• "tabula rasa" (blank slate)
• Wilhelm Wundt

- established 1^st laboratory for psychology experiments in 1879
- developed Introspection method

• Edward Titchener

• Structuralism
• Hermann von Ebbinghaus

• studied memory and association
• created "nonsense syllables" (CVC)
• measured "savings score"
• William James

- Functionalism

• Behaviorism- the scientific study of observable, quantifiable behavior
• John B. Watson
• B.F. Skinner

• "Verbal Behavior" 1957
• The Cognitive Revolution (mid 1950’s)

- article "The misbehavior of organisms"
- World War II
- Linguistics

• Noam Chomsky – 1959 review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior

• Cognitive Psychology, 1960’s

- Cherry – human selective attention

- Information processing model

• Invention of the computer

1. Mental processes exist
2. People are active information processors
3. Mental processes & structures can be revealed by time and accuracy measures (mental events take time) RT; msec

What Cognitive Psychologists Do

(4 examples p. 7-10)

• independent and dependent measures; Heuristics

1. Active processing of information
2. Cognition depends on previous experience and knowledge
3. Processing abilities are limited
4. Cognition involves selective and often incomplete processing
5. Cognition involves parallel processing

Empiricism –vs.- Nativism

• jnd = Just-noticable-difference (provides a measure of human sensation)
• Weber ratio
• Fechner’s law:

• expressed physical intensities in terms of correlated conscious awareness

-Alternative to structuralists reductionism

1. Pragnanz
2. Proximity
3. Similarity
4. Closure
5. Good Continuation
6. Perceptual Ambiguity & Perceptual Illusions

Bistable / Ambiguous Stimuli

1. Template Matching
2. Prototype Model
3. Featural Approaches
4. Structural Theories
5. Analysis-by-synthesis
6. Theory of Direct Perception (*not a constructivist view*)

Structure & Function of the Visual system

1. Retina

Rods
Cones

• small ganglion cells – driven by cones
• Large ganglion cells – color insensitive

1. Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) of Thalamus

• parvocellular region – receives input from small ganglion cells
• Magnocellular region – receives input from large ganglion cells

1. Primary Visual Cortex (V1) & "higher" Visual Areas (V2, V3, V4, V5)

• One of the Parvocellular systems – Color (V4)
• Magnocellular system – Motion (V5)

1. Visual Agnosia
2. Prosopagnosia
3. Achromotopsia
4. Akinetopsia

Behavioral Evidence

1. Brightness alternations can be discriminated faster than color changes
2. Equiluminant moving stripes are not seen as moving

• Eye movements of Infants (how relates to Gestalt view)
• The brain processes involved in perception are acquired gradually with age and experience
• Congenital cataracts
• Newborn kitten studies

• individual differences; learn to recognize distinctive features (e.g., pigeon study and rat study)

1. "Blindsight"
2. the "mere exposure effect"
3. Implicit Memory
4. "subliminal perception"

• Whole report
• Partial report

1. large capacity
2. literal copy of eliciting stimulus
3. very brief duration
4. "forgetting" caused by automatic decay process

• Information processing: limited and selective

• Dichotic listening

• Broadbent
• Unattended "channels" are filtered out prior to semantic processing

1. Late Selection Theories

• name is heard in unattended channel
• all inputs processed beyond physical characteristics

1. Attenuation Model

• Treisman

-limited capacity pool of resources to be allocated as needed

-allows for parallel processing

ex. Divided Attention tasks

• Performance Operating Characteristic (POC)
• Evidence for independent pools
• Possibility of general pool as well

-- Consistent mapping – "automatic" & parallel
-- Varied mapping – serial & controlled

(Table from book – Table 2.3)

• Cuing task: