Problem solving

1. Preparation: Identify facts

2. Production: Separate truly relevant from those that are irrelevant

3. Evaluation: Define his or her ultimate goal

Common barriers fo effective problem solving

• Confirmation bias; trying to confirm pre-existing positions or beliefs whilst ignoring contradictory evidence
• Availability heuristics; judging the likelihood of an event based on how readily available other instance of the event are in memory
• Representativeness heuristics; estimating the probability of something based on how well the circumstances match a representation example or prototype
• Functional fixedness; the tendency to view objects only for their usual customary use
• Mental sets; persistently returning to old solutions even when they are not working now

Language development

For many years, psychologists have debated the existence of a critical period for language learning. The first three years of life seem to be the optimal time to attain native fluency.

Language development progresses through a series of stages.

Before infants can start to acquire vocabulary or syntax, they have to learn to segment the continuous streams of speech they hear into units. They then have to learn to classify words into syntactic categories.
Babies' first recognisable speech sounds occur as babbling in the first year. Sometime in the second year they begin to speak in one-word utterances. Young children use telegraphic speech, leaving out all but the essential words. By age four, most of the sentences children produce are grammatical.

Memory

The standard model of memory is predicated on the metaphor of the mind as a computer; it distinguishes three memory stores: sensory memory, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM)


Working memory


Working memory refers to the temporary storage and processing of information that can be used to solve problems, respond to environmental demands or achieve goals

Long-term memory


Declarative memory refers to the memory for facts and events; it can be semantic (general knowledge) or episodic (specific events). Procedural memory refers to 'how to' knowledge of procedures of skills and include habits.

Explicit memory refers to conscious recollection and recall
Implicit memory refers to memory that is expressed in behaviour

Everyday memory refers to memory as it occurs in daily life

Remembering, misremembering and forgetting

• Psychologists often distinguish between the availability of information in memory and its accessibility
• People make memory errors for a variety of reasons
• Psychologists have proposed several explanations for why people forget, including decay, interference and motivated forgetting
• Memories recovered in therapy cannot be assumed to be accurate, but they also cannot be routinely dismissed as false
• Specific kinds of distortion can also occur within the memories of people whose brains have been affected by illness or injury. Anterograde amnesia involves the inability to retain new memories. By contrast, retrograde amnesia involves losing memories from a period before the time that a person's brain was damaged.

Consciousness

The nature of consciousness


Consciousness refers to the subjective awareness of metal events and serves two main functions;

1. Monitoring the self and the environment and
2. Controlling thought and behaviour

Perspectives on consciousness


The psychodynamic perspective. Freud distinguished three types of mental activities conscious processes, of which of the person is currently subjectively aware; preconscious processes, which are not presently conscious but could be readily brought into consciousness; and the unconscious processes, which are dynamically kept from consciousness because they are threatening.

The cognitive perspective. The cognitive unconscious focuses on information-processing mechanisms that operate outside of awareness, such as procedural knowledge and implicit memory.

The behavioural perspective. Consciousness was considered analogous to a continuously moving video camera, surveying potentially significant perceptions, thoughts, emotions, goals and problem-solving strategies. The two functions of consciousness - monitor and control - allow people to initiate and terminate thought and behaviour in order to attain goals.

The evolutionary perspective. Consciousness evolved as a mechanism for directing behaviour in adaptive ways, which was superimposed on more primitive psychological processes such as conditioning. The primary function of consciousness is to foster adaptation.

Sleeping and dreaming


The sleep cycle is governed by circadian rhythms, cyclical biological 'clocks' that evolved around the daily cycles of light and dark

Sleep proceeds through a series of stages that can be assessed by EEG. The major distinction is between rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM) sleep. Most dreaming occurs in REM sleep, in which the eye dart around and the EEG takes on an active pattern resembling waking consciousness.

