Welcome to the third lecture of the series
basic cognitive processes, I am Dr. Ark Verma
assistant professor of psychology in IT Kanpur.
So the third lecture basically is also about
the brief history of cognitive psychology
if you might remember that in the last lecture
we were talking about how is cognitive psychology
developed from philosophy.
We already talked about some of the earlier
philosophers like Hippocrates, Aristotle,
Plato, we also talked about modern philosophers
like Dicaught, Locke and Kant and we basically
then moved on this various schools of thought
that exists in psychology.
We talked about structuralism and now they
wanted to chart a periodic table of human
experience.
We talked about functionalist like William
James who wanted to know why people behave
the way they do.
And then we actually moved on to associationism,
associationism basically talks about how people
connect ideas or events together in time.
We saw how bingos’ basically connected and
apply this principal of associationism to
actually see how a person could learn certain
information using processes called rehearsals.
We also talked about the principals of law
of effect given by Edward Thondaik in which
he says that the person learns a particular
behaviour if he or she is rewarded for doing
that.
Let us today move on to another school of
psychology which had deep impact on how cognitive
psychology developed as a subject.
Now this school of psychology commonly referred
to as behaviorism basically evolved out of
associationism itself.
This people at the same time as the associanist
Edward Thondaik and Harvan bingos had started
doing experiments with animals.
And investigating the various stimulus in
response associations.
These experiments basically led to this emergence
of the field called behaviorism, behaviorism
focus primarily on the relationship between
these stimulus between the behavioral responses
and the environmental stimuli.
Was to move towards the physical from the
mental.
If you remember the last lecture the discourse
was mainly about what is mental, the mental
processes the relationship between the mind
and body and that primarily because the scope
of thought was developing in philosophy.
Gradually it came down to psychology where
you again find the structuralist were also
concern more with the mental than with the
physical realities.
It was associanist so actually talking about
physically when it response to stimuli that
the environment presented.
Let us talk about this Russian Physiology
Ivan Pavlov.
Now Ivan Pavlov basically was a physiologist,
who actually was studying the digestive system
of dogs, and he had kept a dog in his lab
and there was a technician who used to feed
the dog regularly or periodically.
Now what problem actually finds out let whenever
the technician comes to feed the dog the dogs
actually starts salivating there is a salutatory
response when actually they just see the person
who feeds them when they see the technician.
The technician might not be carrying food
at that point in time.
It is still in anticipation that may be we
are going to get food that these dogs are
salivating.
Something interesting is happening here, these
organisms are learning a particular response
from seeing a particular event the event of
coming of this technician.
Pavlov basically then went on to study this
pair more systematically.
He found out that if you pair an almost unrelated
stimulus to a stimulus that is naturally eliciting
a particular kind of a response people can
be made to learn the pairing of these two
stimuli.
Say for example, let us take an example here,
if you actually present food the response
will be the salivating response.
What you do is you start presenting the food
along with the sound of a particular bell.
Now you see that because the bell is presented
with the food the salivating response is still
there.
However, if you repeat this sparing few times
and consistently you will find that the salivating
response can be elucidated by using the bell
alone itself.
Now this pairing basically or this form of
learning which is happening here was termed
as classical conditioning.
This is one of the central Tennessee of physiology
which was basically investigated and principals
of conditioning were developed by this Russian
physiologist called Ivan Pavlov.
So this is basically the setup were you can
see that the dog is actually tied down there
is an observation screen, there is also a
place to device place there to count the drops
of saliva.
So this is a typical set up in which you can
actually measure or investigate these classical
condoning phenomena.
Let as move ahead, another person actually
who took this field of behaviorism much further
or if suppose are basically supposed to be
the founder of behaviorism was john Watson.
John Watson was an interesting psychologist,
because he believed that the premises physiology
should only be the observable facts the observable
behavior.
He said that it is not possible to objectively
study the workings of the mind.
Because if you think he might make some sense,
you know the process of thinking the process
of feeling etc. cannot be really objectively
measured, and that is preciously what the
point Watson was making.
He said that because we cannot measure these
things there is no thermometer that can measure
weather you feel sad or happy, then maybe
we not study them at all may be psychology
as a science should not concern itself we
think that you cannot really measure.
So psychologist basically from this brand
of school of thought called behaviorism basically
viewed the mind as a black box.
What they wanted about was that you present
a particular stimulus and you get a particular
response, and there is this black box in the
middle.
We should not be concern with this block box
at all because we cannot actually engage with
the black box.
