1. Introduction to Cognitive
Psychology
Chapter 1

2. Outline:
1. Cognitive Psychology Defined
2. From Plato to Cognitive Psychology
1. Philosophical Antecedents of Psychology
2. Psychological Antecedents of Cog Psychology
3. Emergence of Cognitive Psychology
3. Research Methods in Cognitive
Psychology
4. Key Themes in Cognitive Psychology

3. 1. Cognitive Psychology Defined
• Cognitive Psychology
– The study of how people perceive, learn, remember,
and think.
– Examples
• How people perceive various shapes
• Why they remember some facts and forget others
• How they learn language
• Cognition (Ashcraft, 2002)
– The collection of mental processes and activities used
in perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, and
understanding, and the act of using those processes

4. ?
If you wanted to understand how people
think which method would you use?
What would you focus on?

5. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.1.Philosophical Antecedents of Psychology
PLATO (ca. 428-348 B.C) – Rationalism
– Nature of reality
• Reality resides not in the concrete objects we perceive but
in the abstract forms that these objects represent
– How to investigate reality
• Observation is misleading
• The route to knowledge is through logical analysis

6. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.1.Philosophical Antecedents of Psychology
ARISTOTLE (ca. 384-322 B.C) – Empiricism
– Nature of reality
• Reality lies only in the concrete world of objects that our
bodies sense
– How to investigate reality
• The route to knowledge is through empirical evidence,
obtained through experience and observation
• Observations of the external world are the only means to
arrive at truth

7. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.1.Philosophical Antecedents of Psychology
RENE DESCARTES(1596-1650) – Rationalism
– “Cogito ergo sum”
– Mental representations
• Descartes raised, directly or indirectly, virtually all the significant
issues related to the foundations of the science of the mind
• He had taken the principles from his writings on meteors, optics,
mathematics, and mechanics and considered their applicability to
human phenomena
– Innate ideas

8. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.1.Philosophical Antecedents of Psychology
JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)– Empiricism
– “tabula rasa” (“blank slate”)
• both sighted and blind people ought to be able to learn the
meanings of words like statue and feel but the blind ought
to be unable to acquire words like picture and see…
– Learning
– Humans are born without knowledge
• No innate ideas

9. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.2.Psychological Antecedents of Cognitive Psychology
Structuralism
– Goal of psychology
• To understand the structure of the mind and its
perceptions by analyzing those perceptions into their
constituent components
– Method
• Introspection – looking inward at pieces of information
passing through consciousness
– Proponents
• Wilhelm Wundt, Edward Titchener

10. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.2.Psychological Antecedents of Cognitive Psychology
Functionalism
– Goal of psychology
• To study the processes of mind rather than its contents
– Method
• Various methods – introspection, observation, experiment
– Proponents
• William James
– Principles of Psychology (1890)

11. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.2.Psychological Antecedents of Cognitive Psychology
Behaviorism
– Goal of psychology
• To study observable behavior
• Any hypotheses about internal thoughts and ways of
thinking are nothing more than speculation
• We can not say anything meaningful about cognition
– Method
• Animal experiments, conditioning experiments
– Proponents
• John Watson, B.F. Skinner

12. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.2.Psychological Antecedents of Cognitive Psychology
Gestalt Psychology
– Goal of psychology
• To understand psychological phenomena as organized,
structured wholes
• The whole differs from the sum of its parts
– Method
• Various methods – experiment, observation
– Proponents
• Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler

13. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.2. Emergence of Cognitive Psychology
Karl Lashley (1890-1958)
– Psychobiological arguments against behaviorism
– Playing piano
• On a behaviorist, stimulus-response account, an activity
such as rapidly playing a correct sequence of notes from
memory on an instrument would involve an associative
chain of stimuli and responses
• Such associative chains can not explain the behavior;
input is never put into a a static system, but always into a
system which is actively organized

14. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.2. Emergence of Cognitive Psychology
Noam Chomsky
– Linguistic arguments against behaviorism
– Arguments from language acquisition
• Behaviorists can not explain how children can produce
novel sentences they never heard
• Infinite number of sentences we can produce can not be
learned by reinforcement – there must be a cognitive
algorithmic structure in our mind underlying language

15. 2. From Plato to Cognitive
Psychology
2.2. Emergence of Cognitive Psychology
Alan Turing
– Development of first computers
• His “Colossus” computer helped break the German
“Enigma” codes during the World War II
• It has been estimated that this work shortened the war in
Europe by two years
– Analogy between computers and human minds
• Hardware (brain), Software (mind)
• Thinking can be described in terms of algorithmic
manipulation of some information
• These ideas gave rise to the information processing
paradigm in psychology – cognitive psychology

16. ?
What can humans do that computers
can not?
What can computers do that humans
can not?

