Cognitive Psychology Test 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Cognition mental activity describes the acquisition storage transformation and use of knowledge Cognitive psychology 2 meanings o 1 A synonym for cognition so it refers to the variety of mental activities we do o 2 Refers to a particular theoretical approach to psychology Cognitive approach a theoretical orientation that emphasizes peoples though processes and their knowledge A brief history of cogitative psychology Empirical evidence scientific evidence obtained by careful observation and experimentation Wilhelm Wundt the founder of psychology o Proposed that psychology should study mental processes by using introspection Introspection carefully trained observers systematically analyze their own sensations and report them as objectively as possible under standardized conditions Early memory researchers o Hermann Ebbinghaus the first person to scientifically study human Researched used nonsense syllables o Mary Whiton Calkins reported a memory phenomenon called the memory recency effect Recency effect refers to the observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli Emphasized that psychologists should study how real people use their cognitive processes in the real world as opposed to in a psychology laboratory William James o Prefers to theorize about our everyday psychological experiences o Wrote Principles of Psychology Provides clear detailed descriptions about peoples everyday experiences Emphasizes that the human mind id active and inquiring Foreshadows numerous cognitive topics perceptions attention memory understanding reasoning and the tip of the tongue phenomenon Behaviorism o Behaviorism psychology must focus on objective observable reactions to stimuli in the environment rather than introspection John B Watson the most prominent early behaviorism in the US o The Gestalt Approach o Watson and other behaviorists Emphasized observable behavior Typically studied animals Argued that researchers could not objectively study mental representations such as an image idea or thought Emphasized the importance of the operational definition Operational definition a precise definition that specifies exactly how a concept is to be measured o Gestalt Psychology emphasizes that we humans have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see furthermore the whole is greater than the sum of it s parts o Gestalt overall quality that transcends the individual elements Emphasizes the importance of insight in problem solving Example when you are trying to solve a problem the parts of the problem my initially seem unrelated to each other however with a sudden flash of insight the parts fit together into a solution Frederic Bartlett o Conducted his research on human memory o Wrote Remembering An Experimental and Social Study Considered one of the most influential books in cognitive psychology Rejected carefully controlled research and instead used meaningful materials such as lengthy stories Discovered that people made systematic errors while trying to recall these stories o He proposed that human memory is an active constructive process I which we interpret and transform the information we encounter o Emphasized schema based approach to memory The Emergence of Modern Cognitive Psychology o The birth of cognitive psychology 1956 1956 researchers published numerous influential books and articles of attention memory language concept formation and problem solving Sometimes called the cognitive revolution o Factors Contributing to the Rise of Cognitive Psychology Psychologists were becoming increasingly disappointed with the behaviorist outlook that had dominated U S psychology in previous decades New developments in linguistics increased psychology s dissatisfaction with behaviorism o Noam Chomsky emphasized that the structure of language was too complex to be examined in behaviorists terms Research in human memory began to blossom o Further disenchanted psychologists with behaviorists approach Research on children s thought processes became an influential force developmental psychology o Jean Piaget Children actively explore their world in order to understand important concepts Children s cognitive strategies change as they mature By the mid 1970 s the cognitive approach had replaced the behavioral approach as the dominant theory in psychological research o The Information Processing Approach A new theoretical approach that began in the 1960 s Information processing approach argued that a our mental processes are similar to the operations of a computer and b information progresses through our cognitive system in a series of stages one at a time Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin developed an information processing model o The Atkinson Shiffrin model of memory proposed that memory invokes a sequence of separate steps in each step information is transferred from one storage area to another The Current Status of Cognitive Psychology o One common complaint in the world of cognitive psychology concerns the issue of ecological validity Ecological validity a principle of research design in which the research use conditions that are similar to the natural setting where the results will be applied Cognitive Neuroscience Techniques Cognitive neuroscience combines the research techniques of cognitive psychology with various methods for assessing the structure and function of the brain o In recent decades researchers have examined which structures in the brain are activated when people perform a variety of cognitive tasks Social cognitive neuroscience psychology now uses neuroscience techniques to explore the kind of processes that we use in our interactions with other people Brain Lesions o Brain lesions refers to the destruction of an area in the brain most often by strokes tumors blows to the head and accidents o The study of brain lesions has definitely helped us to understand the organization of the brain However these results are often difficult to interpret Positron Emission Tomography o By measuring certain properties of the blood in different regions of the brain while people perform a cognitive task we can determine which brain regions are responsible for that cognitive task o Positron emission tomography PET scan researchers measure blood flow in the brain by injecting the participant with a low dose of radioactive chemical just before this person works on a cognitive task The chemical travels
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