Cognitive Psychology, Chapter 1

A rationalist believes that the route to knowledge is through LOGICAL analysis.

René Descartes believed that the introspective, reflective method was superior to empirical methods for finding truth (origins: Plato).

An empiricist believes that we aquire knowledge via empirical evidence - through EXPERIENCE and OBSERVATION.

British empiricist John Locke believed that empirical observation was the best way for finding truth (origins: Aristotle)

German philosopher Immanuel Kant synthesized both views. Both must work together.

Structuralism was the first major school of thought in psychology.

It seeks to understand the structure of the mind and its perceptions by

analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components.

Example: a flower; analyze colors,geometric forms, size, and so on

Wilhelm WUNDT used INTROSPECTION for analyzing our own perceptions.

One follower of Wundt was US scientist Edward TITCHENER.

It focuses on the processes of thought.

Functionalism tries to understand what people DO and WHY.

Natural functionalism has led to pragmatism.

They believe that knowledge is validated by its usefulness.

What can you DO with it? They also want to do what you can do WITH knowledge of what people do.

Pragmatists believe in the importance of psychology of learning and memory.

Important person: WILLIAM JAMES - book: Principles of Psychology

also: John DEWEY

Associationism examines how events or ideas can become associated with one another in the mind to result in a form of learning.

For example: associations may result from contiguity, similarity or contrast

important person: Hermann Ebbinghaus - the first experimenter to apply associationist principles systematically. Studied how people learn and remember. REHEARSAL is the conscious repetition of to-be-learned material.

Edward Lee THORNDIKE said that the role of "satisfaction" is the key to forming associations = law of effect

associating things that tend to occur together at about the same time

Associating things with similar features or properties

associating things that seem to show polarities, such as hot/cold, dark/light, day/night etc.

Behaviorism is a theoretical outlook that psychology should focus only on the relation between observable behaviour and environmental events or stimuli.

Russia: Ivan PAVLOV - dogs.

effective conditioning requires CONTINGENCY (the presentation of food being contingent on the presentation of the conditioned stimulus)!

Beh. may be considered as an extreme version of Associationism.

It focuses ENTIRELY ON THE ASSOCIATION between THE ENVIRONMENT and an OBSERVABLE BEHAVIOUR.

JOHN WATSON.

He only concentrated observable behaviour He dismissed thinking as subvocalized speech.

Most experimental research has been conducted with laboratory animals > problem; can the work be generalized to humans?

B.F. SKINNER

He believed that virtually all forms of human behaviour, not just learning, could be explained by behaviour emitted in reaction to the environment.

He conducted research primarily with nonhuman animals

He rejected mental mechanisms.

He believed that OPERANT CONDITIONING could explain ALL FORMS of behavior.

Involving the strengthening or weakening of behavior, contingent on the presence or absence of reinforcement (rewards) or punishments

Edward TOLMAN: thought that understanding behavior required taking into account the purpose of, and the plan for the behavior

He believed all behavior is directed toward some goal.

- Learning appears to result not merely from direct rewards for behavior. It also can be social by learning through observations.

It stated that we best understand psychological phenomena when we view them as organized, structured wholes.

Gestaltists study insight, seeking to understand the unobservable mental event by which someone goes from having no idea about how to solve a problem to understanding it fully in what sems a mere moment of time.

The maxim: "The whole differs from the sum of its parts."

A belief that much of human behavior can be understood in terms of how people think. It is a synthesis of earlier forms of analysis, such as behaviorism and Gestaltism.

It emphasizes internal mental processes (like Gestaltism) and it uses precise quantitative analysis to study how people learn and think (like Behaviorism).

Those goals include data gathering, data analysis, theory development, hypothesis formulation, hypothesis testing.

A theory is an organized body of general explanatory principles regarding a phenomenon, usually based on observations. It results in a generation of hypotheses.

A tentative proposal regarding expected empirical consequences, such as outcomes of the research.

It indicates the likelihood that a given set of results would be obtained if only chance factors were in operation.

Through this method we can decide to retain or reject hypotheses.

Obtain samples of performance at a particular time and place

Ease of administration, of scoring and of statistical analysis.

Relatively high probability of drawing valid causal inferences.

It is not always possible to generalize results beyond a specific place, time and task setting.

Differences between reallife behavior and behavior in the laboratory.

Study animal brains and human brains, using postmortem studies and various psychobiological measures or imaging techniques.

It provides "hard" evidence of cognitive functions by relating them to physiological activity. It offers an alternative view of cognitive processes unavailable by other means.

May lead to possibilities for treating persons with serious cognitive deficits.

Limited accessibility for most researchers.

Requires access both to appropriate subjects and to equipment that may be extremely expensive and difficult to obtain.

Small samples.

Generalizability may be troublesome (from animal brains to human brains).

Obtain participants' reports of own cognition in progress or as recollected.

Information about Indvidual differences

Access to introspective insights from participants' point of view, which may be unavailable via other means.

Inability to report on processes occuring outside conscious awareness.

Verbal protocols & self ratings: Data gathering may influence cognitive processes being reported

Recollections: Possible discrepancies between actual cognition and recollected cognitive processes and products

Engage in intensive study of single individuals, drawing general conclusions about behavior.