Chapter 1 - History of Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
cognitive psychology
the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind
mind
system that creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning, and that creates mental representations of the world
cognition
the mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and making decisions
reaction time
the time it takes to react to a stimulus; usually determined by measuring the time between presentation of a stimulus and the response to the stimulus
simple reaction time
reacting to the presence or absence of a single stimulus (as opposed to having to choose between a number of stimuli before making a response)
choice reaction time
reacting to one of two or more stimuli - Donders’
savings method
method used to measure retention in Ebbinghaus’s memory experiments
structuralism
an approach to psychology that explained perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations
analytic introspection
a procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes elicited by stimuli presented under controlled conditions
behaviorism
the approach to psychology, founded by John B. Watson, which states that observable behavior provides the only valid data for psychology. A consequence of this ides is that consciousness and unobservable mental processes are not considered worthy of study by psychologists
classical conditioning
a procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response
operant conditioning
type of conditioning championed by B. F. Skinner, which focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection
cognitive map
mental conception of a spatial layout
cognitive revolution
a shift in psychology, beginning in the 1950s, from the behaviorist approach to an approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in therms of the mind. One of the outcomes of the cognitive revolution was the introduction of the information-processing approach to studying the mind
information-processing approach
the approach to psychology, developed beginning in the 1950s, in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages
artificial intelligence
the ability of a computer to perform tasks usually associated with human intelligence
logic theorist
computer program devised by Alan Newell and Herbert Simon that was able to solve logic problems
behavioral approach
studying the mind by measuring a persons behavior and explaining this behavior in behavioral terms
physiological approach
studying the mind by measuring physiological and behavioral responses, and explaining behavior in physiological terms
memory consolidation
process by which experiences or information that has entered the memory system becomes strengthened so it is resistant to interference caused by trauma or other events
cognitive models
representations of structures or processes involved in cognition
cognitive neuroscience
field involved in studying the neural basis of cognition
cognitive science
psychology, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy
comparative psychology
the scientific study of the minds of non-human animals
diffusion model
a model of how decisions are made for two-choice reaction time tasks
mental chronometry
inferring the timing of a cognitive process by measuring the time taken to perform a task
subtractive method
the technique used in brain imaging in which baseline activity is subtracted from the activity generated by a specific task; the result is the activity due only to the task that is being studied
