COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

 Cocktail Party Effect – our ability to focus on one out of many voices (esp. parties)
 Cognitive Psychology – the study of how people perceive, learn, remember, and think
about information. Understanding cognitive psychology can help us understand much of
what goes on in our everyday lives. If we know where we came from, we may have a better
understanding of where we are heading.
 Why does Apple spend so much money advertising its iPhone? It’s because of the
availability heuristic that we make judgments on the basis of how easily we can tell to
mind what we perceive as relevant instances of a phenomenon.
 Dialectic – it is involved in the progression of ideas. It is also a developmental process
where ideas evolve over time through a pattern of transformation.
In a dialectic:
1. A thesis is proposed. A thesis is statement of belief.
2. An antithesis emerges. An antithesis is a statement that counters a
previous statement of belief.
3. A synthesis integrates the viewpoint. A synthesis integrates the most
credible features of each of the two (or more) views.
Example:
1. Intelligence is genetically determined.
2. Intelligence is environmentally determined.
3. Nature and nurture work together in our cognitive
development.
Dialectic in psychology context
Example:
1. A psychology comes up with an idea.
2. Other psych come up with opposing viewpoints pointing out
the weaknesses and developing alternatives as a reaction to
earlier ideas
3. Synthesis happens. It is the marrying of the thesis and
antithesis and integrates the ideas of both parties into a
newer and more encompassing approach.
 Asians tend to be more dialectical in their thinking whereas Westerners tend to be more
linear. In other words, Asians are more likely to be tolerant of holding beliefs that are
contradictory, seeking a synthesis over time. Europeans and Americans expect their belief
system to be consistent with each other.
 If a synthesis seems to advance our understanding of a subject, it then serves as a new
thesis. A new antithesis then follows it, then a new synthesis, and so on.
 Georg Hegel – he observed this thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectical progression of ideas.
He was a German philosopher who came to his ideas by his own dialectic. He synthesized
some of the views of his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries.

PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY: RATIONALISM VS EMPIRICISM

Two approaches to understanding the human mind
1. Philosophy – seeks to understand the general nature of many aspects of
the world, in part through introspection which is the examination of inner
ideas and experiences (intro – means inward, within; spect – means look)
2. Physiology – seeks a scientific study of life-sustaining functions in living
matter primary though empirical (observation-based methods.)
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
 Rationalist – believes that the route to knowledge is through thinking and logical analysis
and does not need any experience to develop new knowledge .Reason is a source of
knowledge or justification. Rationalism is also important in theory development.
Rationalists believe that the only route to truth is reasoned contemplations.
 Plato
 Rene Descartes
- I think therefore I am (cogito, ergo sum).
- The only proof of his existence is that he was thinking and doubting.
- He viewed the introspective, reflective method as being superior to
empirical methods for finding truth.
- One could not rely on one’s senses as these are proven to be
deceptive.
 Empiricist – believes that we acquire knowledge via empirical evidence – that is, we obtain
evidence through experience and observation (experiments). Empiricism therefore leads
directly to empirical investigations of psychology. Empiricist believes that the only route to
truth is meticulous observation
 Aristotle
- He studied anatomy, embryology, geography, geology, meteorology,
physics and zoology
 John Locke
- Humans are born without knowledge and therefore must seek
knowledge thru empirical observations.
- His term for the abovementioned is tabula rasa (blank slate)
- Life and experience write knowledge on us.
- The study of learning is the key to understanding the human mind.
 Immanuel Kant – he dialectically synthesized the views of Descartes and
Locke, arguing that both rationalism and empiricism have their places and
must work together in the quest for truth.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANTECEDENTS OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology emerged and developed into an independent field of study in a dialectical way.
Future approaches integrate the best features of past approaches or reject some or even most of
those characteristics. An early dialectic in the history of psychology is that between structuralism
and functionalism.
 Structuralism
- First major school of thought in psych
- Seeks to understand the structure or configuration of elements of the mind and its
perceptions by analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components
(affection, attention, memory, sensation, etc).
- Example: FLOWER
- It will be analyzed based on its color, geometric form, size relations, etc.
- Example: HUMAN MIND
- Analysis will be based on its elementary components and how these
components work together to create the mind.
- Wilhelm Wundt – a German psychologist who is often viewed as the Founder of
Structuralism
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
- Introspection – Wundt used this method in his research. It is a deliberate looking
inward at pieces of information passing through consciousness. Its aim is to look at
the elementary components of an object or process.
- Introspection as an experimental method shifted psychology from a rationalist
approach to an empiricist approach in trying to observe behavior in order to draw
conclusions about the subject of study.
- Disadvantages of Introspection
- People may not always be able to say exactly what goes through their mind or
may not be able to adequately put it in words.
- What people say may not be accurate.
- The task of paying attention on their thoughts or speaking aloud while working
in the task may itself alter the process that are going on.
- Edward Titchener – an American follower of Wundt and is viewed as the first full-
fledged structuralist.
- The issues of introspection and the focus (elementary structures of sensation) gave
rise to a new movement – Functionalism

