Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Flashcards summarizing key terms and concepts from the Introduction to Cognitive Psychology lecture.

Cognitive Psychology

The study of intelligent behavior including how people think, learn, remember, speak, read, write, pay attention, solve problems, and make decisions.

Behaviourism

A psychological approach that studies observable behaviors and dismisses internal mental processes as irrelevant.

Classical Conditioning

A learning process that creates an association between a naturally occurring stimulus and a previously neutral stimulus.

Functionalism

A psychological perspective that focuses on the purpose of mental processes rather than their structure.

Structuralism

An early school of psychology that sought to identify the basic elements of experience through introspection.

Empiricism

The principle that knowledge comes from sensory experience and observation.

Representation

Mental symbols that stand for objects, events, or concepts in the real world.

Computation

The process of using mathematical techniques to solve problems or process information in cognitive psychology.

Connectionism

A theory in cognitive psychology that suggests information is processed via networks of interconnected units, similar to neurons.

Embodied Cognition

The theory that cognition is influenced by the body's interactions with the physical environment.

Independent Variable

The variable manipulated by the experimenter to observe its effect on the dependent variable.

Dependent Variable

The variable that is measured in an experiment, which is influenced by the independent variable.

Accuracy

A common dependent measure in cognitive psychology indicating the correctness of responses.

Reaction Time

The time taken by a participant to respond, frequently used as a measure in cognitive experiments.

Latent Learning

A form of learning that occurs without any obvious reinforcement and is not immediately reflected in behavior.

Marr's Theory

The idea that if computers process information, then minds may also be computational, processing inputs through various stages.

Turing Machine

A theoretical computing machine proposed by Alan Turing that can simulate any algorithmic process.

Poverty of Stimulus Argument

A theory proposed by Noam Chomsky asserting that the linguistic input children receive is insufficient to account for the complexity of their language acquisition.