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Experimental Psychology, Full Summary, English
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Tuesday, 30 August 2022Lecture 1
Experimental Psychology
Experiment: a technique of establishing a causal rel. between variables
Experimental Psychology: the scienti c study of mind and behavior by means of
experiments
- Study Psychology by focusing on cognitive functions
Cognition: mental processes leading to thought, knowledge, and awareness
- Cognitive processes govern Cog. Functions include attention, memory, learning,
language, mental processing, motor skills, and imagination.
- CF are “building blocks” of all complex behavior (like eating peas) > This task
requires attention, perception, decision-making, motor skills
- Patients with (local) brain damage allow for more speci c and reliable inferences
about brain functioning.
e.g. Patients with
• Neglect (hemi spatial/unilateral inattention)
• Aphasia (trouble producing or understanding)
• Dyslexia (trouble with reading)
• Prosopagnosia (inability to recognise faces)
• Visual agnosia (inability to recognise objects)
Cognitive Neuroscience attempts to understand the biological foundation of
cognition > the main idea is that cog.process can be tracked and measured
Rationalists (Knowledge is innate or inborn: Nativism):
- Benedict de Spinoza
- Gottfried Leibniz
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, - Rene Descartes: Believed in Dualism. That the mind and body are separate
entities that interact via the pineal gland. (Bc. The bodily re exes do not involve
the mind/free will, the body and mind must be distinct)
Empiricists (Knowledge is acquired through senses):
- John Locke
- George Berkeley
- David Hume
In the 19th Century, Psychology started to evolve into a science
- Hermann von Helmholtz conducted experiments on the conduction velocity of
the nerve impulse
- Franciscus Donders: Mental Chronometry “How much time do you need to
decide”
1) Simple reaction time
2) Di erential/choice reaction time
3) Go/No go reaction time
-> This additive factor logic is still widely used today in modern-day research where
brain activity (EEG or fMRI) in an experimental condition is subtracted from a control
condition or when two experimental conditions are subtracted
- Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner introduced the Just Noticeable Di erence (JND),
which is still used in psychophysics
- Wilhelm Wundt - Structuralism: consciousness should be the focus of study via
analyses of the basic elements that constitute the mind
> achieved by breaking down consciousness into sensations and feelings via
analytical introspection
- Further developed by Edward Titchener and proposed 3 elementary states of
consciousness: Sensations (sight, sound, taste), Images (components of
thought), and A ections (components of emotions)
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,Behaviorism (John Watson): The mind cannot be studied and behavior should be
studied instead because
- The only way to understand learning and adaptation is by focusing on behavior
- Behavior can be observed by anyone and measured objectively
- The goal is to predict and control behavior to bene t society
Behaviorism was a part of the logical positivism movement that introduced the
operational de nition: Description of an abstract property in terms of a concrete
condition that can be measured
> allow for precise measurements and direct comparisons between studies
But, operational def. are not always good de nitions. Clear measurable conditions
can still be quite useless
- Happiness is the number of smiles during a speci c episode
- Age is the response that participants provide on a questionnaire
IVAN PAVLOV: CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
US (Unconditioned Stimulus) that produces an UR (Unconditioned Response)
When the US is repeatedly paired with another stimulus, the other stimulus
becomes a CS (Conditioned Stimulus) that produces a CR (Conditioned Response)
which is the same as the UR but now occurs with our the original US.
SKINNER: OPERANT CONDITIONING
Learning occurs through reinforcement and punishment, that can be positive
(means sth is added) or negative (sth is removed).
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY:
- KEY PRINCIPLE: The whole is more than the sum of its parts
- They rejected Wundt’s structuralism > because experience is more than a
function of sensation
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, - They rejected Behaviorism > because complex behavior (‘the whole’) is more than
the sum of its components
- Gestalt psychologists use apparent motion to prove their point
- Perception is a construction, not a re ection of the sensation
EMPIRICIS
= Acquiring knowledge through observation
Scienti c Method: Observations can lead to mistakes, false conclusions and
illusions, so we need a set of rules and techniques to avoid those.
1- Theorize/generate idea
=> Often based on literature/previous experience
=> Use principle of Ockham’s razor
2- Formulate falsi able hypothesis
=> if…is true, we should observe… (speci c, veri able)
3- Collect and analyse data
=> observations in a lab or in the real world, using speci c techniques
=> operationalism should be concrete
4- Draw conclusions regarding hypothesis
=> Results align with hypothesis? Con rm theory
=> Results do not align with hypothesis? Theory is wrong (falsi cation) or mistakes
in operationalisation
Deduction: Drawing inferences based on premises (assumptions). General =>
Speci c
Problem: We cannot observe ALL premises so we must use Induction. Speci c =>
General
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