Psychology in Action learning Results from psychological research have given us a lot of tools to improve studying and o Many of these are presented in the first section of the textbook Fundamental facts about learning from 70 years of cognitive psychology 1 Acquiring new knowledge is difficult and requires practice a Herman Ebbinghaus memory curve b Nonsense Syllable Single syllable that is pronounceable and has no known meaning i wux It takes knowledge to learn knowledge 2 3 The more you know the easier it is to learn a Learning Memory b Stages of skill acquisition i More efficient at component processes ii More efficient at sequencing different processes iii Representation of the task fundamentally changes i Set of rules through a given context c Schemas d Association What is Psychology The scientific study of behavior and mental processes 1 Behavior Any action 2 Mental Processes Perceptions thoughts feelings a Latent Constructs Goals of Psychology 1 Describe 2 Explain 3 Predict 4 Control Pre psychology A Ancient Philosophy a Aristotle 384 322 BCE b Plato i Tabula Rasa Clean Slate B Modern Philosophy a Rene Descartes i Rationalist ii Cartesian Dualism physical vs mental b Empiricists i You can only know things if you directly observe them ii John Locke iii David Hume iv Bishop Berkley Just noticeable difference JND i The difference it takes between two stimuli to notice a difference Psychophysics 1840 s ish A Weber a B Fechner a Stimulus intensity C Ebbinghaus Structuralism mentalism A Elements of consciousness and how they are organized B Wilhelm Wundt a 1879 ish b Father of modern psychology C E B Titchner a Student of Wundt b Translated many of Wundt s works into English c Gave first PhD to woman D William James a Functionalism b The principles of psychology i Grief ii Thinking iii Perception iv Religious Experience Behaviorism A John Watson B B F Skinner a Ignore what people think or say look only at what they do i Their behavior is the only thing we can study a Biggest proponent of behaviorism b Wrote Beyond Freedom Dignity and Walden 2 Gestalt Psychology Argued against behaviorism structuralism Holistic view of consciousness The Cognitive Revolution The study of thought Noam Chomsky George Miller Herbert Simon Allen Newell Introduction to the Scientific Method prediction and control b Confirmation bias o Worked for the military while he was in school A A system for reducing bias and error in the measurement of data a Used in psychology to accomplish the goals of description explanation i Tendency to notice seek out and interpret information in a way consistent with your own prior beliefs ii One of the most pernicious biases in EVERY science c Descriptive Methods i Seek to describe phenomena ii Can show relationships cannot show causation d Descriptive Studies i Naturalistic Observation 1 Watching animals or humans behave in their natural environment a Advantage i Realistic Picture of Behavior b Limitations and ways of minimizing them c Observer Effect Tendency of people or animals to behave differently from normal when they know are being observed expect to see Tendency of observers to see what they d Observer Bias i Blind observers research question is to reduce observer bias People who do not know that the e Each naturalistic setting is unique and observations may not hold ii Laboratory Observation 1 Watching animals or humans behave in a laboratory setting a Advantages i Control over environment ii Allows use of specialized equipment b Limitations i Artificial situation that may result in artificial ii Can be difficult to generalize findings to real behavior world situations iii Case Study 1 Study of one individual in great detail a Advantages i May be the only way to study some phenomena ii Tremendous amount of detail 1 Rich source for hypothesis generation i Findings may not generalize to others b Limitation 2 Famous Case Studies a Phineas Gage b HM c SM iv Survey 1 Advantages 2 Limitations a Data from large numbers of people b Study covert behaviors get private information a People are not always accurate b Small variations in wording used or order of questions can affect outcomes c Researchers have to ensure representative samples if interested in generalizing findings to a certain population a Population 3 Sampling researchers are interested in subjects for a large population b Representative Sample 4 Correlations Entire group of people or animals the Randomly selected sample of a A measure of the relationship between two variables Anything that can change or vary i Variable ii Measures of two variables go into a mathematical formula and produce a correlation coefficient r which represents two things 1 The direction of the relationship sign 2 The strength of the relationship number 3 Range 1 to 1 iii Knowing the value of one variable allows researchers to predict the value of the other variable iv Positive Correlation same direction Variables are related in the 1 As one increases the other increases as one decreases the other decreases Variables are related in the v Negative Correlation opposite direction 1 As one increases the other decreases b Correlation does not prove causation i e g Gun laws and crime rate c If variables are casually related a correlation won t tell ou which variable is the cause and which is the effect i e g Self esteem and school performance a A deliberate manipulation of a variable to see whether corresponding changes in behavior result allowing the determination of cause and effect relationships i Independent Variables 1 The variable in an experiment that is manipulated by the experimenter ii Dependent Variable 1 The variable in an experiment that represents the measurable response or behavior of the subjects in the experiment 5 Experiments 6 Experimental and Control Groups a Experimental Group i Subjects in an experiment who are subjected to the independent variable 1 e g Phone goes off b Control Group i Subjects in an experiment who are not subjected to the independent variable and who may receive a placebo treatment controls for some confounding variables 1 e g No cell phone rings 7 Random Assignment a Assigning participants to experimental cell phone and control no cell phone conditions by random assignment minimizes pre existing differences between the two groups i Gives each study participant an equal chance of being in the treatment or the control group 8 Potential Issues with Experiments a Confounds you are interested in
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