PSC 100 - Lecture 2 - Overview of Cognitive Psychology

biology, mental states, social/cultural factors

Level & Scope of Psychological Research

Psychological phenomenon can be explained at different levels, what are they?

scope

Level & Scope of Psychological Research

The blank of psychological research refers whether it applies to

• All human beings

• Certain groups of people

• Individual people

• Specific actions by a specific individual

knowledge

Level & Scope of Psychological Research

Cognitive psychology started as the scientific study of blank. What three questions does it ask?

philosophy

Historical Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

All psychology originated from what discipline?

Plato, rationalism

Historical Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

This person is the founder of blank, which is understanding the world purely by rational analysis w/o empirical observation

• He argued that we are born w/ knowledge inside our mind - we just need to get it out

• Mathematics can predict the world even before we get to observe it

Aristotle, empiricism

Historical Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

This person is the founder of blank, which is the need to observe the physical world to understand it

• Argued that the mind is like a sheet of “white paper, void of all characters” - blank slate

background knowledge

Historical Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

The Broad Role of Memory

Inferences are based on what? How is this illustrated using the Betty and Jacob example?

patient H.M.

Historical Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

Amnesia & Memory Loss

This person was a patient who could remember information before his surgery treatment. After the surgery, he was unable to form new explicit memories

• Had little sense of himself as an adult

introspection, behaviorism

The Cognitive Revolution

Cognitive psychology arose (1950s-1960s) partly from the limitations of what two methods/disciplines?

William Wundt, Edward B. Titchener

The Cognitive Revolution

The Limits of…

These two people believed that psychology should focus on studying conscious mental events - the only person who can directly experience or observe someone’s thoughts is that person

introspection

The Cognitive Revolution

The Limits of…

This is the practice of “looking within,” or observing and recording your own thoughts & experiences; requires systematic training

What were the problems of this method?

structuralists

The Cognitive Revolution

The Limits of Introspection

People who understood the mind as a series of discrete units of processing

science, reaction time

The Cognitive Revolution

The Limits of Introspection

The Gains from Wundt & the Structuralists

They treated psychology as a blank. For example, they used blank to quantify mental processes, which became the most frequently used variable in cognitive research

behaviorist movement

The Cognitive Revolution

The Years of…

A movement in the first ½ of the 20th century that focused on observable behaviors and stimuli, not mental events (claimed that mental events can’t be scientifically studied)

What were the problems with this movement?

transcendental method

The Cognitive Revolution

The Intellectual Foundations of the Cognitive Revolution

Reasoning backwards from observations to determine the cause (like a detective using clues)

• Knowledge transcends sensory experience, also requires understanding of how we process that experience

indirectly

The Cognitive Revolution

The Intellectual Foundations of the Cognitive Revolution

Cognitive psychologists study mental events blank. How?

Ulric Neisser

The Cognitive Revolution

The Path of Behaviorism to the Cognitive Revolution

This person is regarded as the father of cognitive psychology

What were the problems with behaviorism? (2)

gestalt psychologists

The Cognitive Revolution

European Roots of the Cognitive Revolution

These psychologists argued that mental processes and behaviors can’t be understood without considering the “whole”

shape their own experience

The Cognitive Revolution

European Roots of the Cognitive Revolution

A central theme in modern cognitive psychology is that perceivers what?

Barlett

The Cognitive Revolution

European Roots of the Cognitive Revolution

This person suggested that people spontaneously use schemas to interpret experiences and aid memory

info-processing approach, computer terminology

The Cognitive Revolution

Computers and the Cognitive Revolution

Psychologists considered that the human mind might use processes and procedures like a computer. What kind of approach was taken? Data was explained in terms of what?

hypothesis, predict, collect data, confirm/modify/reject hypothesis

Research in Cognitive Psychology

The Diversity of Methods

What is the process of research?

cognitive neuroscience

Research in Cognitive Psychology

The Diversity of Methods

The study of the brain and the nervous system to understand mental functioning

clinical neuropsychology

Research in Cognitive Psychology

The Diversity of Methods

The study of brain function based on damaged brain structures (e.g. Patient H.M.)