PSYC 200 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Cognitive Neuroscience, Gestalt Psychology, Max Wertheimer
2 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Psychology: the science of studying mental processes and behaviour. As a discipline psychology is concerned with empirically examining mind and behaviour as well as determining how they are influenced by biology and the effects of external environment. Mental processes: the activity of the brain when thinking, observing, processing information, and using language. In psychology"s early history the main method for learning about mental processes was to study behaviour and then make inferences about what was happening inside the brain. Since in the 19th century psychology became an experimental science psychologists began to seek more direct ways of studying the mental processes. Brain imaging and other such techniques have allowed for a better understanding of the connection between mental processes and behaviour. There are 4 common goals to studying mental processes and behaviour: description: psychologists work hard to describe the phenomena they observe very specifically, explanation: why is one of the most important questions in psychology.
