How animals solve problems?

He built a castle box; put the cat inside.

The problem the cat had to solve was opening the gate by

stepping on the metal lever that was built inside the box

He discovered that when he put the cat inside this box, the cat

moved around and by chance, he stepped on the lever and the

lever opened.

One form of motivation for the cat to leave the box was the

food that was placed outside of the box

The cat didn’t necessarily solve the problem

A response followed by satisfactory consequences

is more likely to be repeated. A response followed by annoying

consequences is less likely to be repeated

Operant box (also called the Skinner box)

Video: The rat would push the lever and get food; he learns that

everytime he presses the lever he gets food

o Gets more complicated each time but the rats learned everything

o Second video: Rat basketball; if they score they will get a reward

gets to such a point that they actually begin to PLAY basketball in the

sense that the two rats fight for the ball to score and then to get food

(as reward)

More obvious reinforcer; FOOD/WATER/SEX =

primary

reinforcer

o Anything which satisfies your basic needs

something which has values and drives your need to

satisfy basic needs

o An example of this is money. We don’t reproduce money but we will do

whatever to get i

(Null sign) Operant Processes:

Reinforcement: Behavior is more likely to happen again

o Punishment: Behavior is less like to happen again

o Positive: Something is added

Positive reinforcement

Positive punishment

o Negative: Something is taken away

Negative reinforcement

Negative punishment

Schedules of Reinforcement

The reinforcement happens always after the same number of

responses or times

Fixed ratio

Fixed in 3

 Variable: Reinforcement happens on average after certain number of

responses or times

Variable ratio

Variable interval

o Ratio: Reinforced by responses

o Interval: Time terval

Rats are given drugs (one saline, one cocaine, one marijuana)

• Then they learn to do it at 12 seconds

• After 20 minutes, the rats act differently depending on whatever drug was

given to them

• If the rat presses a lever on time, he will get a reward. But if he presses it too

early or too late, he will not get the rat

dividing line/point where things are perceived

differently

How much change is necessary to perceive the

difference

• The difference is not a constant number but a constant

proportion

right under threshold 

no sensory information 

designed an isolation chamber

o Put dolphins in an isolated chamber and he

noticed that the dolphins were trying to kill

themselves they would hit themselves on the

sides of the chamber until they were injured

o Dolphins went on hunger strike

explains his experience while smoking

pott/LSD while he was in an isolation chamber he lost all his

senses, didn’t focus on feeling, hearing, or touching. He was just

reflected on his thoughts and memories

• It was like entering another realm; you’re almost not

human

Vision:

o Stimulus – light

Electromagnetic radiation with ample spectrum

380nm-760nm = Human spectrum

Organ being used: eye

Anatomy of eye

Weighs: 2.5 grams

Diameter: 7 cm

Iris

Cornea

Anterior Chamber

Pupil

Lens

Ciliary muscles

Optic nerve

Posterior chamber vitreous humor (keeps shape of eye)

Retina

Fovea

Blind Spot

Light crosses the cornea, crosses the chamber, and then it travels to

iris of the pupil

Iris

Controls how much light gets into the eye

The iris also gives you color of your eyes

Photo receptors

10 layers

Bipolar cells

Ganglion cells

physical stimulus of light becomes a neural

stimulus

Cones

Rods

- we have about 6 million

Focus on COLOR (light)

- we have about 120 million

Lack of light

are only for certain colors:

• Red

• Blue

• Yellow

Color Blindness:

• Red - green

• Red, green, and blue

optic chiasm: Where the optic nerves cross

Then it goes to the thalamus: where it will send the receptors

to the right part

Thalamus sends it to the visual cortex

o Gestalt Psychologist Head: Wertheimer studied the laws of

perception

Sometimes, we perceive movements in the absence of

movement

• This is known as the Phi Phenomenon

: we focus in the salient pattern and

ignore the rest

: We tend to perceive objects as a

continuum

Laws of Groupings

Proximity

: If two items are close in time or space

we group them together

Laws of Grouping

Similarity

We tend to put similar objects

together

Laws of Grouping 

Continuity

When we can see a line, as continuing

through another line, rather than stopping and

starting, we will do so

Laws of Grouping 

Closure

We tend to close the gaps to make the

object meaningful

Shows how gestalt videos are being used in daily life. An

example of this would be the ABSOLUT bottle – we automatically complete it

by including the E at the end of ABSOLUT.

