What are the three philosophical approaches that kickstarted understanding of the mind?
- classical philosophy
- nativism vs. empiricism
- descartes
What is the difference between nativism and empiricism? Which two influential people are firm believers of these?
- nativism: Chomsky; claimed that ideas are innate (and we are born with them)
- empiricism: Watson; claimed that all ideas are learned through conditioning (reinforcement and punishment)
What did Descartes compromise?
- he did the first extended treatment of philosophy of mind
- he said that ideas could be innate and learned
What are the 2 contributions made by classical philosophers?
- mind can be understood and predicted
2. explanations must be physical
Summarize Donder’s pioneering experiment?
one of the first experiments studying cognitive psychology
- measures reaction time through SIMPLE reaction time and CHOICE reaction time
- simple reaction time, is subject pushing a button as rapidly as possible when they see a light appear
- choice reaction time, is using two lights, subject pushes the left button when the left light went on and the right button when the right light went on
What was Donder’s subtraction method?
used it in his pioneering experiment to figure out the difference in reaction time between the simple and choice conditions.
- he said that this difference would indicate how long it took to make the decision that led to pushing the correct button
- concluded that choice reaction time took one-tenth of a second longer than the simple reaction time therefore the decision making process took one tenth of a second
What is a critical assumption in the subtractive method of response time analysis?
Non-overlapping stages…
task A and B are performed concurrently, subtractive method assumes that because task A took x amount of seconds and task B took the remaining amount of time it took to complete A and B concurrently
therefore the stages are not overlapping
What is structuralism and who was the first to think of it?
structuralism is the idea of using our overall experiences to break down into smaller basic elements called sensations
In Wundt’s introspective method, why was it important to train the observers?
needed extensive training because the subject’s goal was to describe their experience in terms of elementary mental elements and they had to be trained to know what those could be
What is Wudnt’s idea of analytic introspection?
it is the study of unobservable mental events that occur step by step sequence when we are experiencing perceptions and thoughts in response to stimuli
What is introspective method? (4 points)
- characterize basic sensations/feelings in consciousness
- find rules to combine elements
- plausible approach to understanding mental events
- training to improve reliability and consistency
What are some successes of introspective method? (2)
- showed that mental activity can be broken down into more basic components
- developed objective methods for assessing mental acitivty
What are two failures of introspective method?
- results were not consistent across labs
2. training may have produced “right” answers
Describe Ebbinghaus’s memory experiment?
Ebbinhaus was trying to figure out the time course of forgetting. He used a QUANTITATIVE method for measuring memory and used himself as the subject
- he repreated 13 lists of nonsense syllables to himself one at a time and then determined how long it took to learn a list for the first time and then waited a specific amount of time (a delay) to see how long it took to relearn the list
What were the results of ebbinhaus’s memory experiment?
the second relearning of the list occured quicker than the first even though there was more memory errors
What was the savings measure used in ebbinghaus’s experiment and what did it measure?
it was used to determine how much was forgotten after a particular delay
savings was = (original time to learn the list) - (time to relearn the list after delay)
A smaller savings would mean?
more forgetting
What was William James’ Principle of Psychology?
observed that paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things
What was John Watson’s contribution to psychology called?
behaviorism
what is behaviorism and what did Watson try to use it for?
behaviourism states that observable behaviour provides the only valid data for psychology
he said that unconscious mental events cannot be observed therefore they are useless and not considered worthy of studying
What phenomenon were watson’s ideas associated with?
classical conditioning (pairing one stimulus with another previously neutral stimulus causing changes in response towards the neutral stimulus)
What are 3 continuing contributions of behaviourism?
- objective measures
- reproducible methods
- descriptive precision
What was Edward Tolman’s experiment that contributed to early cognitive psychology?
- used behavior to infer mental processes
- experiment involving a rat:
1. rat placed in maze explores maze
2. rat learns to turn right to obtain food at location B when it starts at A
3. when placed at location C, the rat turns left to reach the food at B
What idea did Tolman propose?
cognitive map: a conception within the rat’s mind of the maze’s layout
