Introduction to Cognitive Psychology therefore must seek knowledge through empirical observation.
Locke’s term for this view was “tabula rasa” (meaning “blank slate”
Cognitive Psychology- It is the study of how people perceive, learn, in Latin). The idea is that life and experience “write” knowledge on
remember and think about information. A cognitive psychologist might us. For Locke, then, the study of learning was the key to
study how people perceive various shapes, why they remember some understanding the human mind. He believed that there are no
facts but forget others, or how they learn language. innate ideas.
• In the eighteenth century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant
Dialectic is a developmental process whereby ideas evolve overtime synthesized the views of Descartes and Locke, arguing that both
through a back-and-forth exchange of ideas; in a way, it is like a rationalism and empiricism have their place. Both must work
discussion spread out over and extended over period of time. together in the quest for truth. Most twenty-first-century
psychologists accept Kant’s synthesis.
The dialectical process looks like this:
• A thesis is proposed- A thesis is a statement of belief. PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• An antithesis emerges- An antithesis is a statement that counters
a thesis. Early Dialectics in the Psychology of Cognition
• A synthesis integrates the viewpoints- Sooner or later, the UNDERSTANDING THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND:
debate between the thesis and the antithesis leads to synthesis, • STRUCTURALISM- Structuralism seeks to understand the
which integrates the most credible features of each of two (or more) structure (configuration of elements) of the mind and its perceptions
views. by analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components
(affection, attention, memory, and sensation.)
The dialectic is important because we may be tempted to think that • INTROSPECTION – the conscious observation of one’s own
if one view is right, another seemingly contrasting view must be thinking process. The aim of introspection is to look at the
wrong. elementary components of an object or process. Wilhelm Wundt
- For example, in the field of intelligence, many tend to believe that (1832-1920) was a German psychologist whose ideas contributed
intelligence is either all or mostly genetically determined, or all or to the development of structuralism. Wundt is often viewed as the
mostly environmentally determined. founder of structuralism is psychology.
o EXAMPLE: In the context of cognitive psychology and
PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY: RATIONALISM applying structuralist principles, the experience of
VERSUS EMPIRICISM perceiving a rose could be broken down into its basic
Where and when did the study of cognitive psychology begin? Historians sensory elements:
of psychology usually trace the earliest roots of psychology to two o Sensations: The red color of the rose petals, the green
approaches to understanding the human mind: color of the stem and leaves, the texture of the petals and
- Philosophy- seeks to understand the general nature of many leaves, and the thorns.
aspects of the world, in part through introspection, the examination o Feelings: The emotional response associated with the
of inner ideas and experiences (intro- within, spect-look) sight and smell of the rose, which might evoke feelings of
- Physiology- seeks scientific study of life-sustain functions in living beauty, appreciation, or even nostalgia.
matter, primarily through empirical (observation based) methods. o Thoughts: Associated thoughts or memories triggered
by the sight of the rose, such as past experiences with
• Plato was a rationalist. A rationalist believes that the route to roses, cultural associations, or symbolic meanings.
knowledge is through thinking and logical analysis. That is, a o Perceptions: The overall perception of the rose as a
rationalist does not need any experiments to develop new unified object in the environment, composed of various
knowledge. A rationalist who is interested in cognitive processes sensory attributes.
would appeal to reason as a source of knowledge of justification. o CHALLENGES: First, people may not always be able to
• Aristotle, an empiricist believes that we acquire knowledge via say exactly what goes through their mind or may not be
empirical evidence --- that is, we obtain evidence through able to put it into adequate words.
experience and observation. To explore how the human mind o Second, what they say may not be accurate.
works, empiricists would design experiments and conduct studies o Third, the fact that people are working on a task may itself
in which they could observe the behavior and processes of interest alter the processes that are going on.
