Lecture 1 Flashcards
What is psychology?
The scientific study of mind and behaviour.
What is ‘mind’?
Private inner experience of perception, thoughts, memories, and feelings.
What is ‘behaviour’?
Observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals.
What is an experiment?
A technique establishing a causal relationship between variables.
What is experimental psychology?
The scientific study of mind and behaviour by means of experiments.
What is cognition?
All mental processes that lead to thoughts, knowledge, and awareness.
What are cognitive processes?
Mechanisms that underly cognition.
- They govern cognitive functions like attention, memory, learning, mental processing etc.
Continental rationalists (enlightenment)
- Knowledge is innate or inborn: nativism.
- Rene Descartes - the mind is not supreme, body and mind are separate entities.
- Gottfried Leibniz, Benedict de Spinoza
British empiricists
- Knowledge is acquired through observation.
- David Hume, John Locke, George, Berkeley.
One of the first psychologists to conduct experiments
Hermann von Helmholtz
- Studied the conduction velocity of the nerve impulses.
Just Noticeable Difference
The minimum difference in stimulation that a person can detect 50% of the time.
Inspiration and creator of JND
Inspired by Ernst Weber, created by Gustav Fechner.
Mental chronometry
- Franciscus Donders
- How much time do you need to decide whether you heard the syllable ‘ka’ or ‘ta’?
Simple reaction time
Press a button whenever you hear a syllable.
- Detection RT
Differential/choice reaction time
Press the ‘k’-button when you hear ‘ka’, and press the ‘t’-button when you hear ‘ta’
- Detection RT + discrimination RT + decision RT.
Go/No go reaction time
Press the ‘k’-button when you hear ‘ka’, but do nothing when you hear ‘ta’
- Detection RT + discrimination RT.
Structuralism
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.
Structuralism - Edward Titchener’s proposal
3 elementary states of consciousness:
- Sensations (sights, sounds, taste).
- Images (components of thoughts).
- Affections (components of emotions).
As well as identifying thousands of ‘elemental qualities of conscious experience’.
Behaviourism
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.
Behaviourism as a part of logical positivism (operational definition)
A description of an (abstract) property in terms of a concrete definition that can be measured.
Ivan Pavlov - classical conditioning + term definitions
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.
Skinner - operant conditioning
Learning occurs through reinforcement and punishment that can both be positive or negative.
What is ‘positive reinforcement’?
When something good is added that intends to increase behaviour (e.g., a reward like food, money).
What is ‘positive punishment’?
When something bad is added to decrease behaviour (e.g., pain, stress).
What is ‘negative reinforcement’?
When something bad is removed to increase behaviour (e.g., removing pain, stress).
What is ‘negative punishment’?
When something good is removed to decrease behaviour (e.g., food, money).
Gestalt psychology - members (3) and principle
- Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Kurt Koffka.
- The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
What did Gestalt psychology reject, and why?
- Structuralism, because experience is more than a function of sensation.
- Behaviourism, because complex behaviour (the “whole”) is more than the sum of its components.
Gestalt psychologists - apparent motion
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.
Cognition since 1970s
Cognitive revolution, computer is used as a metaphor for human thinking.
Cognition since 1980s
Modern imaging techniques avaliable: Structural MRI, Functional MRI, testing neuropsychological patients, can help answer theoretical hypotheses.
Why was the scientific method created?
Observations can lead to mistakes, false conclusions and illusions, so we need a set of rules and techniques to avoid those.
Scientific method techniques
- Theorise/generate idea.
- Formulate falsifiable hypothesis.
- Collect and analyse data.
- Draw conclusions regarding hypothesis.
Deduction + problem
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.
Induction + problem
- 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.
Humans are difficult to study for 3 reasons
- Complexity
- Variability
- Reactivity
What are ‘demand characteristics’?
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).
Causal relationship
A change on some property causing a change on another property
- Hours immersed in combat situation : PTSD
- Terminal illness : depression
Correlation definition
Variations on one variable are synchronised with variations in another variable.
Positive correlation
Variables change in the same direction (+1 = perfect correlation)
- Time spent studying & exam grade
Negative correlation
Variables change in opposite directions (-1 = perfect negative correlation).
- Age & hearing ability.
Uncorrelated
No systematic pattern in variable changes.
- Driving skills & favourite colour of shoe laces.
- Length of index finger & money spend on groceries.
