PSYCH 258: cognitive psychology: midterm 1

what is cognition?

acquiring and processing information about the world in order to make behavioural decisions

-process that produce complec behaviors such as remembering, recognizing, or making a decision

why do people study cognition

try to understand the world and its phenomena without regard to a specific end-use of this knowledge

what is neuroscience

study of the brain itself

• modern tools allow researchers to measure the activity of the intact brain

• non-invasive techniques measure the activity of small portions of the brain

• invasive measures allow for the measurement of individual neurons

what is cognitive psychology

the study of human behavior, using experiments to understand how the mind works

what is computational modelling

simulating brain processes using computers

what are artificial neural-networks

machin learning techniques that are modelled on the brain

why is studying processes like thinking, reasoning, and remebering hard to study

because they dont require recieving information from the environment

what is dualism

mind and body consist of fundamentally different properties

what is monism

only one basic substance of which the mind and body are both made

what is physicalism/materialism

cognition is derived from physical phenomena - no need for mind or soul

idealism

reality only exists in the mind

neutral monism

there is only one substance, it is not physical or mental

what is pragmatic materialism

what most scientists follow: think about the brain as a physical element and try to understand it whether or not it has a physical element

-it is possible to understand complex cognition based on knowledge about how the brain works- based on the assumption that there is not a non-physical mechanism underlying mental processes

what does the complexity of the brain limit?

our knowledge of the brain is limited so behavior must be observed