Cognitive Psychology 5202021 Lucie Johnson What is Cognitive

Cognitive Psychology 5/20/2021 Lucie Johnson

What is Cognitive Psychology? Cognitive psychology is interested in attention, reasoning, judgment, concept formation, memory, language etc. } Those are topics psychologists and philosophers have always found interesting EXCEPT for the extreme behaviorists such as Watson who considered that cognitive events were simply epiphenomena, byproducts of brain activity } 5/20/2021

Early contributions (1) Ebbinghaus (1885) study of memory for nonsense syllables } William James study of memory, consciousness etc. } Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett (1886 -1969) book on Remembering: importance of personal themes, schemas for remembering } 5/20/2021

Early contributions (2) Jean Piaget: schemata build the individual’s cognitive structure through processes of equilibration. (a blend of Kantian and Hegelian processes) } Hull and Tolman: notion od intervening variables } Carl Rogers: the importance of consciousness in therapeutic situation. } 5/20/2021

The rise of Cybernetics Founder: Norbert Wiener (1894 -1964). In 1948, he defines cybernetics as: the study of the structure and function of information processing systems. (esp. how homeostatic systems can use feedback to maintain balance: ex: thermostat, automatic pilot etc. ) } Start of information theory } More about cybernetics } 5/20/2021

Harvard’s Center for Cognitive Studies George Miller (1920 -): information processing theory of cognition. Famous article: the Magical Number Seven } Jerome Bruner (1915 -): concept learning, active learning, constructivism } Ulric Neisser (1928 -), student of Miller, wants cognitive psych to be more applied and useful } 5/20/2021

Artificial Intelligence (1) Alan M. Turing (1912 -1954): the Turing test. What does it mean when a computer passes it? Weak AI vs. strong AI. } See if this poetry writing program passes the Turing test. } What would it mean if it did? } 5/20/2021

Artificial Intelligence (2) The American association for Artificial Intelligence } AI lab at MIT } AI Depot } 5/20/2021

Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience society } Center for cognitive neuroscience } 5/20/2021

The end 5/20/2021