what is cognition?
how the mind encodes, stores and uses information
2 distinct but related levels of focus
- mental representations
- computations
mental representations
generally, encoded and stored info about the environment
computations
the processing steps our brain does with each info
david marr’s suggested 3 levels of cognitive analysis
- computational level of analysis
- algorithmic level of analysis
- implementational level of analysis
computational level of analysis
WHAT
what is the mind trying to compute and why
algorithmic level of analysis
HOW
how does the mind encode. understand the rules, mechanisms and representations
implementational level of analysis
WHERE
what is happening in the brain to enable cognition
history of congitive psychology
- great foundations in greek philosphy
–> plato, aristotle, stoics
plato talked about
logos (reason), thymos (spirit), and eros (desire)
argued that the soul was born with innate knowledge
aristotle
argued that knowledge fully arises from experience
stoics
believed in the importance of cognitive processes in managing emotions
foundations in non-Western thoughts
Indian philosophy –> self-awareness, attention and mental discipline
Buddhism –> meditation and mindfulness, root in concepts of perception, cognition etc
Confucianism (China) –> importance of social learning
Islamic –> studied consciousness, as well as the importance of human cognition interacting with society
Indigenous knowledge systems –> communal memory and oral transmission of knowledge, as well as the concept of the self
dominant streams of thought (5)
- materialism
- structuralism
- gestalt psychology
- functionalism
- behaviourism
materialism
HELMHOLTZ
–> behaviour can be explained solely by physical forces
–> work on nerve and sensory physiology
–> laid groundwork for reaction-time tests
structuralism
WUNDT
–> es clave para cog psy
–> study the components of mental processes.
–> want to uncover the elemental building blocks of consciosness
–> measured reaction-time but also introspection
–> leading approach for a bit but failed since people doubted introspection and other movements gained traction
gestalt psychology
GESTALT
“The whole is more than the sum of its parts” // The mind perceives whole objects or patterns rather than the isolated parts. 9 dot problem. *Not a methodology
functionalism
JAMES
Focus on the function of mental processes. Understanding how a behavior helps an organism survive
behaviouralism
JOHN WATSON
–> focus on behavior and on shaping it through reward and punishment, conditioning
–> anti-cognitive psychology
–> argued that the inner workings of the mind could not be studied objectively
–> used almost only animal models
–> believed that all behaviour could be explained by an organism’s experiences of paired associations
gustav fechner
Established the field of psychophysics
what is psychophysics
the relationship between physical stimuli and psychological experience
fechner’s law
The intensity of subjective experience of a stimulus increases in proportion to the stimulus’ intensity [higher sounds have more impact than lower ones]
ernst weber
continued fechner’s work. found weber’s law
weber’s law
The smallest detectable change in a stimulus (JND) is a constant fraction of the stimulus level