o FedEx direct communication was achieved by colors and placing the

letters very close to one another

Constant Perceptions of Size and Shapes

The image that your brain is perceiving and the image that the brain is

telling you are two different things

When you see a known object from a distance the imagine in the

retina is small however the way we perceive it is normal size

When you see a known object from a distance, the imagine in

the retina is small

However, the way we perceive it is in normal size ex: if you

see someone from far away, you still see it as if it’s close in its

normal shape

This helps us by making continuity in the world if we are

exposed to different things we will get scared

 shows Zimbardo from different

perspectives walking away and how he keeps getting larger

and larger because we have taken in the information of the

entire room and believe that Zimbardo is the same size

The eyes are not in the same exact spots; there

is slight disparity in what the right and left eyes see this is

known as retinal disparity

If the disparity between right and left is big, then the brain

interprets it as the object being close to you

only need one eye the following concepts

were made up by Berkley

If you think that two objects more or less

the same size and one of them seems larger than the

other to you, your brain interprets that one as being

farther and the other, closer

 if we have something in which one object

is blocked by another, our brain interprets that the

covert is farther away than the object covering

 Air contains dust and droplets

o Reduction of clarity in objects is interpreted as

them being far away

 Objects have texture

•

o The closer the object the more clearly you can

see the two textures

o If you don’t see the texture, it’s interpreted as far

away

When we see the line converging

we interpret that as being far away

o An example of this would be a ladder

Muller-Lyer Illusion

o

-----

o >--------< We would perceive this one would be longer because of the

closed

-----

>--------<

We would perceive this one would be longer because of the

closed

The Ear

Stimulus sound: audible variation in air pressure:

o Sound characteristics:

Amplitude refers to frequency

Frequency refers to pitch

Difference in amplitude means difference in sound

Outer 

Middle 

Inner 

Outer Ear 

• Pinna

• Auditory

• Canol

Muscles

Tensor tympans

Stapedious

Ossicles

Malleus Hammer

Incus Anvil

Stapes stirrup

• Cochlea

• The shape of the ear is to define different sounds that

we hear

o Modifies the sound

o Called LOCALIZATION OF SOUND

• Pinna canal = 3 cm long

o Function: protect the tympanic membrane and

keeps the temperature of the ear constant

Ear structure

Middle ear is full of air

Inner ear is full of luids

: is to concentrate the energy of the tympanic

membrane into a small surface oval window

o It is also to protect the inner ear from loud noises

When the stirrup hits the oval window, the fluid in the inner ear moves

inside the inner ear, you have the cochlea

Cochlea 

o Has hair cells

o Channels open up:

Action potential begins with the cochlea and has to reach your

brain

Action potential travels to the auditory nerves

Auditory nerves cross in an area called the cochlear nucleus

Once they have crossed and go inside your brain, it goes to

the thalamus, which controls sensations of your brain, and the

thalamus recognizes them as nerves and sends them to the

auditory cortex

Once the sensation gets to the brain (cortex) then it is

interpreted

: is an ability of the nervous system to acquire and retain knowledge

and skills

: Storage system that holds sensory information

• Amount is very large

• Time is very short though fraction of a second to ¾

seconds maximum

• The thing about these two memories is that if you don’t

make an effort, you will not remember

• To make sensory memory into short-term memory you

do need to give it attention

Echoic – auditory sensory memory (no matter

what you pay attention to you you remember

what you hear)

o Iconic – visual sensory memory (if an image

flashes in front of you you will know what you

saw if you’re asked immediately)

Gives you a continuum

o We can chunk the information

o Theoretical model of short term/working

memory

: short term memory for

auditory stimulus

: drawing pad in

your brain keeping visual memory

: controlling the

interactions between phonological/visual

• Also the filter to decide which

information goes to the long-term

memory

[Working memory]

Long-Term Memory 

• Time = forever

• Amount of information is limitless

Came up with 2300 nonsense syllables or

CVS trigram

o CVC = consonant, vowel, consonant

o He came up with nonsense words and he would

study it once and try to see how many words he

remembered

o Then he would change the condition of what he

studied words, wars, etc.

