The essence of cognitive psychology
In the system of psychological knowledge, a special place is occupied by a fairly modern section of cognitive psychology, which has in its arsenal interesting and innovative methods and theories of the development of the human psyche and consciousness.
Definition 1
Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that carries out various studies of human cognitive processes occurring in his mind.
Its main essence is the study of man as a kind of computer, the basis of which is thinking and reason, their actions and main manifestations.
According to the theory of cognitive psychology, a person is able to perceive various signals that come from the surrounding world, convert them into information, process this information, analyze and organize it, thus turning it into a person’s internal knowledge.
The main subject of cognitive psychology is the process of researching such structural elements of the cognitive process of human consciousness as imagination, consciousness, attention, memory, sensation, as well as other thought processes.
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Social Psychology. Cheat sheetNatalia Aleksandrovna Bogachkina
1 MODERN VIEWS ABOUT THE SUBJECT OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
An active discussion about the subject of social psychology developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. XX century This discussion was prompted by two important circumstances:
1) increasing demands from practice;
2) changes that have occurred in the field of psychological science itself. Soviet psychology became stronger, qualified personnel appeared, and the quantity and quality of theoretical and practical research increased. The discussion began with an article by A. G. Kovalev (1959), which addressed two main issues:
1) understanding the subject of social psychology and the range of its tasks;
2) the relationship between social psychology and psychology, on the one hand, and sociology, on the other hand.
There is no generally accepted idea about the subject of social psychology. This is due to the high complexity of socio-psychological phenomena, facts and patterns. Therefore, each psychological direction identifies its own range of leading problems.
There are two main approaches to the question of the subject of social psychology.
The first understands social psychology as the science of mass mental phenomena. The second one considers personality to be the main subject of research. During the discussions, a third approach emerged, considering social psychology as a science that studies both mass mental processes and the position of the individual in the group.
Summarizing the existing various definitions, we can say the following: social psychology is a branch of psychological science that studies the facts, patterns and mechanisms of behavior, communication and activity of individuals, determined by their inclusion in social communities, as well as the psychological characteristics of these communities.
It follows from the definition that the subject of social psychology is the facts, patterns and mechanisms of behavior, communication and activity of individuals and groups associated with their inclusion in social communities.
According to A. N. Sukhov, A. A. Bodalev and others, there is an approach that shares the subject of theoretical social psychology (the study of the patterns of emergence, functioning and manifestation of socio-psychological phenomena at the macro, average and micro levels in various spheres, in normal, complicated and extreme conditions) and the subject of applied social psychology (patterns of psychodiagnostics, counseling and the use of psychotechnologies in the field of socio-psychological phenomena).
The sphere of interests of social psychology is visible quite clearly, which allows us to distinguish it both from the problems of sociology and from the problems of general psychology.
Aspects of cognitive psychology
The main aspect of the development of cognitive psychology is the opposition of its ideas to the ideas of behaviorism and the assertion that human behavior is directly dependent on his mental abilities.
The main concepts of this direction are the basic processes of cognitivism, which include the processes of imagination, memory, and thinking. It is these processes that contribute to the formation of conceptual schemes that shape certain behavioral reactions of a person in the process of his life.
The main method of cognitive psychology is the replacement of a personal construct.
This process can be characterized as a comparative analysis of how different people perceive information coming from outside and subsequently interpret it, turning it into knowledge.
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This process includes several stages:
- The introductory stage, at which a person receives certain tools with the help of which he has the opportunity to identify erroneous judgments and their causes.
- The second stage is the empirical stage, at which a person, with the help of a psychotherapist, works out the correct relationship between various phenomena. As a result of the work at this stage, the process of formulating arguments for and against occurs, the advantages and disadvantages of certain models of behavior are considered.
- The third stage, the pragmatic stage, is the stage of summing up the results of the work and the result of which is the person’s awareness of his own response actions.
As mentioned earlier, the main object of study of cognitive psychology is the cognitive processes of the individual. In addition to these processes, she also considers the characteristics of the emotional sphere of the individual, the psychology of human development and the processes of recognizing images received from the external world.
Supporters of the development of cognitive psychology believe that the human mind works according to the scheme of electronic computing technology together with the basic functions of the psyche, and as a result of these processes, a process of stage-by-stage processing, encoding and analysis of information occurs. Thus, all stimuli that enter the human consciousness from the outside pass through a certain chain of transformations.
In accordance with this, there is a position that in the human mind there is a certain maximum volume of information processing systems.
It is these ideas that are the main source of the main activity of a cognitive psychologist - the search for natural and most effective methods of working with information entering the human psyche from the outside world.
