1 Basic introduction
Cognitive psychology is one of the latest branches of psychology, which developed from 1950 to 1960 and became the main school of western psychology in 1970s. 1956 is considered to be an important year in the history of cognitive psychology. Several psychological studies this year all reflect the psychological viewpoint of information processing. Such as Chomsky's language theory, newell and herbert alexander simon's "universal problem solver" model. "Cognitive Psychology" first appeared in the publication in ulrich neisser's new book 1967. The book Perception and Communication published by Donald broadbent in 1958 laid an important foundation for the orientation of cognitive psychology. Since then, the focus of cognitive psychology has turned to Donald broadbent's cognitive information processing model-a thinking and reasoning model with psychological processing. Therefore, thinking and reasoning work in the human brain, just as computer software works in a computer. Cognitive psychology theory often talks about the concepts of input, representation, calculation or processing, output and so on.
2 research object
Cognitive psychology is a psychological trend of thought that rose in the west in the mid-1950s, and became a major research direction of western psychology in the 1970s. It studies people's advanced psychological processes, mainly cognitive processes, such as attention, perception, representation, memory, thinking and language.
Contrary to behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology studies the internal mechanisms and processes that cannot be observed, such as memory processing, storage, retrieval and memory changes.
Studying cognitive process from the perspective of information processing is the mainstream of modern cognitive psychology, which can be said to be equivalent to information processing psychology. It regards people as an information processing system, and thinks that cognition is the whole process of information processing, including encoding, storing and extracting sensory input. According to this view, cognition can be decomposed into a series of stages, each stage is a unit that performs a certain operation on the input information, and the reaction is the product of this series of stages and operations. All components of an information processing system are interrelated in some way. With the development of cognitive psychology, this view of sequential processing is increasingly challenged by parallel processing theory and related theories of cognitive neuropsychology.
3 Research characteristics
Cognitive psychologists pay attention to the psychological mechanism as the basis of human behavior, and its core is the internal psychological process between input and output. But people can't directly observe the internal psychological process, and can only speculate by observing what is input and output. Therefore, the method used by cognitive psychologists is to infer unobservable psychological processes from observable phenomena. Some people call this method convergence proof, that is, data with different properties are gathered together and a conclusion is drawn. Cognitive psychology research usually needs the support of experiments, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuropsychology and computer simulation, and this multi-faceted research is increasingly favored. Cognitive psychologists hope to reveal the essential process of cognitive activities by studying the brain itself, rather than just speculating on its process. The most commonly used is to study the cognitive differences between patients with brain injury and normal people to prove the existence and specific mode of cognitive processing.
4 Research methods
Cognitive psychology often divides the information processing process into several stages, that is, the whole process from stimulus input to response. They often use the reaction time method. That is to say, by measuring the time required for a process, we can determine the nature of this process and its relationship with other processes.
Suppose a person looks at the letter E projected on the screen. If the projection time is short, such as one millisecond, then this person can't see anything, which means that perception is not instantaneous. If the projection time is longer, such as five milliseconds, then this person will see something, but he doesn't know what it is, which means that perception has been produced, but discrimination has not yet been produced; If the projection time is long enough for people to see that the letters are not O or Q, but E, F or K, then this person has partial discrimination. From this, people can determine the time required to completely distinguish, partially distinguish or just see something. All this shows that perception is cumulative, and it includes several specific stages.
Research method of reaction time
Reaction time research method is also a convergence proof method. Cognitive psychologists use selective reaction time more than simple reaction time. Because the selective reaction can provide more information about the internal state.
Computer simulation and analogy
Computer simulation and analogy is a special method adopted by cognitive psychologists. To make computers think like people, computer programs should conform to the mechanism of human cognitive activities, that is, to some cognitive theory or model. Representing cognitive theory as a computer program is called computer simulation. Therefore, computer simulation can be used to test a theory, find its defects and improve it.
