history and methods Flashcards
what is psychology?
the science of mental processes and behavior
what is cognition?
mental functions pertaining to the action of process of knowing
perception, attention, memeory, knowledge representation, deceision making, language, and problem solving
What is cognitive Psych?
the scientific study of how pwoplw perceive learn remeber think about and act on information
What wasn’t cognitive psych?
study of emotions and social interactions but this is changing with the advent of “social cognition” and “affective neuroscience”
Roots of philosophy
Plato came up with what?
Rationalism
reality lies in the abstract ideas of objects that exist in our minds
the only route to truth is reasoned contemplation
Aristotle thought what?
Empiricism
reality lies only in the concereteworld of objects that our bodies sense
the only route to truth is meticulous observation
What did descartes think?
Cogito ergo sum
(i think threrfore I am)
Dualism
Mine is immaterial Brain is physical
What did Donders think?
Mental chronometry
Measuring how long a cognitive process takes
Reaction-time (RT) experiment
measures interval between stimulus presentation and person’s response to stimulus
What is a Simple RT task?
participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears
What is a choice RT task?
participant pushes one button if light is on right side, another is light is on left side
What is the Subtraction method?
Choice RT - Simple RT = Time to make a decision
What is the assumption of serial stages?
processing stages occur one after another, not in parallel
what is the assumption of pure insertion?
adding an additional stage does not change the length of the other stages
Donders thoughts on mental responses
mental responses cannot be measured directly but can be inferred from the participants behavious
What was ebbinghaus method?
savings curve method for studying forgetting
ex. DAX, LUH, QEH, ZIF
What is the saving method?
saving = [initial reps- relearning reps] / initial reps
Wundt established what?
first psychology lab at the university of leipzig Germany
What was wundts approach??
structuralism
experience is determined by combidining elements of experience called sensations
What was wundts method?
analytical introspection
participants trained to descride experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli
who had a large emphasis on introspection?
William james
Who had a reaction against introspection?
john watson
had problems including the fact that it was extermely variable results from person to person
results difficult to verify
What was john watsons explanation?
Behaviorism
eliminates the mind as a topic of study
instead, study directly observable behaviour
BF skinner did what?
operant conditioning
shape behaviour by rewards or punishment
behaviour that is rewarded is more likely to be repeated
behaviour that is punished is less likely to be repeated
What was skinners opinion?
Radical behaviorism
argued children learn language though operant conditioning
children imitate speech they hear
correct speech is rewarded
What did chomsky do?
reviewed of verbal behaviour
argued childern do not learn language through imitation and reinforcement
language must be determined by inborn biological program
Tolman did what?
trained rats to find food in a four armed maze
What were tolman’s competing interpretations?
1) BEHAVIORISM predicts that the rats learned to “turn right and find food”
2) COGNITIVE MAP of the maze and were navigating to a specific arm
What happened when the rats were placed in a different arm of the maze?
the rats navigated to the speciic arm where they had previously found food
supported Tolman’s interpretation
What is Computability?
Anything that can be computed is computable by a simple “universal machine”
to an extent that what the mid does is compute, a computer program can duplicate it
What is cognitivism?
mental functions can be explained by the use of experiments following the scientific method
congnition consists of internal metal states whose manipulation can be discribed in terms of algorithms
