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30 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Explain the differences between behaviorism, neobehaviorism, and radical behaviorism.
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Watson's Behaviorism- expression of his commitment to a positivist science restricted to the description, prediction, and control of observable behavior.
expression of his inductivist conception of the development of scientific theories, according to which the aim of science is to accumulate observational laws that can eventually be integrated by summative theories. Neobehaviorism- Embraced the hypothetico-deductive account of the development of scientific theories Theories play more than a merely summative role Theoretical postulates are introduced not only to accommodate previously established observational laws, but also to generate new observational predictions. Skinner's Radical Behaviorism- focused upon what he called operant behavior, as opposed to Pavlovian respondent behavior. defined operant behavior as behavior whose probability of recurrence is increased by reinforcement respondent behavior as behavior elicited by unconditioned and conditioned stimuli. operant conditioning increases the probability of the recurrence of a behavior (in a stimulus situation) and the frequency of its recurrence, through reinforcement of the behavior. Skinner maintained that behaviorist psychology should focus on the description of functional relationships between observable behavior and environmental stimuli, based upon the experimental analysis, control, and manipulation of environmental reinforcement Skinner didn’t see any need for theory and rejected the hypothetico-deductive method advocated by Tolman and Hull. |
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Explain the differences between Hull and Tolman’s versions of neobehaviorism.
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TOLMAN'S PURPOSEFUL BEHAVIOR- Claimed that most animal and human behavior is intentionally directed toward goal or end states.
Like Aristotle, Tolman maintained that most animal and human behavior is intrinsically purposive or teleological. Tolman did not deny the independence of conscious mentality and behavior. He thought it was perfectly legitimate to postulate mental determinants of the purposive behavior of animals and humans. He rejected the common conception of learning as the automatic connection of stimulus and response, based upon principles of contiguity, frequency, and reinforcement. Tolman and Honzik (1930) maintained that rats are able to learn maze layouts in the absence of reinforcement. Tolman held that rats develop cognitive maps of their spatial environment based upon confirmations of their expectancies: in the course of learning something like a field map of the environment gets established in the rats brain. Clark Hull- claimed that all learning is based upon the reduction of drives related to an organisms primary biological needs food, drink, sexual gratification, temperature regulation, and relief from pain reinforcement is equivalent to drive reduction or satisfaction Hull's operationalism- claimed that theoretical intervening variables such as drive and habit strength must be related to observable independent and dependent variables Hull's realism-theoretical references to habits must be operationally defined in terms of observable stimuli and responses, he maintained that habits exist independently of their particular behavioral expression in stimulus situations theoretical references to drives must be defined in terms of observable stimuli and responses, but maintained that they exist independently as internal states of an organism that causally mediate between environmental stimuli and behavioral responses No need for consciousness or Cognition. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HULL AND TOLMAN- Hull agreed with Tolman that cognitive constructs are hypothetical constructs with surplus meaning that is not reducible to the mere description of correlations between observable stimuli and responses but differed in insisting that postulated cognitive states must be defined operationally as internal causal variables |
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Describe at least 3 problems identified with behaviorism.
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By the end of the Second World War, many psychologists had come to question the behaviorist presumption that all or most of human psychology and behavior could be explained in terms of general theories of conditioning based upon the experimental study of rats and pigeons. They doubted that such theories could be extended to accommodate human moral, social, and linguistic behavior, as most behaviorists had maintained.
In the 1950s and 1960s behaviorist theories based upon conditioning came under increasing attack, in terms of both the scope and basic principles of conditioning theory. The meaning of theoretical postulates in natural science is generally determined independently of operational definition. operational measures of theoretical constructs such as electron and short-term memory are important, but they do not determine their meaning, as evidenced by the fact that their meaning remains invariant when different operational measures are employed in different empirical or experimental con-texts. most neobehaviorists insisted that surplus meaning has no place in psychological science This placed quite unnecessary constraints on the development of psychological theory and created a critical conceptual dilemma for neobehaviorists. If the meaningful content of theoretical postulates really is exhaustively determined by the observational stimulus-response sequences in terms of which they are operationally defined, then why not simply dispense with theoretical constructs altogether and restrict psychological science to the description of observational stimulus-response sequences? Lashley claimed that traditional behaviorist explanations in terms of reflex arcs and chains of association or connection could not account for complex serially ordered behavior such as language. He maintained that many forms of human and animal behavior require explanation in terms of hierarchically organized cognitive control structures that determine complex sequences of serially ordered behavior, which are occasioned by environmental inputs but cannot be explained in terms of associations between environmental inputs and responses or reinforcement histories. |
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State Hull, Tolman, and Skinner’s positions on the role of consciousness.
