...Cognitive Psychology is a psychological perspective that addresses mental processes such as thinking, problem solving, remembering, believing, and speaking, and seeks to identify behavior by characteristics other than its obvious properties (Defining Cognitive Psychology 2011). It includes mental representation and the use of abstract constructs to find relationships between brain structure and their functions (Willingham, 2007).This area of psychology is important in order to acquire knowledge and gain an understanding on how a person’s mental process works. Four Key Milestones in Cognitive Psychology There are at least four key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology as a discipline and they are as follows: the failure of behaviorism, the computer metaphor and information processing, abstract constructs of artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Behaviorism was similar to cognitive psychology but it failed to identify mental processes. Freud’s psychoanalysis required that mental processes be identified in the study of cognitive psychology but behaviorism failed to meet this need. All aspects of the human psyche needed to be accommodated especially in the area of language and memory. This lead psychologists to really rethink behaviorism and gave support for the development of another area of science that would focus attention on the processes that could be observed in a person’s behavior thus giving birth to cognitive psychology. The human mind was...
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...understand and conduct observations on the mental process of the human mind and behavior. It is used to define the mysteries of the human behavior, such as expressions on how people feel and observe actions. The study of the mind is to observe both conscious and unconscious states. Every day we live, breathe, walk, talk, think, and experience in our lives. All of us have so many thoughts and ideas that build up with time which can create issues within ourselves if we don’t vent it out. Psychology studies the brain and mental behaviors. “If we want to understand the mind and behavior, we should investigate it scientifically, just as physicists study the nature of light or gravity, through systematic observation and experimentation” (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). There are theories within psychology that have influenced our knowledge such as structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, cognitive, and evolutionary. The first school of psychology was Structuralism which focused in studying down the mental process and its basic components. There were two major structuralist thinkers include Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener. They used techniques such as introspection to analyze the inner process of the human mind. Functionalism was influenced by William James. Two major functionalist thinkers are John Dewey and Harvey Carr. Their interest and focus was on the mental process but in the role these process play. During the 1950’s Behaviorism became...
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...scientific investigation of human cognition, that is, all our mental abilities – perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and understanding. It is closely related to the highly interdisciplinary cognitive science and influenced by artificial intelligence, computer science, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, biology, physics, and neuroscience” (Dosher, Lin-Lu, 2007, p. 2769). Cognitive psychology uses experiments and the scientific method to establish how humans transform sensory input into one’s own thoughts, which in turn becomes the individual’s actions through the intricate series of one’s cognition (Willingham, 2007). In the beginnings of the 20th Century cognitive psychology declined, because of the rise in behaviorism. In the mid- 1950’s the cognitive revolution developed because of the lack of behaviorism ideas and understanding “between memory and performance, and complex learning” (Dosher, Lin-Lu, 2007, p. 2769). Cognitive psychology began to come into play with the support of brand new technology, concepts that were abstract, and neuroscience (Willingham, 2007). Milestones in the Development of Cognitive Psychology As mentioned earlier behaviorism begin to accumulate problems around the mid- 1950s. One of the considerable problems was lack of differentiation between language, memory, and complex learning. Behaviorist believed an animal’s behavior is determined by what is experienced throughout the lifetime...
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...These mental processes include thinking, believing, problem solving, remembering, speaking, decision making, learning, perceiving, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology uses scientific research methods in studying the mental process. It focuses on how someone acquires, processes, and stores information, and it studies how someone views and understands the world around them. Using this method also utilizes other methods to identify behavior through characteristics other than its obvious properties. This discipline of psychology was not just created overnight, it took some milestones in psychology to help create. Neuroscience Neuroscience is used to see how the brain and nervous system determine behaviors, cognitive psychologists use this to identify brain areas that enable functioning. Neuroscientists can account for intelligent behavior through the use of abstract constructs, hypothetical representation, and processes. They have also established definitive links between structures of the brain and functioning. The research of neuroscientists enables the understanding of states of consciousness, sensory experiences, emotion, motivation, development through life spans, and psychological health. Behaviorism Behaviorism helped create cognitive psychology because when behaviorism was criticized, it was not able to answer many of the questions or account for different human processes that cognitive psychology could. Behaviorists focused mainly on observable behaviors and...
