1. Cognitive Processes PSY 334 Chapter 1 – The Science of Cognition

2. Study Aids  On reserve at the library: An old edition of the textbook – page numbers on the syllabus correspond to the current edition, not this one.  See pgs 5-6, Chapter 1: How to study this book. Pay special attention to the summary statements highlighted between lines in the textbook.

3. Early History  Empiricism vs nativism (nurture vs nature)  Famous empiricists: Berkeley, Locke, Hume, Mill  Famous nativists: Descartes, Kant  Lots of philosophical speculation but no use of the scientific method to answer questions.

4. Scientific Psychology  Scientific study began in 1879: Structuralism – Wundt, Titchener and systematic, analytic introspection. Functionalism -- William James’ armchair introspection.  Behaviorism (1920): Thorndike – consciousness as excess baggage. Watson – consciousness as superstition.

5. Early Mentalists  Gestalt psychologists (German): Wertheimer, Koffka, Kohler  Critics of behaviorism: Tolman  European psychologists: Bartlett Luria Piaget

6. Mind for Behaviorists Input: Sensation Output: Behavior What happens inside the “box” to produce the observed behavior?

7. Mind for Cognitive Theorists Input: Sensation Output: Behavior What happens inside the “box” to produce the observed behavior? Mental Representations: Goals, Expectations, Cognitive Maps Processes

8. Three Important Influences  Human performance studies in WWII – information needed to train military.  Artificial intelligence – thinking about how machines accomplish things leads to more analytical thinking about how humans do.  Linguistics – behaviorist principles could not account for the complexities of language use.

9. Pioneers of Cognitive Psychology  Information theory Donald Broadbent  Artificial Intelligence Newell & Simon  Linguistics Chomsky Miller  Neisser’s book “Cognitive Psychology”

10. Sternberg’s Paradigm: 3 9 6 Is “9” part of this number?

11. Concerns about Cognitive Models  Relevance – do lab-task processes operate in the same manner in real life?  Sufficiency – can simple theories explain complex processes? Cognitive architectures  Necessity – does the mind actually work as described by specific theories? Cognitive neuroscience

12. Other Approaches to Cognitive Psychology  Connectionism (neural net models) – can higher level functions be accomplished by connected neurons? Parallel distributed processing (PDP) -- Rumelhart & McClelland  Situated cognition – the ecological approach Gibson’s affordances Do we explain cognition in terms of the external world or internal mind?

13. Cognitive Neuroscience  Pages 16-31 review basic concepts about the brain. If you have not taken PSY 210 and find this material confusing, come see me.  New methods permit study of normal human functioning in more complex tasks: EEG Imaging techniques – PET & fMRI