Contemporary Developments In Psychology PDF

(c) (c) 2016 2016Wadsworth, @ 2012 Wadsworth, Wadsworth,Cengage Learning Cengage Cengage  Schools of Thought in Perspective Each school – Prospered for a time – Became part of ma...

(c) (c) 2016 2016Wadsworth, @ 2012 Wadsworth, Wadsworth,Cengage Learning Cengage Cengage  Schools of Thought in Perspective Each school – Prospered for a time – Became part of mainstream psychology – Drew strength from opposition to an earlier school – Was replaced by a new school Structuralism: the establishment of an independent science of psychology free of the limitations of philosophy (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Schools of Thought in Perspective (cont’d.) Functionalism: applies its findings to virtually every aspect of modern life – The functional, utilitarian attitude has indeed changed the nature of psychology Gestalt psychology: the support of a “wholes” approach and interest in consciousness – Has influenced clinical psychology, learning, perception, social psychology, and thinking (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Schools of Thought in Perspective (cont’d.) Behaviorists and psychoanalysts: stand firmly opposed to each other and are still evolving today Each school of thought has influenced contemporary psychology New movements: – Cognitive psychology – Evolutionary psychology (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  THE COGNITIVE MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Cognitive Movement in Psychology Cognitive psychology: a return to the study of the mind Antecedent influences: – E. R. Guthrie: suggested that psychologists describe stimuli in perceptual or cognitive terms so that they will be meaningful for the responding organism – E. C. Tolman: recognized the importance of cognitive variables and contributed to the decline of the stimulus-response approach (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Cognitive Movement in Psychology (cont’d.) Antecedent influences: – Gestalt psychology: helped keep alive at least a token interest in consciousness – Jean Piaget: worked on cognitive development, yet was never accepted in the U.S. – Changing Zeitgeist in physics: scientific investigation shifted from an independent and objectively knowable universe to one’s observation of that universe; totally objective reality was no longer considered attainable (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Founding of Cognitive Psychology Long process, not overnight or with one publication No single charismatic leader Interest was pragmatic: simply getting on with the work of redefining psychology (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  GEORGE MILLER (1920–) (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  George Miller (1920–) Initially accepted the behaviorist school of thought Mid-1950’s: influenced by statistical learning theory, information theory, and computer-based models of the mind Soon rejected behaviorism: shift toward a cognitive psychology Published: “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information” (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Center for Cognitive Studies Bruner & Miller established a research center to investigate the human mind – Center was not set up “for anything in particular” but set up against behaviorism Miller did not consider cognitive psychology to be a true revolution Research at the center investigated: language, memory, perception, concept formation, thinking, and developmental psychology (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  George Miller (1920–2012) The similarities between computers and the operation of the human mind impressed him our conscious capacity for short-term memory of numbers, words or colors is limited to approximately seven “chunks” of information – we can process at any given point Miller’s use of a phrase; “processing information” – showed the impact of a computer-based model of the human mind. (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  ULRIC NEISSER (1928–) (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Ulric Neisser (1928–) Trained under Maslow at Brandeis, where behaviorism was not as dominant 1967: published Cognitive Psychology 1976: published Cognition and Reality – Expressed his dissatisfaction with the reliance on laboratory situations instead of real-world settings from which to collect data Insisted that cognitive psychologists should be able to apply their findings to practical problems (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  THE COMPUTER METAPHOR (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Computer Metaphor The clock is no longer a useful example for the modern view of the mind Mind now likened to a computer – Storage capacity = memory – Programming codes = languages – New generations of computers are said to be evolving Computer programming became the basis for the cognitive view of human information processing, reasoning, and problem solving (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Development of the Modern Computer Need spurred the development of the first giant computer, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) – Took up three walls of a huge room – Used for combat (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence: machines display artificial intelligence and process information similarly to the way people do – Demonstrated by the Turing test: persuading a subject that the computer with which he or she is communicating is really another person, not a machine – Some objected: Chinese room problem No matter how many messages you receive and respond to, you still do not know Chinese (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Artificial Intelligence Will computers simulate human thought or not? