PSYC 213 Lecture 2 Other influential philosophers - Augustine (354-430 CE) o felt the mind is he interface between the world and the divine o Believed that memory is the root of physiological function - Aquinas (1225-1274) o Distinguished between the soul and reason o Senses help us acquire knowledge that governs reason - Philosophers and psychologists are very intertwined. Cognitive psychology - Three main stages of cognitive psych o Human experimental psych (1950's/60's) " Lead to research in memory, attention, problem solving and language o Computer analogies information-processing approach (1970's) " Lead to research in artificial intelligence and computer simulation o Cognitive neuroscience (19tt0) " Lead to research in brain damage effects on cognition - The classic view of psych o "we are processors of info" o not one theory but views related to many other scientific fields o main idea: the world contains info for us to store and process o focusses on the processes that transform/store/recover sense and perceptions. o Basic assumptions of this info processing approach: " The mind is general purpose processing system that performs a series of specific computations. " The mind carries out tasks as programmed sequential steps, each step is a sequence changes its immediate predecessor . Info flows from one step to the next · The aim is to specify the processes that underlie performance at each step. " Processes these steps takes time and resources . This limits the amounts of mental activity that can occur at one time . If processing takes time, then how long it takes to do something can provide insight into how much cognitive resources are used. . The most basic unit of info is a Bit Stands for binary digit
o For cognitive psych, the idea of the bit allows us to make predictions about the functions of info in our environment. o Information theory: the function of info is to reduce uncertainty in the mind of the receiver " The amounts of info provided in a message is inversely related to its probability of occurrence " The less likely an event, the more info it conveys. o William hick (1952): determined the relationship between choice reaction time and information content of stimuli with this experiment " Participants saw a display of 10 lamps " One lamps lit up every few seconds, participant's responses to a light by pressing a key " Manipulated the number of lamps that could light up across trails . Sometimes only one of the ten lamp could light up · Sometimes any of the ten lamps could light up . Results showed that the reaction time to respond to a light when it was slit increased as the number of light alternatives increased . People were slower to detect a light could be lit at the second intervals than when only one light would be lit at the 5 second intervals " Hicks law: a mathematical equation to shows that the more info contained in a signal (the more