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...control for the mentally disabled. Often times the mentally disabled will see a behavioral specialists in hopes that the professional can help that patient control their behaviors and learn how to be as "normal" as possible in society, although many say that this technique does not work and offers no help, while others believe it is a great method. Even though there are many considerations such as the age of the patient, cultural considerations and the patients diagnose. A behavior disorder can be characterized in many ways. The types of disorders include; anxiety disorder, disruptive behavioral disorder, dissociate disorder, emotional disorder, as well as pervasive development disorder and many others. (Health, n.a.) According to the Americans with Disabilities (2010) about 56.7 million people, or nearly 19 percent of the population had or has a disability. From 2005 up until 2010 there was a quiet an increase of 2.2 million individuals. (Bernstein, 2014). As we age the likelihood of having a behavioral disability increases. For instance in individuals who are 15 to 24, they have a one in 20 percent chance of having a behavioral disability, while individuals who are 65 to 69 have a one in 4 percent change. (Bernstein, 2014) As we age it becomes more difficult for individuals to do simple tasks, and many have mental issues that lead to a behavioral disorders such as Alzheimer’s. Approximately 2.4 million individuals have Alzheimer’s, are senile or have dementia. (Bernstein, 2014)...
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...Cognitive Psychology Definition Paper PSY/340 Cognitive Psychology Dr. 07/14/2014 The cognition process study is an integral part of getting familiar with the human nature. Considering the topic of human nature, the most interesting thing to discover is the way people behave themselves, what is ascribed to the study of behavioral psychology. Nevertheless, the way people behave is fully dependent upon what people learn, what do they read, which information they process, and how does it take place. A human's behavior in different situations is just as set of theoretical and practical knowledge received in the process of cognition. All the questions regarding this topic are put under deep scrutiny by the branch of psychology, which is called the cognitive psychology. This kind of psychological studies is one of the most important, as it examines and researches not only what and who we are, but how do we acquire the features we possess. The 18th century was a harsh time for the development of psychology in the role of a scientific discipline. Towards the end of the 19th century psychology was dominated by an approach known as introspectionism. The basis of introspectionism was to study mental processes via a method of subjective self-examination. (Parkin, 2000, p. 1) In the middle of the 20th century, three general movements arose to inspire and shape a cognitive psychology. First of all, after the introduction...
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...psychologists such as Sigmund Freud or B.F Skinner and various physicians and biologists. Scientific Experimentation is the method of some of the perspectives use, while some rely solely on clinical observation. The biological foundation of psychology is biopsychology. Neuroscientists “investigate the electrical and chemical processes in the nervous system that underlie these mental events” (Kowalski, 2009, p. 6, para. 1). Mental events include thoughts, feelings, and fears just to name a few. When studying the brain, neuroscientists observed patients with severe brain trauma, concluding they showed lack of language and memory or a drastic change in personality. These results proved that the brain and behavior worked together. One of the issues arising from the study of biopsychology is the term localization of function, meaning to the extent to which different parts of the brain control different functions. The belief at one time was that each psychological function happened in a specific part of the brain, when after several observations realized psychological circuits are distributed throughout the brain and contribute to a psychological event. Once the biological foundation of psychology was built, it was time to start building the frame, which leads to the major schools of thought in psychology. The first two schools of psychology were structuralism and functionalism. Considered the beginner of experimental psychology, Wilhelm Wundt was a physiologist from Germany. Wundt...
