PSYA01H3 Chapter 1: PSYA01 Chapter 1 notes.docx
Document Summary
Psychology scientific study of mind and behaviour: mind private inner experience stream of consciousness, behaviour observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals things we do in the outer world. Perception helps us recognize faces, see predators before they see us, avoid stumbling into oncoming traffic. Language organizes our thoughts and allows us to communicate them. Memory allows us to not solve the same problem over and over again and keep in mind what we are doing and why. Emotions allow us to quickly react to events that hold significance function as signals that tell us when we are putting ourselves in harm. If our actions, thoughts, feelings were all the same then human behaviour would be very orderly, predictable, and dull. Structuralist broke down the brain into basic components to analyze the mind. Functionalist focused on how mental abilities allow people to adapt to their environment. Plato (428 bc 347 bc) argued in favor of nativism.
