Cognitive Psychology
Antithesis (a statement that counters
2nd Year - 2nd Sem
Katrina Louise R. Mariscal
❖ CHAPTER 1
Cognitive Psychology
- is the study of how people perceive, learn,
remember, and think about information.
- Understanding processes that are going on in
our minds
- Having different meanings of things
Cognitive psychologists study how people perceive
various shapes, why they remember some facts but
forget others, or how they learn the language.
○ Why do objects look farther away on foggy
days than they really are? The discrepancy
can be dangerous, even deceiving drivers
into having car accidents.
○ Why do many people remember a
particular experience (e.g., a very happy
moment or an embarrassment during
childhood), yet they forget the names of
people whom they have known for many
years?
○ Do candidates spend so much money on TV
advertisements? (for people to remember)
Progression of ideas involves a:
1. Dialectic - a developmental process whereby
ideas evolve over time through a pattern of
transformation
PATTERN OF TRANSFORMATION
1. A thesis (statement of belief) is proposed.
- For example, some people believe that
human nature governs many aspects
of human behavior (e.g., intelligence
or personality). After a while,
however, certain individuals notice
apparent flaws in the thesis.
2.
previous belief) emerges.
- For example, an alternative view is
that our nurture (the environmental
contexts in which we are reared)
almost entirely determines many
aspects of human behavior.
3. Synthesis integrates the viewpoints.
- A synthesis integrates the most
credible features of each of two (or
more) views. For example, in the
debate over nature versus nurture,
the interaction between our innate
(inborn) nature and environmental
nurture may govern human behavior.
Philosophical Antecedents of Psychology
❖ Philosophy (inside)
➢ Way of thinking that always look at
the inside
➢ Seeks to understand the general
nature of the many aspects of the
world…
➢ Through Introspection
- Examination of inner ideas
and experiences
■ Intro = “inward; within”
■ -spect = “look”
❖ Physiology (has to be observed)
➢ More on the scientific nature
➢ A way for us to really seek what is
evident (evidence should be present)
➢ Seeks a scientific study of
life-sustaining functions in living
matter
➢ Through empirical
(observation-based) methods
Approaches to the study of the mind
(philosophical)
1. Rationalism (Plato/Rene Descartes)
○ The route to knowledge is through
thinking and logical analysis.
○ Step-by-step of what has to be done
○ Do not need experiments to develop
new knowledge
○ Thesis
RATIONALISM (Thesis)
● Important in theory development
● Rationalist theories without any
connection to observations may not
be valid.
■ “The only route to
truth is reasoned
contemplation.”
2. Empiricism (Aristotle/John Locke)
○ We acquire knowledge via empirical
evidence (we obtain evidence
through experience and observation)
○ Demonstration; test
○ Humans are born without
knowledge and must seek knowledge
through empirical observation.
■ Tabula rasa - “blank state”
○ Antithesis
EMPIRICISM (Antithesis)
● Has to be evident; with empirical
observation
● Leads directly to empirical
investigations of psychology
● Observational data without
organizing a theoretical framework
may not be meaningful.
“The only route to truth is meticulous
observation.” (experiments)
❖ Immanuel Kant (Synthesis)
➢ Dialectically synthesized Descartes
and Locke; both rationalism and
empiricism have their place.
➢ Today, psychologists seek a synthesis
of the two
➢ They base empirical observations on a
theory; They use these observations
to revise their theories.
Psychological Antecedents of Cognitive
Psychology
1. Structuralism
- Analyze perception in terms of the
constituent colors, geometric forms,
and size relation (ex. Flower color)
- Seeks to understand the structure
(configuration of elements) and its
perceptions by analyzing those
perceptions into their constituent
components
- Study of sensory experiences
Introspection (Wundt)
- Looking inward at pieces of information
passing through consciousness
- To look at the elementary components of an
object or process.
Ex. sensations experienced when
looking at a flower
- We analyze our own perceptions of the world
with what we see
❖ Wilhelm Wundt
➢ most influential psychologist of all
time
➢ Father of scientific psychology and
structuralism
➢ Subject of ridicule
➢ Showed that school performance does
not always predict career success
➢ Founder of Experimental Psychology
Edward Titchener (1867-1927)
- Wilhelm Wundt’s follower
- First full-fledged structuralist
 2. Functionalism (how and why)
- An alternative to structuralism
- Processes of thought rather than its
content
- Seeks to understand what people do
and why they do it.
❖ William James (1842-1910)
- Book: Principles of psychology
- Studying the processes of how and
why the mind works as it does is the
key to understanding the human mind
and behavior
Pragmatists (application of what we know)
- Believe that knowledge is validated by its
usefulness
- Finding purpose from our knowledge
- Example: Importance of psychology of
learning and memory help us improve the
performance of children in school.