17. 3. Research Methods in
Cognitive Psychology
How does scientific investigation work?
– Theory development
– Hypotheses formulation
– Hypotheses testing
– Data gathering
– Data analysis
Ecological validity
– The degree to which particular findings in one context
may be considered relevant outside of that context

18. 3. Research Methods in
Cognitive Psychology
1. Controlled laboratory experiments
• Characterization
– An experimenter conducts research in a laboratory
setting in which he controls as many aspects of the
experimental situation as possible
• Advantages
– Enables isolation of causal factors
– Excellent means of testing hypotheses
• Disadvantages
– Often lack of ecological validity

19. 3. Research Methods in
Cognitive Psychology
2. Psychobiological research
• Characterization
– Studies the relationship between cognitive performance
and cerebral events and structures
– Examples: postmortem studies, animal studies, studies
in vivo (PET, fMRI, EEG)
• Advantages
– “hard” evidence of cognitive functions by relating them
to physiological activity
• Disadvantages
– Often very expensive; risk of making inferences about
normal functions based on abnormal brain functioning

20. 3. Research Methods in
Cognitive Psychology
3. Self-reports
• Characterization
– Participant’s reports of own cognition in progress or as
recollected
• Advantages
– Introspective insights from participant’s point of view,
which may be unavailable via other means
• Disadvantages
– Inability to report on processes occurring outside
conscious awareness
– Data gathering may influence cognitive process being
reported

21. ?
• Try reporting aloud the various steps
involved in grasping a pen?
• Now, actually grasp your pen, reporting
aloud the steps you take. Do you notice any
differences between the first task and this
task?
• Can you report exactly how you pulled the
information into conscious awareness?

22. 3. Research Methods in
Cognitive Psychology
4. Case studies
• Characterization
– Intensive study of a single individual
• Advantages
– Richly detailed information about individuals, including
information about historical and current contexts
– Very good for theory development
• Disadvantages
– Small sample; questionable generalization to other
cases

23. 3. Research Methods in
Cognitive Psychology
5. Naturalistic observation
• Characterization
– Observing real-life situations, as in classrooms, work
settings, or homes
• Advantages
– High ecological validity
• Disadvantages
– Lack of experimental control

24. 3. Research Methods in
Cognitive Psychology
6. Computer Simulations and Artificial
Intelligence
• Characterization
– Simulation: Attempt to make computers simulate human
cognitive performance
– AI: Attempt to make computers demonstrate intelligent
cognitive performance (regardless of its resemblance to
human cognitive processing)
• Advantages
– Clear testing of theoretical models and predictions
• Disadvantages
– Limits of hardware and software

25. 4. Key Themes in Cognitive
Psychology
1. Data without a theory is meaningless, theory
without data is empty
• Example: observation that people’s ability to recognize
faces is better than their ability to recall faces
– This is an interesting generalization but it does not explain
why there is such a difference
• A theory provides
– An explanation of data
– Basis for prediction of other data

26. 4. Key Themes in Cognitive
Psychology
2. Cognitive processes interact with each other
and with noncognitive processes
• Even though cognitive psychologists often try to study
specific cognitive processes in isolation, they know
that cognitive processes work together
• Examples
– Memory processes depend on perceptual processes
– Thinking depends on memory
– Motivation interacts with learning

27. 4. Key Themes in Cognitive
Psychology
3. Cognition needs to be studied through a variety
of scientific methods
• There is no one right way to study cognition
• Cognitive psychologists need to learn a
variety of different kinds of techniques to
study cognition

28. 4. Key Themes in Cognitive
Psychology
4. Basic research in cognitive psychology may
lead to application, applied research may lead
to basic understanding
• Basic research often leads to immediate application
– Example: finding that learning is superior when it is spaced
out over time rather than crammed into a short time interval
• Applied research often leads to basic findings
– Example: eyewitness testimony research has enhanced our
basic understanding of memory systems and of the extent to
which humans construct their own memories