PSYCH 1X03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Classical Conditioning, Socalled, Stroop Effect
17 Sep 2017
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Document Summary
Attention allows you to navigate through a crowded world brimming with information and distractions. Nowhere is this more evident than when crossing the street in tokyo, the worlds most crowded street crossing. We need the ability to focus our attention for more than just crossing a busy street intersection. Without the ability to focus your limited processing resources, you wouldn"t be able to carry on a meaningful conversation, enjoy music, understand a joke, or learn new things. Operational definitions are necessary for testing cognitive models. We need to operationally define the problem to build cognitive models and design experiments with testable hypotheses. The study of attention covers a seemingly wide range of topics and, psychologists have found it challenging to put forth a single all-encompassing operational definition. One which suits our purposes comes from the 19th century psychologist, william james: everyone knows what attention is.
