PSYCH 108 FINAL STUDY GUIDE Chapter 1 As you think about cognitive tasks you re engaging in another cognitive task called metacognition you were thinking about your thought processes Cognition or mental activity describes acquisition storage transformation and use of knowledge Cognitive approach is a theoretical orientation that emphasizes people s thought processes and their knowledge Ex Cognitive explanation of ethnic stereotypes emphasizes topics like influence of these stereotypes on the judgments we make about ppl from diff ethnic groups Aristotle emphasized importance of empirical evidence or scientific evidence obtained by careful observation experimentation Aristotle first cognitive psychologist but psychology as a discipline emerged in late 80s Wilhelm Wundt should be considered founder of psych structuralism Wundt said psych should study mental processes using a technique called introspection carefully trained observers would systematically analyze their own sensations and report them as objectively as possible under standardized conditions Ex observers asked to objectively report their reactions to specific musical chord w o relying on previous knowledge German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus 1st person to scientifically study human memory examined variety of factors that might influence performance amount of time btwn 2 presentations of a list of items he chose nonsense syllables DAX and reduced ppl s previous experience w material Mary Calkins reported a memory phenomenon called recency effect observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of stimuli She was the 1st woman to be president of the American Psych Association William James preferred to theorize about our everyday psychological experiences he published Principles of Psychology human mind active inquiring According to principles of behaviorism psych must focus on objective observable reactions to stimuli in the environment rather than introspection most prominent behaviorist was U S psychologist John B Watson Watson and other behaviorists emphasized observable behavior and studied animals they argue that researchers can t objectively study mental representations image idea thought Behaviorists emphasized importance of operational definition precise definition that specifies exactly how a concept is to be measured they value carefully controlled research Important development in Europe in 20th century Gestalt psychology we have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see the whole is greater than the sum of its parts Ex oval w 2 straight lines appears as a human face bc it has unity organization it has gestalt or overall quality that transcends the individual elements oval 2 lines Gestalt psychologists value unity of psychological phenomena and object to Wundt s introspective technique of analyzing experience into separate components Opposed to behaviorists emphasis of breaking behavior into observable stimulus response units and ignoring context of behavior they believe certain components of a pattern seem to belong together They value insight in problem solving parts of problem initially seem unrelated but parts begin to fit together into a solution early research in problem solving gestalt Frederic Bartlett British psychologist has book Remembering An Experimental and Social Study most influential books in history of cognitive psych He rejected carefully controlled research of Ebbinghaus and used lengthy stories Discovered that ppl made systematic errors when trying to recall lengthy stories proposed that human memory active constructive process in which we interpret transform info we encounter We search for meaning trying to integrate new info so that it s consistent w our own personal experiences Linguist Noam Chomsky emphasized structure of language too complex to be explained in behaviorist terms argued that humans have inborn ability to master all complicated varied aspects of language contradicted behaviorist approach language acquisition can be entirely explained by same kind of learning principles that apply to lab animals Jean Piaget said children actively explore their world in order to understand important concepts children s cognitive strategies change as they mature and adolescents use sophisticated strategies in order to conduct experiments about scientific principles Information processing approach argued that a our mental processes are similar to operations of a comp b info progresses through our cognitive system in a series of stages one step at a time Atkinson Shiffrin model proposed that memory involves a sequence of separate steps in each step info is transferred from one storage area to another External stimuli from the environment first enter sensory memory storage system that records info from each of the senses w reasonable accuracy Info is stored in sensory memory for 2 secs or less and then most is forgotten Model proposes that some material from sensory memory short term memory Short term memory working memory holds only small amount of info that you are actively using memories here are fragile but not as fragile as in sensory memory these memories can be lost within about 30 seconds unless repeated Only fraction of info in short term memory long term memory Long term memory has unlimited capacity bc contains memories that are decades old memories of events that occurred several minutes ago info stored here is relatively permanent compared to info in short term working memory Cognitive psych has critics one common complaint concerns issue of ecological validity studies are high in ecological validity if conditions in which research is conducted are similar to natural setting where results will be applied In contrast an experiment involving participants memorizing list of unrelated English words presented at 5 sec intervals on white screen w of ppl told to create vivid mental image of each word and other receiving no instructions carefully controlled experiment This task is low in ecological validity bc can t be applied to way ppl learn in real world Cognitive neuroscience combines the research techniques of cognitive psych w various methods for assessing the structure function of the brain Psychologists use neuroscience techniques to explore kind of cognitive processes that we use in our interactions w other ppl a new discipline called social cognitive science Ex researchers identified variety of brain structures that are active when