Module 1

• Cognitive psychology


  Studies how people perceive, learn, remember, and think about information
• Fundamental issues in cognitive psychology

  • Studying how people have thoughts about thinking
  • Progression of ideas often involves a dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis)
  • Debate between nature vs nurture
  • Cultural differences in cognitive processes
• Cognitive psychology has roots in many different ideas and approaches
• Structuralism


  Seeks to understand the structure (configuration of elements) of the mind and its perceptions by analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components
• Introspection


  Deliberately looking inward at pieces of information passing through consciousness
• Functionalism


  Seeks to understand what people do and why they do it, rather than the contents of the mind
• Associationism


  Examines how elements of the mind, a form of learning, are associated through contiguity, similarity, or contrast
• Behaviorism


  Focuses only on the relation between observable behavior and environmental events or stimuli
• Gestalt psychology


  States that we best understand psychological phenomena by looking at the whole, rather than just the sum of its parts
• Behaviorism may be considered an extreme version of associationism
• According to strict, extreme ("radical") behaviorists, any hypotheses about internal thoughts and ways of thinking are nothing more than speculation
• Gestalt psychology


  States that we best understand psychological phenomena when we view them as organized, structured wholes
• We cannot fully understand behavior when only breaking phenomena into smaller parts
• Gestaltists studied insight, seeking to understand the unobservable mental event by which someone goes from having no idea how to solve a problem to fully understanding it in what seems a mere moment
• Maxim "the whole is more than the sum of its parts"


  Aptly summarizes the Gestalt perspective
• In the early 1950s, a "cognitive revolution" movement occurred in response to behaviorism
• Cognitivism


  The belief that much of human behavior regarding how people think can be understood
• Cognitivism rejects the notion that psychologists should avoid studying mental processes because they are unobservable
• Intelligence


  The capacity to learn from experience, use metacognitive processes to enhance learning and adapt to the surrounding environment
• More intelligent people are superior in divided and selective attention, working memory, reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, and concept formation
• Three-stratum model of intelligence


  Intelligence comprises a hierarchy of cognitive abilities comprising three strata: Stratum I (narrow, specific abilities), Stratum II (broad abilities like fluid and crystallized intelligence), and Stratum III (general intelligence)
• Theory of multiple intelligences


  Intelligence comprises multiple independent constructs, not just a single, unitary construct
• Triarchic theory of intelligence


  Intelligence comprises three aspects: creative, analytical, and practical abilities
• Research methods in cognitive psychology include laboratory or other controlled experiments, psychobiological research, self-reports, case studies, naturalistic observation, computer simulations, and artificial intelligence
• Goals of research in cognitive psychology

  Data gathering, analysis, theory development, hypothesis formulation, hypothesis testing, and application to settings outside the research environment
• Distinctive research methods in cognitive psychology

  • Laboratory or other controlled experiments
  • Psychobiological research
  • Self-reports
  • Case studies
  • Naturalistic observation
  • Computer simulations and artificial intelligence
• Psychobiological research


  Studying the relationship between cognitive performance and cerebral events and structures
• Cognitive neuroscience


  • Studies how the brain enables the mind
  • Bridges the domains of brain science and cognitive science
• Techniques used in cognitive neuroscience


  • Techniques for studying images showing structures of or activities in the brain of an individual who is known to have a particular cognitive deficit
  • Techniques for obtaining information about cerebral processes during the regular performance of cognitive activity
• Studying individuals with abnormal cognitive functions linked to cerebral damage

  Enhances our understanding of normal cognitive functions
• Animal studies


  Used for neurosurgical experiments that cannot be performed on humans because such procedures would be difficult, unethical, or impractical
• Methods used to obtain information about cognitive processes

  • Self-reports (an individual's account of cognitive processes)
  • Case studies (in-depth studies of individuals)
  • Naturalistic observation (detailed studies of cognitive performance in every day and nonlaboratory contexts)
• Experimental research


  • Most useful for testing hypotheses
• Self-reports, case studies, and naturalistic observation


  • Beneficial for formulating hypotheses
  • Helpful in generating descriptions of rare events or processes that we have no other way to measure
• Fundamental ideas in cognitive psychology

  • Empirical data and theories are both critical
  • Cognition is generally adaptive, but not in all specific instances
  • Cognitive processes interact with each other and with noncognitive processes
  • Cognition needs to be studied through a variety of scientific methods
  • All basic research in cognitive psychology may lead to applications, and all applied research may lead to basic understandings
• The nervous system is the basis for our ability to perceive, adapt, and interact with the world
• Major structures and functions of the brain

  • Cerebral cortex (involved in receiving and processing sensory information, thinking, other cognitive processing, and planning and sending motor information)
  • Basal ganglia (crucial to the function of the motor system)
  • Limbic systems (involved in learning, emotions, and motivation)
  • Thalamus (primary relay station for sensory information coming into the brain)
  • Hypothalamus (controls the endocrine system, autonomic nervous system, and involved in the regulation of behavior related to species survival, emotions, pleasure, pain, and stress reactions)
  • Superior colliculi (involved in vision)
  • Inferior colliculi (involved in hearing)
  • Reticular activating system (involved in sleep arousal, attention, cardiorespiratory function, and movement)
  • Cerebellum (essential to balance, coordination, and muscle tone)
  • Pons (bridges neural transmissions from one part of the brain to another, involved with facial nerves)
  • Medulla oblongata (serves as a juncture at which nerves cross from one side of the body to the opposite side of the brain, involved in cardiorespiratory function, digestion, and swallowing)