BCS 111 U of R Chapter 1

Cognitive Psychology: History, Methods, and paradigms

Cognitive Physcology

Physcology concerned with how people acquire, store, transform, use, and communicate information

Cognition

What goes on in your head i.e. when we perceive, when we pay attention, what we remember, and when we think

Nativist View

Holds that humans enter the world with knowledge and understanding of reality philosophers who believed this include plato, Descartes

Empiricist View

Knowledge is acquire through experiences and interactions philosophers who believe this include John Locke, Aristotle

Nature vs Nurture

The argument of nativists vs the Empiricists

Structuralism

Willhelm Wundt, Focus on what the elemental components of the mind are rather than how it works

Introspection

Book of principles of physc wundt explains how systemically varying stimuli would affect mental state, key components test mode, quality, intensity, duration

Functionalism

William James, Behavior should be studied in real world situations, questions the purpose of the mind, evolution and adaption

Behaviorism

John B. Watson, all mental phenomena can be reduced to social and physiological responses, B.F. Skinner, mental representations are simply internal copies of external stimuli

Operant Conditioning

Process where humans and animals learn to behavor based on rewards and avoding punishment

Gestalt Psychology

Whole>some parts

Study of individual Differences

Francis Galton, Measured intelligence, used statistical tests, discovered the accuracy of large samples even if everyone doesn’t have previous knowledge

Cognitive Revolution

Roots in human factored engineering, against behaviouralism, person-machine system

Experimental method

Independent and dependent variables used to test hypothesis, cause→effect, counfounding varaible-variable that affects DV, Extraneous Variable→could affect DV but is controlled so it can’t,limitations→artifically

Quasi-Experiment

Testing on completely different groups no overlap

Within Subject design

Test both groups on one than the other

Between Subject Design

Split group in half half do one half do other

Paradigm

Body of knowledge structured according to what its proponents think is important

Paradigm determine

Our assumptions, research methods, questions, analogies

Info Processing approach

Processing occurs in stages, info stored in specific places during processing, computer like, rooted in structuralism

Connectionism

Processing is paralell, each unit connected to another, connections positive or negative, brain like

Evolutionary Approach

Human mind has evolved, understanding evolutionary pressure, adapted to include instincts

Ecological approach

Cognitive processes vary with context, embodies cognition