o He would also change the number of times he

read it

Would change the time to recall the

information

the number of repetitions is directly

related to the words he could remember

= learn after already learned

Distributed practice is better than massed

practice

“The Method of

Loci”

How to increase curve and learn better:

Elaborate the material

Make it yours study the material the

way it makes sense to you

o Practice [overlearning]

Read it once and let it sit

Read it twice and let it sit

o Get some sleep because it consolidates memories

o Use verbal mnemonics

o Use visual imaginary

This method is called 

Two examples of Long Term memory:

• Declarative = know what

o Semantic: refers to facts

o Episodic: refers to the memory of the events of

your life

o Are brought up with some conscious memory

o Require information you can verablize the

information

• Procedural = knowing how

o Motor skills

Controlled in the motor cortex

cerebellum

Striatum

Habits

Location in the brain

Procedural does not require effort

Needs motor skills very difficult to verbalize

them

: Emotional, stressful components

(example: 9/11)

o Only 3/44 people have similar stories 10 years

later

o Not forgetting changing

: You think the person is somehow

famous because you remember their face or heard the

name before

o Sleeper effect: imagine you heard something and

its from a source that you don’t trust so when

you hear it, that news is pointless a couple

weeks later you hear the source but you forget

the news and you later accept the news

o The source is originally invalid so you don’t

believe the story, but once you forget the source,

the story is valid

o Crypto amnesia: Forgot the source, the source

was VALID, but the person still remembered the

idea

: 36/40 people were

innocent the eyewitnesses were wrong in their

judgment

: anytime the eyewitness

identifies somebody from a different race, it isn’t

going to be ideal

: she made a video of

two cars getting into an accident and

asked people how fast they bumped, hit,

and smashed those who said the car

smashed faster remember seeing the

glass on the ground, and those who saw

the car being bumped into faster don’t

• Video: she convinced people that

they were at lost at the mall a long

time ago

• She also convinced people

that they saw Bugs Bunny at

Disneyland

o If an eye witness sees too many details, the

less likely they are telling the truth because in

traumatic events, you’re not paying attention to

small details

: You have a false recollection of episodic

memories lesion in the frontal lobe.

o They have the memory but they don’t have the

order of it

o Wernicke’s syndrome

Alcoholics have a deficiency in B1

(Thiamine)

o Capgrass syndrome: Imposter; some of them get

so crazy that they end up killing the ones around

them because they know that the people are

imposters

: Are memories that we put in our

unconscious (a concept of Freudian’s psychology). You

can bring them back through repression, hypnosis, or

guided recall

o While they are recalling the memory, the

psychologist can bring up memories that never

happened by asking them questions

o Video: People accuse their fathers of terrible,

terrible things

: cannot remember the time, place,

person, or source of the story

o You have different types of these

o An example of this: got into an accident and was

perfectly normal BUT when he would look at his

mother, he would say that she was an imposter

and that they aren’t the same person

He also thought the father was an

imposter

Believed his house was an imposter

Believe he himself was an imposter

: Human ability to:

o Use knowledge

o Solve problems

o Understand complex ideas

o Deal with the challenges of the environment

o Learn quickly

Galton (cousin of Darwin; 1822-1911)

Inherited

Intelligence can be measured

Difference in intelligence can be quantified

Follows a normal distribution

He tried to scientifically prove that intelligence is inherited

• He developed the first IQ test

He studied eminent people a person holding a job that only

1/4000 has

• Checked the relatives of the eminent people to see if

they were eminent themselves

• And to his surprise, they were

o The study however was a little faulty because in

the olden times, if you were the son of a judge,

you were most likely going to be a judge yourself

and have the money to get an education

• 200 fellows of the Royal society

o Questionnaire

Background

• Social

• Political

Size of their hat

Color of their hair

• His interest in science was always

there? Or sparked in school?

Eugenics

o “Selective Breeding” = he thinks that smart

people should breed together to make Britain

exceed

is the applied science of the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population, usually a human population.