So they basically were more interested in
looking how different kinds of inputs or how
different kinds of stimulus can be presented
and what kinds of responses they would generate.
So they would basically manipulate the times
and the pairings and the different kinds of
parings there could be in a particular stimulus
and particular kind of a response.
And that is what the subject matter of psychology
should be according to the behaviors.
B.F Skinner was another of behaviors very
influential and what he was using was the
system free enforcements and punishments.
So he basically said if you have to really
teach somebody a particular skill if you have
to make somebody learn a particular skill
you might need to re enforce them.
So you might need to add positive rewards
to re enforce people to learn something or
say for example, if you want people to unlearn
something if you want people to stop behaving
in particular ways, then what you should do
are you should give them consistent punishments.
So this system of reinforcements and punishments
was seen as the way of achieving learning
and B.F Skinner actually believe that this
is one of the ways in which all human behaviour
is learnt.
He said that it is only through a system of
reinforcements or punishments that humans
learn whatever abilities skills and behaviors
that they actually do.
So he use these principles to develop theory
about how to teach children and create peaceful
societies.
One of the very popular quotes from skinner
is that if you give me a child, and if you
give in a perfect conditions two days the
child and you ask me to make him any body
from a scientist, to an artist, to an actor
if you give me the right kind of conditions
I will actually able to do that.
This scheme of reinforcements and punishments
and this form of learning actually came to
be known as operant conditioning.
Another school of psychology which was rather
slightly more removed from this behaviorism
was that of gestalt psychology.
Now you have to be slightly patient and you
know you might want to recall all what we
have studied still now and you will see what
was the behaviour is trying to tell you is
something which might be a bit disturbing
for people to observe.
What they are trying to tell you is humans
are known better than animals or no better
than machines because if they are given consistent
stimuli with particular time pattern or you
say for example with a particular contiguity
they will reliably and predictably produce
the same responses.
If you give a thought about yourself and how
you behave or you know the behavioral patterns
of any persons that you know you might realize
that is not really the case.
So there was this response growing up towards
behaviorism and people gradually were also
realizing that, if you really have to understand
human behaviour you have to talk about internal
events you have to talk about things that
happen in the mind.
A behaviorist generally would actually disease
from doing so, and you discourage you actively
from doing so.
But there was a another school of psychology
that was actually that came in very close
in time after behaviorism which brought the
focus back to internal events this school
of psychology was the Gestalt school of psychology,
this school of psychologist like Wolfgang
Kohler and some others who are actually in
Germany, and this is very popular school of
psychology in Germany.
They basically said that will best understand
psychological phenomena when we view them
as organized structured holes.
So even though, they might be constructed
of variety of components we would want to
really view them as holistic patterns.
So your experiences even though you might
say that they are constructed of different
components of experience, but if you want
to really understand you want to understand
them as holes okay.
So according to this view we cannot fully
understand behaviour when we only bring the
phenomena down into smaller components.
Let us take an example, I was saying earlier
when I was talking about structuralism that
if you have to describe your experience of
looking at a flower, you might want to talk
about its color, you might want to talk about
its order, you might want to talk about its
shape, or the texture.
But the psychology would ask you that is the
color of the flower, the experience of the
flower in itself or let us say is the shape
of the flower, the experience of the flower
in itself.
You would actually force to conclude then
that it is neither of these components but
all of the components put together that constitute
your experience of the flower, that is pretty
much what the Gestalt psychologies wanted
us to understand.
So they believed in this maximum called the
hole is more than the sum of its parts which
makes a lot of sales if u see how people understands
behavior.
We cannot so, as I talked about this example
already.
So let us move on to the emergence of cognitive
psychology.
Now you see we have actually charted the growth
of the entire background philosophy to modern
philosophers to these various schools of psychology
which are structuralism, functionalism, associationism,
and behaviorism.
Behaviorism by far is actually the most radical
school of thought, and it was the most popular
school of thought in psychology in the early
19th century.
But things were changing around that time
people were gradually realizing as I said
from the Gestalts psychologies onwards that
you have to really, in order to get complete
explanation of the human experience or in
order to get the complete understanding of
human behaviour you cannot do without talking
about internal mental events.
The behaviorists were very against this proposal
and they were continuously engaged and actually
coming up with explanations which basic typically
consisted of particular stimulus response
associations.
And how this stimulus response associations
lead on to more complex behaviors.
So let us see how cognitive psychology emerged
from all of this background.
