Cognitive Psychology Chapter 1.3 Introduction

1. Cognitive Psychology Chapter 1.3 Introduction

2. Sept. 11, 2014 Chapter 1.3 - Introduction • Outline • The birth of cognitive psychology • Contributions from other fields • • Communications • • Human engineering • • Computer Science • • Linguistics • The Hixon symposium • Sept. 11, 1956 • • The 1960s • Assumptions of cognitive psychology Study Question. • What were the contributions of non-psychological fields of study to the development of cognitive psychology?

3. History of Cognitive Psychology 1990 Cognitive Science Neuroscience Ethology Anthropology 1980 1970 Linguistics Chomsky Cognitive Psychology Computer Science Information Science 1960 1950 D.O. Hebb Verbal Learning 1940 B.F. Skinner 1930 Neobehaviourism 1920 Behaviourism Watson Gestalt Psychology 1910 1900 Functionalism James Ebbinghaus 1890 Structuralism Titchener Associationism 1880 Experimental Psychology Wündt (1879) Natural Sciences Physiology Psychophysics Philosophy

4. History of Cognitive Psychology • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • WW II • Human engineering • Brain-damaged soldiers • Advances in Communications • Information theory and the human information processor • Development of servo-mechanical devices • Tackling teleology (purposeful behaviour) • The development of the computer • AI / Simulations • Analogy

5. History of Cognitive Psychology • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • WW II and Human Engineering • Limits of the behaviourist approach • Problems of perception, judgment, decision making, problem solving • Fitts and Jones (1947) • 50% of pilot errors in operating aircraft controls involved using the wrong control devices • Aircraft Position of Control • Left Centre Right • B-25 throttle prop mixture • C-47 prop throttle mixture • C-82 mixture throttle prop • Mappings between locations and functions needed to be consistent and unambiguous. • WW2: in first 2 years of combat, over 2,000 multi-engine U.S. aircraft crashed because the landing gear and wing flap controls could not be discriminated from one another by location, feel, or direction of movement. • • Design error, not "pilot" error.

6. History of Cognitive Psychology • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • WW II and Human Engineering • “Human / machine system” concept • Humans as receivers, processors, and transmitters of information. • From human engineering, cognitive psychology has retained: • Humans as information processors • Processing limits • Government interest in funding (e.g., NASA)

7. History of Cognitive Psychology Claude Elwood Shannon (1916 - 2001) • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • Advances in Communications Engineering • Information theory and human information channels • Contributions of Claude Shannon • Father of information theory • A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits (1938) • “The most important masters thesis of the Century” (Gardner, 1985) • Laid the groundwork for the Boolean basis of computers • Introduced the concept of a bit • What is information? • > Information reduces uncertainty • > One bit reduces uncertain by 1/2

8. History of Cognitive Psychology Claude Elwood Shannon (1916 - 2001) • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • Advances in Communications Engineering • Contributions of Claude Shannon • E.g., Locating a space on a checker board • 0 = up, 1 = down; 0 = left, 1 = right; up/down, left/right, etc. 1 1 0 1 0 0

9. History of Cognitive Psychology • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • From communications engineering, cognitive psychology retained: • Coding • Limited channel capacity • Serial and parallel transmission / processing

10. History of Cognitive Psychology • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • The Hixon Symposium (Sept. 1948) • “Cerebral Mechanisms in Behaviour” • John von Neumann • Compared the newly developed electronic computer to the brain • Warren McCulloch • “Why the Mind is in the Head” • - Compared the nervous system to “logical circuits” • Karl Lashley • “The Problem of Serial Order in Behaviour”

11. History of Cognitive Psychology George Miller (1920 - ) • The Birth of Cognitive Psychology • Miller’s recollections • Cognitive science as a counter-revolution • Birthdate of Cognitive Science: Sept. 11, 1956 • Key events in 1956: • • Bruner, Goodenough, & Austin publish “A Study of Thinking” • • Tanner & Swets apply signal detection theory to perception • • Miller’s “magical number” paper is published • • Carol publishes a volume of Whorf’s works on the effects of language on thought • • Sept 11: Symposium at M.I.T. by the “Special Interest Group in Information theory” • - Newell & Simon with a “logic machine” • - Rochester used a computer to test Hebb’s cell assemblies theory • - Chomsky laid the foundations for “Syntactic Stuctures” • - Other papers discussed the speed of perceptual processes and SDT.

12. History of Cognitive Psychology • Cognitive Psychology - A child of the 1960s • Key events in 1960 • The “revolution” revisited • Harvard Center for Cognitive Studies (Miller/Bruner; 1960) • Sternberg’s dissertation (1960) • Miller, et al. (1960). Plans and the structure of behaviour • Fodor & Katz’s (1964) The Structure of Language • Neisser’s (1967) Cognitive Psychology textbook.

13. History of Cognitive Psychology • The Assumptions of Cognitive Psychology • Mental processes exist. • Mental processes can be studied scientifically. • We are active information processors. • Miller’s Informavores • The brain does it.