Introduction to Cognitive Psychology ä What is Cognitive Psychology? ä Where did it come from? ä What is Cognitive Psychology about now?

Introduction to Cognitive PsychologyIntroduction to Cognitive Psychology

What is Cognitive Psychology? Where did it come from? What is Cognitive Psychology about now?

What is Cognitive Psychology?What is Cognitive Psychology?

Scientific study of cognition Cognition: mental processes including

perception, attention, memory, thinking, problem-solving, and language

Some Questions About CognitionSome Questions About Cognition

How did a glass slide lead to a Nobel Prize? Why can you hear your name across a noisy

room? What would happen if you couldn’t store

new information in long-term memory?

More Questions...More Questions...

Can someone be abused as a child and not remember it until decades later?

What do fire, women, and dangerous things have in common?

Why do men and women have trouble communicating with each other?

Some Claims About CognitionSome Claims About Cognition

The Scientific Method is the best way to study how the mind works.

The mind can be thought of as an information processor.

The way we process information is influenced by context and experience.

The Cognitive RevolutionThe Cognitive Revolution

Success of The Scientific Method Donders (1868) - mental chronometry Wundt (1879) - structuralism

Donders - Subtractive MethodDonders - Subtractive Method

Simple Reaction Time - time it takes to press button in response to light

Choice Reaction Time - time it takes to press one of two buttons after deciding which light went on

Decision Time = Choice RT - Simple RT

Early Memory ResearchEarly Memory Research

Ebbinghaus (1913) - memorizing nonsense syllables

Bartlett (1932) - memory of stories Ebbinghaus

Influence of BehaviorismInfluence of Behaviorism

Watson (1912) - the mind cannot be studied with science

Skinner (1957) - explains language in Verbal Behavior

Problems for BehaviorismProblems for Behaviorism

Tolman (1932): Cognitive maps in rats Breland and Breland (1938): Instinctual

behavior Chomsky (1959):

review of Skinner’s bookperformance - competence distinction

Where is Cognitive Psychology Now?Where is Cognitive Psychology Now?

Information processing approach Based on behavioral observations Cognitive neuroscience Evolutionary psychology Cognitive science