The output provided by computer simulation can be compared with human behavior. If the theory is correct, then this output should be similar to that given by human beings when solving the same problem; If the output of the program is different from that of human beings, then finding out the difference will find the basis for correcting the theory. Computer simulations can also predict complex behaviors. Although we understand some concepts and can turn them into programs step by step, when this series of steps is long and complicated and requires a lot of connections, we often can't predict the results. In this case, computer simulation can sometimes get amazing results.
Some cognitive psychologists often use information sequence flow charts to describe the main features of computer programs. However, this flowchart does not have the details of the actual operation of the computer, but only provides an outline of the computer program, which can be further transformed into a computer program, and this part of the work is often realized by computer software experts.
Oral record
Oral recording (thinking aloud) is also a common method used by cognitive psychologists, especially those who study thinking. This method can produce good results when combined with other objective methods.
Five main points of view
Cognitive psychology in a broad sense includes constructivism cognitive psychology, psychological psychology and information processing psychology represented by Piaget. In a narrow sense, it is information processing psychology, which studies the cognitive process of people's acceptance, storage and application of information from the perspective of information processing, including the study of perception, attention, memory, mental image (that is, representation), thinking and language. The main research methods are experiment, observation and computer simulation.
The main representatives of cognitive psychology are American psychologist and computer scientist newell (1927) and American scientist and one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, herbert alexander simon (19 16). Their main theoretical viewpoints are:
1, the human brain is regarded as an information processing system similar to a computer.
They think that the information processing system of human brain consists of four parts: receptor, reactor, memory and processor (or control system). First of all, the environment inputs information into the sensory system, that is, receptors, which convert information; Before the converted information enters the long-term memory, it must be reconstructed, identified and compared by the control system. The storage system stores the extractable symbol structure; Finally, the reactor reacts to the outside world.
2. Emphasize that the existing knowledge and knowledge structure in people's minds play a decisive role in people's behavior and current cognitive activities.
According to cognitive theory, perception is a process of determining the meaning of the stimulus people receive, which depends on the information from the environment and from the perceiver himself, that is, knowledge. The complete cognitive process is a series of cyclic processes, such as location, feature extraction and comparison with the knowledge in memory. Knowledge works through schema. The so-called schema is a kind of psychological structure, which is used to express our internalized knowledge unit about the external world. This icon is activated when external information suitable for it is received. The activated icon makes people have inherent perceptual expectation, which is used to guide the sensory organs to search for special forms of information purposefully.
3. Emphasize the integrity of the cognitive process.
According to modern cognitive psychology, people's cognitive activities are the unified whole of the interaction of cognitive elements, and any kind of cognitive activities are completed with the cooperation of other cognitive activities related to them.
On the other hand, context is very important in the process of human cognition. It includes not only the contextual relationship of language materials that people come into contact with, the up-and-down relationship of objective things, the left-and-right relationship, but also the relationship between the original knowledge in the human brain, the original knowledge and the current cognitive object.
4. Run the system
The concept of production system comes from mathematics and computer science and has been widely used in psychology since 1970. It explains the procedure when people solve problems. In a production system, a series of events lead to a series of activities, that is, condition-activity (C-A). Conditions are general, and the same conditions can produce similar activities; Secondly, conditions will also involve some internal purposes and internal knowledge. It can be said that the conditions include not only external stimuli, but also information stored in memory, which reflects the universality and immanence of modern cognitive psychology.
6 development history
The classification of knowledge by cognitive psychology is the result of psychological development and also related to western traditional philosophy. Its main feature is to emphasize the role of knowledge, which is the main factor that determines people's behavior. This idea can be traced back at least to British empirical philosophers such as Bacon and Locke. Descartes emphasized the role of deduction, while cognitive psychology attached importance to hypothetical deduction. Kant's schema concept has become a major concept in cognitive psychology.
Cognitive psychology also inherited the tradition of early experimental psychology. The research method of reaction time put forward by Helmholtz and Donders in19th century has been widely used by cognitive psychologists and made new progress.
