Test 1 Questions

Choose and answer ONE question from each of the three sections below.  Your answer for each question should be approximately 1 typed page.  Your goal should be to write a concise, coherent, and original answer that addresses all aspects of the question.  You can use course readings, slides, and other sources to help you compose your answers.  However, you should note all of your sources at the end of each question and observe all conventions about citations and quotations.  Please make sure to ask about any aspects of the question about which your are unclear.  I encourage you to go through several drafts of your answers.  You should submit your completed tests to turnitin via beachboard by Tuesday 10/5/2009.

Section I

1.) For what are CTC and RTI acronyms? How does CTC/RTI understand and explain cognition (in general terms)?

2.) What is a cognitive architecture? What elements go into specifying a cognitive architecture? Why is it practically important to specify a cognitive architecture in theorizing about human cognition?

3. How does computational cognitive science conceive of cognitive tasks? How does computational cognitive science go about explaining one's ability to perform a cognitive task?

4.) Describe the Turing test.  What understanding of mentality unlies the Turing test?

Section II

1.) Outline substance dualism. Discuss the differences between interactionism, parallelism, and epiphenomenalism. What problem faces all versions of dualism?

2.) Delineate the central ideas of logical behaviorism. What difficulties do logical behaviorists face?

3.) What is eliminative materialism? What gets eliminated according to the eliminativist and why?

4.) How do functionalists understand mental states/properties? What advantage to functionalists see in their way of conceiving of mental properties. Does functionalism preclude dualism?

Section III

1.) How does Wundt conceive of mentality? What aspects of mentality does Wundt think psychologists can understand and explain? What methodology does Wundt advocate for psychology?

2.) Watson shapes his version of behaviorism around what type of learning? How does Watson propose to explain complex behaviors?

3.) Discuss how researchers come to reconceive of learning and cognition during progression from Watson's behaviorism, through Skinner, Hull, and Tolman.

4.) How do theorists like Broadbent, Miller, Neisser, and Wiener reconceive of cognition? Give an explicit example for one of these theorists.