Cognition

Psyc 135 sec 1

Instructor: Dr. Steven Macramalla
Pre-requisites: Psyc 1
M-T-W-R-F 1:00 - 3:55 Rm. Clark 231
Office Hours: DMH 230,
M-T-W-R-F 12:30-1:00
Email in advance, please [Link]@[Link]
Class Website
[Link]
 Cognition
Psyc 135 sec 1

Enrollment Last Day To Drop: Mon Feb. 6

Last Day to Add: Mon Feb. 13

Final: DMH 165 Monday, May 21 0800-0930

 Texts
• Robinson-Riegler & Robinson
Riegler, Cognitive Psychology:
Applying the Science of the Mind
•
• V.S. Ramachandran, Phantoms
in the Brain
 Course Structure
• Attendance is your responsibility, but highly
recommended
• 3 required Tests @ 25% …………75 pts
– 25-30 x-choice questions
– Fourth Test “Extra Credit”, max 5 pts (x % of test
score) added to final grade
• Class Presentation…………………25 pts
• Paper ……………….…………….100 pts
• TOTAL……………………………200 pts
 Group Project
• Working in teams of 3-4 (request my consent for
larger group size)
• Each member will write a minimum 1500 word
section or ‘chapter’
• All Papers due the same day Thurs Jan 17
• Each member will do a presentation (5-10 min) on
their paper section.
• This week? Next Week? Groups will self-select,
select topics. In-class workshops on project
 What Is Cognitive Psychology?
• Cognition Definition: Co (together) +
gnoscere (to know) = coming to know.

• Cognitive Psychology is the science of

how the brain processes information
and generates your illusion of reality.
Applications of Cognitive Psychology
• Know Thyself (I think therefore I am)
• Clinical / Neurology (I think therefore I’m wired)
• Human Factors (I think therefore ipod)
• Education (I learn therefore higher ed)
• Commerce (I shop therefore I debt)
 What Is Cognitive Psychology?
• What do we study?
– Flow of information from input (stimulus) to
output (response)
– Perception, attention, emotions/affect, memory,
language, learning, reasoning & decision making,
problem solving , creativity
– Under the microscope:
• Illusions & Errors
• Inconstancies & Constancies
 History of Cognitive Psychology
• Looking at history helps see the central issues
• Studies of mind and brain has only been
amenable to scientific approach recently (125
years)
• Important persons represent a philosophical
approach you may or may not have thought of or
agree with
• Each age uses the technology of its day as a
metaphor for the mind
What Is Cognitive Psychology?
– We reverse engineer – we take
apart (the brain) to learn how it
works.
– Each age uses latest technology to
describe how mind works
– Today: Computer Metaphor
 History of Cognitive Psychology
• Structuralism – elementary units of thought / consciousness ("IS") ; seeks to
understand the configuration of the elements of the mind and its perceptions by
analyzing the perceptions into their constituent components (mode, form, quality,
duration, etc.)
• Functionalism – Organism in Environment ("IS FOR")… a very pragmatic approach…
knowledge is useful in that it can be applied to things (e.g., William James)
• Associationism – The study of the linking together of two events, objects or ideas
because they tend to co-occur (Paul Broca: 1861). Behavior occurs because of trial and
error. Knowledge come from experience (e.g., British Associationists: John Locke,
David Hume, John Stuart Mills; the related Empiricism is the doctrine of the
superiority of experience over innate factors [this also influenced the development of
Darwinian Evolution]) … “the law of effect” (Thorndike)
• Behaviorism: (extreme version of associationism: only can examine “observables”)
• Nativists – Biology/Genetics largely determines abilities and tendencies. This is the
classic "Nature" side of the Nature/Nurture Debate
 Biological Approach
• Rene Descartes – water pumps
• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)
– Measured the speed of neural impulses:
this early work suggested that it might be
possible to measure psychological
phenomena.
• Fechner:
• •Measured Sensation – "How much of a
stimulus must there be in order to experience
it" (Weber’s law)
• •established a connection between the
measured physical magnitude of a stimulus
input and the psychological sensation
associated with it.
 Cognition & Biology:
The Mind is What the Brain Does

– Helmholtz (1821–1894)
• photoreceptors in eye
• Unconscious Inferences,
– Looking at brain injury
cases: Phineas Gage

18
• Methodologies
– Biological
• fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)
 Methodologies
– EEG (electroencephalogram) & ERP’s (Event
Related Potentials)

– Very good Temporal, very poor spatial

• Methodologies
• PET (Positron Emission Tomography)

Seeing Words
Hearing
Words

Speaking Thinking about

Words Words
 Methodologies
• They differ in
– Temporal resolution, Spatial resolution
 History of Psychology

• Titchener (1867–1927)
Introspectionists
– hard introspective labor
– Elemental qualities of consciousness

– Wundt (1832–1920) —
Structrualism, chemistry as a
metaphor for consciousness

25
 DEMO: what can reaction time tell us?
• Allows us to make fine distinctions not available via accuracy
measures.
– Example: Jersild’s 1927 Task-switching experiments
Let’s try this together:
For each pair of white
numbers,
numbers,
shout shout
out their
outsum.
their sum. For each pair of green
numbers, shout out their difference.