Feng Te is the founder of modern experimental psychology, and the view of cognitive psychology on the object and method of psychology is very close to his view. He believes that the object of psychology is the content of experience and consciousness, and the method is introspection under controlled conditions. Some psychologists say that cognitive psychology has returned to Feng Te's consciousness psychology, but the difference is that the method is more reliable and precise. James's formulation of two kinds of memory, primary memory and secondary memory, has become the basis of memory research in cognitive psychology.
Gestalt psychology has obvious influence on cognitive psychology. It is famous for its research on perceptual and advanced psychological processes, emphasizing the organization and structural principles of gestalt, and opposing the view that behavioral psychology regards people as passive stimulus reactors. These viewpoints have great influence on cognitive psychology. For example, cognitive psychology defines perception as the organization and interpretation of sensory information, and emphasizes the initiative of information processing.
In terms of methods, Gestalt psychology advocates the study of direct life experience and the combination of direct life experience materials and experimental data, such as attaching importance to the observer's direct description of his own perceptual content, and calls this method phenomenological method. This view is different from that of Feng Te and Tichner, who only admit the introspection of strictly trained subjects, and from that of behaviorism, which only attaches importance to laboratory experiments, but it is consistent with the basic view of cognitive psychology.
Cognitive psychology opposes behaviorism, but it is also influenced by it. Cognitive psychology has accepted behaviorism's strict experimental methods and operationalism. Cognitive psychology has paid no attention to the study of internal psychological process, but also to the study of behavior. It is generally believed that people use information from the environment, combined with things stored in memory, to guide future behavior and shape the living environment.
7 classic experiment
1, Posner experiment-information can also be visually encoded.
Arrange the subjects to present two letters, which can be shown to the subjects at the same time, or insert a short practice interval, so that the subjects can point out whether the two letters are the same and press the key to react, and record the reaction time. Use two letter pairs. One is that the pronunciation and writing of two letters are the same, that is, the same letter (AA); The other is that two letters are pronounced the same but written differently (Aa). In both cases, the correct answer is "the same".
2. Clark and Chase's sentence-picture matching experiment-an example of subtraction reaction experiment
Show the subjects a sentence and a picture immediately after it, such as "the star is on the cross", and ask them to judge whether the sentence really explains the picture as soon as possible, make a yes or no response, and record the reaction time. The prepositions used in the experiment are "above" and "below", the subjects are "star" and "cross", the statements of sentences are affirmative (in) and negative (not in), and * * * has eight different sentences. Clark and Chase assume that when sentences appear between pictures, the matching operation between sentences and pictures will go through several processing stages, and put forward some parameters to measure the processing duration.
3.Sternberg studied the experiment of additive factor method for short-term memory information extraction.
First show the subjects the number 1 ~ 6 (memory item), then look at a number (test item), and at the same time start timing, so that the subjects can answer whether they have just memorized the test number. Press the key to answer yes or no, and the time will stop immediately. In this way, it can be determined whether the subjects can extract correctly and the time needed, that is, the reaction time. Through a series of experiments, Sternberg identified four factors that have independent influence on the extraction process from the change of reaction time, namely, the quality of test items (good or bad), the number of memory items, the type of reaction (positive or negative) and the relative frequency of each reaction type. Therefore, he believes that the process of short-term memory information extraction includes four independent processing stages, namely, stimulus coding stage, sequence comparison stage, alternative decision-making stage and response organization stage.