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HULL
no need for consciousness or cognition: He acknowledged that explanations in terms of consciousness are legitimate in principle, but held that there is no need to appeal to them in practice. Hull doubted that theoretical references to consciousness would ever be needed to explain animal or human behavior. Hull also acknowledged the legitimacy of cognitive theoretical postulates and sometimes employed them in his own work, but he rejected Tolman’s theories of representations and cognitive maps. He believed that all behavior, including human moral and social behavior, could be explained in purely mechanistic terms. TOLMAN Cognitive determinism: Tolman’s commitment to the cognitive determination of both animal and human behavior was a distinctive feature of his purposive behaviorism. It distinguished it from the forms of behaviorism advocated by most other behaviorists. Tolman rejected Lloyd Morgan’s claim that all animal behavior could be explained in terms of association and never embraced the standard behaviorist attempt to accommodate all forms of animal and human behavior in terms of conditioned learning SKINNER- cognitive states: Skinner acknowledged the existence of cognitive states, but denied that they are centrally initiated. Cognitive states are merely internal links in fully determined causal chains relating behavior and environmental stimuli. He rejected the notion that the cognitive agent is the true originator or initiator of action and, like most other behaviorists, was a committed environmentalist. Skinners theoretical commitment to the environmental determination of behavior led him to champion programs of social engineering based upon experimentally derived principles of behavior modification. |
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Explain the difference between a logical and causal intervening variable.
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Logical Intervening Variable
merely a logical device for integrating descriptions of observable stimuli and behavioral responses expression of the instrumentalist conception of scientific theories, according to which theoretical postulates are merely logical devices for integrating observational laws many neobehaviorists embraced an instrumentalist conception of theory Causal Intervening Variable represents an internal state of an organism that causally mediates between observable stimuli and behavioral responses expression of the realist conception of scientific theories, according to which theoretical postulates are potentially true descriptions of entities such as electrons and cognitive states Hull and Tolman, were committed realists who treated intervening variables as explanatory references to internal states that causally mediate between observed stimuli and behavior |
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Verification principle
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The central doctrines of logical positivism were essentially linguistic restatements of the psychological and meaning empiricism of David Hume.
Hume had claimed that the only meaningful ideas are those derived from experience, and the logical positivists advanced the __verification principle__, according to which the only meaningful factual propositions are those verifiable by observation. |
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Logical and causal intervening variables
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Logical Intervening Variable
merely a logical device for integrating descriptions of observable stimuli and behavioral responses expression of the instrumentalist conception of scientific theories, according to which theoretical postulates are merely logical devices for integrating observational laws many neobehaviorists embraced an instrumentalist conception of theory Causal Intervening Variable represents an internal state of an organism that causally mediates between observable stimuli and behavioral responses expression of the realist conception of scientific theories, according to which theoretical postulates are potentially true descriptions of entities such as electrons and cognitive states Hull and Tolman, were committed realists who treated intervening variables as explanatory references to internal states that causally mediate between observed stimuli and behavior ((Neobehaviorists (such as Hull and Tolman) embraced this later version of logical positivism, which became known as scientific empiricism (or logical empiricism). They treated theoretical references to consciousness and cognition in psychology as analogous to theoretical references to electrons and gravitational fields in natural science, as theoretical postulates related to publicly observable behavior. Scientific empiricists treated theoretical postulates relating to the internal states of organisms as intervening variables, defined in terms of relations between observable independent variables such as environmental or physiological stimuli and observable dependent variables such as behavioral responses)) |
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Problems with behaviorism
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By the end of the Second World War, many psychologists had come to question the behaviorist presumption that all or most of human psychology and behavior could be explained in terms of general theories of conditioning based upon the experimental study of rats and pigeons. They doubted that such theories could be extended to accommodate human moral, social, and linguistic behavior, as most behaviorists had maintained.