to them. Empiricism therefore, leads directly to empirical • Functionalism, was developed as an alternative to structuralism,
investigations of psychology. and suggested that psychologists should focus on the process of
• Rationalism is important in theory development. Rationalist thought rather than on its contents. Functionalism seeks to
theories without any connection to observation gained through understand what people do and why they do it. This principal
empiricist methods may not be valid; but mountains of observational question about processes was in contrast to that of the
data without an organizing theoretical framework may not be structuralists, who had asked what the elementary contents
meaningful. (structures) of the human mind are. Functionalists held that the
• Descartes viewed the introspective, reflective method as being key to understanding the human mind and behavior was to
superior to empirical methods for finding truth. The famous study the processes of how and why the mind works at it does,
expression “Cognito, ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) stems for rather than to study the structural contents and elements of the
Descartes. He maintained that the only proof of his existence is that mind.
he was thinking and doubting. Descartes felt that one could not rely • Pragmatists believe that knowledge is validated by its
on one’s senses because those very senses have often proven to usefulness: What do you do with it? Pragmatists are concerned
be deceptive. not only with knowing what people do; they also want to know what
• Locke, in contrast, had more enthusiasm for empirical observation. we can do with our knowledge of what people do. A leader in
Locke believed that humans are born without knowledge and
, guiding functionalism toward pragmatism was William James ● Third, using the techniques of behaviorism to study nonhuman
(1842-1910). animals was often easier than studying human ones.
• Associationism, like functionalism, was more of an influential way
of thinking than a rigid school of psychology. Associationism Gestalt Psychology
examines how elements of the mind, such as events or ideas, can ● It states that we best understand psychological phenomena when
become associated with one another in the mind to result in a form we view them as organized, structured wholes.
of learning. For example, associations may result from: ● According to this view, we cannot fully understand behavior when
o Contiguity – associating things that tend to occur we only break phenomena down into smaller parts.
together at about the same time ● Gestaltists, in contrast, studied insight, to understand the
o Similarity – associating things with similar features or unobservable mental event by which someone goes from having no
properties; or idea about how to solve a problem to understanding it fully in what
o Contrast – associating things that show polarities, such seems a mere moment of time. ‘The whole is more than the sum
as hot/cold, light/dark, day/night. of its parts.”
• In the late 1800s, Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) was the first
experimenter apply associationism principles systematically. APPROACHES TO METHODS USED WHAT IS STUDIED
STUDYING THE MIND
Specifically, Ebbinghaus studied his own mental processes.
STRUCTURALISM Introspection Content/structure of the
Through his self-observations Ebbinghaus studied how people mind
learn and remember material through REHEARSAL, the FUNCTIONALISM Various; depends on Processes of how the
conscious repetition of material learned. Among other things, he question asked mind works
found that frequent repetition of material can fix mental associations PRAGMATISM Various Research that can be
more firmly in memory. Thus, repetition aids in learning. applied to the real world
• Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949) termed the principle the “Law SYNTHESIS: Experiments: How learning takes place
Associationism Ebbinghaus used himself by associating things
of Effect”: A stimulus will tend to produce a certain response over as a subject; Thorndike with each other
time if an organism is rewarded for that response. Thorndike used cats as well as
believed that an organism learns to respond in a given way (the humans
effect) in a given situation if it is rewarded repeatedly for doing BEHAVIORISM Use of animals in Relations between
research in addition to observable behavior and
so (the satisfaction, which serves as a stimulus to future humans environmental
actions). Quantitative analysis events/stimuli
• Behaviorism focuses only on the relation between observable GESTALT Introspection, Psychological
behavior and environmental events or stimuli. The idea was to make PSYCHOLOGY experiments phenomena studied as
organized wholes
physical whatever others might have called “mental.”
SYNTHESIS: Experiments, computer Understand behavior
• In Russia, Nobel-Prize winning physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849- Cognitivism simulation, protocol through the ways people
1936) studied involuntary learning behavior of this sort. He began analysis think
with the observation that dogs salivated in response to the sight of
the lab technician who fed them. This response occurred before Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology
dogs even saw whether the technician had food. To Pavlov, this Goals of Research
response indicated a form of learning classically conditioned ● Briefly, research goals include data gathering, data analysis,
learning), over which the dogs had no conscious control. In the theory development, hypothesis formulation, hypothesis
dogs’ minds, some type of involuntary learning linked the technician testing, and perhaps even application to settings outside the
to the food. research environment.