Main directions of cognitive psychology.
(Table of contents)
Let us remember that cognitive psychology can be defined in a very broad sense. Cognitive psychologists consider Plato and Aristotle as their predecessors. But there is an official year of birth of cognitive psychology - 1956. Howard Gardner thinks so. Cognitive revolution. Cognitive psychology was actively formed as a social movement. There was a conference at MIT where the following people were significant speakers. Firstly, this is D. Miller. In a strict sense, cognitive psychology is calculated from Miller, from the magic number 7 plus minus 2, that is, from working memory. Then the problem of information transformation and, consequently, its previous selection begins. Miller proposed another idea and in this sense added something to Wundt. The point is not how many numbers (units of information) are in memory, but it is important that any schematically organized material can occupy such a cell. It is not just the problem of units of information that arises. And such units that can be considered a unit of knowledge transformation. There is a limited number of places, but each cell can expand in its content. The dependence of working memory on the material still exists. The capacity of working or short-term memory will be different for letters or numbers, for nonsense syllables or for meaningful words. A unit can be considered not only a word, but also a phrase. Not only the visual material, but also the number of drawings. Objects that have a structure. And if working memory is a central formation, then it has a predecessor and there is a block into which further information is received. This next block is semantic long-term memory. The sensory register is associated with perception, and the semantic register is associated with thinking. At the same conference, two researchers whose names are associated with models for constructing the first computer models of the problem solving process spoke - Newell and Simon. They were the first to understand thinking as a process of processing information, and later it was they who gave a specific definition. Thinking is the essence of the process of solving problems. Much later in 1972. Newell and Simon introduced the concepts of problem space, internal or problem space. It was significant for them that human thinking is, in principle, modulated by computers. A separate problem is the comparison of human and AI. But this is not a problem for N and S. For them, even the highest forms of thinking come down to processes of processing symbols. N and S tried to imitate, first of all, solving practical problems. For cognitive psychology in the narrow sense, it is important to consider those stages where there is already knowledge, concepts and logic. For this, it was important to formulate the initial state and the target state. In the task space, the starting point and the target point were distinguished. For subjects N and S there were two logical statements, two logical formulas - a condition and a requirement. And the condition had to be converted into a requirement. Transformation rules, later called operators, were offered to choose from. The subject had to go through a certain step-by-step path from the beginning to the goal. The result was a specific set of statements. Each subject had his own protocol. The protocols were then generalized and the optimal path was called an algorithm. Here's the beginning. Construction of algorithmic programs, but either youth or haste in proving the capabilities of computers. Creative activities such as playing chess, composing music, etc. were chosen for modeling. And as soon as we started modeling creative activities (not strictly, but in the sense of creating something new), the problem arose that creativity is impossible using an algorithm. This means that the term must change, a new concept must appear to replace the concept of creativity. Heuristic. A cognitive psychologist will compare an algorithm and a heuristic. The algorithm is a search of solution options, in the limit a complete search. This means that moving through the algorithm can take a lot of time and, therefore, there will definitely be a successful result. What about heuristics? This is no longer an overkill, but a choice. Heuristics are a rule for effectively reducing possible decision options (allowing choice) that do not guarantee a successful result. Heuristics were quickly mastered in psychology, and a direction arose - heuristic programming. Any modern programs can be interpreted as certain sets of heuristics (specific and general). A speech and language researcher spoke at the same conference. Language is a system of signs, one of the forms of knowledge organization. Nahum Chomsky. The subject of research (and therefore modeling) here are the processes of generating and understanding speech utterances. Understanding the production and comprehension of speech utterances before and after Chomsky. Before it there was the actual linguistic stage. They actually came from the language and its structure. This structure was understood as being subject to regularity. A person selects each new statement with a certain degree of probability. This is related to Minsky's concept of "frame". Cells are connected to others with a certain probability. Here's one model. Unit is cell. There were other models where the units reflected not a single word, but a whole sentence. It was assumed that in our linguistic experience knowledge is stored in whole forms in groups. Subject group, predicate group. And when detailed written speech is generated, an adequate statement is a group of subject and predicate. Chomsky contributed two main ideas. In the most general form, he showed that the actual process of speech production is relatively independent of the structure of language. The structure of the language is the result; it is quite stable. And Chomsky emphasized the need for analysis and modeling of the process. And this process was called generative grammar. Chomsky's main idea is that by generating a statement, a person transforms, and therefore transforms, the structures he has in past experience (systems of cells, groups of subjects or predicates, etc.). Levels