PSY100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Information Processing, Noam Chomsky, Cognitive Revolution

• School: UTSG
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY100H1
• Professor: John Vervaeke

Document Summary

Rational (abstract, long-term goals) vs appetitive (stimulus-driven, immediate satisfaction) Psychology: trying to rationally find patterns behind how the mind self-organizes and directs behaviour. Empiricism: philosophical view that knowledge begins in and is derived from observation/ sense experience. Rationalism: psychology is based also based on reasoning/ argumentation and mathematical models. Mind and body = different and separate entities. Most researchers: believe the mind is how the brain works (the set of things the brain is capable of doing) Discovers the unconscious (aspect of the mind) first time! Tip of iceberg = conscious mind, underwater = unconscious mind. Freud: 1st proposed interactionism => interaction between nature and nurture (determines personality at different stages of development) Discovered: a lot of human cognition is governed by unconscious processes, beliefs, desires, defense mechanism. Problem: freud used case studies (cannot be used for generalization, infer general patterns) Watson: rejected introspection => focused on observable, measurable terms to understand mind processes (i. e. behaviour)