• The “father” of radical behaviorism is John Watson (1878- ● Data gathering reflects an empirical aspect of the scientific
1958). Watson had no use for internal mental contents (thoughts) enterprise.
or mechanisms. He believed that psychologists should concentrate ● Most cognitive psychologists want to understand more than
only on the study of observational behavior. He dismissed thinking the what of cognition; most also seek to understand the how
as nothing more than subvocalized speech. and the way of thinking.
o Little Albert experiment ● We usually start with a theory. A theory is an organized body
• B.F. Skinner (1904–1990). He believed that operant conditioning – of general explanatory principles regarding a phenomenon,
involving the strengthening or weakening of behavior, contingent on usually based on observations. We test a theory to see
the presence or absence of reinforcement (rewards) or whether it has the power to predict certain aspects of the
punishments --- could explain all forms of human behavior. phenomena with which it deals.
• Albert Bandura (1977). Learning through observation is well ● “If our theory is correct, then whenever x occurs, outcome y
documented and can be seen in human, monkeys, dogs, birds, and should result”
even fish. In humans, this ability spans all ages; it is observed in ● This process results in the generation of hypotheses, tentative
both infants and adults. proposals regarding expected empirical consequences of the
Criticisms of Behaviorism theory, such as the outcomes of research.
Behaviorism was challenged on many fronts such as language
acquisition, production, and comprehension.
● First, although it seemed to work well to account for certain
kinds of learning, behaviorism did not account as well for
complex mental activities, such as language learning and
problem solving.
● Second, more than understanding people’s behavior, some
psychologists wanted to know what went on inside the head.
, context of an explanatory theory, and theories are empty
without empirical data.
2. Cognition is generally adaptive, but not in all specific
instances.
3. Cognitive processes interact with each other and with
noncognitive processes.
4. Cognition needs to be studied through a variety of scientific
methods.
5. All basic research in cognitive psychology may lead to
Independent Variables – are aspects of an investigation that are
applications, and all applied research may lead to basic
individually MANIPULATED, or carefully regulated, by the experimenter,
understandings.
while other aspects of the investigation are held constant.
Dependent variables- are outcome responses, the values of which COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
depend on how one or more independent variables influence or affect Cognition in the Brain: The Anatomy and Mechanisms of the Brain
the participants in the experiment.
● When the experimenter manipulates the independent Terminologies
variables, he or she controls for the effects of irrelevant Cognitive Neuroscience - Studies how the brain and other aspects of
variables and observes the effects on the dependent variables. the nervous system are linked to cognitive processing and behavior.
These irrelevant variables that are held constant are called Brain - Is the organ in our bodies that most directly controls our thoughts,
CONTROL VARIABLES. emotions, and motivations.
● Another type of variable is the confounding variable. Localization of Function - Refers to the specific areas of the brain that
CONFOUNDING VARIABLES are a type of irrelevant variable control specific skills or behaviors.
that has been left uncontrolled in a study. When conducting Nervous System - Is the basis for our ability to perceive, adapt to, and
research, we must be careful to avoid the influence of interact with the world around us. It includes the brain, spinal cord, and
confounding variables. a complex network of nerves.
Extraneous variables are any variables other than the independent Fetal Brain Development
variable that may affect the outcome of an experiment. These variables
are often uncontrolled and may introduce noise or variability into the 1. FOREBRAIN - Is the region of the brain located toward the top and
results. front of the brain. It includes the cerebral cortex, the basal ganglia,
• While some extraneous variables may be confounding the limbic system, the thalamus, and the hypothalamus.
variables (i.e., they have a significant impact on both the - Cerebral cortex - is the outer layer of the cerebral
independent and dependent variables), not all extraneous hemispheres. It plays a vital role in our thinking and other
variables necessarily confound the results. mental processes.
