Cognitive Psychology
What is cognitive psychology? The study of mental processes such as perceiving, remembering, and reasoning.
Analytic introspection- analyze current perception into its elementary parts.
Structuralism-complex conscious experiences can be broken down to elemental structures (component parts) of sensation and feelings.
Introspection-look at a stimulus and report sensations and feelings to create a description of conscious experience
School of functionalism-learn how the mind produces useful behavior. William James describes psychology as “science of mental life”
Gestalt psychology-organization is an essential feature of all mental activity. Reaction against reductionism. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
In the 1920’s-1960’s psychology became the “science of observable behavior” (behaviorism)
Cognitive revolution started in the 1960’s and 70’s. cognition refers to knowledge. Cognitive psychology- study of peoples ability to acquire, organize, remember, and use knowledge to guide their behavior.
Neuron
Cell body- cell’s life support center
Dendrites-receive messages from other cells
Axon-passes messages away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands
Neural impulse-electrical signal traveling down the axon
Terminal branches-form junctions with other cells
Myelin sheath covers the axon of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses
How a neuron fires-threshold:the minimal level of stimulation needed to trigger a neural impulse. There is an all or none response, either the neuron fires or it doesn’t. detect intensity by the number of neurons firing and how often they fire
PET-positron emission topography; first method of looking at the brain, metabolically demanding organ (20%), measures the variability of cerebral blood flow. Done with radioactive tracer glucose or oxygen with a rapid half life. Pros: deects metabolic changes, cons: poor spatial resolution, temporal resolution; somewhat invasive and expensive.
Analytic introspection- analyze current perception into its elementary parts.
Structuralism-complex conscious experiences can be broken down to elemental structures (component parts) of sensation and feelings.
Introspection-look at a stimulus and report sensations and feelings to create a description of conscious experience
School of functionalism-learn how the mind produces useful behavior. William James describes psychology as “science of mental life”
Gestalt psychology-organization is an essential feature of all mental activity. Reaction against reductionism. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
In the 1920’s-1960’s psychology became the “science of observable behavior” (behaviorism)
Cognitive revolution started in the 1960’s and 70’s. cognition refers to knowledge. Cognitive psychology- study of peoples ability to acquire, organize, remember, and use knowledge to guide their behavior.
Neuron
Cell body- cell’s life support center
Dendrites-receive messages from other cells
Axon-passes messages away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands
Neural impulse-electrical signal traveling down the axon
Terminal branches-form junctions with other cells
Myelin sheath covers the axon of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses
How a neuron fires-threshold:the minimal level of stimulation needed to trigger a neural impulse. There is an all or none response, either the neuron fires or it doesn’t. detect intensity by the number of neurons firing and how often they fire
PET-positron emission topography; first method of looking at the brain, metabolically demanding organ (20%), measures the variability of cerebral blood flow. Done with radioactive tracer glucose or oxygen with a rapid half life. Pros: deects metabolic changes, cons: poor spatial resolution, temporal resolution; somewhat invasive and expensive.