In the 1950s and 1960s behaviorist theories based upon conditioning came under increasing attack, in terms of both the scope and basic principles of conditioning theory. The meaning of theoretical postulates in natural science is generally determined independently of operational definition. operational measures of theoretical constructs such as electron and short-term memory are important, but they do not determine their meaning, as evidenced by the fact that their meaning remains invariant when different operational measures are employed in different empirical or experimental con-texts. most neobehaviorists insisted that surplus meaning has no place in psychological science This placed quite unnecessary constraints on the development of psychological theory and created a critical conceptual dilemma for neobehaviorists. If the meaningful content of theoretical postulates really is exhaustively determined by the observational stimulus-response sequences in terms of which they are operationally defined, then why not simply dispense with theoretical constructs altogether and restrict psychological science to the description of observational stimulus-response sequences? Lashley claimed that traditional behaviorist explanations in terms of reflex arcs and chains of association or connection could not account for complex serially ordered behavior such as language. He maintained that many forms of human and animal behavior require explanation in terms of hierarchically organized cognitive control structures that determine complex sequences of serially ordered behavior, which are occasioned by environmental inputs but cannot be explained in terms of associations between environmental inputs and responses or reinforcement histories. |
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The neobehaviorists
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Embraced the hypothetico-deductive account of the development of scientific theories
Theories play more than a merely summative role Theoretical postulates are introduced not only to accommodate previously established observational laws, but also to generate new observational predictions. Included Logical Positivism- The central doctrines of logical positivism were essentially linguistic restatements of the psychological and meaning empiricism of David Hume. Hume had claimed that the only meaningful ideas are those derived from experience, and the logical positivists advanced the verification principle, according to which the only meaningful factual propositions are those verifiable by observation. The logical positivists employed the verification principle to dismiss metaphysical, ethical, religious, and aesthetic propositions as literal nonsense, because they could not be empirically verified. But They recognized that many of the theoretical propositions of science, such as propositions about electrons and gravitational fields, were also incapable of direct empirical verification, but they were reluctant to dismiss them as nonsense. To accommodate theoretical propositions about unobservable entities such as electrons and gravitational fields, the logical positivists claimed that it is legitimate to introduce theoretical propositions so long as they are defined in terms of observables, via correspondence rules or operational definitions relating theoretical propositions to propositions about observables. In the early version of logical positivism known as sensationalism, observational propositions were held to describe the properties of private sense experience, such as the intensity of colors or apparent differences in weight. In the later version of logical positivism known as physicalism, observational propositions were held to describe the publicly observable properties of physical objects, such as readings on spectrometers or the motion of bodies. Neobehaviorists (such as Hull and Tolman) embraced this later version of logical positivism, which became known as scientific empiricism (or logical empiricism). They treated theoretical references to consciousness and cognition in psychology as analogous to theoretical references to electrons and gravitational fields in natural science, as theoretical postulates related to publicly observable behavior. Tolman- purposeful behavior, latent learning, cognitive determinism, intervening variables, hypothetical constructs Hull- Operationalization, Realism, no need for consciousness The neobehaviorist conception of theoretical postulates as operationally defined intervening variables impeded the development of psychological theory. The neobehaviorist error, inherited from scientific empiricist philosophy of science, was to confuse the reasonable demand for operational measures of postulated theoretical states and processes with the peculiar notion that the meaning of theoretical postulates must be specified in terms of such operational measures. |
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Hypothetical constructs
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MacCorquiodale & Meehl’s (1948) distinction
hypothetical constructs, unlike intervening variables, contain surplus meaning that is not reducible to empirical laws. Tolman’s theoretical cognitive postulates were hypothetical constructs rather than intervening variables, as he later acknowledged. |
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Skinner
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focused upon what he called operant behavior, as opposed to Pavlovian respondent behavior.