1st test of intelligence was based on 

physiological responses:

• Height

• Weight

• Capacity of lungs

• Strength of wrist

• Color Discriminiation

• Reaction Time

: measures the skills and the ability to solve

problems

Alfred (Binet + Simon)

• Hired by French government to develop intelligence

test

o 30 items

o 1st item:

Follow the light

Repeat 3 number

Repeat a phrase with 15 words

6 years old 10 questions

• 6 years old 5 questions

o IQ = Mental age/chronoligcal age x 100

Intelligence Quotient Terman/Stanford Test

o Now it is called Binet-Stanford Test

o Now it has been modified to the 5th edition

Genius: >140

o Very superior intelligence: 120-140

o Superior intelligence: 110-120

o Normal: 90-110

o Dullness: 80-90

o Border-line deficiency: 70-80

o Feeble-minded: <70

Bad ideas in intelligence testing:

o Craniometry

o Goddard and Kallikaks: believed inherited intelligence

o Army a and army b: IQ tests given to soldiers

Literate vs. illiterate

Let the illiterate ones go to war and kept the smart ones in DC

Intelligence Test

o Doing well in school

o Predictors of success at work

o Self-fulfilling prophecy = (example:) If you tell someone you’re a

female so I know you’ll do okay but take it anyway, they’ll do poorly. If

you tell someone they will do good, they will do good on the test

Problems that people find with intelligence tests:

o It is not measuring intelligence

o It measures learned knowledge schooling

o Some people are more wise at testing than others

Culture bias (1979)

For a long time, it was believed that women had a lower IQ

than men

: her husband asked her to prove that

women must have a normal distribution

• She wanted to prove it against feeble-minded women

• She went to hospitals and did something really simple:

she counted how many women there were and found

that there were more men than women

• She broke down the ages of the feeble women

o Equal number of older feeble-minded in men and

women

Young more boys than girls

•

• Couldn’t find too many young feeble minded girls in

hospitals; she realized that the parents would keep the

girls at home for service (until they were old and could

not do service anymore)

o Boys were sent to mental hospital

o Found there was an equal number of feeble

minded girls and boys

White Americans score higher than African Americans (10-15 points)

Asians score different in areas but they average to be the same

as white Americans

Latinos score around the same as white Americans as well

o The reason for African Americans scoring less is NOT because of

genetics therefore, it has to be the environment

African Americans have lower income

Their health insurance is not good have worse health care

Less years of education

o 26,000 African Americans

Best predictor for IQ:

• Family socioeconomic status

• Education of the mother

Maoris (New Zealand)

Dalits (Untouchables of india)

Burakumin (lower social class of Japan)

• All of these groups scored lower on IQ tests but if you

take them out of their environments and test them, they

do just fine

• Fulfilling the prophecy if you are expected to do

poorly, you will do poorly

• This can also be applied to African American

: can be defined as “the ability to acquire knowledge

and use it” 

: Problem space is a way of describing a problem and

has three components:

Initial state: starting point

Goal state: the final point

Set of operations: The steps you take to get from one point to

the next (Initial Goal)

: all the parts of the problem are clear

• You are using algorithms to solve the problem (Step by

step solution)

Ill-defined problem

o Sometimes some of the components of the

problem are not clear. Often times it is the set of

operations.

o Ex. If you want to be a professional writer

because I write well. That process is not clear but

you cannot learn how to write a best-seller book.

o In this case we use heuristics

o Heuristics can be defined as short cuts: ex. Rule

of thumb

Issues when solving problems:

• Lack of multiple hypothesis: you come up with

something but it doesn’t work and then you use that

same hypothesis again the second time around and it

still doesn’t work

• Mental Sets: Tendency to rely on procedures/habits

used in the past to solve future problems

• Functional fixedness: We tend to use objects in the

familiar way

• Ignoring the lack of evidence or negative evidence:

you ignore: Firefighters kept looking for the kitten –

when you are stuck on an idea, its hard for you to not go

through with it

Making decisions/decisions

We think very highly of ourselves when we make decisions

or judgments – truth it, we don’t. We don’t make all decisions

rationally

Sometimes it is caused by our basic needs

• A guy is hungry but doesn’t have any money so he steals

food

• Often times we are influenced by crowds

: Noble Prize winners in Economy

because of their study in how people make economic decisions

• They said that humans are not rational

• Results don’t correspond with actual results

o People are afraid of sharks but you are most

likely of dying at Foggy Bottom

• The way we make decisions is using heuristics (rule of

thumb, short cuts, etc)