Lecture 01 — Psychology Before Cognitivism

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms from Lecture 01: Psychology Before Cognitivism.

Epistemology

The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and origins of knowledge.

Nativism

The view that knowledge exists inborn and learning uncovers what we already possess (e.g., language).

Rationalism

Knowledge results from the use of reason; knowledge has an intellectual rather than a sensory basis.

Empiricism

Knowledge is attained via sensory experience; proponents include British Empiricists who linked sensations to ideas through association.

Law of Contiguity

The principle that mental elements occurring close together in time become associated.

Law of Similarity

Related elements become associated.

Law of Frequency

Associative strength is a function of how many times elements co-occur.

Psychophysics

The field that studies and quantifies the relationship between physical properties and perceptual experiences.

Just-Noticeable-Difference (JND)

The smallest change in a stimulus that can be detected.

Weber's Law

ΔR/R = k; a constant proportion of the initial stimulus must be added for a JND.

Weber

Ernst Weber; pioneer of psychophysics who studied relationships between physical properties and perception and formulated Weber's law.

Fechner

Gustav Fechner; extended Weber's work and proposed the Weber-Fechner law, linking perception logarithmically to stimulus intensity.

Weber-Fechner Law

Perceived intensity (S) is proportional to the natural log of stimulus intensity (I): S = k ln I.

Cartesian Dualism

The view that the universe consists of two kinds of stuff: physical and mental.

Mind-Body Problem

The philosophical challenge of explaining how mental events interact with physical events.

Edwin Smith Papyrus

Ancient hieroglyphic medical record; contains the earliest known written reference to the brain.

Cell Theory

Idea that living tissue is composed of cells; foundational to modern physiology (Schleiden and Schwann, 1839).

Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt; founded the first psychology laboratory in 1879 and proposed a chemistry-of-the-mind approach with a periodic table of conscious elements.

Periodic Table of the Elements of Consciousness

Wundt's proposed catalog of irreducible conscious elements (e.g., basic sensations like loudness, bitterness, etc.).

Molecules of Consciousness

The complex mental contents formed by combining basic conscious elements.

Introspection

A method in which trained observers report raw sensory experiences; used by Wundt to build the elements of consciousness.

Structuralism

School led by Edward Titchener that used introspection to identify the basic elements of consciousness.

Edward Titchener

Student of Wundt who brought structuralism to America and Cornell University.

Functionalism

School led by William James focusing on the functions of the mind and its adaptations to environment.

Stream of Consciousness

James's idea that the mind is a continuous, flowing experience rather than a collection of isolated elements.

Mentalism

The view that psychology studies conscious experience; both structuralism and functionalism fall under mentalism.

Watson

John B. Watson; founder of behaviorism; asserted psychology should be an objective science focused on behavior.

Behaviorism

A purely objective, experimental branch of natural science that aims to predict and control behavior; eschews introspection.

S-R Theory

Learning theory that emphasizes stimulus–response links and external, observable events in creating behavior.

Reflex Arc

A guiding metaphor for behaviorism: complex behaviors emerge from acquired reflexes (stimulus–response chains).

Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov; demonstrated classical conditioning and the idea of psychic reflexes in learning.

Classical Conditioning

Learning by associating a neutral stimulus with a reflex-eliciting stimulus, yielding a conditioned response.

Thorndike

Edward Thorndike; studied problem solving in cats using puzzle boxes; introduced instrumental (operant) conditioning.

Puzzle Boxes

Thorndike's wooden enclosures used to study how cats learn to escape through trial-and-error.

Instrumental Conditioning

Thorndike's term for learning driven by consequences; later renamed operant conditioning by Skinner.

Law of Effect

Thorndike's principle that satisfying outcomes strengthen S-R connections and annoying outcomes weaken them.

Operant Conditioning

Skinner's term for learning controlled by reinforcement and punishment.

Reinforcement

A consequence that strengthens the likelihood of a behavior occurring again.

Punishment

A consequence that weakens the likelihood of a behavior occurring again.

Insight Learning

Thorndike's idea that animals solve problems via sudden insight rather than gradual trial-and-error; later contested.

Trial-and-Error Learning

Learning through repeated, random actions until a solution is found; contrasted with insight learning.

SR (Reinforcing Stimulus)

In the S-R framework, the reinforcing stimulus strengthens the stimulus–response bond.