Process
- Flow of information
- Associations
Structure
- Representation of knowledge
- Stored knowledge
Limits
Restrictions in flow
How to examine philosophy
Logic and argumentation
How to examine psychology
Empirical approach
Plato’s theory of forms
- Do not perceive real world
- Only image of real world
- Knowledge structures exist in the mind
Aristotle more active view of mind
- Mind is blank slate
- Experience is important
- Knowledge based on associations of sensations, images and ideas
- Knowledge can transform and influence perceptions and learning
Empiricism
Philosophical position that observation-derived data is basis for all science
Structuralism
Study of the structure of consciousness Wundt: - Psychology as study of conscious process and immediate experience - Sensation, perception, attention - Established cognitive psychology - Introspection technique (report immediate conscious experience) Titchner: - Followed Wundt's approach - Tried to avoid stimulus error
Problems with interspection
- Boss validates results (Wundt, Titchner)
- Cannot introspect on many mental processes and structures
Functionalism
Study the functions of consciousness, not its structure James: - How does mind function and adapt - Memory: structure/process - Immediate (active) memory - Hidden (passive) memory - Attention limits
Associationism
Study of knowledge as learned associations
Ebbinghaus:
- Learn through association
- Nonsense syllables (no meanings, therefore reduce confounds)
- Isolated factors affecting learning and memory
Verbal learning
- Grew from associationism
- Beyond CVCs
- Meanings and associations among stimuli are important
Behaviourism
Study of observable quantifiable behaviour
Watson, Skinner:
- Dominant movement in NA from 1910-1960
- Experience viewed as primary factor in learning, knowledge, behaviour
- No interest in hidden internal mental processes or structures
- Stimuli and response
Gestalt approach
Study principles of organization Wertheimer, Kohler: - Laws of perceptual organization - Top-down influences on perception - Whole is greater than sum of the parts
Figure-ground (Gestalt)
Vause-face illusion
Proximity (Gestalt)
Group things close to each other (2 columns of 2x5)
Similarity (Gestalt)
Group things by their similarities (2 columns blue dots, 2 columns black dots)
Closure (Gestalt)
Completing things (shapes made with dashed lines
Good continuation (Gestalt)
Line going through another, same line not 2 different
Neuropsychological theory
- Organization of behaviour
- Linked perception (Gestalt), learning (Behaviourism) and physiology into a single conceptual framework
- Focus on internal mental processes and thought
- Assemblies of neurons form associations, represents perception, actions, thoughts
Communication theory
- Flow of information
- Coding/limits
Computers and computer science
- Understanding human mind through analogy
- Computational modelling
- A.I., neural nets
Cognitive neuroscience
- Many converging methods of measurement
- Localization of function in the brain
