PSYC 221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Hermann Ebbinghaus, Cognitive Psychology, Franciscus Donders

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 221
• Professor: Richard Wright

Document Summary

Week one || lecture one || chapter one. Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind . Part 1: early attempts to study mental processing. In 1800s, ideas about the mind were dominated by the belief that it is not possible to study the mind. It is not possible for the mind to study itself. The idea that the properties of the mind simply cannot be measured. Nonetheless, some researchers defied the common wisdom and decided to study the mind anyway. Donders"s pioneering experiment: how long does it take to make a decision? before 1910s - mental processing. Mental responses (perceiving the light and deciding which button to push, in this example) cannot be measured directly, but must be inferred from behavior. Late 1800s and early 1900s: structuralism- our overall experience is determined by combining basic elements of experience the structuralists called sensations .