Q1: Lecture 1 Flashcards
epistemology
branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and origins of knowledge
nativism
believes our knowledge has always existed and is inborn
rationalism
knowledge results from the application of reason
empiricism
belief that knowledge is attained via sensory experience
British empiricists
John Locke, George Berkely, David Hume
laws of association
the connection among the mental elements
contiguity
mental experiences that occur simultaneously or right after the other becomes associated because they are present close together in time
psychophysics
attempted to understand and quantify the relationships between the physical world outside of us and the subjective perceptual world of our inner experience
Ernst Weber
proposed a mathematical account of the relationship between external physical properties and internal mental qualities
JND
Just Noticeable Difference
Weber’s Law
mathematical formula used to relate the physical to the psychological
Gustav Fechner
explored physical-psychological correlations using the techniques of psychophysics
Weber-Rechner’s law
the relationship between physical properties and psychological qualities is not linear, but rather logarithmic
Rene Descartes
french mathematician and philosopher
Cartesian dualism
the belief that the universe is composed of 2 essentially different types of stuff (physical and mental)
mind-body problem
frequent adoption of Cartesian Dualism has made it necessary to address a challenging conundrum
Wilhelm Wundt
founded the 1st research lab to employ the experimental method to address psychological questions
introspection
a method where a trained observer provided unbiased reports of fundamental mental experiences free of conceptual interpretation
Edward Titchener
founded a school of psychological thought called Structuralism
structuralism
psychological approach that employed the introspective technique to advance research
William James
the 1st educator to offer a course on psychology and considered the American father of Psychology
stream of consciousness
mental events form a continuous and seamless flow of ever-hanging internal experience
mentalism
the understanding of the mind
John Watson
felt that psychology needed a reboot and offered a prescription for a new psychology
behaviorism
studies how people and animals learn and behave through conditioning
psychology as mental chemistry
Wundt and structuralists
mind as adaptive organ
Functionalists
behavior as acquired reflex
focused on learning via experience as the most crucial source of knowledge and stresses the idea that learning processes involve establihing simple associative links between stimuli and responses
learning theory
attempts to explain how stimulus-response links are formed; stimuli impinges upon organisms and organisms react because the stimuli elicits responses
S-R theory
also known as the learning theory
Edward Thorndike
interested in animal learning and was keen to test 2 competing views of problem solving
insight
sudden realizations about the problem situation that allowed them to clearly see the solution in a flash
“trial and error” learning
simply behaving and suddenly stumbling upon a problem, eventually with time you will learn to make solution responses more rapidly
instrumental conditioning
a learning process that modifies voluntary behaviors through reinforcement or punishment
law of effect
behaviors that produce positive outcomes are like to be repeated, while behavior that produce negative outcomes are less likely to be repeated
reinforcement
the process of increasing the likelihood of a behavior occurring again by providing a consequence
classical conditioning
pairing a neutral stimulus that produces a natural response
