Two central philosphical traditions in the 17th and 18th century concerning the nature of the mind - Answer-Nativism & Empiricism
Empiricism - Answer-Humans born as a blank slate and our experience & environment shape us
Supporters of Empiricism - Answer-John Locke, David Hume & Stuart Mill
...
PSYCH 207 Cognitive Processes Exam 1
Materials Questions with Latest Update
Two central philosphical traditions in the 17th and 18th century concerning the nature of
the mind - Answer-Nativism & Empiricism
Empiricism - Answer-Humans born as a blank slate and our experience & environment
shape us
Supporters of Empiricism - Answer-John Locke, David Hume & Stuart Mill
Nativism - Answer-Cognitive abilities are hardwired in brain, individual cognition differs
due to innate abilities
Structuralism - Answer-Wilhelm Wundt (1879). Believed understanding the building
blocks would help understanding of how they combined to form complex mental
phenomena
Introspection - Answer-James Baldwin (1889). Present observers with stimuli and
asking them to describe their conscious experience. Problem is that many cognitive
processes are unconscious
Functionalism - Answer-William James. Primary goal is to explain the function of the
mind. In order to understand the mind you must view the organism in real life situations
Behaviourism - Answer-Focus on observable behaviour, learning and the relationship
between inputs (stimuli) and outputs (behavioural response). Moved away from
subjective measures and focused on measurable things
Gestalt Psychology - Answer-Psychological phenomena must be studied in its entirety
and can't be reduced to simple elements. Argued that cognitive experience is
constructed from the total experience (top-down processing)
Gestalt Figures - Answer-Despite being just one image, there are multiple ways to
perceive it and people experience it differently
Sir Francis Galton - Answer-Wondered whether intellectual abilities were subject to
natural selection. Analysed family trees to find the roots of intelligence. Best known for
study of mental imagery as cognitive ability
Person-Machine system - Answer-idea that machinery operated by a person must be
designed to interact with the operators physical and cognitive capacities and limitations
, The Cognitive Revolution - Answer-During WWII the focus shifter to finding the optimal
way to design a way for humans to use
Development in the field of linguistics - Answer-Noam Chomsky. Studied how people
acquire, understand and produce language. Behaviourism couldn't explain language.
Argued that humans have innate capacity to acquire language
Development in neuroscience (Donald Hebb) - Answer-suggested some functions were
constructed over time by building cell assemblies
Development in neuroscience (David Huebel & Torsten Weisel) - Answer-found specific
cells in visual cortex of cats were specialised to respond to specific stimuli. Also showed
that early experience shaped brain development
The computer metaphor of the mind - Answer-Development of computers & artificial
intelligence systems lead to comparison to cognition. Just as computers must be fed
data, people acquire information through their senses. Both have structures that
process and store information (external hard drive & Cerebral Cortices)
Paradigm - Answer-Refers to a body of knowledge that is structured according to what
its proponents consider to be important
Four major paradigms in Cognitive Psychology - Answer-Information Processing,
Connectionism, Evolutionary and Ecological
Information Processing - Answer-spawned by computer analogy of the mind. Cognition
= information. Information flows from low level detectors through more temporary
memory stores to long term memory stores
Key Assumptions of Information Processing - Answer-Cognition is built upon interacting
sub-skills. The same cognitive operations can be used for different kinds of stimuli (ie
letters, numbers, images)
Connectionism - Answer-Cognitive machinery that underlies all cognition is composed
of highly interactive network of connections among simple processing units (called
neural networks). Units code information across large population of similar units, and
are connected to each other by weights that are modifiable by learning. A single model
can learn & acquire information without changing the inherent structure of the model.
Connectionism Model process - Answer-When any unit reaches a certain level of
activation, it activates other units it has positively weighted connections with. Once
activation is strong enough among inter-related connections, a response for a specific
person will come to mind.
Positive and Negative weighting in connectionist model is based on? - Answer-Prior
experience and prior learning
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