• 7 5 • 5 2 After just a little practice, most people

will get every trial correct in this sort of
• 6 3 • 6 3
experiment—but they will be quicker to
• 2 1 • 8 4 perform the same operation several
times in a row than to keep switching
• 8 4 • 7 5 operations.
• 9 0 • 8 6 This is referred to as a switch cost,
and can be much easier to investigate
• 5 2 • 4 1 with response time than with accuracy
• 4 • 9 measures.
1 0
• 8 6 • 2 1
 DEMO: F.C. Donders
Detection: Say “YES” when you see my hand open.
vs
Discrimination: Say “YES” when you see my right hand
open, say “GO” when you see my left hand open.

Detection
vs
Discrimination

Detection Task RT = Detection Time + Response Time

Discrimination Task RT = Detection Time + Identification Time + Response Time

Identification time = Discrimination time - Detection Task RT
 Even Animals Have a Mental Life

1. S-R is molecular, w/o meaning;

behavior includes meaning
2. Behavior is not simple cause and
effect (programs) but is purposeful
Tolman (meta-programs)
3. Watson does not include
‘mentalistic’ processes – even rats
develop cognitive maps, exhibit
latent learning (without reward /
punishment / performance) and
expectancies
 Computational Approach
Plato
Socrates

[Link]
[Link]
Computational Approach
 Psychology & Natural Selection

• Darwin—The Origin of Species

(1859)
– Individuals possess unique traits
– Traits are heritable through reproduction
– Successful traits are retained through
natural selection
• James (1842–1910)
– functional approach
– All behavior and mental processes fulfill
a function, costing energy and confering
a benefit to reproductive fitness.

32
 Cognition & Evolution
We assume brain, its parts, and its
functions exist because of evolutionary
forces.
Example: Morning Sickness in pregnant
women
Profit hypothesized women got sick to
prevent fetus from teratogens
Reverse Engineering & Evolutionary
Theory in Action
Profit Conducted a meta-analyses of morning
sickness studies:
Reverse Engineering: Evolutionary
Theory in Action
 Psychology & Behaviorsims

 Pavlov

• Classical conditioning
– Unconditioned stimulus
(US)
– Unconditioned response
(UR)
– Conditioned stimulus (CS)
– Conditioned response (CR)
 Psychology & Behaviorism

• Watson’s goals:
– Complex reactions can be conditioned using
Pavlovian techniques Watson
– Emotional responses (such as fear) are learned
and not result of unconscious processes
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and
my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll
guarantee to take any one at random and train him
to become any type of specialist I might select –
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even
beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents,
penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race
of his ancestors.”

38
Psychology & Behaviorism

B.F. Skinner
Examples of shaping: animal trainers use the method of
Successive Approximations

i.e., reward behaviors that increasingly resemble

desired behavior. Works to train astronaut chimps to fly
in space and pigeons to guide war missiles.
Psychology & Cognition: Mental Life Exists
Behaviorism fails to explain…
• How language is acquired with such “poverty of stimulus”
• The creative use of language
• The comprehension of novel sentences
• The speed with which language is acquired
• How the stages of language acquisition are so consistent

Chomsky
Cognitive Psychology To Behaviorism: “This
Should Not Be Possible”

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
Lewis Carrol
 Cognition & Computers:
Homo Informaticus

Chomsky

Behaviorism fails to explain…

• How language is acquired with such “poverty of stimulus”
• The creative use of language
• The comprehension of novel sentences
• The speed with which language is acquired
• How the stages of language acquisition are so consistent
 The End
• Back-up slides
 Cognition & Chemistry
– Wundt (1832–1920) —structrualism

• Titchener (1867–1927)
– hard introspective labor
– Elemental qualities of consciousness

45
 In Class Exercise
Watch Two Videos and Call me In The Morning

Clever Crows:
[Link]

Artistic Elephants:
[Link]
Break out into groups of 3-4, and discuss:
Use each of these perspectives (bio, evolutionary, associationism,
structuralist) to discuss the behavior of the animals.
How many different skills, and what are the steps involved in one skill?
What abilities can they learn and what are their innate skills?
These animals have evolved the skills you saw. How are these skills
adaptive?
 Cognition & Telephone Switchboards: Associationism

 Pavlov
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-
formed, and my own specified world to
bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take
any one at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might
select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-
Watson chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief,
regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of
his ancestors.”
Psychology & Behaviorism