❖ John Dewey (early pragmatist)
➢ Influenced contemporary thinking in
cognitive psychology
➢ He is known for his pragmatic
approach to thinking and schooling
➢ He believed that human beings learn
through a “hands-on” approach
Difference between Structuralism and
Functionalism
Structuralism focuses on different brain elements
and their capacities whereas functionalism is
focused on the adaptation of human mind to
different environments.
3. Associationism
- Examines how elements of the mind,
like events or ideas, can become
associated with one another in the
mind to result in a form of learning.
May result from:
a. Contiguity
b. Similarity
c. Contrast
CONTIGUITY
- Associating things that tend to occur together
at about the same time
- Ex. school bell
SIMILARITY
- Associating things with similar features or
properties
- Ex. talking to classmates about brownout
CONTRAST
- Associating things that show polarities or
opposites such as hot/cold, light/dark,
day/night
❖ Hermann Ebbinghans
➢ First to apply associationist principles
systematically
➢ Studied how people learn and
remember material through rehearsal
(conscious repetition of to-be-learned
material)
➢ Frequent repetition can fix mental
associations more firmly in memory;
aids in learning
❖ Edward Lee Thorndike
➢ Role of “satisfaction”
■ Key to forming associations
➢ Law of effect
■ A stimulus tend to produce
certain response over time if
an organism is rewarded for
that response.
➢ Example: High test score = additional
allowance
4. Behaviorism
- Observable links between an organism’s
behavior and environmental contingencies
that strengthen or weaken the repetition of
behavior
- The extreme version of associationism
❖ Ivan Pavlov
➢ Studied involuntary learning behavior
of this sort
➢ Dogs salivated at the sight of the lab
technician who fed them
➢ Classical conditioning
❖ John Watson
➢ Father of radical behaviorism
➢ He believed that psychologists should
concentrate only on observable
behavior.
❖ B.F. Skinner
➢ Believed that virtually all forms of
human behavior could be explained
by behavior emitted in reaction to the
environment
➢ Operant conditioning
■ Strengthening or weakening of
behavior depending on the
presence of rewards or
punishments
❖ Edward Tolman (Purposive Behaviorism)
➢ Forefather of modern cognitive
psychology
➢ All behavior is directed toward a goal
■ Ex. rat’s goal in the maze it to
find food
➢ Understanding a behavior require
taking into account the purpose of,
and the plan for, the behavior
➢ Learning developed from knowledge
about the environment and how the
organism relates to its environment
❖ Albert Bandura
➢ Learning can be social
➢ Social learning opens the way to
considering what is happening inside
our minds
5. Gestalt Psychology
- We best understand psychological
phenomena when we view them as organized,
structured wholes.
- “The whole differs from the sum of its parts”
- Perception of a flower not just the color and
size, but the “whole” experience of it
EMERGENCE OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
● Cognitivism
○ Belief that much of human behavior
can be understood in terms of how
people think
○ A synthesis of behaviorism and
gestaltism
○ Emphasize internal mental processes
of how people learn and think
EARLY ROLE OF PSYCHOBIOLOGY
● Cognitive revolution
○ Movement that took place in response
to behaviorism
● Cognitivism
○ The belief that much of human
behavior can be understood in terms
of how people think
○ A synthesis of earlier forms of
analysis, such as behaviorism and
Gestalt psychology
❖ Karl Spencer Lashley
➢ He considered the brain as an active,
dynamic organizer of behavior
➢ He sought to understand how the
macro-organization of the human
brain made possible such complex
planned activities like using language.
❖ Donald Hebb
➢ Proposed cell assemblies as the basis
for learning in the brain
➢ Cell assemblies are coordinated
neural structures that develop
through frequent stimulation.
 ❖ Noam Chomsky
➢ Language acquisition devise (LAD) all
humans possess
➢ Allows infants to use what it hears to
infer the grammar of its linguistic
environment
➢ Defied behaviorist notions that we
learn through reinforcement
➢ Structure of the mind guides our
acquisition of language

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
- Attempt of humans to construct systems that
show intelligence
- The intelligent processing of information
- Ex. chess-playing programs, SPSS

● Intelligence
○ The capacity to learn from experience,
using metacognitive processes to
enhance learning, and the ability to
adapt to the surrounding
environment.
○ Concept that can be viewed as tying
together all of cognitive psychology.

RESEARCH METHODS IN COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

1. Experiments on human behavior
2. Psychobiological research
- Study the relationship between
cognitive performance and cerebral
events and structures)
- Ex. postmortem study
3. Self-reports
4. Case studies
5. Naturalistic observation
6. Computer simulations and artificial
intelligence

Cognitive Science
- A cross-disciplinary field that uses ideas and
methods from cognitive psychology,
psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy,
linguistics, and anthropology.