Cognition Final Review

Cognition

• Cognitive function (thoughts and actions) is regulated by brain activity

• Understanding processes that produce complex behaviors

basic research

Goal: understand cognitive processes without immediate practical application.

applied research

Research with end goal of developing solution to a real world problem

rationalism

Knowledge is driven by implicit innate logic, NOT learned experience

-plato’s philosophy

empiricism

All knowledge comes from experience and perception, source of reality

-aristotle’s philosophy

structuralism

identifying basic elements of thought and how they come together to form complex thought/ conscious experience

-wilhelm wundt’s approach

Wilhelm Wundt

german physiologist who founded psychology as a formal science

-structuralist

Functionalism

an early school of psychology that emphasizes the importance of adaptive functions and how cognitive processes differ based on context

William James

founder of functionalism; studied how humans use perception to function in our environment

behaviourism

school of psychology that focuses on looking at observable behaviour instead of mental processes

The Cognitive Revolution

• Accepted that internal mental states exist, and the use of the scientific method to study these states

• view of mind as computer (information processor)

Information processing view

The mind is a computer

1. Information is processed by a series of processing systems

2. Processing systems change information in systematic ways 

3. Information processing in these systems take time

4. Our information capacity is limited

Hick’s law

the more information to process, the longer it takes to make a response to that information

choice overload bias

greater number of choices (or uncertainty of choice) leads to overwhelmed feeling and poor choices

• choosing show on netflix vs between 2 channels

Decision fatigue

due to limited mental resources, decisions become harder to make/worse through out the day

more decisions = worse/harder decisions

Ecological validity

if study can be applicable to real life setting

dualism

the belief that the mind and brain are separate entities that are equally important

Monism

mind and brain are the same-- one one entity

Interactionism

Mind and brain interact and affect each other

More extreme form of dualism

Ex: when I feel stressed out, my heart rate incresaes— mental state causes phsyical reaction

Epiphenomenalism

Mental thoughts (mind) are caused by physical events (brain), mind does not cause physical events

Ex: I don;t think being tired avises yawning, both are casued by brain changes

Idealism

all reality is a mental construct, this is the only kind of reality

the mind matters

type of monism

Neutral Monism

underlying nature is not mental or physical by something else

neutral third thing matters

type of monism

Materialism

all reality of the result of physical processes

the brain matters

type of monism

CNS (central nervous system)

• Brain and spinal cord

• Cognitions primarily takes place here

• Conscious and voluntary actions

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

• Outside the brain and spinal cord (body)

• Motor and involuntary actions