Psychology and Cognitive Science

Modified: 2025-01-11 3:47 PM CST

We will continue our preparation for understanding cognitive science by looking at psychology. The main point of this page is to REFRESH your memories of your general psychology course.

Origins

Psychology: late starting social science discipline: 1879
Wilhelm Wundt

First psychologist because he founded a research laboratory at University of Leipzig
Defined psychology via voluntarism, his approach focused on how humans chose to attend to particular stimuli
Wundt was a philosopher by training and like nearly all philosophers used:
- Introspection: the system of psychology developed by Wundt that emphasized the role of unconscious and conscious choice of certain parts of consciousness based upon personal feelings, history, and motivations

Other Early Psychologists

William James: first American psychologist, he was a functionalist:
- Functionalism: an early school of thought in American psychology that sought to discover ways to improve the match between organisms, their minds, and their environments
- Functionalism led to applied psychology or psychology applied to the real world
Edward Titchener: Structuralism: an early approach to psychology that used controlled introspective methods to infer the elements of the mind

Crisis of introspection

Psychologists from the University of Würzburg found methodological flaws in the assumptions of introspective psychology
Basically, they discovered that people could not reliably introspect about their own thinking
So, by the early 20th century psychologists looked for another methodology

Behaviorism
- John B. Watson
  - Founded Behaviorism
    - the approach to psychology spearheaded by Watson that sought to eliminate consciousness and introspection and substituted objective methods that focused on animal and human behaviors only
- B. F. Skinner
  - Neobehaviorism
    - the modification of Watson's behaviorism that allowed for the experimental analysis of operationally defined unobservable variables related to cognitive states and emphasized the study of learning along with the use of animal models for human behavior
- Neobehaviorism dominated American psychology from the 1930s to the 1970s
  - Skinner, in his last public appearance before he died, said:
    - "CS is the creationism of psychology" (video)
      - “Cognitive science is the creation science of psychology, as it struggles to maintain the position of a mind or self” In Skinner B.F. Can psychology be a science of mind? American Psychologist. 1990;45:1206–1210.
      - “I think cognitive psychology is a great hoax and a fraud, and that goes for brain science, too” Goleman D. Embattled giant of psychology speaks his mind. The New York Times. 1987 Aug 25;:Y17–Y18.
    - We will see in this course that behavioral psychology was opposed to cognitive psychology and cognitive science

Cognitive "revolution"

A revolution implies a sudden change, think of the American, French, Russian, and Cuban revolutions
- FYI, as a 10 year old, I was a witness to Fidel Castro's overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. Today, the changes in Cuba from that revolution live on. I revisited Cuba for the first time since leaving 55 years earlier. There is no comparison between the Cuba of 1958 and today.
So, why is the cognitive revolution not really a revolution?
- The most obvious reason is that the change was gradual
- Another is that cognitive psychology did not replace behavioral psychology
- Instead, they both live together as different parts of contemporary psychology

So, there was a slow turn to modern cognitive psychology
- Some highlights included:
  - WWII computers and code breaking
    - Go to Coding
      - These are videos that I would show in class later in the semester
      - You may look at them now, if you like
      - Please watch and answer the questions
      - There will be test questions based on the video on a later test
    - The NOVA episode should show you the importance of coding in cognitive science
    - Modern examples of coding include: banking, national security, and social networking
      - If I asked you to tell me your account name and password to your checking account what should you do? YOU BETTER SAY NO!
- Jean Piaget and childlike thinking
  - Piaget's naturalistic observations of children (including his own) revealed that human children think quite differently from adults
  - His four stages described the progression from childlike to adult thinking
    - In this example, a concrete operational child (Piaget's third stage) a child surprised the teacher with the answer the child gave. The child used the eraser to "take away" the number 3

xThe child simply erased (took away) the number 3
Fortunately, the teacher realized what the child was thinking and did not automatically say "you are wrong"
I saw a Dennis the Menace cartoon once where Dennis was bringing a dining room chair into the living room where his mother was visiting with another woman. Dennis said, "I want to see her talk the leg off of it." Piaget would have loved that cartoon.

Here is another example of Piaget's famous research on conservation. This five year old (my daughter) believed there was more clay when rolled out from a ball into a "snake."

