PSYC 213 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Inattentional Blindness, Wilhelm Wundt, Confabulation
28 May 2018
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Midterm 1 Review
Tutorial 1
• Plato: rely on logic and reason, not just senses (straw in water)
o Rationalism
• Aristotle: look around and make observations on which build knowledge
o Empiricism
• Structuralism: what is the mind, what is it made of (building blocks)
o Systematic introspection --> before was based on coincidental observations, now more
controlled; ask people to describe experiences or how feel
o Processing resources, processing takes time
o But: subjective
o Titchener focused on what is happening immediately
• Focusing on specific experiences instead of asking broad questions
• Functionalism: function of processes
o Mind more like mousetrap and not diamonds
o William James
o But: could not explain complex behavior
• Different outcomes mean different function; i.e. if hit hand and say darn, vs. if hand
and say damn, then means underlying process is different
• Does not make much sense --cannot explain complex behavior
• Behaviorism: focus on what we can observe
o Closer to Aristotle
o Animal models popular; cannot do on humans, more experimental control, systematic
response, simple
• No longer focusing on underlying mental processes
o Skinner
o Good for rigorous experimentation
o But: No account for complex behavior (novel thoughts), no account for novel
though/behavior, assumes learning is the same for all
• i.e. infer that plural word takes an s even though not explicitly thought, from seeing
other words taking an s
Assumptions of Cognitive Psychology
• Mind treated as processing system (like computer)
• Processing occuring in steps
• Information theory: More information = lower probability
o Conveys more information but also means more information to process
• Hick (1952) --lights
o More information = slower reaction time
o Varied number of possible lights
• Hyman (1953) --lights have name
o More information = slower reaction time
• Replicated Hick but with verbal paradigm
o Higher frequency = faster time response
• Still verbal paradigm
• Lower probability means more information to process so slower
o High frequency pairing also let to faster response time
• Webster & Thomas (1953): air traffic experiment with two simultaneous messages
o Processing capacity is limited: limitation depends on amount of information
o The call signal has higher probability and requires less information to process
• Broadbent's Filter model: information-processing is restricted by channel capacity
o Looking into why capacity is limited
o Each sense being a channel
o Information sits in buffer (unlimited capacity) = short term memory
• Can only hold information there for few seconds
o Transmit to filter, which selects information to process
• Based on common characteristics
o Selected features are relevant to what looking at --> see the color, shape, texture of the
chair, rather than seeing color of object in background and then shape of chain, and then
texture of floor, etc.
• What pay attention to is determined by the filter
• Dichotic listening task: pairs of digits heard at same time
o Better when attend information from one ear at a time
• Brown-Peterson Task: show that rehearsal is very important for memory consolidation (allow
us to keep things in primary memory)
o Shown words, and then count down
o Short term memory
• Ecological validity: make sure applicable in real world
o Use naturalistic paradigm
o Come at cost of experimental control
• Gibson: interested in using real world to study cognition
o Study behavior of people in the real world
• Neisser: schema is structure of knowledge that comes from interacting with word
o Perceptual cycle in which schemas are consistently updated by observations
• Cognitive neuroscience: Cognitive psychology + neuroscience
o Interdisciplinary approach to studying mechanisms that give rise to mental functions
o Based on ideas of modules
• Phrenology (Gall, Spurzheim): bumps on skull
• Ablation & localization of function (Franz, Lashley)
o Law of Mass action & Equipotentiality (hinting to plasticity)
• Interactionism, Descartes (pineal gland sits in center)
o Can study one to get idea of what happening in other
o Causal relationship
• By-product: Epiphenomenalism
o Disagree with idea that should study the mind to learn about brain
• No introspection
o NO causal relationship
• Parallelism: two aspects of same reality
o Corresponding point
o NO causal relationship
