Historical Approaches To Studying Cognition

Question 1

Plato’s Rationalism

Answer 1

Thoughts are the results of observation and guided by innate prior knowledge (logic).
-Knowledge is driven by implicit innate logic, not through learned experience.
-Knowledge is a reflection of reality.
-Everybody’s truth is different.

Question 2

Aristotle’s Empiricism

Answer 2

Combined philosophical + scientific approaches. Knowledge comes from experience and perception, this is the source of reality.
-We know nothing before experience. 0 innate knowledge.
-The mind is nothing before forming associations.

Question 3

Western science

Answer 3

Uses methods and experiences to reduce processes to their most basic levels. Seeks more analytic understanding.

Question 4

Eastern science

Answer 4

Uses methods that pay more attention to context and integrative whole. Seeks a more holistic understanding.

Question 5

Wilhelm Wundt’s Structuralism

Answer 5

Indentifying the basic building blocks of the complex thoughts or the conscious experience. (Basic elements of thought that create a more complex thought).
-Reduce mental actions to simple pieces.
- Periodic table of elements of the mind
-Relies on self- report (introspection)
-Used mental chronometry

Question 6

Criticisms of Structuralism

Answer 6

• Simplistic approaches
• Introspection too subjective

Question 7

William James’ Functionalism

Answer 7

Asks why the mind works.
- The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
- Serving a function and changes with goals and context.
-Cognition cannot be broken down into parts as it is constantly changing
- Use direct observation + fieldwork
-Focuses on the usefulness of knowledge
-Difficult to study

Question 8

Behaviourism

Answer 8

Focused on what can be observed
- Did not consider mental processes
- Behaviour in response to stimuli around us
- Focused on animal research (highly controlled)
-Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
-Instrument Learning (Thorndike)
-Operant Conditioning (Skinner)

Question 9

Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)

Answer 9

Learning by making associations between cue, stimuli and the natural response

Question 10

Operant Conditioning (Skinner)

Answer 10

Behaviour is contingent on a schedule of reinforcements (Rewards vs. Punishment)

Question 11

Problems with Behaviourism

Answer 11

-The assumption that learning is the same for all individuals and across all species is false
- Cannot measure or account for complex human behaviour

Question 12

Mary Whiton Calkins

Answer 12

-First female president of the APA in 1905
-First woman to run a psychology lab at Wellesley College
-Spoke out agaisnt behaviourism
-Opposed eliminating inrospection
-Need to study complex behaviour like imagination + judgement

Question 13

The cognitive revolution

Answer 13

• Accepted that there are inernal mental states
• Accepted the scientific method to study these states
  -Driven by technology (The mind analyses and processes information that drives our behaviour!)

Question 14

Information processing view

Answer 14

1. Information is processed by a series of processing systems
2. Processing systems change information in systematic ways
3. Information processing in these systems takes time
4. Our information processing capacity is limited (Can only process for a certain amount of time)

Question 15

Waugh and Norman model of memory

Answer 15

-Information processing takes time
-If interrupt this time, you impair information processing
-To pass from primary memory to secondary memory, information has to be passed through rehearsal

Question 16

Why we process information

Answer 16

• To reduce uncertainty
  -The more uncertain something is, the longer it will take it to process
  -The more we have to process = faster we reach processing limit

Question 17

William Hick (1952)

Answer 17

• Conducted a behavioural experiment measuring reaction time to detect light
• More choices = more mental processes
• Hick’s law : The more information to process, the longer it takes to make a response to that information

Question 18

Choice Overload Bias

Answer 18

-The greater number of choices taxes information processes
-Leads to overwhelmed feling and poor choices

Question 19

Decision Fatigue

Answer 19

• We have a limited amount of cognitive processes
• Decisions become harder to make- and worse - throughout the day
  -Over time = more impulsive + less rational
• E.g. Judges are more likely to grant parole to prisoners early in the day

Question 20

How to reduce decision fatigue ?

Answer 20

• Make big decisions in the morning
• Develop daily routines

Question 21

Ecological validity

Answer 21

• The extent to which the findings of a research study can be generalized to real-life naturalistic settings