PSYC 2600 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Herman Witkin, Field Dependence, Pain Tolerance

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2600
• Professor: Lorena Ruci

Document Summary

Identify similarities & differences in human cognition & computer cognition. Cognition: awareness & thinking, as well as to specific mental acts, such as perceiving, interpreting, remembering, believing, anticipating. All of these mental activities transform sensory input into mental representations (information processing) Personality psychologists interested in 3 levels of cognition: perception: process of imposing order on info received by our sense organs. Interpretation: process of making sense of, or explaining, events in world: conscious goals: standards & goals ppl develop for evaluating themselves & others. We all perceive through our own lens (mental representation: based on our sensory & perceptual systems. Individual differences in perceptual style: field dependence-independence, pain tolerance & sensation reducing-augmenting. Field independent ppl have ability to focus on details despite clutter of background info. Field dependent ppl see big picture more readily than details; more focused on surrounding context. Measures used to assess field dependence-independence: rod and frame test (rft, embedded figures test (eft)