Now by the early 1950’s there was a movement
called the cognitive revolution that was slowing
taking place.
Cognitivism basically is this idea that rejects
the notion is basically this idea that rejects
the notion that psychology should not study
mental processes, because they are unobservable.
In state cognitivism actually looks to develop
methods and base to study the internal workings
of the mind okay.
So this field basically focuses on specifically
mental processes those that cannot be absorbed,
but through engineers base to engineers experience
designed to study exactly those things those
workings of the mind.
There was a few proceeding, there was a few
events that actually lead on to the development
of the cognitive psychology let us visit them
slowly one by one.
So one of them was this influence of psychobiology,
you might remember john trying to say that
mind and body are one in the same thing okay.
So jumping right from there there were few
developments going on in psychobiology that
are actually telling people that it indeed
it could be the brain which would be the seat
of human behavior.
One of these prominent theorist in this field
was actually Karl Lashley, Karl Lashley was
earlier a disciple of, earlier a student of
VS. Skinner and he basically went on to challenge
the behavior’s field.
He basically said that its foolish to assume
that the human brain is a passive organism,
and it is just reacting to this continuously
this stimulus response associations.
He basically said and he believed that brain
is an active and is a dynamic organizer of
human behavior.
And thus he basically sort to understand how
this macro organization of the brain how this
organization of the various parts of the brain
and various activities at the brain does go
on to form this complex behaviour we engage
a very lot of complex behaviour.
Let us say a musical performance or say writing
a poem or for example playing a particular
game now lashly was interested in actually
understanding various symbols went or various
symbol transferred behaviour come bind together
to form this complex activities.
That humans are engaged in so lashley did
lot of experiments with rats in his lab and
actually found out what he actually concluded
that memory is not really localized in a particular
part of the brain it is basically distributed
so you see that this connection is made that
brain might be the seat of behaviour which
is your memory and again which is un observable
but not only that but also that memory is
distributed across the various regions of
the brain by this time lashly actually gave
a view to all.
The people those who are interested working
in psychology that actually you could link
the brain and behaviour actually you could
make a link between the mind and body and
this is therefore considered to be one of
the most important steps or one of the most
important preceding steps which leads to the
development of what is called cognitive psychology
this is called lashly.
Another influential scientist who was basically
working in the psycho biologicaltradition
was Donald Hebb.
Donald Hebb basically proposed the same concept
of cell assemblies as the basis of learning
in the field.
Donald Hebb basically proposed that the cell
is assemblies which have coordinated neural
structures that developed through frequent
stimulation.
For example if you show a person particular
shape or if you show the person particular
line slanted or horizontal line.
There will be this assembly of cells that
will be registering the different aspects
of the line whether it is colored line or
thick or a thin line or it is tilted or a
straight line all of the cells might eventually
start lighting up together or start firing
together.
Donald hebb was saying that it is finding
together of neurons that leads to learning,
so they basically says that cells developed
over time the ability develops the overtime
of one neuron to start or to stimulate firing
in a connective neuron so once these connections
are formed for example there is a first neuron
which registers property.
A and then it leads to firing of the second
neuron and all of these connections gradually
lead to formation of a neuron assembly that
which is responsible for you learning any
particular kind of behaviour.
Another interesting event after this emergence
of psycho biology as interesting field of
taught was the review of a book which and
this book was titled verbal behaviour.
Now if you remember I have saying that is
a behaviour is the behavior’s psychology
was still around 1950 and 1960 and what they
were actually doing is they were attempting
explanations of human behaviour through this
set of associations reinforcement punishments
and all of that Skinner basically wrote a
book titled verbal behaviour in which he actually
explained the entire chat of language accusation
and language hues has built upon these stimulus
response associations.
inguist Noam Chomsky was a round at the and
then he wrote a very scaring review of a Skinners
idea he actually took the book apart while
conducting the most fundamental all the fundamental
assumptions or all the fundamental proposals
that Skinner was making.
Chomsky actually radical extreme said that
language or accusation or usage of language
has both characteristics it has the biological
foundations while it also have the creative
foundation so they actually said that it is
not mere learning or its nor mere reinforcement
or punishment that is not leading us to learn
language that is actually boost things,
It is the biological substrates also the creative
parts also the part that is unique human that
is leading to us learning any language.
Imagine for example if I come and tell you
that whatever sentence you have actually learnt
and those that were thought to you by your
parents or those that you learnt by going
through this stimulus responses associations
you say something you rewarded make a mistake
you were punished how much of language you
were actually learnt like that this is basically
that Chomsky said.
