1. Overview of Cognitive psychology Flashcards
Cognitive psychology is the science of…
how the mind is organised to produce intelligent thought
how the human mind is realised in the brain
understanding the mechanisms governing human thought in cognitive psychology is useful for studying…
Clinical
- Why certain malfunctions occur
Social
- How people behave with others
Business/economics
- how financial decisions are made
what are the practical applications of cognitive psych?
- false memory and eye witness testimony
- spatial navigation and the design of autonomous robots and cars
understanding brain disorders
what is Williams syndrome?
difficulty in processing visuospatial information
but spatial navigation is not completely impaired
they can learn repeated routes better than normal people
they cognitive psychology behind Williams syndrome…
humans have two distinct navigation systems
- response based
- place based
brain structures that are critical for response based systems are NOT effected in Williams syndrome
History of cognitive psych
what are the two early philosophies about where knowledge comes from?
Nativism: knowledge is innate
(Plato, Descartes, Kant)
Empiricism: knowledge is acquired through experiences
(Aristotle, Bacon, Berkeley, Locke, Hume, Mill)
Early psychology
What are the different ways of studying the human mind?
Structuralism
Functionalism
behaviourism
Structuralism is…
Analysis fo the human mind into primitive componential elements
changed the natured of psychology research from philosophical to more scientific
two problems of structuralism…
subjective and unreliable
Functionalism is…
mind defined solely by its function - how it responds to various stimuli
s long as the same fuctional role is played it doesnt matter what components the mind is made of
provided many ideas that formed the foundation of contemporary psychological research
weaknesses of functionalism…
little or no empirical research
Behaviourism is …
the study of the mind by studying only the directly observable
- strictly about stimulus-response relations
- rigorous experimental approach
Played an important role in introducing experimental methods of psychological research
kept the mid completely as a black box
information processing approach
cognitive psychology redefining psychology as…
the science of human information processing
-input-> Mind/process -output->
what are the steps to Decomposing mental processes
Formulate a theoretical model of how output is made from a given input
measure the time taken for each processing sage
analyse which variable affects which processing stage
science of cognition
define cognitive psychology
the science of how the mind is organised to produce intelligent thought and how it is realised in the brain
