Block 3- Historical background

Question 1

What are the key psychologists that I need to know for the background?

Answer 1

✦ Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
-Romanes
-Morgan
✦ Edward Thorndike (1874-1949)
✦ John B Watson (1878-1958)
✦ Burrhus Frederick (BF) Skinner (1904-1990)
✦ Ivan P Pavlov (1849-1936)

Question 2

What are 3 overall reasons to study animal learning and cognition?

Answer 2

• Comparative psychology
  -Intellectual curiosity
  -Relevance to other disiplines

Question 3

Who did comparative psychology start with?

Answer 3

Charles Darwin
eg on the origin of species by natural selection

• He wasn’t the first person to propose there was mutation between species - but was the first to give an accurate mechanism for how that occurred

Question 4

What did Darwin come up with
(hint 4)

Answer 4

• He found that out through different observations and coming up with 4 different rules (which he called postulates)

1. There is variability across individuals in a population
2. Variability is hereditary
3. More offspring are born than can survive, and there is competiton among individuals for resources
4. The survivors of the competition will reproduce

Question 5

Why is Darwin considered a comparative psychologist?

Answer 5

There is no difference between the evolution of humans and the evolution of other animals

There is no difference between behaviour and other evolved traits

Question 6

How is natural intellect and curiosity a reason for studying animal cognition- give some examples of phenomena

Answer 6

• We might live with other animals, we might have them as pets, some people use them as food sources - they play a significant role in our lives
• So its natural for us to observe them and wonder about similarity to humans and their intelligence

Eg there are studies looking at animals ability to recognise themselves in a mirror

Does it mean self recognition leads to self consciousness? Is it self awareness?

eg elephants, cleaner rasse and chimpanzees etc respond appropriately to mirrors

eg looking at imitation in monkeys eg whether they can mimic sticking a tongue out

Because you are studying a species of animals that can’t tell you whats it’s thinking, you have to come up with designs that rely on observing its behaviour, and be able to rule out other forms of explanation

Question 7

How do animals relate to human cognitive psychology?

Answer 7

• Human cognitive psychology is very interested in how we solved problems, how we follow rules, how we categorise things
• Principle of animal bahvioiur have been used to try and understand those things in humans
• But also If animals dont have a natural language ( like humans who can communicate their thoughts through language ) if animals are still capable of performing the same sorts of problems that humans can without natural language - tells us that way that human might be able to solve those problems as well
• so if animals can be shown to possess complex problem- solving skills without the use of complex language then it would support the view that complex human behaviour does not always depend on language.

Question 8

How do animals relate to behaviour neuroscience?

Answer 8

• In behavioural neuroscience it is important for researchers to have a clear understanding of the cognitive processes that their brain manipulations will affect.
• Unless they understand the psychological process, they wont be able to understand the neural process

Question 9

How do animals relate to ai?

Answer 9

Models of associative learning - basis of a lot of AI and computational modelling

How can we predict future events based on passed experience

Question 10

How do animas relate to clinical psychology?

Answer 10

• Understanding human behaviour when things go wrong, when learning goes wrong, leads to problems like the development of phobias
• eg theres models of schizophrenia that are based on principles of animal lesmnring
• Modern cogntive behavioural therapy has come from what we’ve discovered through the use of animals

Question 11

Overall what was Romanes view?

Answer 11

Viewed animal intelligence as a continuum with human intelligence, stating that through anecdotal evidence, animals posses conscious and rational thought

Question 12

Decribe Romanes- What was he interested in studying?
What were his methods?
What did he conclude?

Answer 12

-Romanes was interested in Animal intelligence- he pioneered the study of animals
- He was very taken by Darwin’s ideas- he believed that this extended to intelligence
- Wrote a book about animal intelligence

Method:
- He relied on anecdotes of animal behaviour

Conclusions:
- As a result of these anecdotes, Romanes concluded that animals were rational, empathetic, reasoning creatures with many facets to their intellectual abilities
- He and Darwin had the view that all animals had the same intellectual processes as humans, but in more or less quantities, different grades of intelligence
- eg empathy shown in ant, reasoning in cats

Question 13

Overall what was Morganes view?