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...that investigates the main components of the brain, the mind and the body in different fields of psychology in order to understand and conduct observations of the mental process of the human mind, and observable behavior. Psychology is often used to understand the unknown of human behavior, and their potential patterns that observe the actions of self expression on how people feel and store memory. The study of the mind is an observation of a person’s mental awareness of both the conscious and unconscious mentality. Structuralism was the dominant school of psychology in Germany and the U. S. between1890-1920, and was the school of thought based on the notion that the object of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how these elements are related. Structuralism explores areas of the mind, focus mainly with sensation and perception in vision, hearing and, touch through introspection, or the systematic observation of one’s own conscious experiences, although Functionalism was the protest against structuralism and had the assumption that functionalism was more practical and concerned with commonsense issues, structuralism believed that mental functions were not subject to introspective analysis which it was the shaping of the mind that could be analyzed. Another school of thought is behaviorism, in which focus mainly on how and why behaviors happen, and the prediction and the control of behavior in experiments of natural science. The school...
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...psChapter 1 Psychology – the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes William James (1842-1910) asserted that conscious experience could not be broken down as structuralists believed. James maintained that experience focused on the behavior and described his views in the Principles of Psychology. Wilhelm Wundt – He viewed mental processes as activities and classified feelings as pleasant or unpleasant, tense or relaxed, and excited or depressed. Hippocrates – The ancient Greeks generally believed that the gods punished people for wrongdoing by causing them confusion and madness. However, the Greek physician Hippocrates rejected these beliefs. He suggested that such problems are caused by abnormalities in the brain and had a rational explanation. This idea that biological factors can affect our thoughts, feelings, and behavior influenced thinking about psychology for more than 2,000 years. Socrates – A student of the philosopher Socrates in ancient Greece, recorded his teachers advice. “Know thy self” This phrase has remained an important motto of psychological study ever since. Socrates suggested that we can learn much about ourselves by carefully examining our own thoughts & feelings. Psychologists call this method of learning introspection, which means “looking within” Aristole (384-322 B.C.) Raised many questions about human behavior that are still discussed. Aristole outlined the laws of associationism. Kenneth Clark – Dealt with gender, culture...
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...The Foundations of Psychology Psychology is the scientific investigation of mental processes and behavior. Mental processes include how a person thinks, feels, remembers as well as a person’s behavior. When a doctor needs to understand a person they need to know the person’s biology, psychological experience, and cultural context. People’s experiences during their life from birth to adulthood are what shape how they feel and think. Early psychologists established several approaches and schools of thoughts of psychology. These schools of thought are known as the psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive and evolutionary perspectives. They came up with these by research and study which will be discussed throughout this paper. In many respects, these perceptions have progressed independently, and at the center of each are singularities the others tend to ignore (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). Despite their differences, each school of thought sought evolution for psychology as well as advancement of human understanding while remaining focused on the unique characteristics of contemporary psychology. Psychodynamic Perspective. The psychodynamic perspective belief is that most of the mental processes and emotions happen at the unconscious or subconscious levels, meaning below conscious awareness. Sigmund Freud was one of the most influential thinkers in the early twentieth century whose work in the psychodynamic...
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...psychology to be the best attempt for science to understand psychology. Titchener states that “attention implied too much free will” to be an accurate and useful. Later, psychologists continued to study the consciousness with feelings and sensations that could only be told by only the person reporting them. This was one of the thoughts that were most prominent in the early years of psychology. The other thought that was also prominent was functionalism. Unlike structuralism that focused on the mind, the work of functionalism looked at the function, or role, that psychological actions can help people adjust to the environment. A functionalist would react to what is learned, but not to say the idea of an action. They would tend to focus on the behavior and purpose of their reactions. One of the initial founders is William James, who wrote a textbook of psychology in 1890. The work of Charles Darwin was also instrumental a century later, to this psychological thought. The works of...
