaviorist period (1920-1960), cognitive psychology

continued to be studied in Europe.

• Revival of cognitive psychology in America (1950 – 1970)

• 1970 – present: Cognitive psychology plays a major role in psychology pretty much everywhere in the world

Donder’s Mental Chronometry


Early Cognitive Psychology: F.C. Donders (1818-1889)

• Mental chronometry:

Measuring the duration of a cognitive process

• Reaction-time (RT) (a.k.a. response time):

RT = the time interval between

stimulus presentation and

the response to the stimulus

• Method of Subtraction:

Used to infer how long a mental process takes

when the process is not directly observable.o Method of subtraction is an example of a behavioral research method.

Definition of Simple RT and Choice RT

"Donders, Franciscus Cornelis (1818 - 1889)" by Alexander Seitz (Photographic company) - SIL14-D4-14a.jpg from the Scientific Identity: Portraits from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology (reworked). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donders,_Franciscus_Cornelis_(1818_-_1889).jpg#/media/File:Donders,_Franciscus_Cornelis_(1818_-_1889).jpg

TIMEStimulus Presentation Response

RTRT

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donders,_Franciscus_Cornelis

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donders,_Franciscus_Cornelis

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 11

Tuesday, March 31, 2015: The Lecture Ended Here


Method of Subtraction Applied to the ComparisonBetween Simple and Choice Reaction Time

• Simple RT task:

Participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears.

• Choice RT task:

Participant pushes one button if light is on the right side,

and a different button if light is on left side

• Donder’s goal: To measure how long it takes a person to decide

which button to press in the choice RT task.

How long is the decision process?

Diagram Showing Time Course of Simple RT

13

Diagram of Cognitive Processes During Simple RT

• Simple RT = (Response Completion) – (Stimulus Onset)

In a simple RT task, the subject does not have to decide how to respond.

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 Diagram Showing Time Course of Choice RT

Time

14

Diagram of Cognitive Processes During Choice RT

• Choice RT = (Response Completion) – (Stimulus Onset)

In a choice RT task, the subject has to decide which responseis appropriate.


Time

Diagram showing the Decision Stage in the Information Process


• Decision time = the length of time that it takes to decide

which response is appropriate.

Diagram of Cognitive Processes During Choice RT

Question for the Class: How to Measure Decision Time?

Decision Time

Question for the Class:

How Can We Measure the Duration of the Decision Stage in a Choice RT Task?

• Donder’s goal: To measure how long it takes a person to decide which button to press in the choice RT task.

How long is the decision process?

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 16Diagram comparing simple and choice RT

17

Method of Subtraction: Compare Simple RT to Choice RT


Choice RT – Simple RT = Duration of Decision Stage (red)


Simple RT

Choice RT

Diagram Showing that the Perceiving Stages are Identical

18



Simple RT

Choice RT

Diagram Showing that the Responding Stages are Identical

Same Duration

19



Simple RT

Choice RT

Diagram Showing that the RT Difference Measures the Duration of the Decision Stage

Same Duration



Choice RT – Simple RT = Duration of Decision Stage (red)


Simple RT

Choice RT

What does Donder’s Method Show About Cognitive Psych?

Same Duration

21

Why is Donder’s Method of SubtractionImportant for Cognitive Psychology?

• It combines a behavioral study with a simple computational model of a cognitive process.

♦ In Psych 355, we will see many behavioral studies of cognition.♦ In Psych 355, we will not study the mathematical details of

computational models of cognition.

• Purely or strictly behavioral studies – no physiological measurements; no brain imaging.

• The method of subtraction provides valid measure of mental durationif all of the assumptions are valid.

♦ Unfortunately, the assumptions of this method are often not valid.

♦ Donder's ideas inspired improved methods that do lead to valid measurementsof the duration of mental processes.

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 fMRI Method of Subtraction

22

Subtraction Methods in fMRI Brain Imaging

Activations are regions of significant change from a control condition to a test condition.


Brain image shows regions of significant activation when comparing Test Condition to Control Condition. (Slice of brain is viewed from above.)

The purpose of this slide is simply to show that subtraction methods are used in modern fMRI studies.

• Specific details are not important.

Test Condition: Subject views picture.

Control Condition: Subject fixates a blank screen.

