Intro to Cognitive Psyc

Question 1

What does cognitive psychology study?

Answer 1

the characteristics/properties of cognitive processes and how they operate

includes perception, attention, memory, language, reasoning, decision making, consciousness

Question 2

What did Donders study?

Answer 2

he measured how long it takes a person to make a decision using a reaction time experiment

Question 3

What is a simple RT task and a choice RT task?

Answer 3

simple: push the button when the light comes on

choice: push 1 button when the light is on the left side, a different one if light is on right side

Question 4

How would Donders find the length of time the decision takes?

Answer 4

subtract the simple RT from choice RT

Question 5

How long does it take to make a decision on average?

Answer 5

0.1 seconds

Question 6

What did Ebbinghaus study?

Answer 6

was interested in learning and memory, would read a list of made-up words to see how many repetitions it would take to not make a mistake

Question 7

How many repetitions are required for short break intervals?

Answer 7

fewer repititions

Question 8

What are savings?

Answer 8

reduction in repititions needed to relearn the list after break

=original time to learn list - the time to relearn list

Question 9

What does a savings curve look like?

Answer 9

savings decreases rapidly until around 2 days, plateaus after, not much change after 6 days

Question 10

What did Wundt do?

Answer 10

opened first scientific psych lab

structuralism

Question 11

What does structuralism believe?

Answer 11

overall experience is made by combining basic elements of expereince called sensations, used introspection

Question 12

What are some limits of introspection?

Answer 12

the only person that can directly experience their thoughts are that person, can’t be double checked, subjective, some thoughts are unconscious, not scientific

Question 13

What did William James do?

Answer 13

used introspection, taught first psyc at harvard, wrote principles of psychology

Question 14

What issues did Watson see with introspection? What did he propose?

Answer 14

variable results per person and difficult to verify

behaviourism

Question 15

What does behaviourism focus on?

Answer 15

observable behaviour and stimuli

can test learning/memory but not creativity/imagination

Question 16

What is classical conditioning? Examples?

Answer 16

pairing a neutral event with a stimuli that produces a response until neutral event shows same response

pavlov dog, little albert

Question 17

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 17

shapes behaviour by rewards/punishment, rewarded behaiour is more repeated, punished less likely to repeat

Question 18

What are some criticisms of behaviourism?

Answer 18

some stimulus that cause behaviour aren’t observable, learning can happen without changes to behaviour, language is creative (not learnt by repeating exact sentences), mental processes and behaviours need the whole to understand

Question 19

What are the three groups of rats used in the latent learning experiment?

Answer 19

group 1, got food in box everyday
group 2, never given any food
group 3, got food after 10 days

group 3 had a veyr big jump and found food very quickly

Question 20

What book had a major effect on cognitive revolution?

Answer 20

ulric neissers book cognitive psychology

Question 21

How do cognitive psychologists study mental events?

Answer 21

indirectly, measure observable stimuli/response, make hypotheses about mental events and make experiments

Question 22

What is transcendental method?

Answer 22

reason backward from pbservations to deteermine the cause

Question 23

What is the law of similarity?

Answer 23

see elements as a group if they look similar (colour, shape, size)

Question 24

What is the law of pragnanz or good figure?

Answer 24

we see ambiguous shapes in as simple way as possible (olympic logo is circles not curves)

Question 25

What is the law of proximity?

Answer 25

see elements as a group if they are close to each other

Question 26

What is the law of continuity?

Answer 26

elements on a line or curve are seen of part of a group

Question 27

What is the law of closure?

Answer 27

we close the gaps between elements that are close and look like a shape

Question 28

What is the law of common region?

Answer 28

items within a boundary are perceived as a group

Question 29

What are schemas?

Answer 29

mental framework that helps individuals organize, process, and store information about their environment

Question 30

What are schema used for?

Answer 30

interpret experiences and aid memory, culturally based

Question 31

What are some examples of behavioural methodology?

Answer 31

performance/accuracy measures, RT measures

Question 32

What are some examples of cognitive neuroscience methodology?

Answer 32

electrophysiology (EEG, depth electrodes), neuroimaging

Question 33

What are some examples of neuropsychology methodology?

Answer 33

based on damages to the brain and their consequences