Cognitive psychology basics

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  • cognitive psychology
    • Overview
      • information processing approach
        • Information in --> processing     --> information out
        • Oversimplification?
      • Assumption; brain processes information from the environment in a similar manner to a digital computer
        • Hardware: physical system, i.e. the nervous system
          • representational account: internal representation of external objects
          • propositional representations: 'token' mental representations with semantic properties
          • Indirect realism: access externa - reality through representation
        • Software: mental processes
    • Information: amount of entropy (disorder) in a  system (Shannon & Weaver, 1949)
      • Cognitive processes: aim to process this surprise and filter out any noise
      • Environmental information: processes by a variety of different processing systems (modularity)
        • Includes visual processes, auditory, memory, and attention
      • Discrete systems transform and store information collected from the environment
    • A brief history
      • Structuralist approach
        • Wundt - theory of Introspection
        • Limitations: cant be verified, different reports, can alter thought processes. Assumes mental processes are conscious
      • Behaviourism
        • Study of observable and measurable events
        • Watson: need for scientific approach to psychology. Same foundations as other physical sciences
        • All human behaviour can be explained in terms of the learned relationship through stimuli and response
        • mental variables are unimportant - they are epiphenomenal

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