History of Psychology and Research Designs in Learning

Flashcards covering key concepts, historical figures, paradigms of behaviorism, the cognitive revolution, constructs, and research designs in learning psychology based on lecture notes.

Empiricism

The reliance on data and observing the world to make conclusions, rooted in Aristotle's philosophy.

Mind-Body Dualism

Descartes' philosophical concept suggesting a distinction between mind and body, while recognizing that bodily experiences relate to mental changes and thoughts influence feelings.

Hermann Helmholtz

A physiologist interested in the nervous system whose work on the speed of neural impulses served as a foundation for neuroscience.

Broca's Area

An area of the temporal lobe discovered by Paul Broca; damage to this area leads to Broca's aphasia.

Broca's Aphasia

A condition resulting from damage to Broca's area in which a person can understand language but has a hard time producing language.

Wilhelm Wundt

Founder of the first psychology lab in 1879 at the University of Leipzig, who created the first psychology journal and developed reaction time techniques and introspection.

Introspection

A technique developed by Wilhelm Wundt involving the reporting of immediate, conscious inner sensations when observing or listening to something.

Structuralism

A school of thought developed by Edward Titchener at Cornell University using introspection to understand consciousness by breaking it down into component parts or structures.

Functionalism

A school of thought developed by William James at Harvard University focused on understanding the adaptive significance of the mind and studying how it operates.

Methodological Behaviorism

John Watson's approach to behaviorism emphasizing objective experimentation on stimulus-response ($S\text{-}R$) connections while excluding mind and consciousness from scientific study.

Neobehaviorism

Hull's approach to behaviorism proposing that internal physiological processes and drives (e.g., hunger, thirst, heart rate) mediate the stimulus-response ($S\text{-}R$) connection.

Cognitive Behaviorism

Tolman's approach to behaviorism proposing that expectations and mental maps mediate the stimulus-response ($S\text{-}R$) connection.

Radical Behaviorism

B.F. Skinner's approach to behaviorism asserting that internal events, mind, and consciousness can be part of scientific study as long as they are studied in the same way as observable behaviors.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

An innate capacity for learning language in children proposed by Noam Chomsky (1959) as a critique of B.F. Skinner's behaviorist account of language.

Cognitive Revolution

A psychological movement in the late 1950s shifting focus back to mental processes, sparked by Miller's (1956) work on short-term memory limits ($7 \pm 2$), Chomsky's linguistics, AI conferences, and dedicated research centers.

Psychological Essentialisms

Beliefs that concepts have underlying features that are unique to and define a category.

Conceptual Definition

A definition specifying the behaviors and mental processes that make up a psychological construct and how it relates to other variables.

Operational Definition

The process of transforming an abstract psychological construct into something directly observable and measurable for research purposes.

4 P's Model of Creativity

A model explaining how creativity is measured across four dimensions: person, process, product, and "press" (environment).

Naturalistic Observation

A descriptive research design involving the recording of behavior in its natural environment without manipulation.

Case Study

A qualitative research design offering a detailed study of an individual or small group over a lengthy period of time (e.g., H.M. study).

Independent Variable (IV)

The variable in an experiment that is directly controlled and manipulated by the researcher.

Dependent Variable (DV)

The outcome variable measured in an experiment to evaluate the effect of the independent variable.

Quasi-Experiment

An experimental design that lacks random assignment or includes variables that cannot be randomly assigned (such as age, gender, species, or intrinsic focus).

Internal Validity

The degree to which an experimental study provides a valid test of a causal hypothesis by ruling out confounds and alternative explanations.

External Validity

The extent to which research findings can be generalized to real-world situations outside the laboratory setting.

Confounders

Systematic biases or extraneous variables introduced in research that interfere with establishing causal relationships.

Single-Subject Designs

Experimental research designs (also known as small-n designs) using one or a few subjects across combinations of baseline and treatment periods.

Reversal Design

A single-subject experimental design (such as $ABAB$) measuring behavior across baseline ($A$), intervention ($B$), return to baseline ($A$), and re-application of intervention ($B$).

Multiple Baseline Design

A single-subject design where treatment is introduced at different points in time across multiple participants, settings, or behaviors.