PSYCH 9A- Midterm Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam ( 23 pages long!)
16 Feb 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
UC-Irvine
PSYCH 9A
Midterm EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Introduction
Origins of Knowledge
•Empiricism: knowledge is acquired through experience
•John Locke - when born, our mind is blank
•Experience refers to working with the information provided to us by our senses and
other faculties such as memory
•Nativism: knowledge is innate
•Immanuel Kant - there are categories according to which sensory material is
organized
•Space, time, and causality are a priori (built-in/innate)
Basic Distinction
•Distal Stimulus: object/event in the world out there (i.e. tree)
•Proximal Stimulus: pattern of energy from that object which stimulates our sensory
organs (i.e. light from tree reaching our eyes)
•WHAT WE WANT: knowledge of the distal stimuli
•WHAT WE GET: proximal stimulation
•PROBLEM: the proximal stimulus does not tell us directly what distal stimulus is
•Proximal image size does not directly tell us how big the real world distal stimulus is
GEORGE BERKELEY
•Two stages are needed to understand how the mind works to interpret proximal stimuli
1. Our senses provide raw input : sensations
•i.e. : patch of green, note of piano, salty taste, touch of feather
2. Our minds link these sensations to provide a meaningful organization of our
perceived world : associations
•i.e. : a spherical patch of green above patch of brown = tree
!1
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Nature/Nurture Debate
•Not necessarily relatable anymore
Mind-Body Problem
•Conscious mind seems completely different from physical body
•Monism : mind and body are aspects of the same thing
•Both are mental. Both are physical.
•Dualism : mind and body are different
•Decartes : mind and body are different things. there is an organ in the brain
(pineal gland) where mental information gets translated into physical event that
you can perceive and vice versa
Inverted Spectrum Problem
•Two people see inverted colors
•There may be a difference in subjective, mental experience that cannot be revealed
by measurements of objective behavior
Introspection
•A systematic examination of subjective mental experiences that requires people to
inspect and report on the content of their thoughts
•John Stuart Mill : EARLY 1800s; argued that psychology should be a science of
observation and experimentation
•Wilhelm Wundt : 1879; established first psychology laboratory
•Reaction Time
•Laboratories were established throughout Europe, Canada, and US
•Limitations
•People lack words/other means of communication to convey their experiences
•Different people use same words/messages to describe different experiences
!2
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
George berkeley: two stages are needed to understand how the mind works to interpret proximal stimuli, our senses provide raw input : sensations, i. e. : patch of green, note of piano, salty taste, touch of feather. Our minds link these sensations to provide a meaningful organization of our perceived world : associations: i. e. : a spherical patch of green above patch of brown = tree. Mind-body problem: conscious mind seems completely different from physical body, monism : mind and body are aspects of the same thing, both are mental. Inverted spectrum problem: two people see inverted colors, there may be a difference in subjective, mental experience that cannot be revealed by measurements of objective behavior. Tuesday, january 16, 2018: one cannot experience someone else"s consciousness, helmholtz" unconscious inference: much of our behavior is determined by processes of which we have no conscious awareness.