Animal behavior and cognitive explanations

Ethology: the study of animal behavior in natural settings
Animal cognition (video) e.g,, Seyfarth, Marlar, and Cheney studied Vervet Monkey signals
- Discovered that vervet monkeys gave specific alarms calls:
  - about leopards
    - run into the trees
  - about eagles
    - look up
  - about snakes
    - look down, grab sticks
- FYI, my dog and cats "know" what room I am in. They also become active when they see light coming from the lamp I turned on. They see it under the crack under the bedroom door in the morning. Do they know I am awake, I wonder? If so, how do they represent that information to themselves (and no one knows the answer to those questions).

Artificial Intelligence
- The part of computer science that attempts to have computers "think" for themselves.
  - Strong vs Weak AI
    - Strong:
      - Intelligence on a par (or above) humans
      - Self-awareness
      - Solve a wide variety of problems
      - Learn by itself
    - Weak:
      - Solve specific tasks
        
        e.g., self-driving car
        
        play chess
        
        answer essay questions on tests
      - Humans specify algorithms and aid in training
  - AI and cognitive science
    - Creating machines (computers/robots) that act intelligently reveals issues in cognition
    - I see cognitive science including:
      - animal cognition
      - human cognition
      - machine cognition

Modern General Psychology (see any psychology textbook)

Chapters marked with an * indicate closeness to cognitive science

History/Methods

Short history: psychology finds mind, psychology loses mind, psychology finds mind again
- Introspective psychology gave way to behavioral psychology and, after WWII, a new kind of cognitive psychology arose, one based on computers (hardware) and learning (software).

Neuroscience*

The brain is the "Engine" of behavior. Analogy--brain:body::motor:car
- Would you buy a car without a a motor?
The nervous systems are volved systems for survival and reproduction
- Oldest parts of the brain are for survival: breathing, heart rate (in back of brain, the oldest part)
- Newer parts toward the front of brain--cortex, lobes
Endocrine system
- Slower, simpler integrative system
- Hormones and target organs
- Pituitary gland is "master gland" and connected to hypothalamus
"Ware" metaphors
- Hardware
  - AI: the physical machinery-CPU, hard drive, dongles
  - Neuroscience: the physical body-brain, muscles, bones
- Software
  - AI: the instructions for the hardware-programs, apps
  - Neuroscience: the innate and learned instructions-reflexes, learning
- Wetware
  - The brain, the biological "computer" that requires being in a living body

o Sensation and Perception*

Equivalent to I/O (input/output) NOT industrial/organizational psychology
Sensations = physical forces (light, sound, dissolved chemicals, chemicals in air, gravity, magnetism)
Perceptions = psychological interpretations (seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, falling, ?)

o Consciousness*

Early emphasis of psychology (Wundt, James, Titchener wanted to study it scientifically)
Phenomenology: mental phenomena (What are you thinking right now? What am I thinking?)
Altered consciousness: drugs, meditation, hypnosis

o Learning* (despite Behaviorism)

Major issue in cognitive science, Behaviorism tried to ignore cognition
We still don't know how learning takes place
We are trying to make machines learn by themselves
- Note we need not "program" two-year olds (they are better than current machines)
  - Machine learning and deep learning are still not equivalent to human learning

Memory*

Big difference between computer memory and human memory
- Magical Number 7 plus or minus two (George Miller) short term memory (STM)
  - Miller was one of the founders of cognitive psychology
  - His research on short term memory revealed that humans possess a very limited amound of space in which to hold items
  - Typically, humans can only hold 5 to 9 items in STM
- Computer memories are MUCH larger
  - and getting bigger all the time
  - chess playing computers can exploit those memories to look ahead for large numbers of moves and outcomes
  - humans cannot do that, not enough STM
- Episodic and Semantic memories
  - Episodic
    - Your personal memories, time tagged, individual
      - Remember when the bee stung you on the Delaware Memorial Bridge in 1954?
        
        You better not. That was MY memory. No A/C in that old Chevy, the bee flew in, landed on my right thigh, and stung me. OUCH!
  - What is the capital of France?
    - Another word for knowledge.
      - I hope you said Paris
        
        Here are SAU students there in 2017
SAU students in Paris
Amnesias
- Anterograde
  - Cannot put memories into Long Term Memory (LTM)
- Retrograde
  - Cannot recall memories from the past
- Infantile
  - What is your oldest memory?
    - Here's one of mine:
      - One of my earliest memory dates from when I was three or four. My father and I were sitting on the stairway landing halfway upstairs looking out a window at Nevado del Ruiz, a distant Andean peak that was only visible from Bogota in clear weather.
Nevado del Ruiz

