History And Methods Flashcards
(28 cards)
Structuralist Approach
Wilhelm Wundt (1879) Studied the structure of the mind through introspection
Introspection
The examination of ones own mental processes, founded by Wilhelm Wundt
Functionalist approach
William James (1890) Interested in the functions of conscious activity Function of thought = behaviour Study on mental operations via behaviour
Behaviourist approach
Interested in purely the behaviour of an individual
It’s observable and measurable
Uninterested in the black box of mental processes as they can’t be observed
Cognitive psychology
Concerned with how humans process information through behaviour in experiments
Cognitive neuroscience
Using behaviour and the brain to understand mental processes via recording brain activity
Information-processing approach
Information processing compared to that of a computer
Input, store, retrieve
Bottom-up process
Processing influenced by environmental stimuli
Top-down process
Processing influenced by internal subjective factors
Serial processing
One process must be completed before moving to the next one
Parallel processing
Two or more cognitive processed can occur at the same time
Strengths of cognitive psychology
- The first systematic approach to try to understand human cognition
Weaknesses of cognitive psychology
- Lacks ecological validity
- indirect evidence via behaviour
- Hard to test
Cognitive neuropsychology
Studies cognitive processes via brain damaged patients
Functional modularity
Independent processing units in the brain, I.e. And example is one module responding only to faces This is an assumption in cognitive neuropsychology
Domain specificity
One part of the brain only responds to one type of stimuli
An assumption in cognitive neuropsychology
Anatomical modularity
Each module is located in a specific brain region An assumption in cognitive neuropsychology
Uniformity of functional architecture
An assumption in cognitive neuropsychology that allows us to generalise findings to normal human cognition meaning that all human brains are structured the same
Strengths of cognitive neuropsychology
There is strong evidence for modularity
Links can be shown in brain-damaged patience between brain damage and cognitive performance
This area has been proven particularly important in studying language and memory
Limitations of cognitive neuropsychology
There are too many assumptions. For example modularity
Brain damage patients often develop compensatory strategies
Brain damage can affect several modules leading it to be misleading
Ignore the plasticity of the brain
Individual differences make it hard to generalise
Who is Brodmann?
He is a German neurologist in the years 1898 to 1918 whom identified 52 different regions of the brain
What are single unit recordings in cognitive neuroscience?
They are a microelectrode that records activity of a single neuron
What is a pet scan in cognitive neuropsychology?
A positron emission tomography scan the text positrons which are omitted from a radioactive substance which allows us to see how the brain is functioning
What is an fMRI Scan and cognitive neuroscience?
A functional magnetic resonance imaging scan measures blood oxygenation using MRI machine. It allows us to see which areas of the brain have increased blood flow due to being used.
