Unit 1 Cognitive Psych

Three basic steps

external stimuli, internal processing inside, system output

Cognitive psychology focuses on which processes’ data?

external stimuli and system output

Why not replace cognitive neuroscience?

limits in imagining and the physiological approach is complimentary to cognitive neuroscience and can inform the other

Advantages of the cognitive approach

less expensive, doesn’t need much specialized equipment

Disadvantages of the cognitive approach

challenging to do, like puzzle solving, it's hard to set up experiments that yield useful data. AND cannot know for certain that physical processes drive the results

Example of cognitive research

Geoffrey Keppel (1967) studied college students

Geoffrey Keppel study

breaks up the questions to make analysis of the study easier. The question was if study time organization mattered. They learned paired associates. Half the subjects did it all on the same say, the other half studied 2x a day for 4 days (distributed practice)

Experimental design of Keppel study?

independent variable are the manipulated variables (organization of study time) and dependent variable is what is measured / results which is the performance on the test

Another IV for keppel study

time of test, tested some 24 hours after the study, some a week after study

Results of keppel study

the long term learning is better spaced out, the 24 hours results of learning the association was similar between the two groups

Constructive replication

redoing a study but constructive means adding another variable like changing the difficulty of the material

Plato

nativist that claims you are born with memory of things

Aristotle

empiricist that believes people are born with a blank slate, you need to experience things for memory

Structuralist

to understand a mental event, you need to break it down into parts

Functionalist

why are you able to have the mental event, stream of consciousness

Rationalist

spends time thinking “hard enough”, no experiments nor desire to do them

Behaviorism

rejects mental representation and introspection

Cognitive revolution

contrasts with behaviorism. The brain has limits in its processing, then reaction time is meaningful since it shows that there is a process occurring inside the mind