Thinking and Intelligence*

What is thinking?
- Many categories
  - Problem solving is on of the easiest to study
  - Creativity is one of the hardest to study
Who is the thinker?
- You are, obviously
- But, how do you explain it?
  - One old explanation is the homunculus or little person
    - the homunculus "watches" you think
      - but, who is watching the homunculus, another one? Leads to an infinite regress
What is intelligence?
- One thing? Spearman's G?
  - Spearman posited a two-factor model
- Many things (modules)?
  - Gardner: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, nature
  - Sternberg: componential (IQ tests), experiential (new situations or ideas), contextual (function in particular environments (plumbing vs carpentry)
  - Goleman: emotional intelligence-self-awareness, self-regulation, social skill, empathy, motivation
- Intelligence is hard to define
- The study of intelligence has been controversial as well

Developmental

Maturation and growth
- Maturation is the unfolding of the developmental program
  - e.g., sit up->stand->walk->run
  - one ability leads to the next on its own schedule
- Growth is a change in size over time
Changes in behavior over time
- Language and cognition are good examples
Age-related behaviors and thinking
- Piaget was one of the first to emphasize the difference between child and adult thinking

Personality

Who am I?
How did I get to be this way?
Genetic factors vs. environmental factors
- "bad seed" vs. abusive childhood
  - both are often invoked in theories of criminality
- resilience
  - "Psychologists define resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress—such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors. As much as resilience involves “bouncing back” from these difficult experiences, it can also involve profound personal growth."
Big Five: OCEAN or CANOE
- One of the modern theories of personality posits five factors:
  - Openness
  - Conscientiousness
  - Extroversion
  - Agreeableness
  - Neuroticism
    - FYI, my favorite for students is conscientiousness-prepared, on time, careful, not forgetful
    - FYI, if you want friends pay attention to agreeableness-interested in others, sympathetic, friendly, soft-hearted

Psychopathology and Therapy

BIG part of psychology
People with problems
- May range from annoying to life threatening
Sources of the problems
- Subject of much current research
Fixing the problems
- Therapy
  - Usefulness of therapy

Social*

Study of people in groups or specific contexts
- Prisons, armed forces, schools
  - all have specific social contexts
- Cross cultural
  - different cultures view the world in their own unique ways
    - Qatari video on right and left hands
- Gender and sex roles
  - BIG part of social behavior
    - Gender - male, female, or binary
    - Sex roles - masculine, feminine, androgynous (Sandra Bem)
      - Sex roles and gender have no fixed relationship
        
        e.g., masculine female, feminine male exist
    - Sexuality - heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual
Some Social Psychology Fields
- Conformity
  - Why do people do things the same way? Why do some not?
- Obedience
  - Doing what others say
    - Raise your right hand
    - Now, raise your left hand
    - Now, wave them over your heads
    - Now take of your shirt
      - At that point you would likely stop.
      - Then, I'd ask: Why did you do all that before I asked you to take off your shirt?
      - Then, I'd ask: If you did not know me and we met at Walmart and I told you to raise your right hand, would you?
    - The answer, of course, relates to the teacher-student relationship and prior training
      - You have been the "victims" of many years of having teachers tell you what to do.
      - Maybe it's time we all quit.
- Stereotypes
  - All X are Y (you fill in the blanks), e.g., All online teachers are wearing tee shirts
    - Is that true?
    - People have a strong tendency to create stereotypes even though they are usually false
- Social facilitation
  - Working with more effort when in the presence of others
- Social loafing
  - Pretending to work in a group when not actually doing so
  - Many of you will meet a social loafer while doing a group project
  - FYI, I don't give grades for group projects for that reason
    - It is do the project or fail the course
- Famous Studies
  - Bobo doll Video, (Bandura)
    - children imitated violent models
  - Milgram's study Video
    - volunteers "shocked" strangers in a learning situation
  - Stanford Prison experiment Videos (Zimbardo)
    - college students randomly assigned to "prisoner" or "guard" roles in a simulated prison rapidly assumed characteristics of those roles

Health

Wellness
- SAU has a Wellness Center
Healthy vs unhealthy behavior
- eating right
- exercising
- sleeping
Addiction
- Opiod addiction is prominent example
Pain and its management
- More medical dollars spent on pain management that any other area

* indicates relatedness to CS, so, the main areas of psychology relevant to CS are:
- Neuroscience
- Sensation and Perception
- Consciousness
- Learning
- Memory
- Thinking
- Intelligence
- Social psychology

Back to Main Page