Cognitive Psychology

Overview

• What is Cognitive Psychology?• Study of HOW the mind works, not WHY we

do what we do• Focuses on the day-to-day functions of the

human mind• When you read and think about the question

“What is Cognitive Psychology? “ you are engaging in cognition

What is Mind?

• “He was able to call to mind what he was doing on the day of the accident.”

• “If you put your mind to it, you can do anything!”

• “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”• “I’m of two minds about it.”• “Dude is out of his mind.”• “She has a brilliant mind.”

What is Mind?

• Definition: A system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals

• The mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning

What do Cognitive Researchers Study?

• Sensation/Perception• Cognitive Neuroscience• Pattern Recognition and Attention• Consciousness• Memory• Representation of Knowledge• Mental Imagery• Language• Thinking and Concept Formation• Artificial Intelligence

Cognitive Theory Involves an Information Processing Analogy

• Acquisition• Storage• Retrieval• Use

Cognitive Approach to Psychology

• Focuses on Mental Processes and Mental Structures• This translates to structural models and process

models

Why Study Cognitive Psychology?

• Cognitive theory affects every area of Psychology

• Theory and Application

Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science

• Cognitive Psychology is a subdivision of Cognitive Science

• Cognitive Science is the interdisciplinary study of the nature of knowledge and its use

Some Fields Related to Cognitive Science

LinguisticsPhilosophyNeuroscienceAnthropologySpeech and Hearing ScienceMathematicsComputer sciencePhysicsSociologyEconomics

Historical Roots of Cognitive Psychology

• Greek Philosophers• Nativist (nature) vs.

Empiricist (nurture) views of mind

• The Enlightenment

Late 1800s

• Wilhelm Wundt + Edward Titchener– Introspection– Mental chronometry

• Hermann Ebbinghaus– Sinnlose silben

• William James “Principles of Psychology” 1890

Early 1900s

• Gestalt Psychology– “Whole is greater than

the sum of the individual parts”

• Tolman – cognitive maps

• Bartlett (1932) “Remembering”

The Birth of Cognitive Psychology

• Sept. 11, 1956 MIT symposium on Information Science

• Miller (1956) "The Magical number seven, plus or minus two......."

• Chomsky (1957) “Syntactic Structures”

• Neisser (1967) "Cognitive Psychology"

Other Early Influences

• Post WW II Human Engineering• Cybernetic Systems Theory• Communications Engineering • Early Computer Science

– Newell & Simon - 1950's – programs that play chess, solve problems

• Turing (1950) - "Computing machinery and intelligence“

• Can machines think? The Turing Test or "imitation game“

Current Influences on the Field

• Neuroscience• Genetics• Evolutionary

Psychology• Computer Science

– Information processing– Neural net algorithms– Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Goal is to develop machines/programs as intelligent as humans• Cybernetic Organisms vs. Robotics

Computational Machine

• 3 components of a computational machine:– Representations– Algorithms– Physical device

Issues in AI

• Does equivalent performance = intelligence?• Can machines demonstrate independent

thought? Creativity? Reproduction?• Sentience and consciousness?• Will robots be treated like people?

Computing Power and Intelligence

• Kurzweil (1999) - "The Age of Spiritual Machines"

• Machine computing power– 1910-1950 - doubled in power every 3 years– 1950-1966 - doubled every 2 years– 1966-now - doubled every year

• Human brain computing power - 20 million billion calculations/sec

• 2020 – typical PC will have this power

• 2030 - small city of human brains

• 2050 - all human brains on earth

Applications: Human Factors

• Human-Machine interfaces• Automotive technology• Communications technology

Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology

• Psychophysical methods• Single-cell studies• Reaction time (mental chronometry)• Eye-tracking• Lateralization studies• Case studies• Brain imaging