- Basal Ganglia (Ganglion) - are collections of neurons crucial
In implementing the experimental method, experimenters must use a to motor function.
representative of the population of interest. They must exert rigorous - Limbic System - is important to emotion, motivation, memory,
control over the experimental conditions so that they know that the and learning.
observed effects can be attributed to variations in the independent Three Central Interconnected Cerebral Structures
variable and nothing else. 1. Septum
The experimenter also must randomly assign participants to the 2. Amygdala
treatment and control conditions. 3. Hippocampus
- Thalamus - relays incoming sensory information through
A correlation is a description of a relationship. The correlation groups of neurons that project to the appropriate region in the
coefficient describes the strength of the relationship. The closer the cortex.
coefficient is to 1 (either positive or negative), the stronger the - Hypothalamus - regulates behavior related to species
relationship between the variables is. survival: fighting, feeding, fleeing, and mating. It also helps
No correlation – that is, when the coefficient is 0- indicates that there is regulate emotions and react to stress. It is also important for
no pattern or relationship in the change of two variables. the functioning of the endocrine system.
2. MIDBRAIN - Helps to control eye movement and coordination.
- Superior Colliculi - involved in vision
- Inferior Colliculi - involved in hearing
- Reticular Activating System (RAS) - is a network of neurons
essential to regulating consciousness, including sleep;
wakefulness; arousal; attention; and vital functions such as
heartbeat and breathing.
3. HINDBRAIN - Controls the body's vital functions such as respiration
and heart rate. It comprises the medulla oblongata, the pons, and
the cerebellum.
- Medulla Oblongata - controls heart activity and largely
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS IN COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY controls breathing, swallowing, and digestion.
1. Empirical data and theories are both important--- data in - Pons - contains neural fibers that pass signals from one part
cognitive psychology can be fully understood only in the of the brain to another.
Locke’s term for this view was “tabula rasa” (meaning “blank slate”
Cognitive Psychology- It is the study of how people perceive, learn, in Latin). The idea is that life and experience “write” knowledge on
remember and think about information. A cognitive psychologist might us. For Locke, then, the study of learning was the key to
study how people perceive various shapes, why they remember some understanding the human mind. He believed that there are no
facts but forget others, or how they learn language. innate ideas.
• In the eighteenth century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant
Dialectic is a developmental process whereby ideas evolve overtime synthesized the views of Descartes and Locke, arguing that both
through a back-and-forth exchange of ideas; in a way, it is like a rationalism and empiricism have their place. Both must work
discussion spread out over and extended over period of time. together in the quest for truth. Most twenty-first-century
psychologists accept Kant’s synthesis.
The dialectical process looks like this:
• A thesis is proposed- A thesis is a statement of belief. PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• An antithesis emerges- An antithesis is a statement that counters
a thesis. Early Dialectics in the Psychology of Cognition
• A synthesis integrates the viewpoints- Sooner or later, the UNDERSTANDING THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND:
debate between the thesis and the antithesis leads to synthesis, • STRUCTURALISM- Structuralism seeks to understand the
which integrates the most credible features of each of two (or more) structure (configuration of elements) of the mind and its perceptions
views. by analyzing those perceptions into their constituent components
(affection, attention, memory, and sensation.)
