Activity (2 pts)

1. Activity (2 pts) • One main claim from Pinker reading that you found provocative / insightful / useful. • One main claim from Pinker reading that you found confusing / problematic. X

2. What is Cognitive Psychology?Computational Theory of Mind Five Key Features: • Posits a level of analysis wholly separate from the biological or neurological • Faith that central to any understanding of the human mind is the computer • Deliberate decision to de-emphasize certain factors that may be important but complicate things (emotion, history/culture, role of context) • Faith in interdisciplinary studies (philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience) • Claim that a key ingredient in contemporary cognitive psych. is the agenda of issues which have long exercised epistemologists in the Western philosophical tradition

3. Computational Theory of Mind & Memory • Despite huge variation in human capacities, we all come equipped with same info-processing system • Outline of Today’s Lecture • Review fundamental aspects ofhuman computational system • Contrast humans & computers(what makes humans unique?) • Connectionist models (briefly)

5. multiple forms of energy (light, sound, pressure, etc) one common form Initial Reception of Info. • Information, in form of physical energy (light, sound, pressure etc) is received by receptors to particular energy forms (e.g. rods & cones) • Receptors send signals in form of electrochemical impulses to brain • Thus, the first transformation of information: • Nerve impulse goes to central nervous system, where it is registered in immediate memory • different immediate memories for different senses: iconic, echoic • Immediate memory holds a fairly complete representation of incoming sensory information for extremely brief period of time

6. Selective Perception • Selective Attention: Focusing on what is most important in a stimulus array • Biological tendency (thanks to evolution) = sudden loud noises, motion, light/dark contrast • Expertise in a domain = ability to attend to the most important parts of a stimulus (e.g. chess) • The pattern knowledge we acquire over a lifetime increases the accuracy of selective perception of items in familiar contexts • Perception is influenced by: • Prior knowledge • Context of the stimulus itself Perception is as much a “top-down” process as it is a “bottom-up” process

7. Working Memory • Working Memory: Awareness (what you are aware of at any given moment is said to be in your WM) • Information stored here decays within ~ 10 seconds unless rehearsed (e.g. telephone #) • WM holds 7 2 units of information (Miller, 1956), hence it is the ‘bottleneck’ of info.processing • WM functions as a mental workspace (like a scratchpad of sorts) • Because of limited capacity, it’s difficult to perform several (cognitively demanding) tasks as once • One way around the limitations of WM is “automating” tasks (e.g., decoding text) • Automatic processes: processes performed without much awareness • Controlled processes: processes that require a lot attention

8. Storage & Long-Term Memory • Information in working memory can be stored in long-term memory (LTM) • Storage: a set of processes by which new information is integrated in various ways with known information • Function of LTM: store information for later use • LTM:long duration (perhaps even a lifetime) • inability to remember is more a failure of finding a good retrieval cue than loss of information Exercise: • Name people in your high-school graduating class x • Common results: • recall difficult until good retrieval cues found, such as… • thinking systematically about subgroups of students • “kids in my neighborhood” • “kids in my chemistry class” • “kids who beat me up”

9. We stopped here & will continue with the rest tomorrow.

10. Retrieval • Retrieval: a set of processes that put information stored in LTM into a state in which it can be used for current processing • Different for controlled & automatic processing… • Controlled processing • LTM  WM • Retrieval means becoming aware of the stored info. • activation: Process of re-establishing awareness of it • e.g. when students recall facts for a test • Automatic processing • LTM  effectors • Retrieval by pattern-matching processes • e.g. 26x 32x • guide for the sequence of steps you take is automatically retrieved when you recognize the familiar pattern of numbers & multiplication sign (contra, ex. Mult.tables)

11. Response Generation & Effectors • When we wish to respond to a stimulus, the response has to be sequenced in some way • e.g., physical responses, language • Response Generation: activities that organize the sequence of responses and send messages for the appropriate effectors to execute the sequence • Effectors: • Muscles • Glands • Arms • hands • voice apparatus, etc.

12. Control Processes • Flow of information in the human system is generally organized around achieving some purpose • In other words, mental computations are not random • Control Processes: the processes that guide and monitor information-processing events. • Goal setting • Planning how to achieve goals • Monitoring goal attainment • Revising plans • When we consciously use such processes, we are said to be using metacognitive processes (‘meta’ = ‘above’) • In contrast to metacognitive processes… • some control processes, either innately or through learning, are deployed automatically. • Not metacognitive because not ‘above’ the processing event but rather part of it • In learned, automated skills, the flow of control is embedded in the skill (e.g., sequence as a control structure)

13. Computational Theory of Mind & Memory • Despite huge variation in human capacities, we all come equipped with same info-processing system • Outline of Today’s Lecture • Review fundamental aspects ofhuman computational system • Contrast humans & computers(what makes humans unique?) • Connectionist models (briefly)

14. Humans vs. Computers Similarities Differences

15. interconnectedness of information in human memory Humans vs. Computers

16. Human vs. Computers • Human dependency on context allows for learning & adaptation to take place • Our tendency for partial memory allows us to think of novel solutions to problems Thus, the human information processing system has evolved to be adaptive

17. Computational Theory of Mind & Memory • Despite huge variation in human capacities, we all come equipped with same info-processing system • Outline of Today’s Lecture • Review fundamental aspects ofhuman computational system • Contrast humans & computers(what makes humans unique?) • Connectionist models (briefly)

18. Connectionism • How is the mind instantiated in the brain? • We have detailed neural models of low level cognition (e.g. how we perceive a line) • We have NO specified neural models of more advanced cognitive processes (e.g., how we remember facts about people or judge their character) • Traditionally, the more advanced aspects of human cognition have only been discussed in terms of abstract information processing models EXCEPT… • Recent efforts to develop models of higher-level processes that are better grounded in our understanding of neural processing • Start with general knowledge of how neurons work • Ask the Q: how could higher-level function be achieved by connecting together basic elements like neurons • Connectionism

19. Connectionism • Connectionism: Theory and research concerned with ways of connecting neural elements together to account for higher-level cognition • Example: McClelland & Rummelhart’s PDP model • PDP = parallel distributed processing • models how neural elements are interconnected & simultaneously interact with each other  X

20.  How many can you remember? 3 9 5 8 3 1 2 9 5 5 3 4 6 8 4 0 1 5 4 8

21. Activity (3 pts) • Read 'Thanks for the Memories' • What import might this have for a teacher in a classroom? (One paragraph) X