PSY 305 – Cognitive Psychology Cocktail Party Effect – aka Cognitive Party Effect;

ability to focus on one of many voices; one of the most

Chapter 1:
striking phenomena in cognitive psychology

Introduction to Cognitive PROCESS OF THEORY DEVELOPMENT

Psychology The progression of ideas often involves a
dialectic.

Psychology – study of human mind and behavior; Dialectic – developmental process where ideas evolve
cognitive psychology - mental processes: ½ of over time through a pattern of transformation.
psychology; used in
▪ Clinical – thought processes of clients Theory is proposed
(Theory – A statement of belief)
▪ Industrial – deals with perception; language,
colors and everything that makes people feel at
home An antithesis emerges
▪ Educational – counselor & teacher; helps (Antithesis – counters the thesis)
students have good study habits
▪ Social – social issues are changing; social
analyst; understanding elections A synthesis integrates the viewpoints
Cognitive Processes – consciously taking place in our (synthesis – combines the two)
minds; perceive, processes, remember and think about it.
Isip (nagdedecide), kokote (common sense), utak PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF
(intelligence) = mental processes or cognition. PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology

Cognitive Psychology – study of how we perceive,

learn, remember, and think about information.

▪ study how people perceive shapes

▪ why we learn language
▪ relate learning and intelligence and how to apply
it Science Physiology Medicine
Note: We are aware of our thoughts but not what’s
happening in our minds

Philosophy – “love of wisdom”; seeks to understand the

general nature of many aspects of the world through
Cognition – all processes by which the sensory input is
introspection; foundation of science and psychology
transformed, elaborated, stored, recovered and used.

▪ Introspection – examination of inner ideas and

▪ concerned even when they operate in the absence
experiences; intro: “inward, within” and spect,
of relevant stimulation, as in images of
“look”
hallucination.
Mind – intellectual or rational faculty in humans;
Physiology – scientific study of life-sustaining functions
creates the control of mental functions; creates
in living matter through empirical (observation-based)
representation of the world
methods.
 RATIONALISM VS EMPIRICISM
RATIONALISM EMPIRICISM Functionalism – seek to understand to what people do
Plato Aristotle and why they do it; important to understand the function
▪ Route to knowledge is ▪ Knowledge is acquired – how and why mental processes operate
through thinking and through experience and
logical analysis observation
▪ Does not need ▪ Design experiments and
experiments conducts studies ▪ Focus: processes of thought rather than its
▪ Appeal to reason – ▪ Acquire knowledge via contents
source of knowledge or empirical evidence
justification
Structuralism Functionalism
▪ Important for theory ▪ Leads to empirical
Wundt and Titchener James
development investigations
(Thesis) (Anti-thesis)

Rene Descartes – rationalist; “I think, therefore I am”;

introspective & reflective method > empirical methods; Associationism
proof of existence: thinking and doubting; thesis Ebbinghaus and Thorndike
(Synthesis)
▪ believed that senses can be deceptive and
unreliable
John Locke – empiricist; tabula rasa “blank slate” –
humans are born without knowledge → seek knowledge Associationism – how elements can become associated
through empirical observation; anti-thesis to another to result in a form of learning.

▪ believed that there are no innate ideas; life and

experience – key to acquiring knowledge Associations may result from:
Immanuel Kant – synthesis: both rationalism and ▪ Contiguity – things that tend to occur together at
empiricism must work together inquest of truth the same time
▪ Similarity – things with similar features or

Psychological Origins ▪
properties
Contrast – things that are opposite or show
polarities
OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Herman Ebbinghaus – first experimenter to apply
associationist principles; studied how people learn and
Structuralism – seek to understand the structure of the remember material through rehearsal
mind (configuration of elements); and its perceptions by
Edward Lee Thorndike – studied how the role of
analyzing into their constituent components (affection,
satisfaction is key to forming associations
attention, memory, sensation, etc.)