The dialectic is important because we may be tempted to think that • INTROSPECTION – the conscious observation of one’s own
if one view is right, another seemingly contrasting view must be thinking process. The aim of introspection is to look at the
wrong. elementary components of an object or process. Wilhelm Wundt
- For example, in the field of intelligence, many tend to believe that (1832-1920) was a German psychologist whose ideas contributed
intelligence is either all or mostly genetically determined, or all or to the development of structuralism. Wundt is often viewed as the
mostly environmentally determined. founder of structuralism is psychology.
o EXAMPLE: In the context of cognitive psychology and
PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY: RATIONALISM applying structuralist principles, the experience of
VERSUS EMPIRICISM perceiving a rose could be broken down into its basic
Where and when did the study of cognitive psychology begin? Historians sensory elements:
of psychology usually trace the earliest roots of psychology to two o Sensations: The red color of the rose petals, the green
approaches to understanding the human mind: color of the stem and leaves, the texture of the petals and
- Philosophy- seeks to understand the general nature of many leaves, and the thorns.
aspects of the world, in part through introspection, the examination o Feelings: The emotional response associated with the
of inner ideas and experiences (intro- within, spect-look) sight and smell of the rose, which might evoke feelings of
- Physiology- seeks scientific study of life-sustain functions in living beauty, appreciation, or even nostalgia.
matter, primarily through empirical (observation based) methods. o Thoughts: Associated thoughts or memories triggered
by the sight of the rose, such as past experiences with
• Plato was a rationalist. A rationalist believes that the route to roses, cultural associations, or symbolic meanings.
knowledge is through thinking and logical analysis. That is, a o Perceptions: The overall perception of the rose as a
rationalist does not need any experiments to develop new unified object in the environment, composed of various
knowledge. A rationalist who is interested in cognitive processes sensory attributes.
would appeal to reason as a source of knowledge of justification. o CHALLENGES: First, people may not always be able to
• Aristotle, an empiricist believes that we acquire knowledge via say exactly what goes through their mind or may not be
empirical evidence --- that is, we obtain evidence through able to put it into adequate words.
experience and observation. To explore how the human mind o Second, what they say may not be accurate.
works, empiricists would design experiments and conduct studies o Third, the fact that people are working on a task may itself
in which they could observe the behavior and processes of interest alter the processes that are going on.
to them. Empiricism therefore, leads directly to empirical • Functionalism, was developed as an alternative to structuralism,
investigations of psychology. and suggested that psychologists should focus on the process of
• Rationalism is important in theory development. Rationalist thought rather than on its contents. Functionalism seeks to
theories without any connection to observation gained through understand what people do and why they do it. This principal
empiricist methods may not be valid; but mountains of observational question about processes was in contrast to that of the
data without an organizing theoretical framework may not be structuralists, who had asked what the elementary contents
meaningful. (structures) of the human mind are. Functionalists held that the
• Descartes viewed the introspective, reflective method as being key to understanding the human mind and behavior was to
superior to empirical methods for finding truth. The famous study the processes of how and why the mind works at it does,
expression “Cognito, ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) stems for rather than to study the structural contents and elements of the
Descartes. He maintained that the only proof of his existence is that mind.
he was thinking and doubting. Descartes felt that one could not rely • Pragmatists believe that knowledge is validated by its
on one’s senses because those very senses have often proven to usefulness: What do you do with it? Pragmatists are concerned
be deceptive. not only with knowing what people do; they also want to know what
• Locke, in contrast, had more enthusiasm for empirical observation. we can do with our knowledge of what people do. A leader in
Locke believed that humans are born without knowledge and
, guiding functionalism toward pragmatism was William James ● Third, using the techniques of behaviorism to study nonhuman
(1842-1910). animals was often easier than studying human ones.
• Associationism, like functionalism, was more of an influential way
of thinking than a rigid school of psychology. Associationism Gestalt Psychology
examines how elements of the mind, such as events or ideas, can ● It states that we best understand psychological phenomena when
become associated with one another in the mind to result in a form we view them as organized, structured wholes.
of learning. For example, associations may result from: ● According to this view, we cannot fully understand behavior when
o Contiguity – associating things that tend to occur we only break phenomena down into smaller parts.
together at about the same time ● Gestaltists, in contrast, studied insight, to understand the
o Similarity – associating things with similar features or unobservable mental event by which someone goes from having no
properties; or idea about how to solve a problem to understanding it fully in what
o Contrast – associating things that show polarities, such seems a mere moment of time. ‘The whole is more than the sum
as hot/cold, light/dark, day/night. of its parts.”
