The examination or observation of one's own menal and emotional process 

"Whats in the mind"

Wilhelm Wundt

Mental Life Era 

Was initially a medical doctor 

Considered the first psychologist

Established the first psychology lab in Germany

Structualism and functionalism derived from his work 

Reaction Time Experiment-

Studying the "atoms" of the mind measuring reaction time 

Edward B. Titchner

Student of Wilhem Wundt

Pioneered a method called introspection

Wrote lab manual on how to perform lab research

Structuralism

Interested in the structural elements of the mind/Anatomy

Experiment dealing with smell

Formed the group called experimentalists

Functionalism

Physiology 

Heavily influenced by Darwin's Theory of Natual Selection

Perceives the mind and behavior as something continuous

Was interested in 'tangible' information and how people adapted to the world

More concerend about how somethng fit in than how to measure it 

Opposed to studying in a lab 

Conserned with whole rather than individual parts

Student of Wilhem Wundt 

Psychoanalysis

Saw patients with symptoms of hystaria 

Popularized the talking cure, psychoanalysis

Emphasized sexual drives and unconscious processes

Did not provide much research 

Not a student of Wundt's

The worlds most famous couch 

Behaviorist Dominance

Single most dominant era in the history of psychology 

Pre

Showed inerest in the Black Box Theory 

"Lets think about this"

Post

Little or no interest in the Black Box Theory 

"Nobody knows and why should we care?"

Behaviorism (Stimulus>>Response)

Psychology should be the science of behavior not of the mind 

Founded behaviorism 

Classical Conditioning 

Behaviorism 

Operant Conditioning/ Reinforcement and punishment 

Science should be rooted in observation

Rejected the cognitive revolution

Language could be learned through the stimulus response

Didn't believe that language was inborn 

Information Processing 

Unlocking the Black box

Memory/Process/Output

how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information

Less of an immediate interest in applied psychology 

Implications in how we remember, 

reason, think and solve problems

Shifted away from behaviorism 

Considered himself a philosopher

Indadequate explanations for certain phenomena

Challenged B.F. Skinner on language acquisition

no single dominant field in psychology 

Development of the computer and its comparison

to the brain 

Deeply associated with the intelligence movement 

Really looked at cognition

Studied children's intelligence, Children progress cognitively. The younger they are the less cognition they have for thought

Realized children look at things differently, Stages of Development for how cognition develops as we get older 

Introspection

Whats in the mind 

The examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional process

Method by which trained observers carefully reflect a report on their mental experiences 

Psychology that focuses uncovering the general laws of learning 

(Stimulus>>Response)

The black box 

Worked to solve "practical" problems

Characterized by work that has immediate utility 

Thes fields include:

Industrial/Organized Psychology 

Counseling Psychology 

Human Factors Research 

Basic Psychology 

Working in a lab performing experiments 

Characterized by doing pure research and writing papers

Seek more long term goals 

Social Psychologist

Cognitive Psychologist

Biological Psychologist

Developmental Psychologist

Founded by Sigmund Freud

Focuses on internal Psychological processes of which we are unaware

Systematic study of behavior within and across cultures 

Studies relationships, how people behave

in groups, novel situations and compares different cultures

Phillip Zimbardo

Stanford Prison Experiment 

Study of how the natural selection of traits promoted the survival of genes

Based on many principles of Charles Darwin

Thinks about physiology and behaviors have adapted for the moder world 

Emphasizes the brain modeling and imaging

Looks at how the chemical proesses in your brain influence behavior 

Research the effect of different drugs on behavior 

Unlocking the black box

How we encode, process, store and retrieve information

Less of an immediate interest in applied psychology 

Implications in how we remember, reason 

think and solve problems 

Who was behind the downfall of 

Behaviorism 

The part of the mind that cannot be observed

Cognition

A statement predicting the outcome of scientific study 

A statement describing the relationship between variables 

Students that have television on in the background while studying, perform more porrely than those who dont'

Amount of time spent studying does not predict GPA

General explanation 

Misconceptions on Theories 

Theory explains one specific event

Theory is just an educated guess

*Theories are not educated guesses. Some theories have survived efforts to refute them and are well confirmed models of how the world works

Conceptually explaining your variables in a way that can be measured. Specifying how we're measuring our variables in different ways and end up with different conclusionsas a result.

