Summary Notes For Cognitive Psychology Connecting Mind Research and Everyday Experience 5th Edition by Goldstein
Best summary for Chapter 1 — Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - Cognitive psychology — branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind Cognitive Psychology: Studying the Mind - What is the mind? • Mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, emotions, language, deciding, thinking, and reasoning. - Memory, problem-solver, make decision & consider probabilities - Cognition — mental processes, such as perception, attention, and memory, that are what the mind does • Mind is a system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals. - Associated with normal functioning - How mind operates (creates representations) and its functions (enables us to act & achieve goals) - Studying the Mind: Early work in Cognitive Psychology: • Franciscus Donders — Cognitive Psychology Experiment: How long it takes for a person to make a decision? - Measuring reaction time — how long it takes to respond to presentation of a stimulus • Simple reaction time — asking subjects to push a button as rapidly as possible when they saw a light goes on • Choice reaction time — using two lights and ask subjects to push the left button when they saw the left light go on and right button when they saw right light go on - Presenting stimulus (light) → Mental response (perceiving light) → Behavioural response (push button) - Reaction time = time between presenting stimulus and behavioural response - Difference between simple and choice reaction time indicate how long it took to make the decision for correct button — Donders concluded tat the decision-making process took one-tenth of a second - Important experiment: 1) First cognitive psychology experiment; 2) Mental responses must be inferred from behaviour (cannot be measured directly)
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