defined operant behavior as behavior whose probability of recurrence is increased by reinforcement respondent behavior as behavior elicited by unconditioned and conditioned stimuli. operant conditioning increases the probability of the recurrence of a behavior (in a stimulus situation) and the frequency of its recurrence, through reinforcement of the behavior. Law of Effect= Operant Conditioning? Skinner claimed that his account of operant conditioning was merely a refinement of Thorndike’s law of effect. However, Skinner rejected Thorndike’s references to satisfaction and discomfort and Hulls interpretation of reinforcement as drive reduction. He maintained that the only defining characteristic of a reinforcing stimulus is that it reinforces, ignoring the obvious circularity of the definition. Unobserved states and processes- Skinner rejected the scientific empiricist and neobehaviorist account of psychological theories. theories about unobservable states and processes, including theories about cognitive states and processes, are explanatory fictions: They are vacuous as explanations of relations between observable stimuli and responses and play no role in the development of novel predictions about behavior Skinner also recognized that the notion that operationally defined intervening variables can generate novel empirical predictions is completely illusory. Since at any point in time, the content of postulated intervening variables is supposedly determined by the functional relationships between observable stimuli and responses in terms of which they are operationally defined, the only basis for the prediction of novel functional relationships is our present knowledge of functional relationships between observable stimuli and responses. Skinner maintained that behaviorist psychology should focus on the description of functional relationships between observable behavior and environmental stimuli, based upon the experimental analysis, control, and manipulation of environmental reinforcement Skinner didn’t see any need for theory and rejected the hypothetico-deductive method advocated by Tolman and Hull. Skinner acknowledged the existence of cognitive states, but denied that they are centrally initiated. Cognitive states are merely internal links in fully determined causal chains relating behavior and environmental stimuli. He rejected the notion that the cognitive agent is the true originator or initiator of action and, like most other behaviorists, was a committed environmentalist. Skinners theoretical commitment to the environmental determination of behavior led him to champion programs of social engineering based upon experimentally derived principles of behavior modification. Skinner’s radical behaviorism became a distinctive movement within scientific psychology. Skinner was the most famous 20th century psychologist. |
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Tolman
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While Tolman may not have had as revolutionary an impact as Watson or as immediate an influence as Hull, his theoretical position has endured better than theirs.
Tolmans own research was focused on purposive or goal- directed behavior in animals and humans. Purposeful behavior- Claimed that most animal and human behavior is intentionally directed toward goal or end states. Like Aristotle, Tolman maintained that most animal and human behavior is intrinsically purposive or teleological. Tolman did not deny the independence of conscious mentality and behavior. He thought it was perfectly legitimate to postulate mental determinants of the purposive behavior of animals and humans. He rejected the common conception of learning as the automatic connection of stimulus and response, based upon principles of contiguity, frequency, and reinforcement. Latent Learning- Tolman and Honzik (1930) maintained that rats are able to learn maze layouts in the absence of reinforcement. Tolman held that rats develop cognitive maps of their spatial environment based upon confirmations of their expectancies: in the course of learning something like a field map of the environment gets established in the rats brain. Cognitive Determinism- Tolman’s commitment to the cognitive determination of both animal and human behavior was a distinctive feature of his purposive behaviorism. It distinguished it from the forms of behaviorism advocated by most other behaviorists. Tolman rejected Lloyd Morgan’s claim that all animal behavior could be explained in terms of association and never embraced the standard behaviorist attempt to accommodate all forms of animal and human behavior in terms of conditioned learning Intervening variables- Tolman came to treat cognitive states as intervening variables, operationally defined in terms of external environmental or internal physiological stimulus variables (independent variables) and behavioral response variables (dependent variables) “Mental processes are but intervening variables between the five independent variables of (1) environmental stimuli, (2) physiological drive, (3) heredity, (4) previous training, and (5) maturity, on the one hand, and the final dependent variable, behavior, on the other.” His hypothetical constructs- Tolman specified the meaning of his theoretical cognitive constructs independently of any operational definition. Tolman specified his theoretical references to cognitive maps, for example, in terms of an organism’s representation of its spatial environment, not in terms of its behavior in that environment. Given this theoretical specification, one could understand how rats represent their environment without knowing how they behave in that environment. |
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Hull
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claimed that all learning is based upon the reduction of drives related to an organisms primary biological needs
food, drink, sexual gratification, temperature regulation, and relief from pain reinforcement is equivalent to drive reduction or satisfaction Operationalization- claimed that theoretical intervening variables such as drive and habit strength must be related to observable independent and dependent variables Realism- theoretical references to habits must be operationally defined in terms of observable stimuli and responses, he maintained that habits exist independently of their particular behavioral expression in stimulus situations theoretical references to drives must be defined in terms of observable stimuli and responses, but maintained that they exist independently as internal states of an organism that causally mediate between environmental stimuli and behavioral responses No consciousness/cognition- He acknowledged that explanations in terms of consciousness are legitimate in principle, but held that there is no need to appeal to them in practice. Hull doubted that theoretical references to consciousness would ever be needed to explain animal or human behavior. Hull also acknowledged the legitimacy of cognitive theoretical postulates and sometimes employed them in his own work, but he rejected Tolman’s theories of representations and cognitive maps. He believed that all behavior, including human moral and social behavior, could be explained in purely mechanistic terms. Hull agreed with Tolman that cognitive constructs are hypothetical constructs with surplus meaning that is not reducible to the mere description of correlations between observable stimuli and responses but differed in insisting that postulated cognitive states must be defined operationally as internal causal variables Hulls theories of conditioned learning had far greater initial impact than Tolman’s cognitive theories. Hulls theories remained highly influential throughout the 1940s and 1950s and Hull’s form of neobehaviorism remained the dominant force in American departments of psychology until the advent of radical behaviorism and the cognitive revolution in the 1950s and 1960s. |
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Chomsky
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subjected Skinners claim that the complexities of verbal behavior could be explained in terms of discriminative stimuli and reinforcement history to a devastating critique.
