Lecture 1

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of mind and behaviour.

Question 2

What is ‘mind’?

Answer 2

Private inner experience of perception, thoughts, memories, and feelings.

Question 3

What is ‘behaviour’?

Answer 3

Observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals.

Question 4

What is an experiment?

Answer 4

A technique establishing a causal relationship between variables.

Question 5

What is experimental psychology?

Answer 5

The scientific study of mind and behaviour by means of experiments.

Question 6

What is cognition?

Answer 6

All mental processes that lead to thoughts, knowledge, and awareness.

Question 7

What are cognitive processes?

Answer 7

Mechanisms that underly cognition.

• They govern cognitive functions like attention, memory, learning, mental processing etc.

Question 8

Continental rationalists (enlightenment)

Answer 8

• Knowledge is innate or inborn: nativism.
• Rene Descartes - the mind is not supreme, body and mind are separate entities.
• Gottfried Leibniz, Benedict de Spinoza

Question 9

British empiricists

Answer 9

• Knowledge is acquired through observation.
• David Hume, John Locke, George, Berkeley.

Question 10

One of the first psychologists to conduct experiments

Answer 10

Hermann von Helmholtz

• Studied the conduction velocity of the nerve impulses.

Question 11

Just Noticeable Difference

Answer 11

The minimum difference in stimulation that a person can detect 50% of the time.

Question 12

Inspiration and creator of JND

Answer 12

Inspired by Ernst Weber, created by Gustav Fechner.

Question 13

Mental chronometry

Answer 13

• Franciscus Donders
• How much time do you need to decide whether you heard the syllable ‘ka’ or ‘ta’?

Question 14

Simple reaction time

Answer 14

Press a button whenever you hear a syllable.
- Detection RT

Question 15

Differential/choice reaction time

Answer 15

Press the ‘k’-button when you hear ‘ka’, and press the ‘t’-button when you hear ‘ta’
- Detection RT + discrimination RT + decision RT.

Question 16

Go/No go reaction time

Answer 16

Press the ‘k’-button when you hear ‘ka’, but do nothing when you hear ‘ta’

• Detection RT + discrimination RT.

Question 17

Structuralism

Answer 17

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

• Breaking down consciousness into sensations and feelings via analytical introspection.
• Further developed by Edward Titchener.

Question 18

Structuralism - Edward Titchener’s proposal

Answer 18

3 elementary states of consciousness:

1. Sensations (sights, sounds, taste).
2. Images (components of thoughts).
3. Affections (components of emotions).

As well as identifying thousands of ‘elemental qualities of conscious experience’.

Question 19

Behaviourism

Answer 19

The introspective processes cannot be studied (being too vague and subjective) and over behaviour should be studied instead because:

• The goal of scientific psychology is to predict and control behaviour in a way that benefits society.

Question 20

Behaviourism as a part of logical positivism (operational definition)

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Ivan Pavlov - classical conditioning + term definitions

Answer 21

US (or UCS): unconditioned stimulus that produces an…
UR (or UCR): unconditioned response.
When the US is repeatedly paired with another stimulus, the other stimulus becomes…
CS: conditioned stimulus that produces a…
CR: conditioned response which is the same as the UR but now occurs without the original US.

Question 22

Skinner - operant conditioning

Answer 22

Learning occurs through reinforcement and punishment that can both be positive or negative.

Question 23

What is ‘positive reinforcement’?

Answer 23

When something good is added that intends to increase behaviour (e.g., a reward like food, money).

Question 24

What is ‘positive punishment’?

Answer 24

When something bad is added to decrease behaviour (e.g., pain, stress).

Question 25

What is ‘negative reinforcement’?

Answer 25

When something bad is removed to increase behaviour (e.g., removing pain, stress).

Question 26

What is ‘negative punishment’?

Answer 26

When something good is removed to decrease behaviour (e.g., food, money).

Question 27

Gestalt psychology - members (3) and principle

Answer 27

• Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Kurt Koffka.
• The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Question 28

What did Gestalt psychology reject, and why?

Answer 28

• Structuralism, because experience is more than a function of sensation.
• Behaviourism, because complex behaviour (the “whole”) is more than the sum of its components.

Question 29

Gestalt psychologists - apparent motion

Answer 29

Perception is a construction, not a reflection of the sensation.

• Also in the auditory domain: you can either heard a galloping rhythm while 2 tones are played, or you hear 1 high stream and 1 low stream.

Question 30

Cognition since 1970s

Answer 30

Cognitive revolution, computer is used as a metaphor for human thinking.

Question 31

Cognition since 1980s

Answer 31

Modern imaging techniques avaliable: Structural MRI, Functional MRI, testing neuropsychological patients, can help answer theoretical hypotheses.

Question 32

Why was the scientific method created?

Answer 32

Observations can lead to mistakes, false conclusions and illusions, so we need a set of rules and techniques to avoid those.

Question 33

Scientific method techniques

Answer 33

1. Theorise/generate idea.
2. Formulate falsifiable hypothesis.
3. Collect and analyse data.
4. Draw conclusions regarding hypothesis.

Question 34

Deduction + problem

Answer 34

Drawing inferences based on premises (assumptions). E.g. all organisms die, John is an organism, John will die.
Problem: we cannot observe all organisms to figure out whether to not they die.

• General to specific.

Question 35

Induction + problem

Answer 35

• Specific to general
• E.g. My dog died, my tomato plant died, all organisms die.
• Problem: more observations cannot make a statement more true because un-encountered exceptions may arise. Conclusion can only be proven false.

Question 36

Humans are difficult to study for 3 reasons

Answer 36

1. Complexity
2. Variability
3. Reactivity

Question 37

What are ‘demand characteristics’?

Answer 37

In an observational setting, people behave in a way that meets expectations or beliefs about desired outcome.

• World: laughing even though you don’t like a joke.
• Lab: students fill out a dress questionnaire (high scores because of participants’ beliefs about desired outcome).

Question 38

Causal relationship

Answer 38

A change on some property causing a change on another property

• Hours immersed in combat situation : PTSD
• Terminal illness : depression

Question 39

Correlation definition

Answer 39

Variations on one variable are synchronised with variations in another variable.

Question 40

Positive correlation

Answer 40

Variables change in the same direction (+1 = perfect correlation)

• Time spent studying & exam grade

Question 41

Negative correlation

Answer 41

Variables change in opposite directions (-1 = perfect negative correlation).
- Age & hearing ability.

Question 42

Uncorrelated

Answer 42

No systematic pattern in variable changes.

• Driving skills & favourite colour of shoe laces.
• Length of index finger & money spend on groceries.