 Functionalism
- Suggested that psychologists should focus on the process of thought rather than on
its contents.
- Seeks to understand what people do and why they do it.
- The key to understanding the human mind and behavior was to study the process of
how and why the mind works as it does.
- Pragmatism/pragmatists
- Believe that knowledge is validated by its usefulness: what can you do with
it?
- They are not only concerned of knowing what people do. Instead they also
want to know what they can do with their knowledge of what people do.
- Example: psychology of learning and memory. Pragmatists think as to how
these can improve school performance of children.
- William James – guided the functionalism toward pragmatism. His landmark book
was the Principles of Psychology.
- John Dewey – remembered for his pragmatic approach to thinking and schooling.
- Functionalism did not really specify a mechanism by which learning takes place.
With this, another approach emerges – Associationism.

 An Integrative Synthesis: Associationism

- It was more of an influential way of thinking than a rigid school of psychology.
- It examines how elements of the mind like events or ideas, can become associated
with one another in the mind to result a form of learning.
- It may result from:
- Contiguity – associating things that tend to occur together at about the same
time
- Similarity – associating things with similar features or properties
- Contrast – associating things that show polarities, such as hot/cold,
light/dark, day/night.
- Hermann Ebbinghaus
- He was the first experimenter to apply associationist principles
systematically.
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
- He also studied his own mental processes. He studied how people
learn and remember material through rehearsal
- Rehearsal – the conscious repetition of material to be learned.
- He found out that frequent repetition can fix mental associations more
firmly in memory. This repetition aids in learning.
- Edward Lee Thorndike
- The role of satisfaction is the key to forming associations (Law of
Effect)
- A stimulus will tend to produce a certain response overtime if an
organism is rewarded for that response.
- Example: A child given treats for solving arithmetic problems learns to
solve arithmetic problems accurately because the child forms
associations between valid solutions and treats. These ideas has led to
the development of Behaviorism.

 From Association to Behaviorism

- Focuses on the relation between observable behavior and environmental events or
stimuli.
- Ivan Pavlov – a Nobel Prize-winning physiologist observed that dogs salivated in
response to the sight of the lab technician who fed them. This response occurred
even before the dogs saw whether the technician has food or not. In the dog’s mind,
some type of involuntary learning linked the technician to the food.
 Pavlov’s work paved the way for the development of behaviorism.
 Classical conditioning involves more than just an association based on
temporal contiguity.
 Effective conditioning requires contingency.
- Behaviorism is considered to be an extreme version of associationism.
- Any hypothesis about internal thoughts and ways of thinking are nothing more than
speculation.

