CP- Week 1

Introduction
Psychology- A science which studies mental processes, experiences, and behaviour in
different contexts.
Behaviour- Overt(observable directly) and covert(going inside mind, unobservable)

Psychology is different from common sense:

Conformation bias- finding evidence to agree with your belief. Eg- The idea of god./
Females are bad drivers.

Hypothetico- detective model

Hypothesis is true--> Theory is confirmed
Hypothesis is false--> Theory is disconfirmed

Cognitive Psychology- Branch of psychology devoted to scientific study of mind.

Mind:
Creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory,
emotions, language, deciding, thinking and reasoning.
Is a system that created representations of the world so that we can act within it
to achieve our goals.

CP- Study of mental functions such as attention, learning, memory, mental imagery,
language, problem solving and decision making.

Brief History
Roots of Psychology: Philosophy + Physiology--> Mind + Body
Early Thinkers:
Greek Era:
Hypocrites- 1st to make connection between mind and body- mind exists in brain.
 Plato- Reality exits in our mind and head is the seat of mind- Mind and body are
different but interact in some way- Rationalist
Aristotle- Mind and body were one- Understand mind by study body- Reality lies
in the concrete world- Empiricist.

Contemporary Philosophers:
Rene Descartes- Observations are results of working senses (senses can make
mistake- not always accurate)- Mind and body are separate and interact through
pineal gland- "I think that I am"
John Locke- Mind and body have equal relationship- they depend upon each
other- "All human beings are born as a blank slate"- All behaviour are learnt
through interaction with the world.
Immanuel Kant- Humans have set of faculties (senses, understanding and
reasoning) that work together to control link between mind and body.

Schools of Thoughts:
Structuralism-
Wilhelm Wundt- Nature of consciousness- believed that it was possible to analyse
the basic elements of the mind and conscious experience- Introspection-
Distinguished between sensation and perception
Edward Titchener- found that there were more that 4000 sensations

Functionalism-
William James(Father of Psychology)- How and why behaviours takes place/ mind
works as it does.
Functionalism movement--> Pragmatism- Knowledge is valuable for its usefulness
Pragmatists- Studying phenomena in a way that how this phenomena will help
you do attain certain things- Eg. Learning a language will help you communicate

Associationism-
Examines how the elements of the mind like ideas, feelings, etc., can become
associated with one another.
Contiguity- Associated because events happening close in time- Eg- Cats crossing
your path and you meeting with an accident are associated together.
Contra- Feelings are ideas that are exact opposite to each other. Eg- Feeling very
happy or sad. Hot or cold
 Hermann Ebbinghaus- studies how people learn and remember through rehearsal
or repetition
Edward Thorndike- Principle of Law of Effect- The effect of reward on behaviour-
Rewarded behaviours tend to repeat- Eg-:Training dogs with treats.

Behaviourism-
Ivan Pavlov- Classical Conditioning
John. B. Watson- Father of behaviourism- Mind is a 'black box'- Stimulus--Black
Box--Response- Response to wide range of stimulus.
B.F.Skinner- Operant Conditioning- Reinforcements and Punishments

Gestalt School of Psychology-

Wolfgang Kohler- Germany
Gestalt Psychology- "Whole is greater than sum of its parts"- Holistic approach

Emergence of Cognitive Psychology

1950s- Cognitive Revolution
Cognitivism- Rejects the notion that psychology should not study mental processes
because they are unobservable.
Karl Lashley- Brain is active and dynamic organizer of behaviour
Donald Hebb-
Hebbian theory is a neuroscientific theory claiming that an increase in synaptic
efficacy arises from a presynaptic cell's repeated and persistent stimulation of a
postsynaptic cell.
It is an attempt to explain synaptic plasticity, the adaptation of brain neurons
during the learning process.
Assembly of cells- A group of neurons that perform a given action or represent a
given percept or concept in brain.
Noam Chomsky- defied reinforcement- Human mind actively processes information
and actively creates something new.
Edward Tolman- Maze experiment- Mind is active processor of information- Similar to
Chomsky

Allen Turing- Turing test

1956- AI was born
George Miller- Introduces the concept of channel capacity was he proposed that the
vision observer can match a response to a presented information you know is a round
seven- Maximum memory capacity- Magic number 7
Ulric Niesser- 1967- Book on CP
1970s- CP as a field of study in psychology.

Foundations of CP
Mental Representations
Difference between internal and external world
Abstract- Designate something that is defined without reference to the material/
physical world- Thoughts, beliefs, emotions- do not have physical existence
Basic Foundation of CP- Mind is a mental entity and brain is a physical entity
Steve Pinker- How the Mind Works- Book
Behaviouristic Explanation
Laws of Behaviour- Contains laws on physical and observable things that can be
measured.

Law of Effect- Thorndike- Response leads to learning- Negative(no repetition)

Positive(repetition)
"Any given humans / animal will seek pleasurable thing or un-pleasurable things."
"Given two outcomes the human will always choose the pleasurable outcome over the
un-pleasurable outcome."

Stimulus- Response: S-R- Strengthened or Weakened

Principle of Associationism- Frequency(repetition) and Recency(time)

Association formation depends upon causation

Logical Behaviourism- Extreme position that rules out the discussion of anything but
observable events and entities in accounts of behaviour.
Behavioural Disposition- Guide behavior at any moment in time are themselves the
product of past behavioral consequences- from Direct or Indirect experiences
Churchland Notes(1984)- Mental entities- shorthand way of talking about actual and
potential patterns of behaviour.

Searle- Explaining behaviour without personal thoughts and feelings is difficult.

Cognitivist view
Assumption that there is an abstract entity called mind
Mind- Mental states + Mental processes
Testable predictions or hypothesis
Genuine Theory- Verifiable, refutable, can be attempted to falsify, confirming evidence,
simple.

Central State Identity Theory

Mental states are intimately connected to what goes in our brains.
Attempts have been made to map connections between mental events and
neurological events.
Assumption is two are related but CP involves how.

Type Identity Theory Token Identity Theory

Asserts that mental

events corresponds to
neurological events
Each type of mental
events maps onto a
But There is
different type of
acceptance that a
neurological event.
variety of neurological
event may underlie the
mental  event.

Problem- Different
types of neural events
Difficult to understand
might be underlying
subjective experiences
the same thoughts in
two different brains.
Different Brains Problem- Searle

Schematic Diagram- Specifies each component and shows how they are connected to
one another- Hierarchy of control(may reveal)

Functionalism- Possible to see how 2 brain states may underlie the same mental event
Mental state is defined purely in term of its functions- Function is then defined in term
of its causation.

Abstracts + Scientifically testable + only Functional Description