of speech activity were identified. At the initial level, experience is stored in the form of nuclear sentences that correspond to normative language. But then at another level Chomsky places the transformations of these nuclear sentences, the rules for transforming them. This is the same idea that N and S had about operators. Quite soon, in the mid-60s, Chomsky proposed another model that continued this psycholinguistic direction. Addresses the semantics of language. In addition to the surface levels, where we are talking about grammar, there is a level of deep semantics, at which Chomsky somewhat speculatively suggested the existence of some linguistic universals, initial semantic units. The person listens to the text and is given a signal. And he must say where in the text the signal was. It turns out that it is very difficult to correctly identify the location of this signal; it is always displaced. Chomsky's assumption is that this signal is shifted to the junction at the boundary of two global semantic units. Until the unit is fully implemented, listened to and spoken, a person marks the units of word generation. It is not grammar that reflects semantics, but semantics that determines the grammatical structure of speech. Just as the name of Vygotsky is next to Piaget, so it is here. Vygotsky says that there is always a division in the planes of speech into external and internal, grammatical and semantic planes. And speech production itself, speech-thinking activity, begins with semantics. The motive of activity is the essence of the expressed thought. I would like to mention it from the very beginning. Many people believe that all mental processes are modeled. But it should be adequately noted that language-generating machines have been created and operate quite successfully. But machines that understand language impose some limitations on the information approach. When a language is generated, it is already understood. But when the language is understood, then some kind of counter-activity is needed. The processes of understanding and generation are interconnected. When I understand a text, I respond by generating my own hypotheses of understanding. The second event that occurred that same year that Gardner notes was the Dartmouth conference, which brought together representatives of the cognitive sciences working on AI. Gardner believes that the problem of AI modeling arose in the late 50s. At this conference there were representatives of the computer field.
And so the problem, which was posed in 1956, was then a topic of heated debate in the 60s and remains constantly present today. The problem of correlating informational and psychological approaches to intelligence. For those who gathered at that conference, there was no such problem. For them, the information approach was like a modern psychological approach. But then some methodologists made comments. Some philosophers, when asked whether a machine can think, said very calmly that this was just an incorrectly posed question. It makes no sense to put it in science. Whether a machine can think is a strange question, because a machine is something that operates according to an algorithm, no matter how you improve it, and thinking is, first of all, a productive creative process. But the conversation was in a different language and the philosophers were not listened to. Essentially. This is not about comparing a person to a machine. And about what can be imitated using a machine. There are some areas in psychology that are subject to modeling and there are those that go beyond these boundaries. To continue the conversation, we will use the works of O.K. Tikhomirov. In theoretical terms, Tikhomirov's work is a test of what can be modeled and what is beyond the boundaries. Let us consider thinking as an activity following Leontiev and Luria. The operational level (in Leontiev's sense as ways of performing actions), for example, the information process of transforming a certain symbol - at this level, any process of solving problems is obviously modeled. Why? P.ch. operations (Leontyev also said this) are unconscious, automated, so by definition they are simulated using a machine. We rise to the level of action and encounter a lot of problems. P.ch. action is the process of solving a problem. Thought process, intellectual, heuristic. Is this process modeled? It is modeled where the material of the task has been mastered by the subject, let’s say it is well known to him. It is modeled where insight is no longer needed, where there is already an understanding of the situation. One of the predecessors of heuristic programming, George Polya, perfectly expressed the problem itself. He identifies typical heuristics. Let's say, the dream of a mathematics teacher is to identify a universal heuristic, a strategic program that would allow solving any problem. He builds such a program and says that any problem must be solved from the beginning and from the end. Go not only from the conditions, but also from the requirements to the conditions. An experienced mathematician immediately sees the solution. But heuristics do not guarantee a result, so at the moment a decision may not occur, there will be no understanding of the situation, there will be no insight. And this central link is not modeled. O.K. Tikhomirov finds a specific psychological problem about this. Emotional regulation of mental activity. The machine has no emotions. The process when it is automated can be modeled, but the emotional anticipation of a decision cannot be modeled. A representative of the information approach will remember the assessment of some element of the problem, the assessment of some tactics of the solution strategy. So programs for assessing and assigning significance to the elements of problem solving can be built. Therefore, the function of emotions itself could be modeled. What do representatives of the information approach not discuss, but psychologists are obliged to discuss? This is the level of cognitive motivation. Here the psychologist is obviously right. Here the representative of cognitive psychology deliberately excluded motivation from his analysis. Cognitive psychology has, roughly speaking, two qualitatively