4. Letter conversion experiment ("windowing" experiment)
The subjects were presented with 1 ~ 4 English letters, and a number was marked after the letters, such as "F+3" and "KENC+4". When presenting "F+3", subjects were asked to say the letter "I" in the third position after F in the English alphabet. In other words, "F+3" means that F is converted into I, and the correct answer to "KENC+4" is "OIRG", but these four conversion results should be said together, that is, every time there is more than one stimulus letter, it is only once. Take "KENC+4" as an example, four stimulating letters appear one after another. Subjects can see the first letter K by pressing their own keys and start timing. Then the subjects perform voice conversion, that is, LMNO, then press the key to see the second letter (E), and then perform conversion. Repeat this cycle until all four letters are presented and answered, and the timing stops. The beginning and end of speech conversion are marked in the time record. According to the reaction time data of this experiment, it can be clearly seen that there are three processing stages to complete the letter conversion operation: (1) The encoding stage is the time from the time when the subjects press the key to see a letter to the time when the sound conversion begins, and the subjects encode the letters they see and find the position of the letters in the alphabet in memory; (2) The time taken by the subjects to carry out the prescribed transformation is the transformation stage; (3) The storage stage is the time from the end of voice conversion to the next letter being read by the tested key, and the conversion result is stored in the memory.
5. Peterson and Peterson's experiment on forgetting process.
Present three consonants to the auditee at a time, such as KBR；; In order to prevent repetition, a three-digit number, such as 684, is presented immediately after the letter is presented, and the subjects are required to subtract three from this number quickly and tell the results of each operation, that is, 68 1, 678, 675, etc. Until the examiner sends a signal to recall the three letters that have just been recited. The time interval between the presentation and memory of letters, that is, the time for subjects to subtract 3 continuously, can be divided into 6 types: 3s, 6s, 9s, 12s, 15s, 18s. But each time the subjects don't know how long the operation will take. This is a delayed memory test with different time intervals, during which additional interference tasks are carried out. The experiment was carried out many times, and each time the letters and numbers were different. The subjects of the experiment are college students. Results: When the delay time was only 3s, the average correct recall rate of the subjects was as high as 80%, and almost all of them could remember three letters. However, with the extension of the interval, the correct recall rate drops sharply, and when it is extended to 6s, the correct recall rate drops to about 55%. When it is extended to 18s, the correct recall rate of the subjects is only about 10%. Experiments show that short-term memory keeps information short, and if it is not repeated, it will be forgotten quickly.
6. Walter and Norman's experiment-trying to separate trace fading from interference
The subjects were presented with a series of numbers such as 16, and the last number was accompanied by high-frequency pure tone. This last number is called the detection number, which has only appeared once before. Once the subjects hear the sound, they should recall the numbers after the previous position. If the number series presented is 3917465218736528 * (asterisk stands for pure tone), the detection number is 8, which appears at the 10 position in the previous series, and the subject should report the number 7 after this position. From the last digit of the reported number to the last digit, it is called interval number, that is, the number of its interference, and the time taken to present these interval numbers is called interval time. This experiment uses different numbers of interval numbers and interval times. Two digital display speeds are applied: fast display is 4 digits per second, and slow display is 1 digit per second. In this way, the interval time can be changed without changing the interval number; The number of intervals can also be changed under the condition that the interval time is unchanged. Results: No matter how fast or slow numbers are presented, the correct recall rate decreases with the increase of interval number or interference items. In other words, the correct recall rate will not be greatly different because of the difference in interval time caused by different digital presentation speeds. This result supports the interference theory and proves that the main reason for short-term memory forgetting is interference rather than the fading of memory traces.
7. The visual positioning experiment of Bodgray and Shepard-verifying the equivalence of representation and perceptual function.
The experiment is divided into three groups: (1) perception-memory group, the experimental material is a 5×5 grid, and some squares are painted black as an English letter, such as I, L, F, E, or the letter combination IF; There is also the same 5×5 grid, and blue dots are drawn in any square as test points. In the formal experiment, the quick indicator is used to present a grid coated with letters or letter combinations to the subjects, and then a grid with test points is presented. Subjects are required to determine whether the blue test point falls inside or outside the presented letters as soon as possible while maintaining high accuracy, and press the key with their left or right hands respectively, and record the reaction time. A letter or letter combination needs to be tested many times, and the test points appear at least once in all 25 squares, and the order is random, and the test points are arranged equally inside and outside the letter. (2) Group is represented by grid. The experimental procedure of this group is basically the same as that of the perception-memory group, but there is one main difference. In this set of experiments, the above letters and letter combinations are not made by blackening some squares. In the experiment, an identical, but empty, 5x5 grid is presented to a quick indicator. At the same time, the experimenter verbally instructed the subjects to imagine an English letter or letter combination with a certain grid, and these letters and their positions in the grid were the same as perception-memory, and asked him not to change the positions of letters in the grid. After the subjects imagined the letters, they presented the same grid with test points with a quick indicator, and other experimental procedures were the same as before. (3) There is only one difference between the representation group without grid and the representation group with grid, that is, the grid with test points only draws the outermost outline, and the inner squares are not drawn. The purpose of this is to prevent the subjects from inferring the position of letters in the grid after the presentation of the test center, and other procedures are the same as before.
