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Lecture 1 – Introduction 3 What Cognition is about: Interaction with the world (i)Input (stimulus energies) (ii) Analysis & recognition (iii) Storage for future reference (iv) Retrieval (v) Choice of response
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Lecture 1 – Introduction 1
First three topics:
1. What Cognition is about
2. Methods
3. History
Lecture 1 – Introduction 2
From Reed’s text (p. 3):
“Cognitive psychology refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used.”
Lecture 1 – Introduction 3
What Cognition is about:
Interaction with the world
(i) Input (stimulus energies)(ii) Analysis & recognition(iii) Storage for future reference(iv) Retrieval(v) Choice of response
Lecture 1 – Introduction 4
Think about the cognitive psychology of the couch potato. Doing so may:
1. Help you grasp what Cognitive Psychology is about.
2. Give you new respect for humans as a species.
• If our simplest activities are significant achievements, how are we to assess our most complex, demanding operations?
Lecture 1 – Introduction 5
B. The cognitive psychology of the couch potato
Eating potato chips
Guiding hand into bagControlling grip aperture and pressureRaising hand to mouth
Lecture 1 – Introduction 6
Watching television
Perception: people
Lecture 1 – Introduction 7
Recognizing people:
Are they young or old?
Lecture 1 – Introduction 8
Happy or sad?
Lecture 1 – Introduction 9
Male or female?
Lecture 1 – Introduction 10
Watching television
Perception: people
objects
Lecture 1 – Introduction 11
Lecture 1 – Introduction 12
Lecture 1 – Introduction 13
actions
Watching television
Perception: people objects
Lecture 1 – Introduction 14
Lecture 1 – Introduction 15
Lecture 1 – Introduction 16
Understanding utterances (inc. inferences)Remembering “histories” of charactersUnderstanding story, relationshipsSuspending disbelief
Watching television
Perception: people objects actions
Lecture 1 – Introduction 17
Methods
Cognitive psychology is an empirical discipline.
• Disagreements among practitioners are settled by appeal to objectively-obtained data.
Lecture 1 – Introduction 18
Three steps in empirical research:
1. Develop theories
2. Generate predictions about behaviour
• Based on theories
3. Test predictions
Lecture 1 – Introduction 19
Topic Word recognition
TheoryPeople have some sort of memory trace in their heads for each word they can recognize in writing.
IssueHow are all those traces organized?
Lecture 1 – Introduction 20
Theory A:
Traces are organized by frequency-of-use: in searching memory, you encounter common words first, rare words last.
Theory B:
Traces are organized by length: in searching memory, you encounter short words first, long words last.
Lecture 1 – Introduction 21
Predictions:
Theory A
Ave. response time to common words should be shorter than average response time to rare words
Theory B
Ave. response time to short words should be shorter than average response time to long words
Lecture 1 – Introduction 22
Results of such experiments:
In fact, when you do these studies, you observe that RTs to common words are faster than RTs to rare words. There is no similarly strong effect of length.
Conclusion: Theory A wins.
Lecture 1 – Introduction 23
Paradigms
Independent variables
Dependent variables
• RT• Accuracy/error rate
Task
Lecture 1 – Introduction 24
Mini-paper #1
In one or two sentences, please write down what the most important thing you learned in today’s class is.
Add your name to your paper and hand it in before you leave.
Thanks!