2/6/2017

1

History of Cognition

What is “The Mind”?

� Physical, non-physical, or both?� Just the brain?

� Just the mind?

� Emergent property of brain activity?

� Parallel vs. serial processing

� Mind is faster than a computer

� Google is making a mind?

� “The mind is a terrible thing to taste.”

What is “The Mind”?

� Some numbers:� Neurons in brain

� 1011 (~100,000,000,000 billion)

� Synapses (assuming ~7000 connections/neuron)

� 1014 to 5 x 1014 (~100 trillion to ~500 trillion)

� That’s ~100,000,000,000,000 to ~500,000,000,000,000

� Observable stars in universe

� ~9 × 1021 (~9 sextillion)

� That’s ~9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

� Possible “cognitive states” at any one instant

� ?? > ~9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

2/6/2017

2

What is “Cognition”

� It’s a warm summer evening...circa 350 BCE

Plato finds a cave Aristotle get curious Shit Happens

We get (a little) SmarterJohn LockeRené Descartes

What is “Cognition”

� We reach the age of psychological science!

F. Donders

H. Ebbinghaus

W. Wundt

W. James

H. Helmholtz

What is “Cognition”

� Cognosence

� Distinct disciplines?

� Cognitive Psychology

� Cognitive Science

� Cognitive Neuroscience

� Ulrich Neisser (1967)

� “Cognitive Psychology”

� Topics of Study?

2/6/2017

3

What is “Cognition”

� Age of Introspection

� Subjective observation of mental states

� “Elements of conscious experience”

Along Came Watson

� Pavlov’s drooling dogs

� Classical conditioning

� Behavior (not mind) was predictable

Along Came Watson

� Problems with introspection

� Behaviorism

� Rejected study of mental states as focus of study

� Psychology should focus on observable behavior

� Cognitive studies “cease”

� “Little Albert” study

Dr. Watson does not approve of Dr. Watson.

2/6/2017

4

Along Came Skinner

� B. F. Skinner

� Scrantonian!

� Operant conditioning

� Learning explainable by S�R mappings

� Behavior is shaped by rewards and punishments

� Positive reinforcement

� Positive punishment

� Negative reinforcement

� Negative punishment

� Reinforcement schedules

� Writes Verbal Behavior (1957)....

Along Came Chomsky

� Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior

� Ends Behaviorism

� “Skinner underestimates complexity of language [behavior]…”

� There is rapid learning and application of grammar rules

� Emphasizes rule-based learning (not reinforcement)

� Generative capacity and speech errors

� “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”

� “I hate mommy!”

� “Throwed the ball.”

This is a gutch.

Now there is another one.

There are two of them.

There are two .

Cognitive Revolution

� George Miller’s

� “Magical Number 7, Plus or minus 2”

� Limits to information processing

� Mind is predictable!

� Sternberg’s Mental Searching Studies

� Time to retrieve something from memory

� Predictable mental performance, based

on measurable behavior!!

2/6/2017

5

Cognitive Revolution

� Application of “modeling” to cognition

� Computational models

� Mathematical and statistical models

� Neural network models

Cognitive Revolution

� Newell & Simons’ Computer Metaphor

� Computer system (basically)

� Cognitive system (basically)

Input Processor

Memory Unit

Arithmetic UnitInput Output

Filter

(attention)

Memory

UnitInput Output