8. Paivio's experiment-verifying that representation is two parallel cognitive systems related to speech.
Show the subjects some cards with a pair of pictures or a pair of printed words (see Cognitive Psychology, Wang Su, Wang Ansheng, Peking University Publishing House, P2 12, Figure 7-6, two picture pairs and two text pairs), and let the subjects decide which of the two things marked by graffiti or printed words is bigger (not the size of the picture, but the person) in the original impression. Paivio made the following assumptions: if long-term memory only contains information encoded by language, then the subjects will judge the picture material slower than the reaction to the text, because the picture needs to be converted into text to make a judgment; On the other hand, if the long-term memory also contains visual representation or visual coding information, the subjects' response to pictures will not be slower than that of words, because visual representation can be obtained directly from memory without conversion. This experiment not only provides experimental evidence for the existence of representation, but also puts forward some characteristics of representation that are different from language.
9, artificial concept formation experiment (8 1 card experiment)-the concept formation process of hypothesis testing theory
The experimental material is a card with graphics, and the shape, color, number and number of borders of the graphics are the four dimensions that constitute each specific card. Each dimension is divided into three levels, that is, each dimension has three attributes or values. For example, the shape dimension has three attributes: cross, circle and square; Colors are green, black and red; There are also three values for the number of graphics and the number of borders. Each card has the attributes of these four dimensions, so each card is different from any other card in 1-4 dimensions (attributes). In this way, there are 8/kloc-0 cards (3×3×3×3) as experimental materials. The experimenter stipulated in advance that a certain attribute (such as red) or several attributes (such as red circle) of a certain dimension is the only attribute of the artificial concept, that is, the artificial concept consists of these dimensions and attributes, which are called related dimensions and related attributes, while others are called irrelevant dimensions and irrelevant attributes. A card that specifies all relevant attributes is a conceptual example or a positive example, otherwise it is a negative example. However, the experimenter did not tell the subjects an artificial concept (that is, its related attributes) in advance. At the beginning of the experiment, the examiner told the subjects: this experiment has a specific concept, which is composed of a certain attribute or some attributes, and the subjects are required to discover this concept through the experimental process; Then the examiner first took out a positive example card and showed it to the subjects, clearly telling them that it was a positive example. Participants should choose other positive examples of this concept from all the cards spread out in front of them according to their own ideas, one at a time. After each selection, the examiner should give feedback and point out whether he chose right or wrong. The experiment went on like this until the subjects discovered the concept, that is to say, they could correctly choose all the positive examples and tell what the concept was.
10, four-card problem-proving truth and falsification
Show adult subjects four cards, two of which have letters on the front, one with vowel letters (E) and the other with consonant letters (K); The other two cards have numbers on the front, one is even (4) and the other is odd (7). At the same time, the subjects were told that each card has a letter on one side and a number on the other side, and put forward a rule: "If one side of the card is a vowel letter, the other side is an even number". Subjects were asked to tell which cards they had to read to prove the truth of this rule.
8 related science
Cognitive psychology is also the product of cross-infiltration between psychology and adjacent disciplines. First of all, linguistics has a great influence on the development of cognitive psychology. Psycholinguistics founded by Chomsky combining linguistics with psychology can be said to be a branch of cognitive psychology.