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... Biopsychological Essay Biological psychology is combining psychology with biology and studying what kind of impact biology plays in our behavior. In other words, how does the physical brain affect our psychological behavior? It is a biological approach to the study of psychology. This has also been referred to as psychobiology, behavioral biology, or behavioral neuroscience Biopsychology did not develop into a discipline o f its own until the 20th century. While the exact date s not clear, in 1949 the publication of “The Organization of Behavior” by D.O. Hebb. This publication was significant in its emergence in bringing biopsychology to the forefront of study. In this book Hebb's theory was about the complex psychology such as perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and memories might have a strong influence from actual brain activity. Hebb based his theories on experiments of humans and laboratory animals, clinical case studies, logical arguments, and his own observations of daily life. To go back even further, we can look at Aristotle, or Plato. While it may not have been considered as a study of it’s own, we should not forget their early contributions. It is the very beginning of taking a look at the brain as the key to all thoughts, behaviors, and philosophical thoughts. Aristotle looked at the brain in ways that were not yet considered. Opening a new world of psychology or at least planting the seed for psychology. .While Aristotle is considered to...
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...hear the word psychology they may not always perceive it as a science. The science of psychology is based on the mental processes and behavior of human beings, and in some cases, animals. The foundations of psychology rely heavily upon four individual schools of thought. This includes the following perspectives: psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive, and evolutionary (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). Although the biopsychological approach is not considered as one of the four major schools of thought within psychology, it plays an important role in the foundations of psychology. These perspectives focus on a unique viewpoint or approach toward the field of psychology and each brings new ideas and theories to the table. The Psychodynamic Perspective It can be said that Sigmund Freud was the father of the psychodynamic perspective of psychology. Freud developed this perspective based upon the idea that the unconscious self is responsible for certain “underlying wishes, fears, and patterns of thought from an individual’s conscious, verbalized thought, and behavior” (Kowalski & Westen, 2009, p. 13). Essentially, the psychodynamic perspective suggests that people’s actions and thoughts are influenced by unconscious factors that they may not be aware of. The goal of psychodynamic psychologists was to discover how these unconscious factors influence the behavior and mental processes of human beings. Due to the nature of this perspective psychologists relied heavily upon the case study...
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...the following questions in short-essay format. Be prepared to discuss your answers. 1. What is biological psychology? Biological Psychology is more known for behavioral and neurobiology neuroscience. This is a very interesting and exciting one. It is chiefly concerned with elucidating the neurobiological basis of psychological and behavioral phenomena. The interesting accomplished by being able to get images of the brain and trying to determine the location of the mental process, watching the activity of different components of our brain, allowing us to study the effect of behavior, and the effect of our brains outputs. The field has grown over the past decades due to the expansion of computer technology and the greater understanding of genetics and biology and the fMRI imaging machines. 2. What is the historical development of biological psychology? The historical development of biopsychology is traced as far back as the ancient Greek era. It became the Roman church who dictated much of the human behavior according to their religious beliefs. After the Dark Ages subsided a new way of thinking was born and this period is called the Renaissance era. With this era came new ways of studying things, ways to see things by observing them and this was how modern science was founded. 3. Name one to three important theorists associated with biological psychology. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher but also...
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...controversial study since its discovery. It is sometimes referred to as a “fake science” or claimed to be useless. But trying to understand how the human brain works has been inherent in the human species since we became more advanced. And after all, the human brain is so advanced that it actually named itself. Within the field of psychology there are many different pillars of ideas on which the study stand upon. The following will discuss the major schools of thought in psychology and what they project. It will also delve into the primary biological foundations and how they are linked to behavior. Functionalism has the most influence of any theory. It is the theory of our mental states as humans. According to functionalism, “mental states are identified by what they do rather than by what they are made of ” (Polger, n.d.). In the words of Koening, “Psychological functionalism attempts to describe thoughts and what they do without asking how they do it. For functionalists, the mind resembles a computer, and to understand its processes, you need to look at the software -- what it does -- without having to understand the hardware -- the why and how underlying it” (Koenig, n.d.). The anaolgy of the mind as a central computer is the simipliest way to describe the theory and the assumtion is that the brain is in control of all actions and behaviors. Gestalt psychology is the next pillar of thought. The Gesstalt theory is that “the human mind works by interpreting data through various laws...
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