Psych 224 Cognitive Psychology Quiz 1 Notes

Cognition=

acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge; inescapable + constantly at work

What do cognitive processes do?

They recognize and interpret stimuli + react strategically based off of the sensory input;

Helps you plan and process your emotions, thoughts, and sensations

 

Wide range of mental process that work TOGETHER to create your conscious experiences=

Perception, memory, imagery, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision making

What is used when creating words?

Pattern recognition

Metacognition=

the awareness and understanding of ones own thought processes, especially "thinking abt thinking"

Cognitive approach=

theoretical orientation emphasizing people's thought processes and knowledge

 

Cognitive approach example:

biases towards negative thoughts and perceptions contribute to the experience of depression + affects their memory abilities

What are stored memories sed for?

Identifying auditory, linguistic, and visual information from our environment (picked up the most relevant and important info)

Prospective memory=

mem for the tasks we intend to carry out in the future at some point (ex: remembering to send an email to a coworker tomorrow morning)

Retrospective memory=

remembering info you acquired in the past

Depressed vs. non-depressed individuals in cognition:

Depressed patients had more lapses in time in prospective memory than non-depressed patients (worse time remembering to do things in the future and took more time to execute the actions)

Who was the first cognitive psychologist?

Aristotle

What kind of evidence did Aristotle believe in?

Empirical Evidence

What did Aristotle say about humans and acquiring knowledge?

He said humans acquire knowledge through experiences and observation.

Empirical evidence=

factual info gathered through systematic observation and experimentation NOT being beliefs, opinions, or abstract reasoning

Who was the founder of Experimental psychology?

Wilhelm Wundt (german)

Wilhelm Wundt studied what?

mental processes + stressed introspection

Introspection=

trained observers would systematically analyze their own sensations (standardized conditions)

example of Introspection:

people hear a music cord and are expected to report their reactions to it without using their previous music knowledge

What does Ebbinghaus study?

studies amnt of time b/w two presentations of a list of items

Mary Whiton Calkins=

Recency effect (first woman president of APA)

Recency effect=

observation that our recall is accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli (real world applications, not lab made)

the notion that info is stored in the mind

William James=

everyday psychological experiences; book Principles of Psychology inspired many modern-day psychologists

What kind of psychologist was John B. Watson?

Behavioralist

What did John B. Watson study?

observable + objective reactions to stimuli in the environment; learning based NOT studying mental images, ideas, or thoughts

Behavioralists are more so analyzing what?

More so analyzing if there was a quantifiable diff in learning NOT to argue or appeal abt the rats storing + retrieving info abt the maze layout

Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies=

CBT therapy

Operational definition=

 how a concept is measured

Edward Tolman=

mental representations of environment based on experiences in it

Mental representations=

memories that are encoded and maintained in LTM resulting from life experiences

Cognitive map=

mental representation of geographic and spatial properties of a place or environment

Gestalt psych=

 the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Gestalt Psychologists valued what?

valued psychological phenomena

Psychological Phenomena=

observed or experienced aspect of an individual's mind or behaviors is studied ex: thought process, emotion, or action

Gestalt psychologists reject what theory and why?

Reject Wundt's introspective theory bc they think you should analyze experiences as separate components

Who did Gestalt psychologists bash and why?

Bashed behaviorists for ignoring the context of the behavior being studied

Gestalt Psych highlights what important concept?

Problem-Solving!

What did Piaget (developmental) believe?

kids explore the world around them to learn important concepts; cognitive strategies/capabilities change as they mature

Cognitive revolution:

behavioralist -> studying human behavior

Organism-internal processes=

how mem, attention, and language work together to increase the ability to consciously perceive, interpret and act in the world

Birth of Cognitive Psych=

1956

Cognitive Psychology published in 1967=

treatment for cog processing

Father of Cog Psychology=

Ulric Neisser

What do Cognitive psychologists stress the importance of?

MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS, help us understand how memory works.

 

Ecological validity=

experimental findings can be generalized to real-life situations

Cognitive science=

intradisciplinary field set on answering questions of the inner-workings of the mind.

Thinking requires the manipulation of internal representations of the world

Info-processing approach=

mental process are similar to computer/filing system + info processes in stages

Connectionism approach (parallel distributed processing PDP or neural-network approach=

cognitive process understood in terms of networks linking together in neuron-like units

Cerebral cortex=

outer layer of the brain essential for cognitive processes

Cognitive neuroscience=

cog psych + methods for assessing the structures of the brain

Social cognitive neuroscience=

neuroscience techniques to assess cognitive processes that we use in out interactions with others