Cybernetics, information theory and computer science have far-reaching influence on the development of cognitive psychology. The combination of computer science and psychology has produced a frontier discipline artificial intelligence. There is a close relationship between artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, and the appearance of computers makes people find a new method to analyze people's inner psychological process and state.
The psychological direction of early experimental psychology was cut off by behaviorism for nearly half a century, and cognitive psychology continued this direction, while maintaining the strict hypothesis deduction method of new behaviorism and adding machine simulation method. This expands the research topic of cognitive process analysis.
Turing's mathematical system, published in 1930s, was later called Turing Machine, which also had an impact on psychology. Quantitative logic and Turing machine make people think that human cognitive system can also be regarded as a symbolic application system. Some concepts of human beings can be expressed by symbols, which can be transformed through a certain symbolic operation process. These thoughts play an important role in cognitive psychology not only in theory but also in concrete research.
A basic view of cognitive psychology is that computers can be used to simulate people's internal psychological processes. The computer accepts the symbol input, encodes it, makes a decision on the encoded input, stores it and gives the symbol output. This can be compared with how people receive information, how to encode memory, how to make decisions, how to transform internal cognitive state, and how to compile this state into behavioral output. This analogy between computer and cognitive process is only a horizontal analogy, that is, describing the internal psychological process at the computer program level, mainly involving the information processing process of people and computers, which is an analogy of performance, rather than an analogy of hardware and operation methods of computers and human brains.
The rise of cognitive psychology is a major change in the development of western psychology. Some people say it is a new school, others say it is a new direction, and more people agree with Kuhn's point of view as a new "paradigm". Kuhn called the replacement of old and new paradigms in science scientific revolution. It is in this sense that some American psychologists believe that the emergence of cognitive psychology is the second revolution in the development of American psychology. The first revolution was the rise of behaviorism.
The emergence of cognitive psychology shows that American psychologists have changed their views on basic issues such as the objects and methods of psychology. Behaviorism has dominated American psychology for forty years, and its influence is deeply rooted, while cognitive psychology opposes the basic viewpoint of behaviorism.
On the research object of psychology, behaviorism advocates the study of explicit and observable behavior, regardless of the internal psychological process; Cognitive psychology has shifted the research focus to the internal psychological process. In terms of research methods, behaviorism emphasizes strict laboratory methods and excludes all reports of subjective experience; Cognitive psychology attaches importance to laboratory experiments and reports of subjective experience. For cognitive psychologists, changing external conditions is not an end, but an auxiliary means to reveal the knowledge structure.
Cognitive psychology tries to unify all cognitive processes. It holds that cognitive phenomena such as attention, perception, memory and thinking are intertwined, and understanding one group of phenomena helps to explain another. Because of their interdependence, it is possible to find a unified processing model of human cognitive process.
Cognitive psychology should not only unify the cognitive process, but also unify all fields of general psychology, that is, to study and explain emotions, motives, personality and other aspects from a cognitive point of view. The viewpoint of cognitive psychology is further extended to social psychology, developmental psychology, physiological psychology, engineering psychology and other fields.
Cognitive psychology attaches importance to the comprehensive viewpoint in psychological research, and emphasizes the interrelation and mutual restriction among various psychological processes, which is helpful to expand psychological research methods in the study of specific problems. The research results of cognitive psychology also contribute to the development of computer science.
9 noun explanation
Cognition is the process of transforming, restoring, explaining, storing, recovering and using sensory input.
The research scope of cognitive psychology includes psychological or cognitive processes such as perception, attention, representation, learning and memory, thinking and speech, as well as children's cognitive development and artificial intelligence. ( 1967)
Paradigm: It is a combination of certain research objects and specific research trends and methods.
Example: refers to a typical example of a concept, which is used to define the direct proof of this concept.
Abstract analysis: comparing conditions and results with input and output for reasoning, so as to realize the internal psychological mechanism of a psychological phenomenon.