Proponents of Behaviorism
1. John Watson
- Father of radical behaviorism
- He believed that psychologists should concentrate only on the study of
observable behavior.
- Most behaviorists’ works have been conducted with laboratory animals.
However, one problem with using nonhuman animals is to determine
whether the research can be generalized to humans.
2. B.F. Skinner
- He believed that all forms of human behavior, not just learning, could be
explained by behavior emitted in reaction to the environment.
- He rejected mental mechanisms and believed that operant conditioning
could explain all forms of human behavior.
- Operant Conditioning – involves the strengthening or weakening of
behavior, contingent on the presence or absence of reinforcement
(rewards) or punishments.
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

CRITICISM OF BEHAVIORISM
1. Behaviorism did not account as well for complex mental activities such as
language learning and problem solving.
2. Some psychologists wanted to know what went on inside the head.
3. It is often proved easier to use the techniques of behaviorism in studying
nonhuman animals than in studying humans.

 Edward Tolman – he thought that understanding behavior required taking

into account the purpose of, and the plan for, the behavior. He also believed
that all behavior is directed toward a goal. He was sometimes viewed as the
forefather of modern cognitive psychology.
 Albert Bandura – learning appears to result not merely from direct rewards
for behavior, but it can also be social, resulting from observations of the
rewards or punishments given to others. The ability to learn through
observation is well documented and can be seen in humans, monkey, dogs,
etc.

 Gestalt Psychology: The Whole is Greater Than The Sum of its Parts
- States that we best understand psychological phenomenon when we view them as
organized, structured wholes.
- We cannot fully understand behavior when we only break phenomena down into
smaller parts.
- Gestaltist study insight which seeks to understand the unobservable mental event by
which someone goes from having no idea about how to solve a problem to
understanding it fully in what seems a mere moment of time.
Cognitive Revolution – took place in the early 1950s
Cognitivism – the belief that much of human behavior can be understood in terms of how people
think. It rejects the notion that psychologists should avoid studying mental processes because they
are unobservable. Like behaviorism, cognitivism adopts precise quantitative analysis to study how
people learn and think. Like Gestaltism, it emphasizes internal mental processes.

COGNITION AND INTELLIGENCE

- Human intelligence can be viewed as integrating, or umbrella psychological
construct for a great deal of theory and research in Cognitive psychology.
- Intelligence – is the capacity to learn from experience, using metacognitive
processes to enhance learning, and the ability to adapt to the environment
THREE COGNITIVE MODELS OF INTELLIGENCE
1. John Carroll’s Three-Stratum Model of Intelligence
- Intelligence comprises a hierarchy of cognitive abilities comprising three strata:
1. Stratum I – includes many narrow, specific abilities (spelling ability and speed of
reasoning.)
2. Stratum II – includes various broad abilities (fluid intelligence, crystallized
intelligence, short-term memory, long-term storage and retrieval, information-
processing speed)
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
3. Stratum III – just a single general intelligence (sometimes called g)
- Fluid ability – the speed and accuracy of abstract reasoning, especially for novel
problems.
- Crystallized knowledge – the accumulated knowledge and vocabulary.

2. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence

- Intelligence comprises multiple independent constructs, not just a single, unitary
construct.
Gardner’s 8 intelligences
1. Linguist intelligence - Used in reading a book; writing a paper, a novel, or a poem; and
understanding spoken words
2. Logical- mathematical intelligence – Used in solving math problems, in balancing a
checkbook, in solving a mathematical proof, and in logical reasoning
3. Spatial intelligence – Used in getting from one place to another, in reading a map, and
in packing suitcases in the trunk of a car so that they all fit into a compact space
4. Musical intelligence – Used in singing a song, composing a sonata, playing a trumpet,
or even appreciating the structure of a piece of music
5. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence – Used in dancing, playing basketball, running a mile,
or throwing a javelin
6. Interpersonal intelligence – Used in relating to other people, such as when we try to
understand another person’s behavior, motives, or emotions
7. Intrapersonal intelligence – Used in understanding ourselves—the basis for
understanding who we are, what makes us tick, and how we can change ourselves,
given our existing constraints on our abilities and our interests
8. Naturalist intelligence – Used in understanding patterns in nature