PSYCH207 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cognitive Neuropsychology, Naturalistic Observation, Decision-Making

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH207
• Professor: Jennifer Stolz

Document Summary

Perception interpreting sensory information to yield meaningful information. Pattern recognition classifying a stimulus into a known category. Memory recognition via storage facilities and retrieval process of cognition. Influences on the study of cognition: empiricism te(cid:374)et that k(cid:374)o(cid:449)ledge (cid:272)o(cid:373)es f(cid:396)o(cid:373) a(cid:374) i(cid:374)di(cid:448)idual"s o(cid:449)(cid:374) e(cid:454)pe(cid:396)ie(cid:374)(cid:272)e. Structuralism focuses on the elemental components of the mind instead of why the mind works: first discovered by wilhelm wundt wanted to identify the essential units of the mind. Introspection presenting highly trained observers with various stimuli and asking them to describe their conscious experience aka soul-searching. Functionalism assumption that the mind works due to its function purposes of its various operations: willia(cid:373) ja(cid:373)es (cid:396)ega(cid:396)ded ps(cid:455)(cid:272)holog(cid:455)"s (cid:373)issio(cid:374) to (cid:271)e the e(cid:454)pla(cid:374)atio(cid:374) fo(cid:396) ou(cid:396) e(cid:454)iste(cid:374)(cid:272)e. Interested in conscious experience but not the elementary units of consciousness: tried to explain the reasoning behind formation of habits, functionalists drew heavily on darwinian evolutionary theory and tried to extend biological conceptions of adaptation to psychological phenomena.