Three topics:

1

• Three topics
• Pre-history of study of cognition
• 2. Early history
• 3. Recent history

2
Pre-history of study of Cognition
3

• Classical times
• No integrated model of mind.
• Reference to many functions, but not to relations
  among these functions.
• Analogy Homer has words for limbs, muscles,
  bones, joints, but not for body.
• Rich, complex behaviour seen as produced by an
  interaction among parts.

4

• Imagine describing a library
• By listing the books it holds, or
• By describing its functions, or
• By developing a theory of what libraries are and
  how they work
• Homeric model of mind was like the list.

5

• Classical times
• 2. Causes of behaviour
• A. Gods and demons
• Basic idea behaviour comes from outside the
  person, not from inside
• Note similar views today e.g., television causes
  violence, or images cause anorexia.

6

• Classical times
• B. Internal organs
• e.g., he doesnt have the stomach for it.
• my heart is broken.
• brain had no special status

7

• Early History of Study of Psychology
• Rene Descartes
• John Locke
• 19th century German physiologists
• Darwin

8
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
9

• Descartes
• Grew up during chaos of Thirty Years War.
• System and order were very important to him.
• Knew that animals share many psychological
  functions with humans (e.g., learning).
• But there are some things we do that animals do
  not do these are the most interesting.

10

• Descartes
• We are conscious in a way that animals are not
  (we are self-aware)
• Our consciousness allows us to think and use
  language.
• This made how humans are different from animals
  the central issue for psychology.

11

• Descartes argued
• animals do not have the same sort of
  consciousness we do,
• (b) animals do not have souls,
• (c) the soul is the seat of consciousness.
• The problem for a science that does not recognize
  the soul is, what is consciousness?

12
John Locke (1632-1704)
13
Locke (1) Against divine right of kings to
rule. (2) Against idea that some people are
special, and should rule because of that. (3)
All people are born as blank slates, and that
knowledge comes from experience. (4) So, anybody
with right experience can govern.
14

• Locke two types of knowledge
• Sensation
• sensory impressions of the world
• Reflection
• combining sensory impressions (association)
• only source of complex knowledge

15
Interim summary In classical Greece, complexity
of behaviour seen as due to interaction of many
parts agencies. Descartes said most functions
similar in humans and animals. Distinctively-human
(complex) behaviour produced by thinking, which
is done by the soul. Locke argued that behaviour
is driven by knowledge and knowledge comes from
experience
16

• 19th Century German physiologists
• Physiology an established science
• Studied nerve conduction speed
• Developed psychophysics
• Showed you can have a science of behaviour
• Led to first psychology lab at Leipzig in 1879

17

• Darwin (1809-1882)
• people, animals evolved from common ancestors.
• human functions evolved from animal functions.

18

• Darwin
• Continuity paradox some human functions have no
  animal analogue (e.g., language).
• Descartes had made what was different about
  humans the central problem.
• After Darwin, Psychology focused on what was
  shared with animals learning.

19
Interim summary 19th century physiologists
studied nerve conduction speed. This made study
of mental states respectable. Darwin made
continuity of function between humans and animals
central tenet of psychology.
20

• 3. Recent history
• World War II technology
• World War II movements of refugees
• Computer science
• Linguistics

21

• World War II - technology
• More complex machines and weaponry
• Psychologists brought in to answer new questions
• E.g., how can fighter cockpit be designed to
  improve pilots information processing?
• How long can a radar operator be on station
  before performance falls off?

22

• Problem
• Behaviourists had no relevant knowledge or
  research techniques.
• They studied learning in pigeons and rats.
• Accounts of behaviour involved life history, not
  current state of the organism.
• Behaviourists had to start all over again.

23

• World War II Movements of refugees
• Many psychologists uprooted in Europe went to N.
  America
• Tended not to have Behaviourist biases
• Didnt mind referring to mental events
• Met U.S. psychologists returning from military

24

• Computer Science
• Computers capable of sophisticated behaviour
• Program specifies processes that produce that
  behaviour
• Psychologists wanted to find the program for
  human cognition

25

• Linguistics
• Two contributions from Noam Chomsky
• Attacked Behaviourism devastating review of
  Skinners book Verbal Behavior (1959)
• 2. Developed Transformational Generative Grammar
  in the fifties.

26

• Chomskys Review of Verbal Behavior
• Showed language function cannot be explained in
  terms of reinforcement.
• Tranformational Generative Grammar
• Infinite of utterances from finite set of
  words finite number of rules for combining
• A theory of mental processes

27
All these threads came together in the 1950s, a
time of great change in North America
28
It was the 50s. Fins were in. Vinyl was in
demand. Elvis was thin.
And governments were throwing money at the
universities.
29
Graduate schools opened up and turned out lots of
young turks. Like all young turks, they thought
the old farts were wrong about everything.
Including psychology. Change was unavoidable.
30
That change produced a new way of understanding
human mental function. That new way focused on
mental representations and the processes that
operate on them. It was called Cognitive
Psychology.
31

• Quick evaluation
• On a piece of paper, please write down one or two
  sentences about each of
• What you liked best about todays lecture.
• What you still have some confusion about.
• Be constructive but dont put your name on the
  paper! (Please hand it in as you leave.)