Summary Biological and Cognitive Psychology/Biologic and Cognitive Psychology Summary
16 views 0 purchase
Course
Biologische & Cognitieve Psychologie (P_BBIOCOG)
Institution
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)
This document contains everything you need to know before BioCog's first partial exam. This summary was written by a Psychology student at VU University Amsterdam. The summary consists of both text and images
Hoorcollege 1 Cognitive
Cognitive Psychology
• Study of the mind
- Functional explanations; process models
- How do these processes interact?
Biological Psychology
• Study of the biological basis of the mind
- Focus on brain processes; structural models
- How do brain areas interact?
Integration: Cognitive Neuroscience
Very young science (since the 1990s)
- Long-time dominance of body-mind dualism.
- Now: “the mind is what the brain does”
- Technological developments: fMRI (and PET).
Biological & Cognitive Psychology
Aim of this course
Introduction to fundamental mental processes and their biological basis
● General function (cognitive perspective): perception, attention, motor control,
learning, memory, motivation, sleep, reasoning, decision making,....
● Implementation (biological perspective): Brain
19th century
1860: Weber / Fechner’s law
- Psychophysics
- Relation physical energy to sensation
1867: Hermann von Helmholtz proposes perception as process of unconscious inferences
about the world
1879: Wundt opened first psychology lab
Physiological chronometry
Johannes Müller (first half 1850).
- Nerve conduction velocity is infinitely fast spiritual “Lebenskraft”.
Von Helmholtz (1850):
- Nerve conduction velocity = 30 m/s (frog) and 60 m/s (human).
!! Paves the way for mental chronometry.
Franciscus Cornelis Donders (1818 - 1889)
- Key points
● Mental processes take time
● We can measure that time
,Donders’s subtraction method
Goal: Estimate duration of a postulated mental process, X
Method:
- Create two identical tasks, except for involvement of X
- Measure RT in both tasks
- Subtract RTs
→ Duration of X
Go / No-go task
Stimulus: green or blue
Response: only to one color; not to the other
Simple RT task
Stimulus: green or blue
Response: always
RT (go-nogo) - RT (simple) = Stimulus discrimination time
Problems:
● Depends on assumptions about stages
● Strong assumption about stages being independent
19th century
1860: Weber / Fechner’s law
- Psychophysics
- Relation Physical Energy To Sensation
1867: Hermann von Helmholtz (1821 - 1894)
- proposes perception as process of unconscious inferences about the world
1879: Wundt opened first psychology lab
1885: Ebbinghaus’ memory research →
Memory research: Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 – 1909)
Procedure
- Study phase: learn a list of nonsense syllables (e.g. DAX, ZUG, YOP, ...) to
perfection. Register time this takes.
- Wait a certain time (minutes,day, several days)
, - Test phase: Register how long it takes to relearn the list.
- Calculate percentage of savings
Era of Behaviorism
John B. Watson (1913). “Behaviorist manifesto”
- Discard the mind; Exclusive focus on
behavior
- Stimulus – Response psychology
- Focus on learning
1. From the retina (via the thalamus) to the occipital lobe
2. Dorsal (actions; “where/how”) and ventral (concepts; “what”) route
3. Interactions with behavioural goals & motivations (frontal) Here: task rule
4. Premotor cortex / supplementary motor area Primary motor cortex
5. primary motor cortex → spinal cord
6. Spinal column → effector (right index finger)
The Brain: How do we know?
- Neuropsychological studies with patients (strokes; accidents)
→ single / double dissociation.
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller Veravdp. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $5.29. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
