Psychology Color Perception and Cognitive Biases

Overview of Psychology as Science

• Psychology uses the scientific method to understand mental processes and behaviors.
• Key elements of psychology as a science are carefully measured observations and experiments relying on introspection.
• Key figures include Aristotle, Wilhelm Wundt, and William James.
• Structuralism focused on the structure of the mind through introspection.
• Functionalism focused on the function of mental processes, asking how they help people survive.
• Behaviorism focused on observable behaviors, emphasizing the environment's role.
• Modern psychologists use multiple perspectives.

Historical Emergence of Psychology as a Science

• Aristotle questioned the relationship between body and psyche.
• Wilhelm Wundt is credited with helping to define psychology as a science.
• Wundt carefully measured observations combined with introspection
• Titchener, a student of Wundt, developed structuralism.
• William James opposed structuralism, leading to functionalism.
• Functionalism developed methods focused on mental outcomes.
• Behaviorists (Watson and Skinner) focused specifically on observable responses.

Why a Scientific Approach is Necessary

• Intuition is influenced by biases like hindsight bias, single-case, and overconfidence.
• A scientific approach safeguards us from these biases by using systematic methods, ensuring that knowledge is reliable and valid.

The Scientific Method in Psychology

• Begins with a phenomenon to be explained.
• Deduces hypotheses that can be tested (true/false) and falsifiable.
• Predicts behavior/event through data.
• Tests hypotheses and accepts/rejects.
• Collects data quantitatively and statistically to examine results and test hypotheses.
• Revise hypotheses if results are not supported
• Mobilize knowledge to share the findings.

Principles of Scientific Thinking

• Falsifiability: Can the claim be disproven?
• Extraordinary claims: Is the evidence as strong as the claim?
• Replicability: Can the results be duplicated?
• Occam's razor: Do simpler explanations fit the data as well?
• Correlation vs. causation: Can we know that A causes B?
• Ruling out rival hypotheses Important to use these principles to evaluate the quality of research and conclusions.

Research Methods in Psychology

• Descriptive → case studies, naturalistic observation, and surveys Qualitative data, description.
• Correlational → measure the relationship between two or more measured variables; find correlations, predict.
• Experimental → manipulated variable, measuring result. Understanding how variables are measured determines the nature of research conclusions.

Cognitive Processes: Methods to Investigate and Understand

• Stimulation (chemicals, magnets, electricity)
• Lesion-based (surgery, brain injuries)
• Animal models (controlled environments)
• Noninvasive imaging techniques (EEG, MRI, PET, fMRI) These methods are used to better understand the functioning of the brain and the link between behaviour and the brain.

Key Principles of Scientific Thinking (cont.)

• Critical thinking skills are essential to making reasonable judgments, including assessing the credibility of sources, considering multiple perspectives, and discerning biases.
• Awareness and avoidance of cognitive biases (confirmation bias, cognitive fixation, availability).

Memory

• Encoding, storing, and retrieving information are key steps.
• Memory operates through sensory input → executive functions→ long term memory
• Different kinds of memories (implicit, explicit, semantic, episodic, procedural, and flashbulb).
• Encoding is the brain's means of receiving and interpreting information.
• How we learn and remember: schemas and prototypes.
• Problems: decay theory, proactive/retroactive interference, and misinformation effect.

Consciousness

• A person's subjective awareness of internal and external stimuli.
• Attention → selective, or focused, and crucial for shaping conscious perceptions.
• Selective attention → focused attention on one stimulus while ignoring others.
• Bottom-up processing versus top-down processing
• Subliminal perception → perception of stimuli outside of conscious awareness.
• How conscious and attention shape perceptions → perceptual constancy (size, shape, and color).
• How memories are formed and stored in the brain (atkinson-shiffrin model)

Biological Foundations of Behavior

• The nervous system is composed of neurons, basic units of communication.
• Neurotransmitters are chemicals that relay signals across synapses.
• The brain (CNS) integrates information from the environment, helping regulate body functions.
• Endocrine system through hormones (slower, but longer-acting)
• Types of neurons found in the PNS: sensory, motor.

Social Psychology

• Social situations affect people's interactions.
• Social norms are shared expectations →influence attitudes, behaviours, perceptions.
• Conformity (Sherif, Asch)
• Cognitive dissonance
• Compliance, and compliance techniques (ex. foot in the door)
• Social identity and group dynamics.

Attitudes

• Evaluations of people, objects, events, or behaviors.
• Attitudes affect behavior (and behavior can affect attitudes), but this can be difficult to predict due to situational influence.
• Persuasion methods (central route, peripheral route), and how to evaluate their effects
• Social marketing (trying to change attitudes using marketing principles.)

Emotion

• A varied and often conflicting experience.
• Theories of emotion (James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter-Singer)
• Appraisal vs. emotional experiences
• Physiological, bodily arousal, perception, thoughts & feelings (valence, arousal), expressive behavior. Commonly experienced emotions including their variations.

Psychological Disorders

• Diagnostic systems (DSM-V) and the challenges in defining normality.
• Common diagnoses and underlying causes (ex. Anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive, eating disorders).

Therapy

• Techniques for understanding and improving behavior, emotional regulation, and self-awareness.
• Types of therapies include biomedical treatments (medications) and psychological therapies.
• CBT, DBT
• Effective treatment often involves understanding the causes and maintaining the motivation to improve one's well-being.

Culture and Diversity in Psychology

• There are no universally accepted standards of normality.
• Cultural values affect both the identification and treatment of disorders.
• This awareness of cultural influences helps to improve our cross cultural understanding.