Weight-How heavy in pounds

Height- How tall in inches

These definitions are not like dictionary definitions, researchers can adopt different definitions for various reasons

Survey Method 

(Steps)

Develop a hypothesis 

Perform a controlled test

Gather data

Analyze the results and decide on your hypothesis 

Publish, citicize, replicate 

Something that is falsifiable is something capable of being disproved 

A theory isn't falsifiable, we can't test it 

The process of getting information into our memory banks.

To remember something we need to make sure the information is in a format our memory can use. Many of your memory failures are failures of encoding

The process of keeping information in memory

Multi Memory Store Model 

Atkinson and Shiffrin

Stimuli

Phase One:Sensory Memory 

Attention

Phase Two: Short Term Memory 

Transfer/Retrieval/Control Process 

Phase Three: Long Term Memory 

Forgetting can happen in any of these three phases 

Present things in our mind 

(Working Memory)

Memory with a limitless capacity 

(Explicit/Declarative)

Showed the difference between LTM and STM

STM is about 20-30s

STM:(Working Memory);refered to as the combination of multiple components working together

Better predictor of intellegence measures 

STM Stresses the processing and volitional control of information that is being held

Classic conception of processing, information we can think about, talk about and put into memory 

Ex. Phone number, Random strings of Letters, Definitions to words, Names, Concepts 

Explicit Memory

The process of recalling information intentionally 

Implicit Memory 

Memory for motor skills and habits 

Declared processing

First experimental research about memory, originated memory being studied as a science 

Experimental Research used 3 random letter combinations

Serial position curve 

He taught us:

Rehearsal Matters

People play an important role in how well they remember

Importance of Spacing and learning

The three letter combination 

Subject would memorize and retain letters at a later time 

Issue:

He designed the experiment and tested himself 

Those who learn quickly, forget quickly

Spacing study over time leads to more effective recall 

Organizing large amounts of material into familiar, manageable units 

Example:

1776149218121941

1776-1492-1812-1941

Memory aids, techniques that use vivid imaginary and organizational devices

Example:

Acronyms

SOH CAH TOA

Information 

Only lasts from 0.2-0.4s

Has separate registers (processing spaces) for different senses 

Iconic Memory System(Visual)

Echoic Memory System(Auditory)

If it were shorter then we would have a series of unconnected memories

If it were longer we sould see a dragged out memory 

Sort Term Memory 

Rehersal is necessary to maintain 7 digits at once

If rehearsal is prevented than capacity is limited to 3 or 4 pieces of information 

Average range of the human digit span is 7+/-2 

*(The Magical Number)*

The human mind can hold a limited amount of information in a very accessible state

LTM/Procedural 

Without conscious recall 

Motor and cognitive skills/ body moves without thought

Classical operant conditioning affects

LTM/Declarative, conscious recall

Facts-general knowledge (sematic memory)

Hippocampus

Neural center in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage 

Superior retrieval of memories when the external context of the original memory matches the retrieval context

Non-declarative processing

Memory extend behond rehearsed processes

(Galton's stroll through Pall Mall)

Alcohol and Marijuana 

If a person studies for an exam under the influence, they will perform better if the take the exam under the same influence 

Deese-Roedigger-Mcdermott

Views on memory 

False Memories

Human memory is not perfect 

Memory is an inactive constructive process 

Loosing track of the source of the memory made 

EX. Recalling a conversation with a person and the conversation was really with another individual.

Problem recalling the source 

Ex. Things that happen in your dreams that you perceive to be real

Tested Iconic Memory 

Working memory

To retain the partial results while solving an arithmetic problem without paper. 

To combine the premises in a lengthy rhetorical argument

To bake a cake without making unfortunate mistake of adding the same ingredient. 

Long Term Memory

“Fire together”, “wire together”

Increase synapse firing potential

Research from animal studies

Drugs that block LTP interfere with learning

Rats given LTP enhancer will learn twice as five

Increased connections between two neurons is important to learning information and retaining it 

Implicit 

Motorskills

Cerebellum

Explicit

Facts-General Knowledge (Sematic Memory)

Hippocampus

False memory 

Example: Words pertaining to sleep, but did not contain sleep.

Those asked to recall those words most likely claimed that sleep was in the word list