Mem and Cog Ch. 1

Empiricism

Knowledge comes from an individual’s own expereince. Environment plays a massive role in individual intelligence.

Nativism

Emphasis on natural abilities. Attribute individual ability more to biological factors and less to learning.

Structuralism

Wundt: Understanding elementary units of cognition was the best way to understand cognition.

Functionalsim

James: Focused on the why, or the purpose of consciousness rather than the “parts”.

Behaviorism

Define psychological research in terms of observable measures, emphasizing the study of behavior.

Gestalt Psychology

Study of the whole instead of its parts.

Cognitive Revolution

Rejection of behaviorsim

Cognitive Revolution Parts

1: Human Factors Engineering: The design of equipment that is well suited to people’s cognitive abilities.

2: Limited Capacity Processor: People can only do so many things at once.

3: Linguistics: People routinely process complex information.

4: AI

Experinements

Requires manipulating independent variables, measuring dependent variables, and using control groups.

Between Subject Design

Looking at the differences between groups

Within Subject Design

Comparison of subjects’ own performance when exposed to the condition vs not.

Quasi-experiment

when independent varibales preclude random assignment, ( gender, age)

Naturalistic Observation

Observing subjects in thier familiar everyday contexts.

Ecological Validity

The extent to which a study is applicable outside a lab.

Information - Processing Approach

Draws an analogy between human cognition and computerized processing of info. Info is passed through a system, us.

The Connectionist Approach (Parallel - Distributed Processing PDP)

Cognition is a network of connections among simple processing units. Connection models: Neural networks.

Evolutionary Approach

Humans have specialized areas of competence produced by evolutionary heritage.

Ecological Approach

all cognitive activities are shaped by the culture and context in which they occur.