Chapter One Introduction to Cognitive Psychology 1 What is Cognitive Psychology What is Cognition and Cognitive approach a Cognitive psychology Pg 2 approach to psychology that focuses on studying peoples thought processes and knowledge A synonym for cognition the theoretical i Sub discipline of experimental psychology ii Investigates the mental processes of people that give rise to our perception and interpretation of the world around us how people perceive process store retrieve interpret etc b Cognition Pg 2 transformation and use of knowledge Mental activity including the acquisition storage i Collecting information perceiving it processing it and the using it c Cognitive approach Pg 2 thought processes and knowledge theoretical orientation that emphasizes peoples 2 Why should learn about cognition cognitive psychology a Large part of human psychology perceive remember using language b Has a widespread influence on other areas of psychology such as clinical thinking educational and social Owners manual c i Understanding cognition means to understand the abilities that provide you with a rich mental life you understand your mind and others minds to some degree if you understand cognition 3 How Cognitive Psychology can be applied to study of other psychological area e g Clinical Psychology a Research and treatment of behavioral disorders b Cognitive therapies i Ex Depression 1 People with depression tend to recall memories from their past in a very brief undetailed summarized manner whereas people without depression tend to recall a memory as lasting more than one day and with explicit detail a A memory for the past two summers i Depression Went to my grandparents house ii Non depressed drove to my grandparent s house in Arizona the whole first day was the drive it took hours and there wasn t enough room in the car And then when we finally got there we were too tired to do anything but eat The next though we 2 Its theorized that our cognitive assessment of events is what causes our distress not the events themselves a The differences in recalling the memory and how it was stored and perceived between the two kinds of people is a demonstration of cognitive differences 4 What are the origins of cognitive psychology a Birth of Psychology i Wilhelm Wundt psychology as a discipline didn t emerge until the late 1800s and most consider Wundt the founder birth of psychology as a science 1 He proposed that psychology should study mental processes and advocated the use of introspection as a technique to do so a Introspection Pg 7 an early approach to studying mental activity in which carefully trained observers systematically analyzed their own sensations and reported them as objectively as possible under standardized conditions i Self reports of experience reaction to a specific ii Structuralism Edward Titchener Wundt s Student chord of music 1 Decided to try and discover the structural elements of the mind the cognitive equivalent of finding the elements of nature the periodic table 2 Used introspection strongly encourage systematic data collection and the importance of empirical evidence iii Functionalism William James 1 Theorized about everyday psychological experiences the functions of our thoughts and feelings and how they enable us to adapt survive and flourish b Behaviorism Pg 9 2 Popularized the study of psychology and expanded its focus mostly through his textbook Principles of Psychology 1890 an approach to psychology that focuses on objective observable reactions to stimuli in the environment rather than introspection i Came around because of the belief that introspection and mentalism of structuralism and functionalism were too unreliable that they were too subjective and too speculative that only human behavior was observable 1 As a result behaviorists didn t study concepts such as mental images ideas or thoughts instead they focused heavily on the general laws of learning particularly in quantifying the way that changes in an organisms environment caused changes in their behavior ii Watson and Skinner Skinner s box 1 Studied the learning behavior of an animal to help them better understand the learning behavior of humans 2 Watson a Believed that science should be rooted in observation and so psychology should be the science of behavior and not the mind b Focus on stimulus response c Classical conditioning 3 Skinner a Science should be rooted in observation b Operant conditioning c Rejected the cognitive revolution iii Behaviorism helped understand how we learn about and improve psychology s scientific aspect c Cognitive Revolution i Question 7 5 Know structuralism and functionalism How do they differ from each other Who were key figures in each movement Know introspection and its limitation a Question Four research 6 Know why the behaviorists sought to change the focus of psychological In question four but a b Behaviorists believed that introspection is too subjective and mentalism is too speculative and that only human behavior is observable c Most behaviorists believed that it was inappropriate to theorize and speculate about unobservable components of mental life 7 Know what the cognitive revolution beginning around the 1950s 1960s reintroduced to psychology a Psychologists were getting more and more upset with the behaviorist outlook that it was too difficult to explain complex human behavior using concepts such as observable stimuli responses and reinforcements and behaviorist approach didn t tell us anything about topics such as thoughts and strategies used to solve problems b The cognitive revolution is the term used to describe the shift of focus away from behaviorism to the study of human s internal processes thinking and how topics such as memory and attention and language work along with that Jean Piaget children actively explore their world in order to understand important concepts i Children s thought processes and then how that changes to c d Noam Chomsky structure of language was too complex to be explained in adolescence etc behaviorist terms i Argued that humans have an innate ability to master all of the complicated and varied aspects of language which contradicted the behaviorist perspective of language being learned like rats learned things in their lab e Ulric Neisser father of cognitive psychology i First to use the term cognitive psychology and published a book on it in 1967 f Cognitive revolution highlighted the importance of thought and how its
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