Psychology 3228A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: Mental Substance, Steven Pinker, Cognitive Psychology

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3228A/B
• Professor: K. MacPherson

Document Summary

Psych 3228 chapter 9: evolution of cognition. Psychologists study minds: early: behaviorists said we can"t study the mind, neuroscientists study brains, ability to respond and act upon the environment big step in evolution. Important implications for understanding many things, including evolution: requires sophisticated mechanisms of perception, monitoring, and decision making. 20th c: cognitive psychology described these processes in terms of underlying computations. Suggests everything is result of matter and material processes: mind/brain are one entity. Everything as ultimately result of matter and material processes. Steven pinker: mind = information processing activity of the brain: mind is what the brain does, mind is how the brain appears to itself, what is the brain for, perception. Taking in what is going on around us. 1st step in cognition: decision making (this means a lot of things, more specific examples, memory, navigation, timing, numerical discrimination, reasoning, problem solving, learn/use language, culture, motor skills, music.