Chapter 1. science of the mind

Question 1

Introspection

Answer 1

“Looking within”. Wundt and Titchener late 19th century proposed psychology should concentrate on the study of conscious mental events (feelings, thoughts, understandings etc). But only the individual could assess their own world and thus it could only be studied by introspection, or the individual’s interpretation of their own experience.

Question 2

behaviourist theory

Answer 2

Behaviours and stimuli can be observed,repeated, measured and studied. Thus objective data can be obtained, unlike the subjective data of introspection.

Question 3

transcendental method

Answer 3

Developed by Immanuel Kant (philospher1724-1804). Method of using observable facts to make inferences about the unobservable. ie studying mental processes indirectly ,.Processes which themselves are invisible, can still be studied objectively through study of their visible consequences.

Question 4

response time

Answer 4

The length of time someone takes to make a particular response. Such measures can be used to assess particular mental processes.

Question 5

cognitive neuroscience

Answer 5

Understanding mental functioning via study of the brain and nervous system.

Question 6

clinical neuropsychology

Answer 6

study of brain function by primarily studying pathology or illness and its effect on the cns.

Question 7

neuroimaging techniques

Answer 7

either shows precise structure, or illustrates area activations

Question 8

cognition

Answer 8

what one knows, thinks or recalls.Mental action of understanding/experiencing.

Question 9

cognitive psychology

Answer 9

study of how knowledge is acquired.

Question 10

What is Memory important for?

Answer 10

self esteem, understanding themes, ability to add existing knowledge to new, recall of facts, understanding of one’s role and place….In general, one must have memory, to have a sense of self

Question 11

WHY IS MEMORY CRUCIAL for behaviours and mental operations that don’t in any direct way, ask you “to remember”?
WHAT ASPECTS OF H.M’s life were disrupted as a result of amnesia?

Answer 11

Memory is used for more than just recalling a memory. Memory is constantly engaged in realising where one is in a sequence, one’s expectations of self and understandings of other’s views of us. And also how our prior knowledge compares to current presentations.
2.News was always reacted to “for the first time”, ie no processing of the information occurred. H.M’s, sense
of self worth was destroyed as he did not know how his past actions had been perceived.

Question 12

the Cognitive Revolution

Answer 12

During 1950’s and 1960’s, changes were undergone which lead to modern day cognitive psychology. The revolution had 2 key concepts;

1. The mental world cannot be studied directly (one cannot fully experience what someone else has experienced).
2. But the mental world of an individual must be studied if individual behaviours are to be understood.

Question 13

Wundt and Titchener

Answer 13

late 1800’s focused on study of conscious events. Understood that only self could be aware of conscious events and so only self could study it, but proposed vigorous training to be able to be introspective.

Question 14

Learning History

Answer 14

Passage of responses to stimuli are refined over time. If can record stimuli and their response behaviours over time, can demonstrate learning history.

Question 15

Mentalistic notions

Answer 15

Thought processes which cannot be objectively recorded. May include hopes, desires, wishes, preferences, fears, etc etc.

Question 16

Edward Tolman

Answer 16

1886-1959. behaviourist. Unlike other behaviourists who believed learning =a change in behaviour, Tolman believed learning=acquisition of new knowledge.

Question 17

BF Skinner

Answer 17

1904-1990. Argued that language use could also be understood in terms of behaviours and rewards. (his view was a critique of then-current behaviourist theories.

Question 18

Noam Chomsky

Answer 18

Counter-argued Skinner, with concept of “language Learning Device”.

Question 19

Gestalt Psychology

Answer 19

Movement based in Berlin 1920’s. Believed behaviours/ideas/perceptions could only be understood as part of a whole and when taken separately, held no meaning.Implicated psychology must understand all it’s parts too.

Question 20

Frederic Bartlett

Answer 20

1886-1969. Not a gestalt psychologist, but had a similar view, that an individual automatically fits their experiences into existing schema and relies on these existing schema to interpret the experience.

Question 21

Schema

Answer 21

a thought pattern or behaviour which organises information by its relationship with other information.

Question 22

Donald Broadbent

Answer 22

1925-1993. Adopted computer terms to explain human cognition. Particularly worked on attention focusing.

Question 23

test yourself
WHY IS INTROSPECTION limited as a source of scientific evidence?
WHY DO MODERN PSYCHOLOGISTS agree that we have to refer to mental states in order to explain behaviour?
DESCRIBE AT LEAST 1 historical development that laid the ground-work for the cognitive revolution.

Answer 23

Due to it’s nature, introspection is unique to the individual and thus cannot be externally validated.
Mental states are intrinsically involved in behaviour and one cannot begin to understand behaviour without at least appreciating the mental state too.
gestalt theory-cannot consider parts of psychology in isolation.

Question 24

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 24

Studies how mental processes develop and process information.Uses many different ways of collecting data, to form new hypotheses and test them against available data.. Includes investigations into memory, recall, response time, as well as modern techniques of brain imaging.

Question 25

test yourself

DESCRIBE AT LEAST 3 types of evidence that cognitive psychologists routinely rely on.

Answer 25

1. accuracy of memory tests
2. how rapidly information is processed (response time)
3. neuroimaging-which areas of brain are active during certain tasks.