Cognitive Psychology: An Introduction

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, definitions, philosophical antecedents, early dialectics, and research methods presented in the Cognitive Psychology introduction lecture.

Cognition

Refers to the basic concept that people think.

Cognitive Psychology

The study of how people perceive, learn, remember, and think about information, characterized as scientists thinking about how people think.

Mind

Creates and control mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, decision-making, thinking, and reasoning; a systems that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals.

Rationalism

A philosophical perspective where the route to knowledge is through logical analysis.

Empiricism

A philosophical perspective stating that knowledge can be acquired thorugh experiences & observation.

Structuralism

An early dialectic in the psychology of cognition that seeks to understand the mind and its perception, championed by Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920).

Introspection

A technique associated with structuralism that focuses on the thought process (not the content of the thought).

Wilhelm Wundt

Proponent of structuralism who lived from 1832 to 1920.

Functionalism

An early dialectic in the psychology of cognition that seeks to understand what people do & why they do it, championed by William James (1842-1910).

Pragmatism

A perspective within functionalism holding that knowledge is validated by its usefulness.

William James

Proponent of functionalism who lived from 1842 to 1910.

Associationism

An early dialectic that examines how events or ideas can become associated w/ one another in the mind to result in a form of learning through a process of similarity & contrast, associated with Hermann Ebbinghaus & Edward Lee Thorndike.

Behaviorism

An early dialectic that focuses on the relation bet. observable behavior & environmental events or stimuli, associated with Ivan Pavlov, B. F Skinner, and Bandura.

Gestalt Psychology

An early dialectic stating that psychological phenomena can be best understand when we view them as organized structured wholes, with the maxim that the whole differ from the sum of its parts.

Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology

Investigative approaches including Experimental Design, Psychobiological Research, Self-report (e.g., self-rating, diaries), Case studies, Naturalistic Observation, and Computer Simulations and Artificial Intelligence.