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Cognitive Bases of Behavior
Introduction and Historical Background
August 28, 2008
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Cognitive Psychology
•
Concerned with full range of psychological processes from sensation to knowledge representation
•
Dominated since 1970’s by the information processing model
• Domains
–
experimental psychology
–
cognitive neuropsychology
cognitive science
–
cognitive neuroscience
•
What does this have to do with clinical or counseling or developmental or school psychology or speech
pathology or exercise physiology or…?
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Key Themes/Continua in the Study of Cognitive Psychology
Key Themes/Continua in the Study of Cognitive Psychology
• Nature v. nurture
• Rationalism v. empiricism
• Structures v. processes
• Domain generality v. domain specificity
• Internal v. external (ecological) validity
• Applied v. basic research
• Biological v. behavioral methods
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Structures vs. Processes
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Structures
–
components
of cognitive apparatus that represent the organization of mental entities
–
are largely metaphorical and static
– examples:
filters, lexicons, storage systems, trees
•
Processes
–
systems of operations or functions that analyze, transform, or change mental
events
–
are active, dynamic
– examples:
inhibition, forgetting, encoding, problem-solving
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Historical Antecedents
Historical Antecedents
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Philosophy
:
concerned with understanding experience through introspection -
rational
•
Physiology:
scientific understanding of life-sustaining processes in living matter
- empirical
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Rationalism vs. Empiricism
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Plato:
theory of forms, reality resides not in concrete objects, but in the abstract forms (ideas) they
represent - forerunner of rationalism; this idea picked up again by
Descartes
in 17th century; idea of innate
knowledge
•
Aristotle:
reality resides only in concrete world of objects, abstract ideas are a derivation - forerunner of
empiricism; this idea picked up again by
Locke
; humans born without knowledge, experience writes on the
mind
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Structuralism vs. Functionalism
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Structuralism:
understand basic parts (akin to anatomy) of the mind (e.g.,
Wundt)
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Functionalism:

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