Transcript Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology
7/16/2015
Lucie Johnson
What is Cognitive Psychology?
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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
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Early contributions (1)
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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
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Early contributions (2)
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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 the therapeutic situation.
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The rise of Cybernetics
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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
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Harvard’s Center for Cognitive
Studies
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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
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Artificial Intelligence (1)
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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?
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Artificial Intelligence (2)
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The American association for Artificial
Intelligence
AI lab at MIT
AI Depot
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Cognitive Neuroscience
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Cognitive neuroscience society
Center for cognitive neuroscience
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The end
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