Intro to Cognitive

Scientific study of mental processes

‘Mental process’- allow us to perceive our environment, memorise info, use language to communicate and make decisions

Sometimes we are aware of our mental processes, often automatic

Wundt-

Psychology as science of immediate experience, can break down immediate experiences to their smallest constituents
Focus on apperception- don’t just perceive the visual world, we apperceive it because we are inherently interpreting the world based on experience. Unbiased, not affected by interpretation

“Thought meter”- one could attend to the position of the pendulum or the position of the bell, not both

Introspection- don’t have awareness of all psychological processes (many are automatic)

Nisbett & Wilson (1977) found:

People can be unaware of stimulus that influenced their behaviour and their response to a stimulus
People can be aware of the stimulus & their behaviour, unaware of causal connction between the stimulus & their behaviour

Decode words- polite, rude or neutral. After decoding them, measured whether people interrupted researcher on phone after

People can be unaware of their response to a stimulus

Nisbett & Wilson provided participants in department stores 4 identical pairs of stockings
Participants were asked which they thought were best quality
12% chose left
40% chose right
Couldn’t answer why they picked it

Skinner- operant conditioning, general theory of behaviour

Gestalt psychology and ‘functional fixedness’

We percevied objects by their function
“Mental block against using an object in a new way that is required to solve a problem”

AI and the psychology of problem solving

Newell & Simon (1959): The General Problem Solver (GPS)