Answer 13

Against anthropomorphism

Question 14

Describe Morgan? What did he study? Why? Give example? What did he find?

Answer 14

• He read an account from Romanes about a scorpio stinging itself to death, when presented with a stressful situation
• He tried to replicate this situation and stimulate a circumstance where a scorpio might be stressed - by dropping acid onto their back
• Observed sometimes they did sting themselves and did die, but he said it was a result of them moving around and trying to avoid the painful stimulus. So it wasn’t a result of them trying to relive themselves of the pain
• So he argued that people like Romanes would be too anthropmortic - applying human like qualities to animal behavior
• So he was against the notion
• He believed that whenever you look at ancedotal evidence of animal intelligence and should distinguish between observed fact and individual inference

Question 15

What was the rule that Morgan came up with?

Answer 15

-Known as Morgans canon
-So simpler explanations will do better than complex explanations

Question 16

What the example of Morgan’s dog?

Answer 16

• Morgan observed his dog - and concluded that animals learn by trial and error learning- not a sophisticated reasoning process

eg his dog once put his head through the gate and managed to open the latch

Over the next few weeks, he put his head in the inappropriate places less and less often, and in the appropriate places more and more often

Question 17

What was thorndikes overall view of animal intelligence/ what was his main contribution?

Answer 17

Developed the law of effect- behaviour followed by a satisfying outcome is more likely to be repeated. Thus learning is incremental and driven by consequences

Question 18

How did Thorndike differ, what did he want to do?

Answer 18

• He explored more experimental rigour
  -Wanted to deliver the coup de grace to the despised notion that animals reason

Question 19

How did Thorndike assess animal reasoning? What did he find?

Answer 19

• He studied cats’ ability to escape from slatted crates called puzzle-boxes over successive trials.
• The boxes contained various mechanisms that the animals had to manipulate in order to escape.
• Thorndike found that with increasing numbers of trials the cats became quicker to escape.
• However, there was no sudden decrease in the cats’ escape times, as would be expected if they gained some sudden insight, or had used reasoning, to discover how the escape mechanism worked. - so theres no process of reasoning
• Thorndike concluded that the animals had learned by trial-and error.

Question 20

What was Thorndikes law called?

Answer 20

Thorndikes law of effect

Question 21

Describe Thorndikes law of effect

Answer 21

The animal is seeing a stimulus

-The response (behaviour)happens to lead to a satisfying outcome

-This outcome therefore modifies the strength of the connection between stimulus and response

-Thus according the Thorndike, the animals aren’t producing the behaviour because they realise they are going to get out and get some food, they are producing the behaviour because in the past their behaviour has been reinforced in some way

-So all that is happening is a strenghting or weakning of stimulus response association

Question 22

Overall describe Watsons view/ contribution?

Answer 22

Should study behaviour, not the mind

Question 23

How did Watson differ from Thorndike?

Answer 23

• He thought broadly similar to Thorndike
• However, he rejected his law on effect - viewed it as too subjective eg notion of whats satisfying is something internal you can’t measure

Question 24

What other psychologists did Watson differ from? How did they differ?

Answer 24

eg Wilhem Wundt and Titchner

Wilhelm was interested in consciousness - he was interested in sensation and perception

Titchner subsequently used a process known as introspection - getting people to describe their experiences

Watson said instead we should take a more objective view on studying behaviour - he was interested in learning

Question 25

What was Watsons view? What did he advocate for?

Answer 25

Said we should only study the observable phenomena and the enviroment and advocated the use of animals He maintained that mental states are private experiences - impossible to know whether rats or other animals experience this So he advocated: - The importance of learning - Behaviourism - The use of animals He believed humans are a blank slate and everything comes from the influence of the environment

Question 26

What was Watsons famous experiment?

Answer 26

Baby albert experiment -In which they condition a baby to be scared of a white rat/ fluffy rabbit by associating it with a loud bang