Learning - social, cognitive, and developmental psychologies offer several theories suggesting regarding what, when, why, and how people acquire knowledge.
LEARNING Learning Saundra Moskoff Psych 550 October 29, 2012 Ming Zheng, Ph.D. ________________ Learning The acquirement of information resulting in openly discernable and reasonably stable behavioral changes defines how people acquire knowledge (Terry, 2009). People learn during every stage of life. Toddlers who burn their hands after unintentionally touching a hot stove learn they should not touch a hot stove. Because she wanted to look cute in a short skirt, despite the cold temperature, teenage girls learn they need to don more clothing in cold weather, and adults learn how their behavior, such as using profanity, offends others. Concept of learning The concept of learning remains a longstanding debate in psychology. Disciplines, such as the social, cognitive, and developmental psychologies offer several theories suggesting regarding what, when, why, and how people acquire knowledge. What According to University of Wisconsin Stevens Point (2005), learning involves four kinds of information attainment, transmission, acquisition, accretion, and emergence. Transmission refers to the conveying of information from one to another through display, direction, or instruction, such as traditional education. Acquisition involves research conducted by the learner, such as experiments and general curiosity. Accretion involves the steady achievement of knowledge, such as
'Imagine you have been abandoned in the middle of an unknown forest in the middle of a pitch-black night. What research evidence in auditory cognition and perception underpins your ability to understand the auditory environment?'
0191094 PSY248 Auditory Perception 'Imagine you have been abandoned in the middle of an unknown forest in the middle of a pitch-black night. What research evidence in auditory cognition and perception underpins your ability to understand the auditory environment?' I am in an unknown place and I cannot see, but I can hear at least five separate sounds. Only a small area of the human brain is concerned with hearing. Its main aim is to help us interact with the environment and our other senses to tell us about what is going on in the world, including allowing us to localise objects and events, numerate these and interpret any change (Goldstein, 2002). In order for us to hear something, the auditory system must first complete three processes. Step one is to deliver the sound stimulus to the receptors in the brain. The receptors then change this from pressure change into electrical signals leading to the final step, in which the electrical signals are processed to indicate qualities of the source of the sound including things such as pitch, timbre and location (Goldstein, 2002). However, when many sounds are heard at once, in takes a little more for the brain to distinguish between them all and separate them into manageable, understandable sounds. When there are many sounds emitting at the same time, they can affect each other. This is known as auditory masking. The basic
Discuss the Implications of Memory, Thinking and Language for the Modern, Irish, Third Level Student
Student Name: Class: SS1730 (Psychology) Student Number: Date: 17th December 2010 Discuss the Implications of Memory, Thinking and Language for the Modern, Irish, Third Level Student Word Count: 2602 (excluding bibliography) Lecturer: Kevin Gallagher Introduction Cognitive psychology ‘is the attempt to understand human cognition by observing the behaviour of people performing various cognitive tasks’ (Eysenck and Keane, 2010: 1).This essay examines the cognitive processes of memory, thinking and language and how they can be applied to the third level student. The modern, third level Irish student has many challenges to face when entering third level education. Most students are school leavers who are leaving the family home for the first time to live independently. They must contend with new challenges such as budgeting, shopping and cooking and various other life skills. Socially, their identity is changing as they become young adults. Added to this, they are undertaking an educational experience where every aspect is new, from the building to the syllabus to the people. The optimum use of cognitive resources is paramount during this time. This essay is divided into three sections. The first section outlines the process of
What is classical conditioning and how is it relevant to phobias in humans?
Department of Professional and Community Education (PACE) Integrated Degree in Psychology Student Identification number/Name: 33066386 Core essay Title of the essay: What is classical conditioning and how is it relevant to phobias in humans? Name of the tutor who will be marking it: Mike Griffiths Date of Submission: 25/04/2007 Essay title What is classical conditioning and how is it relevant to phobias in humans? This essay will demonstrate a basic learning process known as classical conditioning along with the way it is associated with phobias in humans. Ivan Pavlov’s initial discovery of classical conditioning and his contribution to the understanding of this phenomenon will be outlined. Moreover, the definition and the basic principles of classical conditioning will be stated next to its significance in daily behaviour. Furthermore, different types of phobias as well as their acquisition through classical conditioning will also be presented. Finally, a number of techniques which could be applied in treating phobias will also be introduced. According to Carlson, Martin and Buskist (2004), people acquire much of their daily behaviour throughout classical conditioning. For instance, when people hear a song they used to listen to when they were with loved ones they are likely to experience feelings of nostalgia. As a general rule, classical conditioning
Interference with Memory by a Suffix. Review of literature and report on an experiment.
A suffix effect Interference with Memory by a Suffix Christian A. Gordillo Rochester Institute of Technology Abstract Memory refers to the processes that are used to acquire, store, retain and later retrieve information. The three major processes involved with memory include encoding, storage and retrieval. The ability to retrieve is different in every human and psychologists have tried to identify the ability of retrieval through interferences. While information can be retrieved through a primary effect, remembering recent numbers or letters on a list and the recency effect, remembering the last few numbers or letters. Interference occurs when something else intrudes or disrupts retrieval therefore unable to retrieve the number or letter. A suffix usually acts as this interference, it is an additional item to a list similar to items on the list but the suffix does not need to be recalled. A Suffix Effect Multiple studies have been conducted where psychologists have tried to exceed the capacity of short-term memory. Typically, a bell curve would be shown otherwise known as the serial position function. The serial position function describes how recall is significantly better in the first few (primacy effect) or last few (recency effect) items of a list. In auditory conditions, the addition of an extra item at the end of a list usually debilitates recall for the
Explore the different psychological perspectives and their relation to each other.
