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Outline
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The Science of the Mind
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Introspectionism
Behaviorism
Cognitive Psychology
Models of the Mind
– Black box
– Jukebox
– The mind box
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Sternberg task
Introspectionism
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Method:
– ask your subjects
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Strength:
– First-Person Privileged Access
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Edward
Titchener
(1867-1927)
Shortcomings:
– It provides access to products of thinking, rather than the
processes that underlie it.
– It relies on conscious report: Many interesting mental
events are unconscious (e.g. memory retrieval, or visual
processes that lead to perceptual illusions).
Behaviorism
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Method:
– Study stimulus-response relations
Stimulus
Response
Example of Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning
1. sight of food
2. bell & food together
3. bell alone
STIMULUS
 salivation
 salivation
 salivation
 RESPONSE
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
Behaviorism
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Emphasis on what can be directly observed.
– Stimuli  Responses
– Reinforcements / Rewards
Ignore the mind (unobservable).
Behaviorism
Strengths:
– rigorous scientific observation
– controlled laboratory settings
– Applicable to certain areas (e.g., learning: pairing
of stimuli and responses)
Behaviorism
Shortcomings:
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Limiting science to observable things is a bad
idea. Theories are about unobservables
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Can’t account for much of human behavior.
Behaviorism
Cannot explain:
– Language
– Attention
– Spatial learning & Cognitive Maps
Behaviorism
Cannot explain:
– Language (Chomsky, 1959)
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Novel words, over-generalizations, no feedback
– ‘mano’ (hand) -> ‘nano’ (meaningless)
– ‘no mas’ (no more) -> ‘ma no’
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Vs. Associative Learning (Baldwin, 1992)
– Referential looking
Noam Chomsky
Behaviorism
Cannot explain:
– Attention
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Change blindness
– Two different stimulus -> same perception
– Same stimulus -> different perception
Behaviorism
Cannot explain:
– Spatial learning & Cognitive Maps
Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959)
What do Tolman’s Maps look like?
learning can occur without reinforcement: Such
‘latent learning’ goes against standard behavioristic
principles, which claim that learning comes only from
outcomes
Rats learn to follow this path … later they can deduce the
shorter path.
X
X
this ability cannot be explained only by links between stimuli
and responses. A better explanation is to pose the existence of
an internal spatial map
Cognitive Maps in Bees, von Frisch 1967
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behavior of bees returning to
hive after locating nectar
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Can use a symbolic form of
communication
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Different patterns of dances
represent different meanings
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Round dance: source less than 100 yards
from hive
Figure 8 dance: greater distances
Behaviorism
Stimulus
Response
Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT attempt to
understand unobservable mental processes
Behaviorism
Stimulus
Response
Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT attempt to
understand unobservable mental processes
Cognitive Psychology
Stimulus
Response
Study stimulus-response relations to infer the underlying
mental processes. The contents of the mind CAN be studied
scientifically
How to investigate Perception & Cognition
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Ask your subjects (Introspectionism)
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Look at S-R patterns (Behaviorism)
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Infer mental processes (Cognitive Psychology)
– from S-R patterns (Reaction Time, Accuracy)
– from neural patterns (cognitive neuroscience)
Next ….
How cognitive psychologists make inferences
about what’s inside the black box...