different stages. The first psychologists who studied memory, attention, and thinking focused on modeling the mechanisms of thinking. The entire process of information processing was divided into blocks, each with certain characteristics. And here cognitive psychologists felt the risk of escaping reality. W. Neisser was perhaps one of the first to draw attention to the fact that the patterns of information processes must be tested for ecological validity. This is a new stage - the path to ecological psychology. Now there is a desire to study human activity. We are talking about taking into account those, in a broad sense, environmental influences in which a person exists. More and more people are studying not individual elementary processes, but everyday processes. For example, cognitive psychologists study and provide answers to the everyday psychological problem of the sudden coincidence of recognition of certain facts. Deja vu, I've already seen it. People believe that they saw these events in a dream. These facts are explained by a cognitive psychologist, and all mysticism disappears. The third event occurred in 1956. In the same year, a work was published that is considered a turning point in the problems of concept formation. A cognitive psychologist is certainly interested in conceptual intelligence. In 1956 Jerome Bruner's work comes out. Co-authors were Goodnow and Austin, Bruner's collaborators. This work is devoted to the formation of concepts and the possibility of modeling this process. Bruner is not only a cognitive psychologist. First of all, it unites the cognitive sphere, perception and thinking as a single process of information processing. For Bruner, perception is a process of cognition of images. This is the process of assigning an object to a category, and this is very convenient for modeling the process. Another name for the perceptual process is the process of deciding which category to classify a particular decision into. Perceptions can therefore be considered as the result of problem solving. This means that there is no strict difference between perception and thinking. The problem of the subject's perception of information was of interest to ancient researchers of thinking. The Würzburg school already used the method of defining concepts and comparing concepts with each other. The question remains of how the concept is formed, how it is first formed. Researcher Akh proposed the first technique for the formation of artificial concepts.
To check, you need to create artificial material, unfamiliar words. The first such methods were in the Wurzburg school. Then there was a stage when the formation of concepts was studied by Vygotsky and Sakharov in order to look at what units the child operates before the concept. What are the stages of word meanings. One of these stages is syncretism. From syncrets the child moves on to the so-called. complexes and only then do concepts appear. Is it possible in the Vygotsky-Sakharov method to think not in concepts, but, for example, in syncrets or complexes? Answer: this technique cannot be simulated on a machine. P.ch., for example, show a figure and ask to identify other figures belonging to the same group. And the general feature of this figure is immediately called (color, size, i.e. feature). A search is performed based on characteristics common to this group. This means operating with concepts, and not with something that precedes concepts. But on a machine, only the concept is modeled. Cognitive psychologists were attracted by the work of Bruner, p.ch. it was a stage in the development of the problem. Bruner does not study what precedes the concept, but he studies the strategies of conceptual search. A person who sits down at a computer already has at least specific concepts. He searches by signs. Bruner explores strategies for the formation of concepts when a person already masters conceptual thinking. Bruner will again offer subjects a sample with a conceptual feature intended by the experimenter. And the subjects must make a hypothesis about the conceived conceptual feature. Subjects have two ideal options. In the first, the subject formulates the hypothesis holistically, which means he has introduced all the characteristics of the sample into it. Immediately the color, the number of objects, the shape, the background color, in general, everything. And in the second abstract case - a particular hypothesis or partial. Taking into account any one sign. After the subject has chosen a hypothesis, he necessarily comes to a concept formation strategy. In the first case, when I took everything into account. When they present, for example, an object on a green background and say that this does not relate to the concept. The subject will exclude this as something superfluous. Focuses and thereby guesses the intended concept. In the second case. The subject abandons his previous hypothesis and formulates a new hypothesis. There is a jump to another sign. Scanning for signs. There is no memory load in this second hypothesis. And in the first strategy you need to constantly take into account the previous one. Generally speaking, the most daring scientific discoveries were made not when everything was taken into account, but when a specific assumption was discarded. It's risky. A small summary and the next topic. Cognitive psychology in general studies cognitive processes as processes of information processing. She views this process as sequential, i.e. consisting of certain blocks and each of them has its own function. In addition, cognitive psychology deals with modeling these processes. In contact with psychologists, it becomes clear what is modeled and what is not. M. Eysenck says that among representatives of cognitive sciences three groups can be distinguished. These are experimental psychologists, these are representatives of heuristic programming and experts in technology, and, finally, the third are neurophysiologists. And we will be interested in the first group of researchers.
Video Lectures on general psychology Petukhov V.V. (Lectures 1-30) Video Lectures on general psychology Petukhov V.V. (Lectures 31-54) General psychology: Lectures on general psychology. Lecture notes (Table of Contents)
