Overview of Cognitive Psychology

A set of vocabulary flashcards based on key concepts and terms from the overview of cognitive psychology lecture.

Cognitive Psychology

The study of mental processes, including perception, memory, and reasoning.

Rationalism

The belief that knowledge is gained primarily through reason and understanding.

Empiricism

The theory that knowledge originates from sensory experience and observation.

Amnesia

A loss of memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological factors.

Behaviorism

A school of thought in psychology that focuses solely on observable behavior and disregards mental processes.

Tabula Rasa

The idea that individuals are born without innate knowledge and acquire knowledge through experience.

Neural Plasticity

The ability of the brain to change and adapt as a result of experience.

Cerebral Cortex

The outer layer of the brain involved in many complex brain functions such as thought and action.

Agnosia

The inability to process sensory information, resulting in difficulty recognizing objects or stimuli.

Aphasia

A language disorder that affects a person's ability to communicate.

Visual Pathway

The route by which visual information travels from the retina to the visual cortex.

Single Cell Recording

A neurophysiological technique for measuring the activity of individual neurons.

Feature Integration Theory

A theory that describes how features are combined to form a perception of an object.

Selective Attention

The process of focusing on a particular object in the environment for a certain period.

Dichotic Listening

A psychological test used to investigate selective attention where different sounds are presented to each ear.

Binding Problem

The challenge in cognitive psychology of how the brain integrates information from different sensory modalities to form a coherent understanding.

Cognitive Capacity

The maximum amount of information that an individual can process and store.