• In the late 1800s, Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) was the first
experimenter apply associationism principles systematically. APPROACHES TO METHODS USED WHAT IS STUDIED
STUDYING THE MIND
Specifically, Ebbinghaus studied his own mental processes.
STRUCTURALISM Introspection Content/structure of the
Through his self-observations Ebbinghaus studied how people mind
learn and remember material through REHEARSAL, the FUNCTIONALISM Various; depends on Processes of how the
conscious repetition of material learned. Among other things, he question asked mind works
found that frequent repetition of material can fix mental associations PRAGMATISM Various Research that can be
more firmly in memory. Thus, repetition aids in learning. applied to the real world
• Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949) termed the principle the “Law SYNTHESIS: Experiments: How learning takes place
Associationism Ebbinghaus used himself by associating things
of Effect”: A stimulus will tend to produce a certain response over as a subject; Thorndike with each other
time if an organism is rewarded for that response. Thorndike used cats as well as
believed that an organism learns to respond in a given way (the humans
effect) in a given situation if it is rewarded repeatedly for doing BEHAVIORISM Use of animals in Relations between
research in addition to observable behavior and
so (the satisfaction, which serves as a stimulus to future humans environmental
actions). Quantitative analysis events/stimuli
• Behaviorism focuses only on the relation between observable GESTALT Introspection, Psychological
behavior and environmental events or stimuli. The idea was to make PSYCHOLOGY experiments phenomena studied as
organized wholes
physical whatever others might have called “mental.”
SYNTHESIS: Experiments, computer Understand behavior
• In Russia, Nobel-Prize winning physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849- Cognitivism simulation, protocol through the ways people
1936) studied involuntary learning behavior of this sort. He began analysis think
with the observation that dogs salivated in response to the sight of
the lab technician who fed them. This response occurred before Research Methods in Cognitive Psychology
dogs even saw whether the technician had food. To Pavlov, this Goals of Research
response indicated a form of learning classically conditioned ● Briefly, research goals include data gathering, data analysis,
learning), over which the dogs had no conscious control. In the theory development, hypothesis formulation, hypothesis
dogs’ minds, some type of involuntary learning linked the technician testing, and perhaps even application to settings outside the
to the food. research environment.
• The “father” of radical behaviorism is John Watson (1878- ● Data gathering reflects an empirical aspect of the scientific
1958). Watson had no use for internal mental contents (thoughts) enterprise.
or mechanisms. He believed that psychologists should concentrate ● Most cognitive psychologists want to understand more than
only on the study of observational behavior. He dismissed thinking the what of cognition; most also seek to understand the how
as nothing more than subvocalized speech. and the way of thinking.
o Little Albert experiment ● We usually start with a theory. A theory is an organized body
• B.F. Skinner (1904–1990). He believed that operant conditioning – of general explanatory principles regarding a phenomenon,
involving the strengthening or weakening of behavior, contingent on usually based on observations. We test a theory to see
the presence or absence of reinforcement (rewards) or whether it has the power to predict certain aspects of the
punishments --- could explain all forms of human behavior. phenomena with which it deals.
• Albert Bandura (1977). Learning through observation is well ● “If our theory is correct, then whenever x occurs, outcome y
documented and can be seen in human, monkeys, dogs, birds, and should result”
even fish. In humans, this ability spans all ages; it is observed in ● This process results in the generation of hypotheses, tentative
both infants and adults. proposals regarding expected empirical consequences of the
Criticisms of Behaviorism theory, such as the outcomes of research.
Behaviorism was challenged on many fronts such as language
acquisition, production, and comprehension.
● First, although it seemed to work well to account for certain
kinds of learning, behaviorism did not account as well for
complex mental activities, such as language learning and
problem solving.
● Second, more than understanding people’s behavior, some
psychologists wanted to know what went on inside the head.
, context of an explanatory theory, and theories are empty
without empirical data.
