Chapter 1 - Psychology; the evolution of a science

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of mind and behavior
- Mind: private inner perception, thoughts, memories, and feelings
- Behavior: observable actions of human beings and non-human animals

Question 2

What is experimental psychology?

Answer 2

the scientific study of mind and behavior by means of experiments

Question 3

How do we study mind and behavior?

Answer 3

Cognition: all mental processes that lead to thoughts, knowledge, and awareness

Cognitive processes: mechanisms that undely cognition (the “building blocks” of all complex behavior)

Question 4

Which other field is experimental psychology linked to?

Answer 4

Cognitive (neuro)psychology

Question 5

What is the focus of cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 5

Attempts to understand the biological foundations of cognition (the main idea is that cognitive processes produce brain activity that can be tracked and traced)

Question 6

Continental rationalists (knowledge is innate or inborn: nativism)

Answer 6

• Benedict de Spinoza
• Gottfried Leibniz
• René Descartes

Question 7

British empiricists (knowledge is acquired)

Answer 7

• John Locke
• George Berkeley
• David Hume

Question 8

Who was one of the first psychologists to conduct an experiment, and what did he study?

Answer 8

Hermann von Helmholtz: he studied the conduction velocity of the nerve impulse

Question 9

Who was inspired by Ernst Weber, and introduced the ‘Just Noticeable Difference’?

Answer 9

Gustav Fechner

Question 10

Who introduced Mental Chronometry: how much time do you need to decide whether you heard the syllable ‘ka’, ‘ta’, or ‘pa’?

Answer 10

Franciscus Donders (from Tilburg)

Question 11

Structuralism (Wilhelm Wundt)

Answer 11

consciousness should be the focus of study via analyses of the basic elements that constitute the mind

Question 12

Which 3 elementary states of consciousness were proposed by Edward Titchener to further develop the school of structuralism?

Answer 12

• Sensations (sights, sounds, tastes)
• Images (components of thoughts)
• Affections (componenets of emotions)

Question 13

Behaviorism (John Watson)

Answer 13

Behaviors are learned through interactions with the environment, and says that innate or inherited factors have very little influence on behavior

Question 14

What is an operational definition?

Answer 14

A description of a/an (abstract) property in terms of a concrete condition that can be measured

Question 15

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 15

Classical conditioning

Question 16

Skinner

Answer 16

Operant conditioning

Question 17

Gestalt Psychology

Answer 17

Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka: “The whole is more than the sum of its parts”

Question 18

Apparent Motion

Answer 18

An optical illusion in which a static image appears to be moving due to the cognitive effects of interacting color contrasts, object shapes, and position