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Cognitive Psychology Lucie Johnson What is Cognitive Psychology? Cognitive psychology is interested in attention, reasoning, judgment, concept formation, memory, language etc.
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Cognitive Psychology Lucie Johnson
What is Cognitive Psychology? • 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
Early contributions (1) • 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
Early contributions (2) • 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.
The rise of Cybernetics • 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
Harvard’s Center for Cognitive Studies • 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
Artificial Intelligence (1) • 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?
Artificial Intelligence (2) • The American association for Artificial Intelligence • AI lab at MIT • AI Depot
Cognitive Neuroscience • Cognitive neuroscience society • Center for cognitive neuroscience