I am posting power point presentations with notes included, because some of you might find them useful. Please beware that unlike the Slides they go with, these notes are NOT an official part of the course material, but rather they are notes to the self.

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I am posting power point presentations with
notes included, because some of you might find
them useful. Please beware that unlike the Slides
they go with, these notes are NOT an official
part of the course material, but rather they are
notes to the self. Thus, they may contain errors,
be unclear to follow, etc.
DISCLAIMER read this!!
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Cognitive Psychology 4500 Spring 2010

• Section 1 MW
• Section 2 MF
• Dr. Diego Fernandez Duque

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• Todays take-home message
• psychology seems intuitive (unlike chemistry)
• but our intuitions are often wrong
• rather than relying only on intuition, we should
  apply the scientific method (like we do in
  chemistry)

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Which center circle seems larger?
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Visual Illusions Sometimes we misperceive reality
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Visual Attention

• Basketball task
• Change Blindness
• Although we believe that we have a complete and
  detailed visual representation of the outside
  world, studies on visual attention tell us
  otherwise

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• our perception is constrained by our knowledge

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A memory test

• Listen carefully to the list of words but dont
  write them down
• When the list ends, count backward by threes
  starting at 42 (39, 36, etc.)
• When you get to 0, write down all the words you
  recall

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• sour
• candy
• sugar
• bitter
• good
• taste
• tooth
• nice
• honey
• soda
• chocolate

• heart
• cake
• tart
• pie

Sometimes we misremember reality
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• Based on your gut feelings, quickly write down
  
• Your six FAVORITE letters
• Your six LEAST FAVORITE letters

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Look over each list and circle all of the letters
that occur in your own first name. Count the
number of circled letters in each list.
Which list included more of the letters
from your own first name??
Sometimes our choices are influenced by things
other than the ones we believe are causing them
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The Wason Card Selection Task
A
F
6
7
If a card has a vowel on one side, it has an even
number on the other side. Which cards should be
turned over to determined whether this rule is
being followed?
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The correct answer
A
F
6
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Most people select A and 6 to test the if and
only if
Confirmation bias We fail to truly test our
beliefs
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• Sometimes intuition is right
• When silently rehearsing a phone number, we use
  the brain speech areas.
• but other times, it is not

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• In sum, psychology seems intuitive (unlike
  chemistry)
• but intuitions are often wrong
• We mis-perceive (visual illusions)
• We mis-remember (memory illusions)
• We are mis-guided (unconscious influences)
• We fail to check conclusions (poor reasoning)
• we shouldnt rely only on intuition.
• we should apply the scientific method (like we
  do in chemistry) SYSTEMATIC

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How to investigate Perception Cognition

• Ask your subjects (Introspectionism)
• First-Person Privileged Access
• - before you ask, train your subjects
• Shortcomings of Introspectionism
• It provides access to products of thinking,
  rather than the processes that underlie it.
• It relies on conscious report Many interesting
  mental events are unconscious (e.g. memory
  retrieval, or visual processes that lead to
  perceptual illusions).

Edward Titchener (1867-1927)
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How to investigate Perception Cognition

• Ask your subjects (Introspectionism, 1900s)

Look at S-R patterns (Behaviorism, 40s)
- Reaction against Instrospectionism
- Restricts psychology to truly objective,
observable data
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Behaviorism
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT
attempt to understand unobservable mental
processes
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Classical Conditioning

• Neutral stimulus becomes associated with a
  stimulus that already produces a response
• sight of food?salivation
• 3. bell and food seen together
• 4. bell? salivation

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Behaviorism

• Psychology is the science of behavior.
• Emphasis on what can be directly observed.
• Stimuli ? Responses
• Reinforcements / Rewards
• Ignore the mind (unobservable).
• Goal predict behavior

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Assets of Behaviorism

• rigorous scientific observation
• controlled laboratory settings.
• Applicable to certain areas (e.g., learning
  pairing of stimuli and responses)

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Problems with Behaviorism

• Limiting science to observable things is a bad
  idea. Theories are about unobservable
• Cant account for much of human behavior.
• Language Attention

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Examples

• Language (Chomsky, 1959)
• Novel words, over-generalizations, no feedback
• mano (hand) -gt nano (meaningless)
• no mas (no more) -gt ma no
• Vs. Associative Learning (Baldwin, 1992)
• Referential looking
• Attention
• Change blindness
• Two different stimulus -gt same perception
• Same stimulus -gt different perception
• Spatial learning (Cognitive Maps, Tolman 1930)

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What do Tolmans Maps look like?
Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959)
learning can occur without reinforcement Such
latent learning goes against standard
behavioristic principles, which claim that
learning comes only from outcomes
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Rats learn to follow this path
later they can deduce the shorter path.
X
this ability cannot be explained only by links
between stimuli and responses. A better
explanation is to pose the existence of an
internal spatial map
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Cognitive Maps in Bees, von Frisch 1967

• behavior of bees returning to hive after locating
  nectar
• Can use a symbolic form of communication
• Different patterns of dances represent different
  meanings
• Round dance source less than 100 yards from hive
• Figure 8 dance greater distances

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Behaviorism
Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT
attempt to understand unobservable mental
processes
Cognitive Psychology
Study stimulus-response relations to infer the
underlying mental processes. The contents of the
mind CAN be studied scientifically
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How to investigate Perception Cognition

• Ask your subjects (Introspectionism)
• Look at S-R patterns (Behaviorism)
• Infer mental processes (Cognitive Psychology)
• from S-R patterns (Reaction Time, Accuracy)
• from neural patterns (cognitive neuroscience)

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Next . How cognitive psychologists make
inferences about whats inside the black box...
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SPARE SLIDES
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• It is hard to predict based on intuition
• Answer True/False how sure you are about it?
• People usually fall in love with someone very
  different from themselves. In other words,
  opposites attract. T or F
• How sure? 50 60 70 80 90 100
• just guessing certain
• It is an optical illusion when the moon appears
  larger on the horizon than it does overhead. T or
  F
• How sure? 50 60 70 80 90 100
• just guessing certain
• Hypnosis can help people accurately recall a
  crime scene T or F
• How sure? 50 60 70 80 90 100
• just guessing certain

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Instead of relying on intuition, we should
measure behavior

• For example, how long does it take to respond?
• carefully measuring reaction time, we can
  discover the steps of mental processing
  Cognitive Psychology (psy4500) Cognitive Science
  (minor)
• To do it well requires
• A detailed analysis of the mental steps, and
• A comparison between two conditions that are
  identical other than in the step being
  investigated.
• Preferably using stimulus and designs that are
  simple
• A classic example Stroop Task

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GREEN BLUE YELLOWREDBLUE YELLOW REDBLUEGREEN
RED
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ORANGE BLUE GREEN YELLOW ORANGE GREEN
PURPLEGREEN BLACK YELLOW
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Class activity

• List the ways in which
• the two trials were well matched
• the trials differed from each other
• the experiment could be improved