Three theories on dreaming:

1. Freud believed that dreams have meaning and distinguished between the manifest content (story line) and the latent content (underlying meaning) of the dream

2. The cognitive perspective suggests that dreams are the outcome of cognitive processes and that their content reflects the concerns and metaphors people express in their waking cognition

3. Some theorists propose that dreams are biological phenomena with no meaning at all

Altered states of consciousness


Altered states of consciousness, in which the usual conscious ways of perceiving, thinking and feeling are modified or disrupted, are often brought about through meditation, hypnosis, ingestion of drugs and religious experiences

Meditation creates a deep state of tranquility by altering the normal flow of conscious thoughts

Hypnosis is characterised by deep relaxation and suggestibility

The most common way people alter their state of consciousness is by ingesting psychoactive substances - such as alcohol and other depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens and marijuana - that operate on the nervous system to alter mental activity

Approaches to Intelligence

The psychometric approach examines which intellectual abilities tend to correlate statistically with one another. This approach uses factor analysis to identify common factors that underlie performance across a variety of tasks

The information processing or cognitive approach aims to describe and measure the specific cognitive processes that underlie intelligent behaviour, including the following: speed of processing, knowledge base, and the ability to learn and apply mental strategies

Current multifactor theories of intelligence include Sternberg's triarchic theory (analytical, practical and creative) and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences

Intelligence Testing

Intelligence tests are measures designed to assess the level of cognitive capabilities of an individual compared to other people in a population

Alfred Binet developed the first intelligence test to identify children performing in school at a level below that of their age peers

James Wilson-Miller (1982) created the Koori IQ test to show the cultural bias in typical IQ tests held in the education system

Terman brought intelligence testing to North America, adapted the concept of intelligence quotient (IQ) and expanded the meaning of the IQ from a predictor of school success to a broader index of intellectual ability

IQ = (MA/CA) x 100


Raven's Progressive Matrices can be used when looking at non-verbal cognitive skills

James Flynn found that each generation has a higher IQ than the last

Perception

Perception refers to the closely related process by which the brain selects, organises and interprets sensations.

Perceptual organisation integrates sensations into meaningful units, locates them in space, tracks their movement and preserves their meaning as the perceiver observes them from different vantage points.

Gastalt principles:

• Figure-ground perception
• Similarity
• Proximity
• Good continuation
• Simplicity
• Closure

Form perception refers to the organisation of sensations into meaningful shapes and patterns (percepts).

Depth perception is the organisation of perception in three dimensions. Depth perception organises two-dimensional retinal images into a three-dimentional world, primarily through binocular and monocular visual cues.

Motion perception refers to the perception of movement. Two systems appear to be involved in motion perception. The first calculates motion from the changing image projected by the object on the retina; the second makes use of commands from the brain to the muscles in the eye that signal eye movements.

Bottom-up processing; seeing as it is; emphasises the role of sensory data in shaping perception

Top-down processing; shaped by experience; emphasises the influence of prior experience on perception

Divisions of the Nervous System

Level One. Nervous System: Provides the biological basis for psychological experience

Level Two. Peripheral Nervous System: Carries information to and from the central nervous system

Level Three. Somatic Nervous System: Conveys sensory information to the central nervous system and sends motor messages to muscles

Level Three. Autonomic Nervous System: Serves basic life functions, such as the beating of the heart and response to stress

Level Four. Sympathetic Nervous System: Readies the body in response to threat; activates the organism

Level Four. Parasympathetic: Calms the body down; maintains energy

Level Two. Central Nervous System: Directs psychological and basic life processes; responds to stimuli

Level Three. Spinal Cord: Receives sensory input; sends information to the brain; responds with motor output

Level Three. Brain: Directs psychological activity; processes information; maintains life supports

Level Four. (Brain): Forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain

Basic Anatomy of a Neuron

Dendrites
Cell body
Nucleus
Axon hillock
Axon
Myelin sheath
Node of ranvier
Collateral branches
Terminal buttons


Neurons generally have a cell body that contains a nucleus, dendrites are branch-like extensions connected to the cell body, an axon a longer extension from the cell body is used to transmit information to other neurons, axons then have collateral branches, at the end of these branches are terminal buttons used to send signals to adjacent cells. Most axons are covered with a myelin sheath used to facilitate transmission of information to other neurons.