argued that Skinners basic concepts of stimulus, response, and reinforcement could be objectively defined only in terms of rigorously controlled experiments and could not be extended to accommodate complex verbal behavior. Chomsky argued that human verbal behavior could only be explained in terms of representations of the rules governing the construction of sentences. According to Chomsky, our ability to recognize sentences cannot be explained in terms of behaviorist principles such as stimulus generalization or in terms of basic associationist principles ( such as contiguity, frequency, and reinforcement), but must be explained in terms of the internal representation of the grammar of a language. doubted that any behaviorist theory could account for the remarkable fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars with remarkable rapidity, based upon a very limited set of data (the so- called poverty of the stimulus argument). the child’s ability to acquire grammar at such a rapid rate can be explained only by the postulation of some innate ‘ hypothesis-formulating ability, a suggestion Chomsky later developed in his theory of (innate) transformational grammar a postulated system of rules governing the production of grammatically well- formed sentences. IMPACT- Although Chomsky influenced many individual psychologists and persuaded some to abandon behaviorism and embrace cognitive forms of psychological explanation, his own distinctive theoretical position had little direct impact upon the development of later theories in cognitive psychology Bigger impact as a philosopher and political activist |
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Garcia
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Contiguity and Frequency
Studies by John Garcia and others showed that contiguity and frequency are not necessary or sufficient for conditioned learning. Garcia discovered that rats that refuse to drink saccharin that has been paired with radiation sickness do so after a single trial, violating the principle of frequency, and after an interval of up to 12 hours between drinking saccharin and sickness, violating the principle of contiguity. Kamins’ studies of blocking suggested that prior conditioning to one element of a compound stimulus (such as light in a light and noise complex) attenuates or blocks conditioning to the other element. |
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Delaney
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Conciousness & Cognition- Dulany (1968) suggested that, in many of these studies, not only were subjects aware of the relevant response reinforcement connections, but also that such awareness was a necessary condition of successful conditioning.
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McCorquodale & Meehl
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hypothetical constructs, unlike intervening variables, contain surplus meaning that is not reducible to empirical laws.
Tolman’s theoretical cognitive postulates were hypothetical constructs rather than intervening variables, as he later acknowledged. |
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Explain the different interpretations of artificial intelligence made by the Turing test and the Chinese Room problem.
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Turing test:
Set-up: a human interrogator poses questions to a machine and another human whose only contact with them is via a teleprinter link Conclusion: Turing maintained that we should be prepared to ascribe intelligence to a machine if we could not discriminate the responses of the human communicator from a machine simulating or imitating these responses developed the abstract idea of a hypothetical machine, now known as a Turing machine, capable of performing elementary operations on symbols printed on a paper tape Turing originally approached the question by conceiving of a human operator, or human computer, who mechanically performed a set of instructions from a rulebook. By imagining a human replaced by a machine with a stored set of instructions, Turing created the notion of a computer program. In conceiving of a machine capable of performing a variety of tasks (such as computing numbers, drawing logical implications, and playing chess), Turing developed the principle of the modern computer Artificial intelligence-raised the question of whether cognitive processes, such as those involved in proving theorems, playing chess, or understanding language, can properly be ascribed to machines, in the same sense in which they are paradigmatically ascribed to humans. This question has vexed psychologists as much as it has vexed critical philosophers and humanists. Chinese room John Searle argued that the symbols that computers manipulate, such as those processed by computers operating on story-reading programs, mean nothing to them, unlike the symbols that humans employ in language comprehension and communication. Searle proposed The Chinese Room Scenario as a counter-point to Turing’s test. imagine a room in which a person who speaks only English receives written questions in Chinese The person responds with printed answers in Chinese in accord with instructions from an English rulebook, which specifies the appropriate Chinese answers to questions set in Chinese The person identifies the Chinese questions merely by the shape of the symbols and prints out the set of symbols that the rulebook identifies as the appropriate answer in Chinese Searle claimed that a person performing such a task could pass the Turing test, but would not understand Chinese. Such a person would merely produce the answers by manipulating uninterpreted formal symbols. Since such a person would essentially behave like a computer, per-forming computational operations on formally specified elements, Searle concluded that linguistic comprehension and communication should not be ascribed to digital computers. |
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Explain how two developments in Computer Science influenced the cognitive revolution.