B.F. Skinner
Examples of shaping: animal trainers use the method of
Successive Approximations

i.e., reward behaviors that increasingly resemble

desired behavior.
• HAM first primate in space, 1961.
• Red Light: Ham has to press the right lever every 15
sec (faster than 1 / 3sec) or gets shocked.
• Blue Light: press left lever within 5 sec to avoid
shock
‘High’ Frequencies
 Online Demo
• Change Blindness [Link]
• Gestalt Common Fate [Link]
 Cognitive Psychology

• Introspectionists
• How long does it take for an image to enter your mind?
• Can you think without pictures?
• What is the speed of thought?
– Did not establish principles of cognitive function, only
observations; did not distinguish between domains of
cognition (e.g., imagery and memory)
– Established reaction time method, still used today
 Cognitive Psychology & Behaviorism: Round 1
Psychology is only concerned
with observable behaviors. Get
rid of mental life

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed,

Watson
and my own specified world to bring them up
in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random
and train him to become any type of specialist
I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist,
merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man
and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors.”
 Operant Conditioning:
Schedules of Reinforcement

Behavior B.F. Skinner

RATIO (Work) INTERVAL (Time)

Fixed / Fixed Ratio Fixed Interval

Continuous Piecework Bi-weekly
Schedule ($.10 / tree) Paycheck
Variable Ratio Variable
Variable / Interval
Intermittent Slot Machine,
Fishing Surprise Quizz
 Behaviorism
• (1) That there is no innate knowledge. All you need is
learning.

• (2) That you could explain human psychology

without mental notions like desires and goals.
•
• (3) And that these mechanisms apply across all
domains and across all species.

These assumptions are all wrong

 Behaviorism
• Trained animals revert to instinctive actions
– Raccoon trained to put coin in bank, washes coin
• Avoidant responses cannot be trained for
approach responses
– Bird flaps wings to escape, will not flap for food
• Not all stimuli are created equal
– Will avoid food b/c nausea, but not avoid for
shock
 Introduction to Cognition
• Definition
• Demos and Examples
• History
• Methods
 Methods in Cognitive Psychology
Three main methods:
• Behavioral
• Biological
• Computational
 Rationalism in
“Discourse on
Methods”
1) accept nothing as obvious truth
that gives you cause to doubt,
2) divide a large intractable
Descartes problem in smaller
Rationalism manageable parts
3) start reasoning about the
simplest and easiest to know
problems
4) enumerate conclusions as
specifically and completely as
possible.
 Empiricism At Work
Behavioral Approach:
Experiments
Aristotle
Descartes

• Pre-defined Hypothesis
• Dependent vs. independent variables
• Experimental & Control conditions
• Establishing Cause and Effect
• Statistical validation
• (Peer Review…usually a good thing)
 Cognitive – Science

Philosophy of Science
Popper: A claim must be falsifiable
1. Cause → Effect: whenever x occurs, outcome
y should result.
2. Cause absent → Effect absent
3. Cause variation → Effect variation
 What can reaction time tell us?
• The speed/timing of internal processes (Donders)
• Allows us to make fine distinctions not available via
accuracy measures.
– Example: Jersild’s 1927 Task-switching experiments
• Allows us to break mental tasks up into functionally
independent stages
– Example: Sternberg’s 1969 additive factors logic
• Allows us to (sometimes) distinguish between
Parallel and Serial processing
– Example: Slope of visual search function
 What can reaction time tell us?
• Allows us to break mental tasks up into functionally independent stages.
– Example: Sternberg’s 1968 additive factors logic

• The (simplified) Additive Factors logic:

– If the RT effects of two manipulations on a task are additive, those manipulations
must affect separate stages of processing. This implies that the task must be
decomposable into at least two independent stages of mental processing.

• Example: I ask you to read a sentence aloud.

– It takes 10 seconds in Arial font written normally.
– It takes 20 seconds in Old English font written normally. (10 sec cost)
– It takes 30 seconds whenIleaveoutallthespaces. (20 sec cost)
– How long does it take to read the sentence in OldEnglishwithoutanyspaces?

• If font and the presence of spaces affect separate processing stages, the effect of the two
manipulations should be additive and the sentence should take 40 seconds to read (a 10
second font cost plus a 20 second no-spaces cost plus 10 seconds normal reading time).
 Biological Approach
Descartes How we measure brain activity
Each method has strengths and weaknesses
There is always activity in every cell – you
are measuring differences of activity
The brain is complex, you often do not know
Locke if the activity is inhibitory or excitatory, or
disinhibiting (e.g., ‘stop stopping’)
 Introduction to Cognition
• Definition
• Demos and Examples
• History
• Methods (Experiments, Methods and Stats! Oh my!)