2. Cognition is generally adaptive, but not in all specific
instances.
3. Cognitive processes interact with each other and with
noncognitive processes.
4. Cognition needs to be studied through a variety of scientific
methods.
5. All basic research in cognitive psychology may lead to
Independent Variables – are aspects of an investigation that are
applications, and all applied research may lead to basic
individually MANIPULATED, or carefully regulated, by the experimenter,
understandings.
while other aspects of the investigation are held constant.
Dependent variables- are outcome responses, the values of which COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
depend on how one or more independent variables influence or affect Cognition in the Brain: The Anatomy and Mechanisms of the Brain
the participants in the experiment.
● When the experimenter manipulates the independent Terminologies
variables, he or she controls for the effects of irrelevant Cognitive Neuroscience - Studies how the brain and other aspects of
variables and observes the effects on the dependent variables. the nervous system are linked to cognitive processing and behavior.
These irrelevant variables that are held constant are called Brain - Is the organ in our bodies that most directly controls our thoughts,
CONTROL VARIABLES. emotions, and motivations.
● Another type of variable is the confounding variable. Localization of Function - Refers to the specific areas of the brain that
CONFOUNDING VARIABLES are a type of irrelevant variable control specific skills or behaviors.
that has been left uncontrolled in a study. When conducting Nervous System - Is the basis for our ability to perceive, adapt to, and
research, we must be careful to avoid the influence of interact with the world around us. It includes the brain, spinal cord, and
confounding variables. a complex network of nerves.
Extraneous variables are any variables other than the independent Fetal Brain Development
variable that may affect the outcome of an experiment. These variables
are often uncontrolled and may introduce noise or variability into the 1. FOREBRAIN - Is the region of the brain located toward the top and
results. front of the brain. It includes the cerebral cortex, the basal ganglia,
• While some extraneous variables may be confounding the limbic system, the thalamus, and the hypothalamus.
variables (i.e., they have a significant impact on both the - Cerebral cortex - is the outer layer of the cerebral
independent and dependent variables), not all extraneous hemispheres. It plays a vital role in our thinking and other
variables necessarily confound the results. mental processes.
- Basal Ganglia (Ganglion) - are collections of neurons crucial
In implementing the experimental method, experimenters must use a to motor function.
representative of the population of interest. They must exert rigorous - Limbic System - is important to emotion, motivation, memory,
control over the experimental conditions so that they know that the and learning.
observed effects can be attributed to variations in the independent Three Central Interconnected Cerebral Structures
variable and nothing else. 1. Septum
The experimenter also must randomly assign participants to the 2. Amygdala
treatment and control conditions. 3. Hippocampus
- Thalamus - relays incoming sensory information through
A correlation is a description of a relationship. The correlation groups of neurons that project to the appropriate region in the
coefficient describes the strength of the relationship. The closer the cortex.
coefficient is to 1 (either positive or negative), the stronger the - Hypothalamus - regulates behavior related to species
relationship between the variables is. survival: fighting, feeding, fleeing, and mating. It also helps
No correlation – that is, when the coefficient is 0- indicates that there is regulate emotions and react to stress. It is also important for
no pattern or relationship in the change of two variables. the functioning of the endocrine system.
2. MIDBRAIN - Helps to control eye movement and coordination.
- Superior Colliculi - involved in vision
- Inferior Colliculi - involved in hearing
- Reticular Activating System (RAS) - is a network of neurons
essential to regulating consciousness, including sleep;
wakefulness; arousal; attention; and vital functions such as
heartbeat and breathing.
3. HINDBRAIN - Controls the body's vital functions such as respiration
and heart rate. It comprises the medulla oblongata, the pons, and
the cerebellum.
- Medulla Oblongata - controls heart activity and largely
FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS IN COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY controls breathing, swallowing, and digestion.
1. Empirical data and theories are both important--- data in - Pons - contains neural fibers that pass signals from one part
cognitive psychology can be fully understood only in the of the brain to another.
