Preface

Welcome to this course on Cognitive Psychology. I fell in love with cognitive psychology when I was an undergraduate student taking a similar course taught by Curt Burgess (whose research we talk about in Chapter 7). In fact, it was this undergraduate course along with the opportunity to work in a Cognitive Psychology lab that fueled my desire to earn a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology under the direction of Jim Neely (whose research we will also discuss in Chapter 7).

This is one of my favorite courses to teach and I love the new perspectives and fresh ideas that students bring to many classic issues in the field. However one thing that I have not been fond of is the rising cost of textbooks, and that is why I have created this book. I took on a similar challenge in my Sensation and Perception class and students have responded very favorably to that book, so I thought I would do the same for this class.

To create this textbook I provided ChatGPT with the closed captioning of lectures that I had already created during the COVID-19 pandemic, preceded by the prompt

Use the text of the following lecture to create a chapter entitled [chapter name here] that could appear in a college-level textbook. Provide details and incorporate all of points discussed in this text. [I then pasted the content of the closed captioning within quotation marks following this prompt].

This procedure needed to be done in many small sections (multiple sections per chapter) and following this I heavily edited the material that was generated and inserted images that I created (sometimes with the help of ChatGPT). During this process I discovered multiple instances where ChatGPT would generate content that was entirely wrong and I have corrected all of these errors.

So, why didn’t I just write a book without the use of ChatGPT? …and if the professor of this course can use AI to write the textbook, does that mean students can use AI on assignments and papers?

In terms of the first question, writing a textbook takes time and I thought that this tool would help to speed things along. In practice I found that ChatGPT was able to summarize my lectures quite nicely, and this did help the process go faster (though the writeup of this book was certainly not what anyone would consider fast).

In terms of the second question, yes, you can use AI in this class (where it is clear how AI was used and it is clear that the material originated with you) but you must follow the guidelines described in class and listed in the syllabus. Please also keep the acronym P.L.A.C.E.B.O. in mind when using AI in this class.

P = Prompts. The prompts you use are critically important and you tend to get better output if you include critical content in your prompt.

L = Learning objectives. It is important to use AI in a manner that doesn’t violate the learning objectives for the course (see the syllabus for the learning objectives).

A = Accuracy. You are responsible for checking the accuracy of all content you submit in this class. Note that it is easier to spot inaccurate information if you are an expert on the topic, so noticing inaccuracies related to cognitive psychology may not be as easy for you as it is for me.

C = Cumbersome. Be aware that it is sometimes much easier to write text without using AI. For example, it is overly cumbersome to ask ChatGPT to write a simple sentence about who your participants were.

E = Ethics. You need to use AI in an ethical manner. If you are specifically told not to use AI on an assignment then the use of this tool would be considered unethical (i.e., cheating).

B = Bias. Be aware that AI has inherent biases. When you use information that was generated from AI you need to be mindful of this and consider whether bias is a problem. For example, when you ask AI to generate an image of a person does it depict the person’s race or gender, and if so, what does it choose? In my experience AI-generated images quite often depict a white male (see Figures 6.2, 6.4, and 9.1 as three examples, which I left to help illustrate this point).

O = The work you submit must fundamentally originate from you. In this class that means that the content needs to be something you provided, rather than material that was fully generated from AI. To ensure this is not an issue you should consider your prompts and whether you are providing all of the critical information.

 If you include AI generated text in a manner that violates the policies described in the syllabus then there may be point deductions. If you have any questions about the use of AI in this class then you should come talk with me.

Please also be aware that there is no college-wide agreement on proper use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT. For this reason, you should ALWAYS check with your professor BEFORE you use AI on an assignment or paper.

This textbook closely tracks the material I present in class, since it was generated from my lectures. But this textbook is certainly no substitute for coming to class. In fact, it is highly unlikely you can do well in the course if you do not come to class on a regular basis! I add many other details that are not found in the content of the AI-generated prose found here. I hope you find this useful and if you find errors please let me know so these issues can be corrected in future editions.

If you are a faculty member using this textbook (or an edited version of it) in your courses, please let me know since this is the only way I can learn if the book is being adopted by others. Thanks!

-Todd A. Kahan