PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Center For American Progress, Procedural Memory, Artificiality

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Oliver Michael Hardt

Document Summary

Argued that when trying to understand cognition/behavioral mechanism, it is useful to consider a simple explanation because very complex behavior can arise from a small set of simple principles- brain mechanisms may be very simple. William of ockham-proposed heuristic principle now known as ockham"s razor-stating that given several explanations for a phenomenon, most simple one should be accepted (use. With machines-simple internal structure but as animals, tempted to use psychological language in behavior knowing there is not a psychology behind it. Aggressive to turn towards the stimulus, trying to run into it/attack it- interpretation of machine behavior. Problem of reductionism, traced back to machines, not applicable in inanimate objects, can be traced back to machinery/circuitry, does mechanism explain behavior sufficiently?no, still does not explain fear. Problem with psychology, things come out of interactions and though we know what it is, we lose touch of the explanation (fear, aggression, love, motivation)