What is Cognitive Psychology? • Broad Definition –empirical investigation of mental events and knowledge involved in recognizing an object, remembering a name, having an idea, understanding a sentence, and solving a problem • Specific Definition - the empirical investigation of mental processes and activities used in perceiving, remembering, and thinking, and the act of using those processes.
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What is Cognitive Psychology?
• Broad Definition –empirical investigation of mental events and knowledge involved in recognizing an object, remembering a name, having an idea, understanding a sentence, and solving a problem
• Specific Definition - the empirical investigation of mental processes and activities used in perceiving, remembering, and thinking, and the act of using those processes.
• “Pay attention!” – Concept: Attention -- how we filter or select important information
from the environment.
• “I don’t know.”– Concept: Knowledge -- the store of general information and
algorithms for performing tasks.
• “I don’t remember.”– Concept: Memory -- a process for storing, retrieving and working
with information.
• “I can’t decide.”– Concept: Decision making – set of higher-level processes that
work together allow us function day to day
History of Cognitive Psychology
• Early history – Philosophical roots– Socrates – interested in the origins of
knowledge
– Aristotle – interested in origins of knowledge & memory
• Proposed first theory of memory– Descartes – how is knowledge represented
mentally
History of
• Recent history – Psychological roots– Wilhelm Wundt (1879)
• First psychological laboratory in Leipzig, GE– Founder of psychology as a science– Many early psychologists had roots in Wundts lab
» Produced over 200 Ph.D students in philosophy and psychology
• Topic: Human cognition– Used introspection to report contents of consciousness
History of
– Edward Titchner• Student of Wundts, taught at Cornell University in
1892– Proponent of introspection– Narrow view of psychology
» Excluded mental illness, education apps., and social psych, b/c not open to introspection
» Note: Method defined what was allowable science– Founder of Structuralism
» Study of: Sensations, images, and feelings that were elements of the mind
– Often argued with Wundt over findings
History of
– Herman von Ebbinghaus• Contemporary of Wundt in GE
– Big influence on cognitive psych.– Developed method for studying forgetting as function of time
» Stimuli: lists of Consonant-Vowel-Consonant’s (CVC’s)» Method: Learn list of CVC’s, count number of trials to
recall perfectly Wait 2 days re-learn list.» Savings score = # of trials to learn the 1st time - # of trials to
learn 2nd time– One subject entire career – himself– Learned over 40,000 CVC’s
History of
– William James• Wundt’s student, hired at Harvard
– Philosopher, but started first American psych. lab• Proposed Functionalism
– Stressed the functions over the mind rather than contents» How does mind adapt to new circumstances?» Proposed multicomponent memory system: Primary
Memory vs. Secondary memory– Authored: Principles of Psychology, chapters on