So likewise he pointed out the infinite.
Of sentences that we can produce by ease without
learn them specifically or without having
either kind of conditioning or instructions
so in this basically Chomsky while wrote this
scatting review of verbal behaviour he made
a very specific point he made the point thatthere
are biological contributions to the human
behaviour also he made the point that human
brain is something that is actively processing
information that is actively creating something
new.
Which in the behavior is paradigm was considered
impossible.
One of the reasons why they did not really
want to study that.
So thereby you see the Chomsky defines the
notion that we learn language through this
reinforcement or punishment schedules.
A similar idea to what Thomas you were saying
is basically also presented by Edward Tolman
doing the experiences of learning and actually
found out that rats do not learned navigate
to amaze mainly points were they are rain
force ridded they are actually processing
the entire you know information of amaze actively
learning and storing the information so he
basically said something called Latin learning
that something having this some kind of cognitive
generated in that sense again the brain is
foot forward or mind is foot forward as an
active processor of information rather than
or instrument regarding stimulus response
associations now you see these ideas actually
or real or major departure.
From what we are talking or talking about
till now these basic and these were the you
know contribute events that finally lead to
what cognitive psychology become now so there
is also in the 1950s influence technology
you know this rime machine made advance machines
were there and the second world war has ended
,there was many advance questions and psychology
at the same time your wondering about particular
question what that question was ,that question
was that weather machines also were programmed.
Should demonstrate intelligent behaviour okay,
allen tured was rounded at time Allen suggested
that soon it will be hard to disguising the
communication of machines you know when the
communication of humans, he said that gradually
the machines will be sold once you will not
able to differentiate whether small size giving
by a machine or given by a human you also
developed the test to effect which is now
known as curing test they could be talking
to machine and the machine could be responding
back and by virtual of that test you will
able tell that whether the person on the other
hand is a machine computer the computer of
that time actually pass the during test.
For people it is difficult for some sense
difficult to tell that there response to a
person question were generated by a computer
or generated by a human so these were advance
and technology that were taking place so it
was obvious natural that people thought that
there is an error where we can actually create
machines we shall slate what was called human
behaviour or intelligent behaviour much has
humans are doing in sense you see that the
kind of over estimated that the development
of machines or let us say probably under estimated
the sophistication or the complexity of the
human brain.
Then let us move forward by time around 1956
at the same era this is happening artificial
intelligence is also born.
The concept of Artificial intelligence basically
defines as an attempt by the humans to construct
systems that show intelligence processing
of information.
AI was around that time and I said it was
been thought that the computers could actually
stimulate or actually mimic the behaviour
or intelligence processing information as
the humans would do.
By 1960’s there were development happening
in other fields as well.
So for example in the field of psycho biology
in the fields of linguistic in the field of
anthropology, AI etc.
These developments all happening in the same
time actually were converging to answer the
same questions that were raised many years
ago as we saw in the last class in the philosophical
discourse the questions about mind and body
and the questions about how mind can lead
to complex behaviour or how mind controls
the body.
Those were the questions which now become
very significant questions in all of the fields
were converging together in the respective
ways to answer these questions.
This then became the era of the early cognitive
psychology.
cognitive psychology was now coming into being
plainly by the virtual of the kind of the
questions that were being asked some of these
rather famous like George miller, Allen Newell,
Shaw, Herbert Simon and others now this early
cognitive psychologist basically argued that
the traditional behaviors accounts of behaviour
were inadequate simply we were not talking
about how people are thinking they are not
talking about this human behaviour they are
not talking about what mental processes are
happening .
Their view was unnecessarily talk about the
coward process unless you talk about the mental
event you cannot completely explain the behaviour
and in that lies the short coming and it is
the person are interesting examples of response
this kind was that of George Miller.
George Miller introduces the concept of channel
capacity was he proposed that the vision observer
can match a response to a presented information
you know is a round seven.
So he says that if you can remember seven
digits presented to you sequentially your
channel capacity for membrane digits is around
seven so you see the focus is shifting towards
seeing the processing of information by the
UN mind much like the processing of information
that goes on in computers or in other machines.
Newell Shaw wrote a book called cognitive
psychology in 1967 which also begins especially
critical in bringing.
Cognitive fore the idea was the idea was that
you were explaining this book was attempting
to explain the prominent of these field o
undergraduate graduate students early carries
academism and inviting all of them to field
enquiry that was new and budding.
Niesser defined cognitive psychology.