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The primary stimulus for the emergence of cognitive psychology came from external developments in information theory, linguistics, and computer simulation, rather than from the internal empirical anomalies faced by behaviorism.
The conflict between behaviorism and cognitive psychology was not a conflict between exclusive theoretical paradigms. it did mark a significant change in the conception of theories of cognitive states and processes from their treatment as operationally defined intervening variables to their treatment as independently meaningful hypothetical constructs |
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In what respect did Weiner's information theory mark a return to Aristotle?
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Purposeful behavior- maintained that the behavior of servomechanisms such as torpedoes is intrinsically purposeful
such machine behavior requires a teleological explanation in terms of regulation by feedback, defined as signals from the goal that modify the activity of the object in the course of the behavior Wiener maintained that the same information-theoretical principles of explanation apply to the restricted class of animal, human, and machine behavior that involves regulation by information feedback. In doing so, he made a major contribution to the development of the cognitive revolution. He legitimized the concepts of purposive behavior and teleological explanation for hard-nosed scientific skeptics by demonstrating their applicability to the behavior of inanimate machines. |
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What was the fundamental difference between the theoretical cognitive constructs employed by neobehaviorists and cognitive psychologists?
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complained that a major obstacle to the development of mechanical systems that could mimic purposive behavior in humans was the inadequacy of neobehaviorist theory
Purposeful behavior- maintained that the behavior of servomechanisms such as torpedoes is intrinsically purposeful such machine behavior requires a teleological explanation in terms of regulation by feedback, defined as signals from the goal that modify the activity of the object in the course of the behavior Wiener maintained that the same information-theoretical principles of explanation apply to the restricted class of animal, human, and machine behavior that involves regulation by information feedback. In doing so, he made a major contribution to the development of the cognitive revolution. He legitimized the concepts of purposive behavior and teleological explanation for hard-nosed scientific skeptics by demonstrating their applicability to the behavior of inanimate machines. Chinese Room- Yes to computer models, no to computer simulation Made cognitive theories testable (to behaviorists chagrin) Undermined behaviorists complaints that cognition was a return to immaterial souls or spirits Allowed autonomy and mechanistic explanation to be combined |
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Cognition
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The most influential form of information-processing theory was the product of the creation of the electronic computer.
Cognitive psychologists treated cognitive states and processes as legitimate objects of explanation in themselves. The cognitive revolution in psychology involved the rejection of the behaviorist restriction of the subject matter of psychology to observable behavior. |
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Computers
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The most influential form of information-processing theory was the product of the creation of the electronic computer.
