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Cognitivism. Last Week: Behaviourism. Cognitivism. The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviourism in 1960s/1970s as the dominant paradigm.
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Cognitivism • The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviourism in 1960s/1970s as the dominant paradigm. • We recall Chomsky's argument that language could not be acquired purely through conditioning (even though radical behaviourists never argued that), and must be at least partly explained by the existence of internal mental states.
Cognitivism • Cognitivism argues that the “black box” of the mind should be opened and understood. • The learner is viewed as an information processor. • …or a computer
Cognitivism • Mental processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problem-solving need to be explored. • Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions. • Learning is defined as change in a learner’s schemata.
SHOCK – HORROR - DISMAY • There is a great deal of ambiguity in the education literature as to what constitutes Cognitivism, and how it different from Constructivism • What follows is my take on things…
SHOCK – HORROR - DISMAY • There is a great deal of ambiguity in the education literature as to what constitutes Cognitivism, and how it different from Constructivism • What follows is my take on things… Proto-Cognitivism Cognitivism Cognitive Constructivism Constructivism
Gestalt Psychology • Gestalt - "essence or shape of an entity's complete form" • "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" is often used when explaining Gestalt theory.
Gestalt Psychology • But it is better stated that the qualities of the whole have additional qualities that that parts do not have, e.g. the four lines on the right have the additional quality of “squareness” that the lines on the left do not.
Gestalt Psychology • Gestaltists see objects as perceived within an environment according to all of their elements taken together as a global construct.
Max Wertheimer • Born April 15, 1880 • Died Oct 12, 1943 • Born in Prague, Czech Republic • Psychologist • Father of Gestalt psychology
Inspiration • In 1910 he bought a toy stroboscope • He saw two separate and alternating light patterns • He discovered that if the spacing, on-time, and off-time were just right for these lights, his mind would perceive the dual lights as one single flashing light moving back and forth
Phi phenomenon • a perceptual illusion in which a perception of motion is produced by a succession of still images. • Lead to important questions about how perception and the brain works.
Kurt Koffka • Born March 18, 1886 • Died Nov 22, 1941 • Born in Berlin, Germany • Psychologist • Another of the founders of Gestalt psychology • Learning theorist
Theories on learning • Koffka believed that most of early learning is what he referred to as, "sensorimotor learning," which is a type of learning which occurs after a consequence. For example, a child who touches a hot stove will learn not to touch it again.
Theories on learning • Koffka also believed that a lot of learning occurs by imitation, though he argued that it is not important to understand how imitation works, but rather to acknowledge that it is a natural occurrence. • According to Koffka, the highest type of learning is “ideational learning”, which makes use of language.
Wolfgang Köhler • Born in Jan 21, 1887 • Died in June 11, 1967 • Born in Reval (now Tallinn), Estonia • Psychologist and phenomenologist • Another of the founders of Gestalt psychology
In 1913, Köhler went to the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands for six years Köhler observed the manner in which chimpanzees solve problems, such as that of retrieving bananas when positioned out of reach. He found that they stacked wooden crates to use as makeshift ladders, in order to retrieve the food. If the bananas were placed on the ground outside of the cage, they used sticks to lengthen the reach of their arms. Problem solving
Köhler concluded that the chimps had not arrived at these methods through trial-and-error (which American psychologist Edward Thorndike had claimed to be the basis of all animal learning, through his law of effect), but rather that they had experienced an insight (also sometimes known as an “aha experience”), in which, having realized the answer, they then proceeded to carry it out in a way that was, in Köhler’s words, “unwaveringly purposeful”. Problem solving
"Bouba" "Kiki"
The Bouba/Kiki Effect was first observed by German-American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. The bouba/kiki effect
The bouba/kiki effect • In psychological experiments, first conducted on the island of Tenerife (in which the primary language is Spanish), Köhler showed forms in the previous slides asked participants which shape was called "takete" and which was called "baluba" ("maluma" in the 1947 version). Data suggested a strong preference to pair the jagged shape with "takete" and the rounded shape with "baluba".
The bouba/kiki effect • In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Köhler's experiment using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India “Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?” • In both the English and the Tamil speakers, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain is somehow able to extract abstract properties from the shapes and sounds.
The bouba/kiki effect • Recent work by Daphne Maurer and colleagues has shown that even children as young as 2.5 (too young to read) show this effect. • Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest that the kiki/bouba effect has implications for the evolution of language, because it suggests that the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary.
The bouba/kiki effect • The rounded shape may most commonly be named "bouba" because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to make the sound "kiki". • The sounds of a K are harder and more forceful than those of a B, as well.
The bouba/kiki effect • The presence of these "synesthesia-like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and events in the world.
The bouba/kiki effect • Individuals with autism do not show as strong a preference. Where average people agree with the typical result 90% of the time, individuals with autism only agree 60% of the time (Ramachandran, V.S., Oberman, L.M. Evidence for Deficits in Mirror Neuron Function, Multisensory Integration, and Sound-form Symbolism in Autism Spectrum Disorders)
Gestalt Principles • Emergence • Reification • Multistability • Invariance • Prägnanz
Principle of Emergence • Objects in an images are not recognised by their component parts, but are rather perceived as a whole, all at once.
Principle of Emergence • The dog is not recognized by first identifying its parts (feet, ears, nose, tail, etc.), and then inferring the dog from those component parts. • Instead, the dog is perceived as a whole, all at once.
Principle of Reification • the experienced percept contains more explicit spatial information than the sensory stimulus on which it is based.
Principle of Multistability • the tendency of ambiguous perceptual experiences to pop back and forth unstably between two or more alternative interpretations.
Principle of Invariance • the property of perception whereby simple geometrical objects are recognized independent of rotation, translation, and scale; as well as several other variations such as elastic deformations, different lighting, and different component features.
Principle of Prägnanz • we tend to order our experience in a manner that is regular, orderly, symmetric, and simple. • This results in other more basic laws • Law of Closure • Law of Similarity • Law of Proximity • Law of Continuity • Law of Common Fate
Law of Closure • The mind may experience elements it does not perceive through sensation, in order to complete a regular figure (that is, to increase regularity).
Law of Similarity • The mind groups similar elements into collective entities or totalities. This similarity might depend on relationships of form, colour, size, or brightness.
Law of Proximity • Spatial or temporal proximity of elements may induce the mind to perceive a collective or totality.
