What is cognitive psychology

Question 1

What is cognitive psychology? How can it be useful in real life?

Answer 1

Cognitive psychology is the study that you cannot see.

For example, perception, memory, thinking, decisions, language, consciousness, and dreams are things that we cannot see.

Question 2

How can you study “cognition” that you cannot see?

Answer 2

I can use structuralism and functionalism to help with observing the cognitive processes.

Question 3

What is structuralism and who developed it?

Answer 3

William Wundt developed structuralism. Structionalism is breaking down mental processes into basic parts called reductionist.

Question 4

In structuralism, what is introspection and how was it used to better understand consciousness?

Answer 4

Introspection is examining one’s own conscious thoughts and behaviors. It is an objective measure of consciousness. Your brain routes have sensory information that has multiple senses at the same time called synthesia. People use conscious thoughts and behaviors after experiencing the senses

Question 5

What is functionalism and how does it differ from structuralism?

Answer 5

Functionalism was created by William James, and it is understanding the function or purpose. It is different from structuralism because functionalism is looking at the function of something, while structuralism is breaking down mental processes into basic components.

Question 6

What is the psychoanalytic perspective and how is consciousness important?

Answer 6

The psychoanalytic perspective is unconscious things that you are not explicitly aware of. Consciousness is very important because it allows people to be aware of how they are feeling and thinking

Question 7

What is behaviorism?

Answer 7

It is by Jonn Watson, and it is the only study of the behavior that you observe. You cannot study thoughts, dreams, etc. Language, perception, and attention are what you see and study.

Question 8

What is cognitive revolution?

Answer 8

The cognitive revolution by George Miller was when the brain is a physical material or organ, while the mind is housed in the brain.

Brain = material; mind = immaterial

Question 9

What is consciousness and how is the study of consciousness important in the history of psychology?

Answer 9

It is an awareness of your internal and external environment. It is very important in history because it occurs during thoughts, memory, and other mental processes.

Question 10

How do you measure thinking/cognition (dependent variable)?

Answer 10

Best measures: static + function
1) Behavioral variable: tells us
what’s happening internally
2) Self Report
3) Physiological measure
a) Where in the brain is the
function occurring?
Hippocampus
b) Lesion: a damage of
hippocampus

Question 11

What are the differences between speed and accuracy?

Answer 11

1) reaction time: how quickly responses to stimuli
2) accuracy (performance) (teaching and reading as studying for the test; which one works better)

Question 12

What are the different physiological measures and when they are used?

Answer 12

They use imaging such as static pictures and function. Static is a CT scan and MRI, while the functions are PET scan and fMRI. They are finding the locations of the brain that are active.

Question 13

What are the independent variables (subject and situation variables) in psychology?

Answer 13

1) Subject variables: vary among participants across the country but cannot change or manipulate who they are (age, sex, gender, etc.)
2) Situational variables: can be environmental factors that can manipulate the dependent variables

Question 14

What are the WEIRD participants and researchers? Why are they important?

Answer 14

Western
Educated
Industrialized
Rich
Democratic

WEIRD people are very important because they are rich and have enough money to pay for things to work on the researches and experiments. They have supportive data and evidence to prove something that supports the hypothesis.

Question 15

What are the key techniques and findings in the 95% Neglected readings?

Answer 15

They stated that American psychology is an incomplete science that cannot represent the human population, but many researchers continued to find value in the approach. These researchers find it a challenge for Americans to create human science beyond the American population.

They were neglecting 95% of the human population. They were focusing on less than 5% of the world’s total population, which is counted Americans. These researchers want to be aware of the neglected 95% of the human population because their goal was to focus on APA journals to promote psychology as a human science, instead of just American science.

APA journals should be encouraged to include associate and consulting editors who are non-Americans and invite special issues that were from non-American authors. The program for undergraduate students should require psychology students to take a couple of courses in anthropology or cultural psychology, and the psychology majors should be encouraged to study one semester abroad.

Question 16

Is there a racial bias in psychology research?

Answer 16

Yes because of different cognitive, developmental, and social psychology.

Is race relevant?

Question 17

1a Practice Question:

Which of the following is the most accurate summary of the behaviorists’ contributions to cognitive psychology?

1) The behaviorists refined the introspection technique through the use of careful interview techniques.

2) The most important contributions of the behaviorists were related to research methodology.

3) Behaviorists clarified the cognitive abilities of infants and children, especially in their research on object permanence.

4) Behaviorists’ contributions to cognitive psychology focused on theoretical models, rather than on empirical results.

Answer 17

2) The most important contributions of the behaviorists were related to research methodology.

Question 18

1b Practice Question:

Professor Adams gave the experimental group anagrams to solve and the control group simple word puzzles. She was interested in how the two groups may think differently. This is an example of
1) Subject variables
2) Dependent variables
3) Manipulate the situation
4) Immaterial

Answer 18

3) Manipulate the situation

Question 19

Practice Short Essay:

Sarah and Max are interested in studying how experience shapes thinking. State a specific research question and then describe the 4 techniques they may use to study their question.

Answer 19

The research question will be “How can Sarah and Max find experience that shapes thinking?” The four techniques for finding how experience shapes thinking are behavioral variables (reaction time and accuracy), self-report, physiological measures, and imaging (static and function).

Question 20

What is the relationship between the brain and the mind? How does this influence how we study cognition? Provide specific concepts from class in your answer.

Answer 20

The brain is material, while the mind is immaterial. The brain is a physical organ, while the mind is a storage of mental processes that are housed in the brain. This influences us to study by knowing how people process their perceptions, memories, decisions, language, consciousness, and dreams. Introspection can occur after these experiences.