What is Neisser’s (1967) definition of cognitive psychology?
Refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used.
Define the mind
A system that creates mental representations of the world & controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, & reasoning.
What was Donders’ (1868) contribution to cognitive psychology?
Was the first to study cognitive psychology. Measured how long it took to make a decision using reaction time. Measured the difference between simple and choice reaction time and determined that it takes longer to make a choice.
What was Wundt’s (1879) contribution to cognitive psychology?
Founded the first scientific psychology lab. A structuralist who used analytic introspection.
Define structuralism.
An approach to psychology that explained perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations.
Define analytic introspection.
A procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences & thought processes in response to stimuli.
What was Ebbinghaus’ (1885/1913) contribution to cognitive psychology?
Studied memory & rate of forgetfulness. Did quantitative studies with himself as the subject. Timed how long it took memorize a list of nonsense syllables, waited a specific amount of time before returning, and timed how long it took him to relearn the list. Found that the longer he waited, the more time it took for him to rememorize the list.
Define savings.
Measure used by Ebbinghaus to determine the magnitude of memory left from initial learning. Higher savings mean better memory.
Define savings curve.
Plot of savings vs time after learning original text.
What was James’ (1890) contribution to cognitive psychology?
Wrote the first psychology textbook based off of observations of his own mind.
What was Watson’s (1913) contribution to cognitive psychology?
Founded behaviorism and classical conditioning.
Define behaviourism
The approach to psychology, founded by John B. Watson, which states that observable behavior provides the only valid data for psychology. A consequence of this idea is that consciousness and unobservable mental processes are not considered worthy of study by psychologists.
Describe classical conditioning.
A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that same response.
What was Skinner’s (1938) contribution to cognitive psychology?
Operant conditioning
Tolman
behaviour to infer mental processes
rat maze
cognitive map
Norm Chomsky
Refuted Skinner on language development in children
Cherry
dichotomous listening tasks
Broadbent
first flow diagram of the mind
Simon and Newell
AI
logic theorist - thinking machine
Neisser
First textbook
Attkinson and Shiffrin
Modal model of memory
Tulving
Episodic, semantic, and procedural memory