Quantitative Research Methods

Descriptive Designs

• Concerned with describing behaviour
• Uses case studies (limited in size), naturalistic observation, survey research (interviews, questionnaires)
• Possible research bias/observer bias

Correlation Designs

• Concerned with predicting behaviour
• Correlation coefficient (positive/negative correlation or none at all (0))

Experimental Designs

• Concerned with establishing the causes of behaviour
• Three main goals - description, prediction and understanding
• Independent variables (outside participants control)
• Dependent variables (responses depend on their exposure to the independent variable)
• In order to assess cause and effect, participants are presented with different possible variations or conditions, of the independent variable and study the way participants react

History of Psychology

Do we have free will to choose out actions or is our behaviour caused or determined by things outside of our control?

The mind-body problem of how mental and physical events interact with one another

The first psychological laboratory was founded in Germany by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879

Edward Titchener initiated the school of: Structuralism (uncovered the basic elements of consciousness through introspection, the process of looking inward and reporting on one's conscious experience)

William James, one of the founders of the school of: Functionalism (explains psychological processes in terms of the role, or function, they serve)

Neuronal Communication

1. Resting state/potential: Is at a polarised state with negatively charged inside and positively charged outside. Not currently firing but has the potential to depending on the next processes.
2. Depolarisation: Stored energy and if stimulated will either reduce (open briefly to let positive ions in) or increase the difference
3. Graded potential: Either depolarised, the charge on the outside and inside become more similar (more likely) or hyperpolarised the charge becomes less similar (less likely) and is cumulatively charges
4. Action potential: When it crosses a threshold, the membrane becomes permeable allowing positive ions to enter changing the action potential, increasing likelihood of it firing that is not cumulative
5. Neurotransmitter: Neuron fires sending message

Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning involves learning reflexive involuntary responses to stimuli that do not normally cause such responses.

A neutral stimulus is a stimulus that before conditioning does not naturally bring about the involuntary response of interest.

The unconditioned stimulus illicit's a reflexive response without previous conditioning.

During the classical conditioning process, the neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with the unconditioned stimulus to produce the unconditioned response.

After repeated pairings the neutral stimulus is now considered to be a conditioned stimulus.

7 Major Perspective in Contemporary Psychology

1. Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic (unconscious):

• People's actions are determined by the way their thoughts, feelings and wishes are connected in their minds
• Many occur outside of conscious awareness
• The mental processes may conflict, leading to compromises among competing motives (ID 'now', ego 'reasoning', superego 'conscience'
• Sigmund Freud emphasised on unconscious mental forces
• Many of the associations between feelings and behaviour or situations that guide our behaviour are done unconsciously
• Uses dreams, free associations, sexuality, subconscious mind (Allowing patient to talk without guidance or influence)

2. Behaviour (learning):

• Focuses on the way objects or events in the environment come to control behaviour through learning (E.g. Classical or Opperant Conditioning)
• B. F. Skinner observed that behaviour can be controlled by environmental influences that either increase (reinforce) or decrease (punish) their likelihood of occurring
• Uses observations of environment and is focused on the short term change

3. Humanist (individual):

• Focuses on the individual and assumes people are motivated to reach their full potential
• Carl Rogers' client-centred therapy emphasised conscious, goal-directed choices and the need for individuals to realise their true potential in order to self-actualise
• As this perspective focuses on self-actualisation it does not account for people in third-world countries and is biased to Western culture.

4. Cognitive (thought/memory):

• Focuses on the way people perceive, process and retrieve information
• Rene Descartes' early philosophical questions led many cognitive psychologists to emphasise the role of reason in creating knowledge
• Modern-day cognitive psychologists use experimental procedures to infer the underlying mental processes in operation
• When talking about language, Noam Chomsky took the side of nature believing that the rules of grammar is innate
• James Wilson-Miller created the Koori IQ test in 1982 to show that IQ tests were culturally biased

5. Neuroscience/Biopsychology (physical):

• Examines the physical basis of psychological phenomena such as motivation, emotion and stress
• Aristotle determined that there was a connection between the psychological states and physiological processes

6. Evolutionary (evolved):

• This perspective argues that behavioural tendencies in humans have evolved because they helped our ancestors to survive and rear healthy offspring
• It supports Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection - the most adaptive behavioural traits are those that helped our ancestors adjust and survive in their environment

7. Sociocultural (societal):

• Tries to distinguish universal psychological processes from those that are specific to particular cultures
• Lev Vygotsky that the environment and all its factors had a great impact on the development of higher order functions