Dr Sigrid Lipka

1

• Topics
• What is Cognitive Psychology?
• A bit of history
• What methods are used to study cognitive
  Psychology?
• What topics are covered in lectures?
• How can Cognitive Psychology be applied?

• Dr Sigrid Lipka
• s.lipka_at_derby.ac.uk
• Essential reading
• Eysenck, M. W., Keane M. T. (2001). Cognitive
  psychology. Psychology Press Hove, UK.

2

• What is Cognitive Psychology?
• Cognitive Psychology is the study of normal
  mental function and its relationship with
  behaviour.
• Cognitive Psychologists attempt to explain the
  comprehension of sensory information (e.g.
  vision, hearing, touch), the comprehension and
  production of language, how memory and attention
  work, and how people engage in reasoning or
  problem-solving behaviour.

3

• History of Cognitive Psychology
• Structuralist approach (e.g. Wundt, 1873) used
  introspection techniques to study contents (or
  structure) of mental events.
• Asked questions like Are thoughts composed of
  images or have they an abstract form?
• Introspection is not an object measure, and it is
  difficult to resolve conflicting results that are
  obtained using introspection.

http//www.indiana.edu/intell/wundt.html
4

• Behaviourists (e.g. Watson, 1913)
• attacked structuralist approach as ascientific.
  He argued for need to put Psychology on same
  foundations as physical sciences (physics,
  chemistry).
• Watson emphasised importance of objective
  measurement and testability.
• Watson rejected the study of internal mental
  events as matters that were not open to objective
  measurement.

http//uts.cc.utexas.edu/kensicki/watson-behav.ht
ml
5

• Behaviourists (e.g. Skinner, 1957) argued that
  human behaviour could be explained in terms of
  the learned relationship between stimuli
  response.
• Many behaviourists considered that it was
  unnecessary to include mental variables (or
  unseen variables) to explain behaviour.

http//www.bfskinner.org/
6

• Behaviourist were forced to recognise the need
  for mental variables (sometimes called
  intervening variables), e.g.
• Tolman (1948) argued that rats solved maze
  problems by learning cognitive maps rather than
  learning a complex relationship between stimilus
  and response.
• Rats could solve same maze under different
  stimulus conditions (e.g. dry versus flooded
  mazes).

http//psychclassics.yorku.ca/Tolman/Maps/maps.htm
7
INPUT

• The development of Cognitive Psychology also was
  influenced by the appearance of the computer and
  of the information-processing approach.
• The information-processing approach emphasises
  the need to explain the sequence of
  transformations that input information undergoes
  in order for a computer to generate an output
  response.

PROCESS 1
PROCESS 2
PROCESS 3
INPUT
8

• Key issues in Cognitive Psychology
• Nature vs. Nurture - to what extent are
  behaviours learned or inherited?
• Rationality vs Empiricism - to what extend are
  behaviours the product of experience or thought.
• Structure vs process - to what extent should
  theories describe mental structures or mental
  processes? (e.g. two-stage model of memory vs.
  levels of processing).
• Modularity - To what extent is one cognitive
  domain closed off from other cognitive domains,
  e.g. bottom-up vs top-down processes.

9

• Methods
• Emphasis experimental control and accurate
  measurement of response. Manipulate one factor
  while keeping others constant.
• Cannot directly view mental events, therefore use
  indirect measures decisions, reaction times,
  electrophysiological measures, eye movements,
  brain activity.

Draw inferences about nature of underlying mental
events.
10

• Topics covered in lectures
• Visual perception - how do people process visual
  information and recognise visual objects?
• Key question - what is the relative importance of
  bottom-up processing of visual input and top-down
  knowledge and expectation about what is being
  seen?

What can you see in the above picture?
11

• Divided attention - to what extent can you divide
  your attention between tasks?
• e.g. can you write an essay while watching
  television or listening to the radio?
• Driving requires simultaneously performing
  several tasks.

• Attention - selective attention and divided
  attention.
• Selective attention - how do we focus attention
  on one source of information while ignoring other
  sources?
• e.g. how do you listen to me talking while
  ignoring people next to you?

12

• Read the following list of numbers
• 3 6 4 7 2 8 1 8 5 8 3 9 0
• How many of these can you remember?
• What is the capital of France?
• How did you know that?

• Memory - What is the structure of memory?
• Most researchers distinguish between a temporary
  memory for holding information over short
  periods, and longer term stores for holding
  information over a longer period, or permanently.

13

• Speech comprehension - What sequence of mental
  events enable you to understand spoken language?
• Listeners must take in stream of speech, divide
  it into component sounds (called phonemes) and
  combine these to form words.
• What is the relative importance of bottom-up and
  top-down processes?

• Reading behaviour - What sequence of mental
  events enable you to read and understand written
  language?
• Reader move their eyes over words on page,
  recognise each word and combine words to form
  meaningful sentences.
• Again, what is the relative importance of
  bottom-up and top-down processes?

14

• Reasoning - To what extent to people reason
  according to rules of logic?
• Does the following logical problem have the
  correct answer?
• Some cats are xenopheds No animals are xenopheds
  Therefore, some animals are not cats
• How does logic and knowledge interact during
  reasoning?

• Problem-solving - Can you solve the following
  problem? Draw 4 lines connecting all of the dots
  without lifting your pen from the paper.

15

• Artificial intelligence - Cognitive Psychology
  has close links with AI.
• AI has the aim of creating artificial systems
  that can perform intelligently.
• Some Psychologists use AI as a means of testing
  theories about human intelligence and behaviour.
  Is it possible to design systems that exhibit the
  same cognitive behaviours as do people?

• Other related disciplines
• Cognitive Science - mixing of Philosophy,
  Linguistics, Computer Science and Psychology.
• Cognitive Neuropsychology study of abnormal
  cognitive function in clinical setting using
  theories and methods derived from cognitive
  psychology.

16

• Applications of cognitive psychology.
• There is a lot of applied research that employs
  cognitive psychological theory and methods
• Driving behaviour
• Product design
• Visual behaviour
• Object / face recognition
• Human-machine interaction

• Example inspection of medical and non-medical
  x-ray images

17

• Summary
• Cognitive Psychology is the study of mental
  events and human behaviour.
• It emphasises an information processing approach,
  and is a response to the weaknesses of
  structuralist and behaviourist approaches.

• Cognitive Psychologists research aspects of
  memory perception attention, and language
  thought.
• Applied research focuses on memory, attention and
  reasoning during complex tasks, visual behaviour
  and problem-solving.