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXx-Pp EBR7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wLqs RLvV-c (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage https://www.javatpoint.com/turing-test-in-ai  Artificial Intelligence Two slots in the wall Slips of paper; contain a group of Chinese Room problem Chinese characters. – to match by shape the set of symbols with those in a book Receiving inputs from the left slot and writing outputs for the right slot – not thinking or displaying intelligence; just following instructions a computer doesn’t understand the receieved messages, the computer just follow the instructions and respond accordingly to the program rules. – both the person and the computer are operating in accordance with a set of programmed rules. Computers cannot yet think although they can perform as if they https://www.learningmachines101.com/lm101-006-interpret-turing- test-results/ were thinking. (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Nature of Cognitive Psychology Areas where cognitive factors are considered: – Attribution theory in social psychology, cognitive dissonance theory, motivation and emotion, personality, learning, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and information processing in human intelligence and in artificial intelligence – Clinical, community, school, and industrial- organizational psychology (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Nature of Cognitive Psychology (cont’d.) The cognitive focus: – The process of knowing rather than merely responding to stimuli – How the mind structures or organizes experiences – Individual actively and creatively arranges the stimuli received from the environment; not passive responders Important factors: mental processes and events, not stimulus-response connection (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Cognitive Neuroscience Goal: determine “how brain functions give rise to mental activity” and to “correlate specific aspects of information processing with specific brain regions” Sophisticated technology: – Electroencephalogram (EEG) – Computerized axial tomography (CAT) – Magnetic resonance imagery (MRI) – Positron emission tomography (PET) (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Nature of Cognitive Psychology (cont’d.) The role of introspection: – Cognitive psychologist attempted to quantify introspective reports to render them more objective and amenable to statistical analyses – Subjects retrospectively evaluate the subjective experiences that occurred during an earlier period when they were asked to respond to a given stimulus – Most frequently used research method in contemporary psychology (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Nature of Cognitive Psychology (cont’d.) Unconscious cognition: – Unconscious is able to accomplish many functions that were once thought to require deliberation, intention, and conscious awareness Unlike the unconscious Freud suggested – The new unconscious: more rational than emotional and is involved in the first stage of cognition in responding to a stimulus (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  The Nature of Cognitive Psychology – Studying nonconscious (bilinçsiz) processing: stimuli are presented below the subjects’ levels of conscious awareness – involves subliminal perception be influenced by stimuli we cannot see or hear the process of acquiring knowledge takes place at both conscious and nonconscious levels (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Animal Cognition Developed from comparative psychology Cognitive movement restored consciousness to animals as well – Animal memory has been shown to be complex and flexible – Animals can perform a variety of cognitive functions: Cognitive maps; sense the motives of others; plan by taking into account past experiences; understand the concept of numbers; and solve problems through the use of reason (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Current Status of Cognitive Psychology Consciousness has made a substantial and vigorous return Impacts more areas of psychology Only shares one commonality with behaviorism: use of the experimental method Important topics: – Embedded cognition – Cognitive overload (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Evolutionary Psychology People are biological creatures that have been wired or programmed by evolution; to behave, think, feel, and learn in ways that have fostered survival over many past generations People with certain behavioral, cognitive, and affective tendencies were more likely to survive and bear and raise children – not denied the impact of social and cultural forces on our behavior through learning – are predisposed at birth to certain ways of behaving as shaped by evolution. (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Antecedent Influences on Evolutionary Psychology Charles Darwin: theory of evolution William James: belief in a wide range of instinctive behaviors (e.g., fears of specific objects) that have obvious survival value The cognitive revolution: the mind, like a computer, must be programmed to perform its multitude of tasks Sociobiology: genetic influences may be more important than cultural ones (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage  Current Status of Evolutionary Psychology Deals with evolved psychological mechanisms that are wired or programmed into human cognition and behavior Criticism; If human nature is determined by genetic endowment alone, then there is no possibility of positive social and cultural forces changing behavior for the better, or for people to try to exercise free will. Response to criticism: humans are still free to choose – Social and cultural forces are influential and sometimes alter inherited programming to respond in certain ways. (c) @ 2012 2016 Wadsworth, Wadsworth, Cengage Cengage