Possible End of Lecture OR Helmholtz & Unconscious Inference


Possible End Point for the Lecture

Helmholtz & Unconscious Inference

24

Early Cognitive Psychology: H. L. F. von Helmholtz (1821 – 1894)

• Great mathematician, physicist, psychologist

• Contributions to psychology: perception, especially color vision, hearing, optics, unconscious inference

• Unconscious inference♦ Some of our perceptions are the result of unconscious assumptions we make

about the environment♦ We infer much of what we know about the world

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 Diagram that Illustrates Unconscious Inference (Occlusion)


Unconscious Perceptual Inference

The display in (a) looks like (b) a gray rectangle in front of a light rectangle;

but it could be ....

… (c) a gray rectangle and a six-sided figure that are lined up appropriately

or (d) a gray rectangle and a strange-looking figure that are lined up

appropriately. Repeat this Slide without the Rectangles


Unconscious Perceptual Inference

The display in (a) looks like (b) a gray rectangle in front of a light rectangle;

but it could be ....

… (c) a gray rectangle and a six-sided figure that are lined up appropriately

or (d) a gray rectangle and a strange-looking figure that are lined up

appropriately. Why is Unconscious Inference Important?


Why Is the Idea of Unconscious Inference Important?

• Unconscious inferences contribute in many ways to the formation

of our perceptions and beliefs.

• Cognitive psychology attempts to reveal the processes by which

such inferences are made.

Other Early Cognitive Psychologists – Ebbinghaus & Wundt


Other Important Early Cognitive Research

• Ebbinghaus (1850 – 1909) and the Method of Savingso Important memory researcho We will talk about this later in the course

• Wundt (1832 – 1920)o How sensations combine to form perceptso Analytic introspection

Behaviorist Hiatus


Behaviorist Hiatus – Roughly 1920 - 1960

• John Watsono Influenced by positivist philosophy.

The goal of science is to predict whatever is observable. o Science should eliminate assumptions about whatever is not observable.

(Questionable)o Consciousness is not observable. Eliminate it from psychological theory.

Anti-introspectionist. o Opposed to theories that postulated unobserved psychological processes

• Clark Hull – Stimulus/Response (S/R) learning model.

• Edwin Guthrie

• B. F. Skinner – Reinforcement theory

• Behaviorism was an American approach to psychology – not so

influential in Europe and elsewhere.

Cognitive Psychology During the Behaviorist Period

30

Cognitive Psychology During the Behaviorist Period

• William James (1842 – 1910; cognitive psychology)

• Jean Piaget – genetic epistemology

• Lev Vygotsky – cognitive development and education

• Sir Frederick Bartlett (constructive memory processes)

• Gestalt psychology – Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Kohler

• The beginnings of the computer revolution. Alan Turing, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 Behaviorism Loses Its Grip on Psychology

31

Behaviorism lost its grip on American psychology during the 1960's. Why did this happen?

• Problematic results ♦ Learning without responding♦ Learning without reinforcement

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 Revival of Cognitive Psychology – Information Processing

32

Behaviorism lost its grip on American psychology during the 1960's. Why did this happen?

• Problematic results

• Behaviorism couldn’t explain what scientists wanted to understand, e.g., language, perception, attention, reasoning. (Lashley, Chomsky, Miller-Galanter-Pribram).

• Alternative approaches came along that looked more promising. ♦ Structural models, e.g., transformational grammar, genetic epistemology.♦ Computer models, e.g., the General Problem Solver of Newell and Simon.♦ Change of focus to experimentation on human information processing.

• Is it unscientific to postulate unobserved psychological processes in a psychological theory?

Psych 355, Miyamoto, Spr '15 Revival of Cognitive Psychology – Information Processing


Revival of Cognitive Psychology: 1950 - 1960

• Alan Newell & Herbert Simon:

Computer models of problem solving

• Noam Chomsky - Grammar of natural language

• Lashley – Neuroscience

• Hubel & Wiesel – Receptive fields in the visual cortex

Cognitive Psychology Since 1960 – END


Cognitive Psychology Since 1960

• Experimental cognitive psychology –

Emphasizes the behavioral approacho Perception & Attention, Memory, Language,

Reasoning & problem solving, Cognitive development

• Computer modeling of cognitive processes –

Usually a mixture of the behavioral and computational approach

• Cognitive neuroscience – A mixture of the behavioral and

physiological approacho Single-cell recordingso PET, fMRI, ERP

• Tomorrow: Some examples of behavioral approaches and

neuroscience approaches to cognitive psychology.

END

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Finish: Overview of the Course Organization then, History of Cognitive Psychology Psychology 355: Cognitive Psychology Instructor: John Miyamoto 3/31 /2015: