Week 1 - Cognitive Psychology Flashcards
Provide a definition for cognitive psychology.
The science of how the mind is organised to produce intelligent thought, and how the human mind is realised in the brain.
What is Williams Syndrome?
Williams Syndrome is when patients have difficulty processing visuospatial information. Challenged by remembering the location of shapes on a page. However, their navigation is still good and they can learn repeated routes better tha some individuals
Brain structures critical for response-based systems are NOT affected in Williams Syndrome.
What are the two navigation systems in the brain?
1) Response-based navigation = learned through repeated actions (don’t have to think about it).
2) Place-based navigation = using spatial memory
Brain structures critical for response-based systems are NOT affected in Williams Syndrome.
What are the foundations that led to cognitive psychology?
Structuralism = breaking down the mind into components. Looking into your own mind and thinking about thoughts. E.g. why am I feeling hungry
Functionalism = function of the human mind and how our mind responds to things. We receive input and stimulation from the external world.
Behaviourism = directly observable. Stimulus and response procedures.
Cognitive revolution = around WW11. Solving practical issues. Led to development in other fields = analysis of intelligent behaviour and AI.
Describe steps of how one might decompose mental processes in an experiment.
- Formulate theoretical model of how output is made from a given input.
- Measure time taken for each processing stage.
- Analyse which variables affects which processing stage.
Having a theory first, helps us form a prediction. E.g. the time it takes to find a target should linearly increase as the number of letters increase.
Refer to tutorial notes from week 1 for revision on experimental designs.