Explore the different psychological perspectives and differing objects of knowledge and compare their relation to each other in language, sex and gender TMA 06 The perspectives used in psychology offer varying ways to focus on their subject and therefore have different ‘objects of knowledge’. Various perspectives will be discussed in this essay and their relation to each other in studying the topics of language, meaning sex and gender. The debate whether language is a unique human attribution with qualitative differences rather than quantitative differences in comparison to other animals has led to the differing perspectives. Whether being an evolutionary advantage and an adaption through time as a divergence from other species leaning more towards the evolutionary and cognitive approaches, or due to social interaction and team building and a communication system which lends to the social constructionist perspective. The evolutionary perspective look at the origin of language whilst the cognitive perspective focuses on the processes of how meaning is transmitted between individuals, with social consrtuctionism concentrates on the meaning of language through interaction and whether this meaning is transmitted or conveyed after the spoken word. Cognitive psychologist’s perspective use metaphorical similarities in the theorizing of the internal workings of the brain
Compare and contrast theories of perception which emphasize top-down processing against those which emphasize bottom-up processing. How useful is this distinction in the study of perception?
Compare and contrast theories of perception which emphasize ‘top-down’ processing against those which emphasize ‘bottom-up’ processing. How useful is this distinction in the study of perception? As we look around us it is unlikely that we spend time consciously working out how we use our senses to discover and understand the world around us. We tend to understand the world holistically. Whilst sensation is the ability of our senses to distinguish and use certain energy sources, it generally agreed that perception involves the analysis of information received from our senses and its subsequent cognitive interpretation (Pike & Edgar, 2005). However, it is how this analysis occurs that has led to much debate. This essay will focus on some predominate theories of perception, that of JJ Gibson, Marr and the constructionist approach. Gibson’s theory is embedded in a bottom-up approach, in that perception is achieved from the stimuli received via the senses. Whereas the constructionist view is that perception does not occur from stimulus alone, top-down processing from prior knowledge is also required. Another view to understanding perception is to look at its goal, is it for action or object recognition (Pike & Edgar, 2005). . Whilst these theories appear polarized, I will argue that to take either a top-down or bottom-up approach is not necessarily a useful
Executive Functioning and Working Memory.
I.D 12001726 Psychology Marking Sheet Module UC809672: Cognitive Psychology Level 9 Academic Year 2014/15 Student ID Mark Awarded A 70+ B 60 – 69 C 50 - 59 D 40 – 49 F <39 Analysis: The essay is authoritatively evaluative and not simply descriptive. Structure: Well organised, focused, with clear, fluent and persuasive writing Knowledge and Understanding: Demonstrates a good understanding of the area, insightful argument and authoritative analysis of relevant material and independent and critical judgment is made on the literature used. Resources: The range of sources is relevant and self-sought and discussion and argument exposes knowledge of why and how they are relevant. Comments General Resources and Referencing Comments Feedforward Tick if passed to second marker Yes Over the decades, empirical studies on Working Memory have revolutionised the way that we think about the human mind, by providing us with a greater understanding of the cognitive processes involved in executive functions such as attention, problem solving, reasoning and decision making. Nevertheless, despite this significant progress, certain questions still remain unanswered as to how specific cognitive mechanisms are organized. Perhaps one of the most prominent models to have emerged from the study of executive functions and cognitive control in working memory is
Language and thought.
BBI3215 Language and thought Content . Introduction 2. What is language? 3. What is thought? 4. The relation between language and thought 5. What the sapir-whorf hypothesis has to say about language and thought. 6. Conclusion . Introduction Language and thought, these are the two distinct abilities possessed by human . These two unique abilities had enabled man to be more superior than any other living things in this world. What actually are language and thought? Are they closely related? 2. What is language? According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:- i. language (of a country) is the speech and writing that is used by people of a particular country where as ii language (of communication) is the device used by humans to communicate with each other. In other word, it is a system of sounds and words used for communicating and to encode and deliver thought and ideas. iii According to Sociolinguistics written by R.A Hudson 1999, language is a body of knowledge or rules 3. What is thought? i According to the Essential Activator, Longman, thought is something that you think. Ii According to the book ,Sociolinguistics written by R.A Hudson, 1999, the term thought covers a number of different types of mental activity, and lies in the province of cognitive psychology. 4. Language and thought It seems evident that there is a close relation
The Cognitive Perspective.
The Cognitive Perspective Cognitive psychology is the study of how people perform mental operations. The cognitive approach sees human beings as information processors that work in the same way as a computer. In humans, our brains are the hardware, receiving, interpreting and responding to information. Cognitive psychologists are only interested in studying mental activities and believe that the brain prefers organized information and the way we achieve this is by storing information about any one thing as a schema. This is a packet of organized information that is constantly updated according to new learning. Supporters of the cognitive perspective propose that once we know how the human brain works it will be possible to create a computer that behaves exactly the way a human would. This is called Artificial Intelligence; examples of this are computer games such as chess and card games. Cognitive psychology focuses on mental functions such as memory and perception. George Miller (1956, cited in Hill 2001) investigated the capacity of the short-term memory. He referred to what he found as 'The magical number seven, plus or minus two'. In his study Miller found that by packaging information into larger units or 'chunks' the amount of information retained could be increased although still only seven plus or minus two of these chunks were retained by the short term