Behaviorism – extreme associationism; focused on the

▪ Focus: deconstruct the mind into its elementary
relation between observable behavior and stimuli.
components; understand how those work together
Wilhelm Wundt – founder of structuralism; focus:
nature of consciousness; believed psychological Proponents of Behaviorism
processes can be broken down to mental elements.
▪ John Watson – father of radical behaviorism;
Consciousness can be divided into two things: Little Albert Experiment
basic sensations and basic feelings. ▪ B.F. Skinner – operant conditioning; rewards &
punishments
Note: Mental images does not guarantee a mental activity
▪ Ivan Pavlov – classical conditioning;
unconditioned and conditioned stimulus
 Hermann Ebbinghaus – theory of forgetting -
determines the nature of memory and forgetting; used
Gestalt Psychology – “the whole is more than the sum of
quantitative measure in measuring memory
its parts”; understanding psychological phenomena as
organized, structured whole. ▪ studied how rapidly an information is learned and
how it is lost overtime

Emergence of Cognitive
Psychology
During early 1800, most people believe it is not
possible to study the mind because it cannot be measured.

Forgetting or Savings Curve

SUMMARY

Franciscus Donders – conducted the Mental

Chronometry experiment; attempted to discover “how
long it takes for someone to make a decision”
▪ Determine simple reaction time (only one
option) and choice reaction time (more than one) COGNITION OR INTELLIGENCE
▪ Measured the mind by the means of the time or
behavioral response - how the participants Three Stratums of Intelligence – by John Harrold;
responded intelligence has three stratums
▪ more choices = longer time required for decision- 1. Stratum I – specific cognitive abilities
making (reasoning, spelling)
Conclusion: People can manifest their decision-making 2. Stratum II – broad ability; crystalized
skills through a simple response (first emergence) (accumulated over time) or fluid intelligence
3. Stratum III – single general intelligence;
denoted as small letter “g”
Wilhelm Wundt – wanted to make a periodical table of
the mind; structuralism + analytic Theory of Multiple Intelligence – by Howard Gardner;
independent and not-unitary construct; different
▪ Analytic Introspection – a technique which
intelligences do not depend on one another
involves description of experiences and thought
processes in response to stimuli

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence – by Robert J.

Sternberg; extent of our intelligence work together
 ▪ Creative – creation of noble ideas (create, invent,
discover, imagine, suppose, predict) DOMAIN GENERALLY vs DOMAIN
▪ Practical – implementation an application of SPECIFICALLY
explore which processes might be domain-general and
knowledge (apply, use, put to practice,
which might be domain-specific
implement)
▪ Analytic – analysis and evaluation of thoughts VALIDITY OF CAUSAL INFERENCES vs
(analyze, critique, judge, assess, compare & ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
contrast) combine a variety of methods, including laboratory
methods and more naturalistic ones, so as to converge on
Metacomponents of Triarchic Theory of Intelligence findings that hold up, regardless of the method of study.

▪ Higher order process – you plan, monitor, APPLIED RESEARCH vs BASIC RESEARCH
evaluate two kinds of research dialectically so that basic research
▪ Lower order process – you implement leads to applied research, which leads to further basic
commands research and so on.
▪ Knowledge Acquisition – used for solving BIOLOGICAL vs BEHAVIORAL METHODS
problem try to synthesize biological and behavioral methods so
that we understand cognitive phenomena at multiple levels
of analysis
Fundamentals of Cognitive
Psychology
1. Empirical data and theories – both important
2. Cognition – adaptive, but not always
3. Cognitive processes – interact with each other and
with non-cognitive processes
4. Cognition need to be studied using variety of
scientific methods.
▪ Standardization - important in lab
experiment (same procedure)
▪ Psychobiological report - 360 degrees
analysis of participants; all aspect
▪ Self-reports
▪ Case studies
▪ Naturalistic observation
▪ Artificial intelligence
▪ Computer aided researches
5. Basic research → applications; Applied Research →
understanding

KEY THEMES
NATURE vs NURTURE
explore how covariations and interactions in the
environment adversely affect the genes

RATIONALISM vs EMPIRICISM
combine theory with empirical methods to learn the most
we can about cognitive phenomena

STRUCTURES vs PROCESS
explore how mental processes operate on mental
structures