Basic concepts

Question 1

3 Issues with introspection

Answer 1

1. Some mental processes being unconscious
2. Scientific data needs to be reliable and objective
3. Cant describe the pictures in our minds all the time

Question 2

Introspection

Answer 2

a psychological process that involves looking inward to examine one’s own thoughts, emotions, judgments, and perceptions.

Question 3

Pavlov’s work

Answer 3

Classical conditioning, salivation of dogs, some dogs would salivate at the sight of the experimenter. CR decreased after 20 trials (extinction) he presented the stimulus after extinction and found spontaneous recovery of the CR.

Question 4

Behaviourism

Answer 4

Observable facts, much more scientific than introspection, stimuli and response are measurable effects, e.g., ‘little albert study

Question 5

Thorndike study (1898)

Answer 5

Studied operant conditioning see how cats would escape from the box, they learned gradually, from this he proposed the law of effect

Question 6

Thorndike law of effect 1911

Answer 6

The development of a relationship between a stimulus and a response. link between lever and being trapped so will push lever every time trapped in the box.

Question 7

B.F. Skinner

Answer 7

More radical behaviourism rejected unobserved variables as ‘explanatory fictions’ (not based on scientific knowledge or directly observable events

Question 8

Problems with behaviourism

Answer 8

One experiment showed rats swimming to food in a flooded maze when it was drained went straight to the food. In another experiment they had 10 days to explore goal box baited on the 11th day and the 12th day ran straight to the goal. Tolman argued the rats behaved as if they had a purpose, they seemed to expect food responding to cognitions not responses

Question 9

The transcendental method to studying cognition

Answer 9

effects may have causes, we can infer unobservable causes from observable evidence

Question 10

Cognitive revolution of 1960s

Answer 10

Measurements of more observable things: accuracy, speed and eye movement

Question 11

Models of cognition

Answer 11

we build models of our mental processes to help is made predictions that can be tested which helps us understand how we think

Question 12

Reinforcement

Answer 12

Positive: food presented upon pressing the lever
Negative: a lour noise that is terminated by pressing the lever
Punishment: a shock associated with a certain area