Cognitive Psychology: History and Overview

The study of the mental processes that allow us to function; it is, in many ways, the study of the mind.

A system that creates mental representation of the world and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking and reasoning.

The mental processes, such as perception, attention, and memory, which is what the mind creates -- involved in understanding and engaging with life and the world.

<p>Franciscus Donders (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Reacting to the presence or absence of a single stimulus.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Choice RT - Simple RT = time to make a decision.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Willhelm Wundt (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Approach to psychology that explains perception as the adding up of small elementary units called sensations.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Procedure used by early psychologists in which trained participants described their experiences and thought processes in response to stimuli.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Hermann Ebbinghaus (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Measure he used to determine the magnitude of memory left from initial learning. Higher saving indicate greater memory</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Shows that memory drops rapidly for the first 2 days after the initial learning and then levels off - plot of savings versus time after original learning.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Gives us a sense of how quickly and how much we are likely to forget + value of repeated learning.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Items at the beginning (primacy effect) and end (recency effect) of a list are easier to recall than words in the middle.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>William James (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Observations based on the functions of his own mind, not experiments.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>An approach that advocates psychologists restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectively observable behavior.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A procedure in which pairing a neutral stimulus that elicits a response causes the neutral stimulus to elicit that response.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Wanted to study dog's digestion but noticed that because the bell sound caused by the door every time he walked in to give food was paired with food, the dogs salivated before even seeing food.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Made Albert afraid of white animals and rats by pairing a loud noise with the showcase of a rat.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Focuses on how behavior is strengthened by presentation of positive reinforcers, such as food or social approval, or withdrawal of negative reinforcers, such as a shock or social rejection.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Edward Chace Tolman (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Mental conception of a spatial layout.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Where in an animal tries any numbers of behaviors until they find one that leads to success.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Shift in psychology, beginning in 1950s, from behaviorists approach to approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in terms of the mind.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>True (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>System of ideas that dominate science at a particular time.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Computer.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Approach to psychology developed beginning in the 1950s in which the mind is described as processing information through a sequence of stages.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Sensory memory, Short-term memory, Long-term memory.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Episodic Memory, Semantic Memory and Procedural Memory</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>PET (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A topic can be understood by studying it at a number of different levels of a system.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Neurons, Nerves, Brain Structures, Group of Brain Structures</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>False (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Cell Body (Soma), an Axon and Dendrites.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Each neuron fiber flows in both directions - says there is a network of continuously interconnected nerve fibers. They touch and fuse because directly connected to each other, creating nets. Almost like highway system.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Idea that individual cells called neurons transmit signals in the nervous system and that these cells ARE NOT continuous with other cells as proposed by nerve net theory.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Specialized neural structures that respond to environmental stimuli such as light, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Signals are sent electrically (action potential or neural impulse).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Signals are sent chemically (neurotransmitters).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Propagated electrical potential responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons. Typically travel down a neuron's axon.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Faster (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Chemicals that affect the electrical signal of the receiving neuron and release at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Everything a person experiences Is based on representations in the person's nervous system.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Helps you process where stimulus is -- involves visual cortex projecting to parietal love - crucial for visually guided actions like grasping, throwing, navigating through space.</p> Signup and view all the answers

Study of the mental processes that allow us to function.

Mental processes like perception, attention, and memory that help us engage with life.

Specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain.

Region in the frontal lobe responsible for language production.

Region in the temporal lobe associated with language comprehension.

Electrical signal that travels down an axon to communicate between neurons.

Cell that transmits information in the nervous system.

Gap between neurons where communication occurs through neurotransmitters.

Chemicals released at synapse to transmit signals between neurons.

Neurons that respond to specific visual features.

Pioneer in studying memory using nonsense syllables.

Tendency to remember items at the beginning of a list better.

Tendency to remember items at the end of a list better.

Psychological approach focusing on observable behavior.

Learning through rewards and punishments.

Mental representation of spatial information.

Shift from behaviorism to focus on mental processes in psychology.

Model describing the mind as processing information through stages.

Brief storage of sensory information, lasting less than a second.

Temporary storage holding a few items for seconds.

Permanent storage of information over an extended period.

Study measuring the relationship between physical stimuli and sensory experience.

Perceptions based on unconscious assumptions about the environment.

Probabilistic reasoning about outcomes based on prior knowledge and evidence.

Dorsal pathway (where) and ventral pathway (what) for processing visual information.

Cognition activates multiple brain areas simultaneously.

Outer layer of the brain responsible for higher order functions.

Branching structures of a neuron that receive signals from other neurons.

Progression of information processing from simple to complex in the brain.

Perspective focusing on how the mind organizes visual elements into wholes.