PSYC 317 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Memory, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Working Memory
12 Oct 2018
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PSYC 317
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Lecture 1 Notes
Introduction
• What is cognitive psychology?
i. The study of how people think
ii. Perception; how people perceive and process information, attention; how attention is
shifted from one place to another, language; how it is processed, memory, learning,
reasoning, decision making
• Example: Sarah is walking across campus. She stops for a moment to talk with a friend about the
oie the sa last ight. “he a’t talk for log eause she has a appoitet to pla her
schedule for next term, so she says good-e ad heads off toard her adisor’s offie.
i. Perception: has to know where she is, and where she is going
ii. Attention: has to pay attention to what her friend is saying, has to pay attention to the
time
iii. Memory: has to remember her friend, the movie they saw
iv. Decision Making: has to decide whether to keep talking to her friend, or go to her
appointment
• Challenge of cognitive psychology
i. Application of common sense to cognitive phenomena
a. Not sure if good at psychology, or just have common sense
ii. Beneath simplicity lie complexities that are not obvious
• Complexity of cognition
i. Most cognitive processes occur without awareness
ii. In the video, we are trying to count how many times the white shirt players pass the
all, ad e do’t realize a gorilla alks aross the screen mid-way through
• Interdisciplinary approach
i. Psychology, linguistics (language), anthropology, neuroscience, computer science,
philosophy
ii. Another aspect that makes cognitive psychology a little unique is that it is very
interdisciplinary
• History of Cognitive Psychology
i. Cognitive psychology = looking inside the black box
ii. The black box is how behaviorists would describe the mind; according to them, while we
can know the input (stimulus) and output (behavior), we cannot know the inner
workings of the structure (the mind) that connects them
a. While this is a behaviorist perspective, it is a useful way to consider how we
easure ogitie proesses ad look iside the lak o
b. Cognitive psychology wants to know what is happening inside the black box
iii. Stimulus > the mind (the black box) > behavior
a. A tiger is chasing you (stimulus) > the mind (the black box) > running away from
tiger (the behavior)
• General Timeline
i. Birth: the first cognitive psychologists
a. How did research on the mind begin? Who were the pioneers?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
b. Before psychology was founded; once founded, behaviorists led psychology
ii. Decline: behaviorism
a. How did an approach called behaviorism discourage the study of the mind?
b. Cognitive psychology fades from view
iii. Rebirth: cognitive revolution
a. What as ehid the ogitie reolutio that estalished ogitie psholog
as a major area in psychology?
b. The science of the mind is reborn
iv. Now: neuro-cognitive psychology
a. How is the mind studied today?
b. Modern approaches to the study of the mind
• The early years: Donders (1868)
i. Donders (1868)
a. Studied mental chronometry (response time as a measure of cognitive processes)
b. Measured reaction time: from the time you see the light, and how long it takes you
to respond by pressing a key (A) (simple reaction time)
ii. He then studied decision making time: each light had a different input once seen (B)
(choice reaction time)
a. Studied the difference between the two studies
iii. Like with black box analogy, we can only observe the stimulus and response; we must
infer mental processes instead of studying the mind directly
iv. B – A = time to make decision
• The early years: Ebbinghaus (1885)
i. Ebbinghaus (1885)
a. He was interested in how information that is learned is lost over time (memory and
forgetting)
ii. Memory for nonsense syllables (DAH, EXU), measurement of learning and forgetting
curves, effects of relearning, and effects of time between learning and recall
iii. He would view a series of the nonsense syllables, repeat and predict what next ones
were coming up until he remembered all the items correctly; then he would do different
delays to try and repeat step b
iv. He calculated the savings method curve (percentage of learning repetitions) for each
time interval
a. Savings curve shows saving as a function of delay or interval
b. Steep drop-off for first couple days and then levels out
v. Similar to Donders such that a measure of behavior is used to investigate the workings
of the mind
• The early years: first experimental psychology lab
i. Founded by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879
ii. Sought to study mind empirically
iii. Structuralist approach (dominant perspective at time)
• The early years: structuralism
i. What are the basic elements of consciousness out of which complex thought are
constructed?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Perception; how people perceive and process information, attention; how attention is shifted from one place to another, language; how it is processed, memory, learning, reasoning, decision making: example: sarah is walking across campus. She stops for a moment to talk with a friend about the (cid:373)o(cid:448)ie the(cid:455) sa(cid:449) last (cid:374)ight. He (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t talk for lo(cid:374)g (cid:271)e(cid:272)ause she has a(cid:374) appoi(cid:374)t(cid:373)e(cid:374)t to pla(cid:374) her schedule for next term, so she says good-(cid:271)(cid:455)e a(cid:374)d heads off to(cid:449)ard her ad(cid:448)isor"s offi(cid:272)e. Perception: has to know where she is, and where she is going. Attention: has to pay attention to what her friend is saying, has to pay attention to the time. Memory: has to remember her friend, the movie they saw. Decision making: has to decide whether to keep talking to her friend, or go to her appointment: challenge of cognitive psychology. Application of common sense to cognitive phenomena: not sure if good at psychology, or just have common sense.
