Psychology: Cognitive approach to behaviour

Introspection

Examination of one's own thoughts and feelings

Wilhelm Wundt

Established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany in 1876

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Sigmund Freud

Austrian physician whose work focused on the unconscious causes of behavior and personality formation; founded psychoanalysis.

Behaviorism

The science of behavior that focuses on observable behavior only

B.F. Skinner

Behaviorist that developed the theory of operant conditioning by training pigeons and rats

Operant conditioning

A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher

Pavlov

Founder of classical conditioning while trying to study digestive system

Classical conditioning

A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events

Cognitive psychology

The scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning

E.C. Tolman

Researcher famous for work with latent learning and cognitive maps with rats in mazes

Models

Provide an approximation (physical/conceptual representation) of a scientific phenomenon that cannot be observed directly

Behavioural economics

A field of study that examines the effects of humans' actual (not idealized) decision-making processes on economic decisions

Cognitive bias

A feature of human psychology that skews belief formation.

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman

Psychologists who researched heuristics and their effects on decision making

Multi-store memory model

sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

short-term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly before the information is stored or forgotten

long-term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

iconic memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second

echoic memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds

rehersal

the conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage

Sperling (1960)

Measuring the capacity and duration of sensory memory

Array of letters flashed quickly on a screen

Participants asked to report as many as possible

Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)

Used free recall (recalling the to-be remembered items in any order) of a list of 20 items combined with an interference task to show the primacy-recency effect.

primary effect

tendency to recall the first items in a sequence more readily than the middle items

recency effect

tendency to remember recent information better than earlier information

Craik and Lockhart

developed the levels-of-processing theory of memory as an alternative to the stage theory of memory

levels of processing

depth of transforming information, which influences how easily we remember it

episodic memory

A category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of specific events, situations and experiences.

procedural memory

A type of long-term memory of how to perform different actions and skills. Essentially, it is the memory of how to do certain things.

semantic memory

A type of long-term memory of general knowledge about the world

Working Memory Model

An explanation of the memory used when working on a task. Each store is qualitatively different.

Dual task technique

a research technique where participants are exposed simultaneously to two sets of stimuli, either of the same or different modalities

Baddeley and Hitch

Working memory model - phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and central executive

central executive

The part of working memory that is responsible for monitoring and directing attention and other mental resources.

visuospatial sketchpad

A component of working memory where we create mental images to remember visual information

phonological loop

A component of working memory where we repeat verbal information to help us remember it. It is further divided into phonological store and the articulatory rehearsal component

episodic buffer

A component of working memory where information in working memory interacts with information in long term memory (eg. relating information you are processing to a previous memory)

Conrad and Hull (1964)

Demonstrated the phonological similarity effect

Baddeley, Lewis and Vallar, 1984

explored the effects of articulatory suppression on the phonological similarity effect

cognitive schema

networks of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about particular aspects of the world

mental representation

internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate

Bransford and Johnson (1972)

Presented participants with difficult-to-comprehend information

Experimental Group 1 first saw a picture that helped explain the information

Experimental Group 2 saw the picture after reading the passage

Control Group did not see the picture

Group 1 outperformed the others.

Having a mental framework of comprehension aided memory encoding and retrieval

Anderson and Pichert (1978)

Aim- To determine the influence of schema processing on both encoding and retrieval.

Method- Participants heard a story which contained information about a house. Half of the participants were asked to adopt a home-buyer schema when hearing the story, and the other half, a typical burglar schema. A distracting task was performed for 12 minutes before testing recall. After a further 5 minute delay, half the participants were then given the alternative schema (i.e. home-buyers were given burglar schemas and vice versa), and the other half were asked to retain their original schema, and recall was retested.

Results- Points directly linking to alternative schemas increased by 10%, whilst those relating to previous schemas declined.

Social Schemas

representations of how social groups work and the kinds of things they can or cannot do

Scripts

general descriptions of what occurs and when it occurs in a particular situation

self-schemas (self-concept)

beliefs about oneself that guide the processing of self relevant info. influence how we perceive ourselves and evaluate others; perceptions of ourselves from our own past knowledge

Darley and Gross (1983)

Lab experiment showing a girl playing in a "poor" environment and a girl playing in a "wealthy" environment. When asked how participants thought the girls would do on an intelligence test, most said the wealthy girl would do better

Bower, Black, & Turner (1979)

showed how scripts stored in our memory help us make sense of sequential data

bottom-up processing

analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information

top-down processing

the use of preexisting knowledge to organize individual features into a unified whole

Bugelski & Alampay (1961)

The rat man

pattern recognition

looking for similarities among and within problems

Effort after meaning

Participants connect a stimulus with knowledge or experience they already possessed. Once the stimulus gains meaning, it can be more readily stored.

Thinking

changing and reorganizing the information stored in memory to create new information

decision making

the process of making a choice or finding a solution

normative model

a model that describes what people should do

Formal Logic

Deals with premises and conclusions (all Greeks are mortal)

Theory of Probability

relates to the likelihood of an occurrence, expressed by the ratio of the number of actual occurrences to that of possible occurrences.

Utility Theory

A theory that allows decision makers to incorporate their risk preference and other factors into the decision-making process.

descriptive model

a model that describes what people actually do

Theory of Planned Behavior

the theory that attitudes toward a specific behavior combine with subjective norms and perceived control to influence a person's actions

Martin Fishbein

Created the theory of reasoned action

Adaptive decision maker framework

a micro-level cognitive model that zooms in on the transient internal process of making decision. people possess a toolbox of decision-making strategies which is guided by emotion-related goals (meta goals) as well as an attempt to achieve accuracy.

Weighted additive strategy (WADD)

for every alternative - multiple value of every attribute by the importance (weight) of the attribute to calculate weighted sum - select alternative with largest weighted sum (Alternative Based)