Cog Psy Chp 1

the mind

system that creates mental representations of the world and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, etc.

cognition

the mental processes, such as perception, attention, etc.

cognitive psychology

the study of mental processes; determining the characteristics/properties of the mind and how it operates.

Donder’s Pioneering Experiment

simple and choice reaction time; how long it takes to respond to the presentation of a stimulus (red—>green screen), how long it takes to make a decision.

savings

original time to learn list - time to relearn after delay (Ebbinghaus)

Structuralism (Wundt)

Perception is the adding up of sensations.

analytic introspection (Wundt)

trained participants described their thoughts and experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli.

Ebbinghaus’ Memory Experiment

how rapidly information that is learned is lost over time (memory and forgetting).

savings curve

memory could be quantified, plot of savings vs. time.

William Jame’s Principles of Psychology

focused on operations of his own mind, paying attention to one thing involves withdrawing from other things.

Behaviorism (Watson)

observable behavior is the only valid data for psychology.

Little Albert Experiment (Watson)

classical conditioning of a 9-month old boy, Albert; a loud bell was rang every time he came close to a rat, causing him to run away from it as fast as possible.

Classical conditioning (Pavlov)

how pairing one stimulus with another causes changes in the response to the neutral stimulus. (how pairing one stimulus w/ another affects behavior)

operant conditioning (skinner)

behaviors are made more or less likely to happen by the inclusion of reward and punishment, shape behavior toward a more desired outcome.

rat cognitive map (tolman)

rat was placed in a maze, food was placed somewhere in map, rat learned where to obtain the food by creating a mental map.

cognitive map

mental conception of a spatial layout.

Chomsky

humans have an inborn biological program that holds across cultures.

cognitive revolution

shift from stimulus-response relationships to understanding the operations of the mind. (behaviorism —> cognitive approach)

scientific revolution

shift from one paradigm to another

paradigm

a system of ideas, which guide thinking in a particular field.

information-processing approach

mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages. (computer systems replicated human brain processing)

Cherry attention experiment

focus attention on one message and ignore the other one, when people focused on the attended message; they could hear the sounds of the unattended message but were unaware of its contents.

cocktail party effect

ability to focus on some information while filtering out other information.

sensory memory

holds incoming information for a fraction of a second

short-term memory

limited capacity and can hold information for seconds

long-term memory

high capacity system that can hold information for long periods of time.

episodic memory

memory for events (what happened last weekend)

semantic memory

memory for facts

procedural memory

memory for physical actions (riding a bike)

neuropsychology

study of behavioral effects of brain damage in humans

electrophysiology

techniques used to measure electrical responses of the nervous system.