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 bag Controlling grip aperture and pressure Raising 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

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Lecture 1 – Introduction 13 actions Watching television Perception: people objects

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Lecture 1 – Introduction 16 Understanding utterances (inc. inferences) Remembering “histories” of characters Understanding story, relationships Suspending 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 Theory People have some sort of memory trace in their heads for each word they can recognize in writing. Issue How 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!