History of psych🧐 Flashcards
Philosophical foundation of cognition
Rationalism & Empiricism
Psychology as an experimental science is based on what school of thinking
Structuralism & Functionalism
What is Epistemology and who are the fathers
Philosophical study of human knowledge guided by Socrates, Aristotle and Plato
What are the 3 steps of the Socratic Method
- clarification
- questioning assumptions
- seeking alternatives
What is one of the central element of Socrate philosophy
Knowing that you know nothing
Order Aristotle, Socrate and Plato
- Socrate
- Plato (student of socrates)
- Aristotle
What does knowledge involves according to Plato
Both experiences and reason which leads to deductive reasoning
Plato’s view is associated to which school of thoughts
Rationalism + emphasis on the importance of a-priori knowledge
Our mental processes and reasoning are ____ according to Plato
innate
The allegory of the caverne demonstrate what exactly on our observation
Observation does not always lead to certainty
Aristotle philosophy is based on what
Empiricism, inductive observational reasoning
Who thinks we should learn from what we see
Aristotle according to inductive observational reasoning and empiricism
According to Aristotle, thought arise forming ______ among _______
association, observations
According to which greek philosopher the mind is nothing before forming associations
Aristotle
According to whom, knowledge comes from experience
Aristotle
Is empiricism more aligned with “Nature” or “Nurture”
Nurture! We are “programmed” by our environnement
Between Nature and Nurture, which supports that we are more programmed by our environment
Nurture
Rationalism is more aligned with “nature” or “nurture”
Nature! According to genetics for instance
What determines us according to the Nature point of view
Genetics
Structuralism focuses on what
identifying the basic elements of thought
Which school of thought focuses on how the basic elements of our consciousness combine to form complex thoughts
Structuralism
Which school of thought encourages introspection (reporting thought and observation)
Structuralism (think about Zachy)
Who is the father of Structuralism
Wilhelm Wundt
What did Wilhelm Wundt strive to do
Identify the simplest units of the mind that he thought followed certain laws to create complex thoughts
Wilhelm Wundt wanted to create what exactly (Mendeleev)
“mental” periodic table of elements –> Structuralism
Psychophysics are based on what
empirical introspection
What does Psychophysics examines
cognitive phenomenon by linking sensory experiences
What is the thought meter and who named it
Name of the mental chronometry used to measure the time of reaction to a certain task –> by Wilhelm Wundt
Who practiced pure introspection
Edward Titchener
What does pure introspection lead to
- looking inward
2. association of basic thought = complex thoughts
What is one of the critic of structuralism
Too subjective, not replicable and approach are too simplistic
Who believed consciousness is personal and cannot be broken down into parts as it is constantly changing
William James : Functionalist Leader
What is the focus of functionalism
- Why the mind works
- usefulness of knowledge, of cognition
What is the shift of 1900s in psych
Shift from studying the mind to simply behaviour
True of False : Behaviour is contingent on a schedule of reinforcement, rewards and punishments
True, rewards encourage behaviours, punishment reduce behaviours
What is one of the problem with Behaviourism
- overestimation of the scope of their explanations
- cannot account for complex human behaviour
- assumption that learning is the same for all and same across species is false
What is the view of behaviourism on language
Language is learned through conditioning
–> this doesn’t take into consideration the mental processed of language…limitation!
What happened during the cognitive revolution
Acceptance of
- the internal mental states (like structuralism)
- scientific method (aligns with Behaviourism)
What caused the cognitive revolution
rise in technology and computer science
Why make an analogy with the human mind and computer
Because it supports the view that the mind is like a processor of information
What is the computation view of the mind
The mind performs a series of specific computations on inputs (info from external) to produce an output (behaviour)
Computation is contained is what specific processing systems
attention, memory, perception
True of false, the time it takes to process an information indicates the quantity of information processed
True, the amount of information processed and time to process are inversely related
What is the difference between representation and processes
processes transform representation which are composed of symbolic forms of an entity
in 2 + 2 = 4, what is the representation and the process
representation : 2, 4
process : +, =
why do we process information
to reduce uncertainty
getting interesting, what is the method of the William Hick experiment on reaction time and information content
Display of 10 lamps where one lamp lit up every few second. Participant had to press bottom when lamp lights up
Trial 1 : only one lamp light up
Trial 2 : any of the ten light up
What is the conclusion of the lamp experiment of W. Hick
reaction time to press the buttom increased as the number of lamp that could possible light up increased
What is Hick’s Law
The more information contained in a signal, the longer it takes to make a correct response to the signal
What is the method of Ray Hyman experiment with lamp named with Bs
Exp. 1 : increased the variety of choice (3 lamps vs 2 lamps)
Exp. 2 : Varied the number of times a light was active, so increases the familiarity
Exp. 3 : altered the sequential probabilities
- high sequential probability : light likely to light up after one precise one
- low sequential probability : complete randomness in order
What are the conclusions of Ray Hyman experiment 1, where they increased the variety of choice (3 lamps vs 2 lamps)
increasing the variety increases the time of response
What are the conclusions of Ray Hyman experiment 2 where they varied the number of times a light was active, so increases the familiarity
↑ the familiarity, ↓ reaction time
What are the conclusions of Ray Hyman experiment 3 where they altered the sequential probabilities
The higher is the sequential probability, the shorter is the reaction time
What is the sum up conclusion of Ray Hyman experiment
↑ uncertainty, ↑ information must be processed, ↑ reaction time
What causes decision fatigue
We have a limited amount of cognitive processing
What is the consequences of EARLY decision fatigue
affect our ability to make later decision
What are the results of Webster & Thompson air traffic experiment
Call signals where well identified as the contain less information compared to unrelated word messages that needed more processing due to the unfamiliarity of the message
What is the conclusion of Webster & Thompson air traffic experiment
Demonstrated that our processing capacity is limited and this limit is partly determined by FAMILIARITY
What are schemas
they are organized templates to assist information processing that direct exploration of the environment
Ex: university class, dining out, going to the doctor
True or false, Schema’s guide exploration of the world and are shaped by what we find
True
Actual environment → ? → knowledge of the environment
Modifies
Perceptual exploration → ? → Actual environment
Samples
Knowledge of the environment → ? → Perceptual exploration
Directs
What is cognitive ethology
A united approach that supports the complementarity of standard laboratory tests and real-world observations
Cognitive ethology is a synonym for ecologically valid research
yes, it is!
How to clothes influence cognition according to experiment with casual and formal clothes
Formal clothes are associated with abstract, big picture thinking
True or false, human cognition does not change across situations
False, it does change across situation, a lot!
What are some consequences of laboratory research in psychology
- don’t take into consideration that human cognition changes across situation
- don’t take into consideration that emotions, motivation and distraction influence how we think
- very objective
- bring essential accurate measure on objective aspect of cognition
What methods can we use to study cognition in the real-world
- cameras
- social experiment in the street
- data analysis of people…woupsi
- so many others!! THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