Turing developed the abstract idea of a hypothetical machine, now known as a Turing machine, capable of performing elementary operations on symbols printed on a paper tape Turing originally approached the question by conceiving of a human operator, or human computer, who mechanically performed a set of instructions from a rulebook. By imagining a human replaced by a machine with a stored set of instructions, Turing created the notion of a computer program. In conceiving of a machine capable of performing a variety of tasks (such as computing numbers, drawing logical implications, and playing chess), Turing developed the principle of the modern computer Artificial Intelligence- raised the question of whether cognitive processes, such as those involved in proving theorems, playing chess, or understanding language, can properly be ascribed to machines, in the same sense in which they are paradigmatically ascribed to humans. This question has vexed psychologists as much as it has vexed critical philosophers and humanists. Yes to computer models, no to computer simulation Made cognitive theories testable (to behaviorists chagrin) Undermined behaviorists complaints that cognition was a return to immaterial souls or spirits Allowed autonomy and mechanistic explanation to be combined |
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Metaphors
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a
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Turing test & Chinese room
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Turing Test:
Set-up: a human interrogator poses questions to a machine and another human whose only contact with them is via a teleprinter link Conclusion: Turing maintained that we should be prepared to ascribe intelligence to a machine if we could not discriminate the responses of the human communicator from a machine simulating or imitating these responses CHinese ROom imagine a room in which a person who speaks only English receives written questions in Chinese The person responds with printed answers in Chinese in accord with instructions from an English rulebook, which specifies the appropriate Chinese answers to questions set in Chinese The person identifies the Chinese questions merely by the shape of the symbols and prints out the set of symbols that the rulebook identifies as the appropriate answer in Chinese Searle claimed that a person performing such a task could pass the Turing test, but would not understand Chinese. Such a person would merely produce the answers by manipulating uninterpreted formal symbols. Since such a person would essentially behave like a computer, per-forming computational operations on formally specified elements, Searle concluded that linguistic comprehension and communication should not be ascribed to digital computers. |
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Broadbent
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treated human short- term memory as a limited capacity channel and provided a theoretical account of attention in terms of the active processing of information rather than the passive reaction to stimuli.
he held that the performance of selective listeners seems to vary with information as defined by communication theory, rather than with amount of stimulation in the conventional sense he maintained that theories of attention needed to distinguish between the arrival of a stimulus at the sense-organ and the use of the information it conveys |
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Miller
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published a classic paper on the limited capacity of attention and memory as information channels titled “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information” (Miller, 1956).
He demonstrated the limited capacity of sensory judgment, perception, and short-term memory and reframed in information-theoretical terms Wundt’s earlier claim that the capacity of human attention is restricted to around seven units. Miller also demonstrated the limitations of the pure information- theoretical approach. constraints on memory capacity can be surmounted by recoding information into meaningful chunks such as mother rather than the units r h m t e o during the 1950s Miller came to treat humans more as (active) processors of information than as (passive) channels of information At Princeton University he established a new program and laboratory in cognitive science, the name for the newly evolved interdisciplinary matrix of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and linguistics |
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Turing
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developed the abstract idea of a hypothetical machine, now known as a Turing machine, capable of performing elementary operations on symbols printed on a paper tape
Turing originally approached the question by conceiving of a human operator, or human computer, who mechanically performed a set of instructions from a rulebook. By imagining a human replaced by a machine with a stored set of instructions, Turing created the notion of a computer program. In conceiving of a machine capable of performing a variety of tasks (such as computing numbers, drawing logical implications, and playing chess), Turing developed the principle of the modern computer |
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Wiener
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Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) defined cybernetics
as the scientific study of control and communication in animals and machines, which he analyzed in terms of the acquisition, use, retention, and transmission of information. characterized purposive behavior as the intelligent adjustment of behavior to environmental change (echoing earlier functionalist accounts – like Dewey) complained that a major obstacle to the development of mechanical systems that could mimic purposive behavior in humans was the inadequacy of neobehaviorist theory Purposeful Behavior- maintained that the behavior of servomechanisms such as torpedoes is intrinsically purposeful such machine behavior requires a teleological explanation in terms of regulation by feedback, defined as signals from the goal that modify the activity of the object in the course of the behavior Regulation by information feedback- Wiener maintained that the same information-theoretical principles of explanation apply to the restricted class of animal, human, and machine behavior that involves regulation by information feedback. In doing so, he made a major contribution to the development of the cognitive revolution. He legitimized the concepts of purposive behavior and teleological explanation for hard-nosed scientific skeptics by demonstrating their applicability to the behavior of inanimate machines. Wiener introduced many concepts that play a significant role in computer science and cognitive psychology, such as working memory and executive function ability of any mechanical system to engage in purposive behavior was based upon structural features suitable for the acquisition, use, retention, and transmission of information |
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Seale
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John Searle argued that the symbols that computers manipulate, such as those processed by computers operating on story-reading programs, mean nothing to them, unlike the symbols that humans employ in language comprehension and communication.
Searle proposed The Chinese Room Scenario as a counter-point to Turing’s test. Searle claimed that a person performing such a task could pass the Turing test, but would not understand Chinese. Such a person would merely produce the answers by manipulating uninterpreted formal symbols. Since such a person would essentially behave like a computer, per-forming computational operations on formally specified elements, Searle concluded that linguistic comprehension and communication should not be ascribed to digital computers. |
