Deck 15: Contemporary Developments in Psychology

Question 1

Describe the accomplishments, failures, and ultimate fates of the major schools of thought in psychology.

Answer 1

Every school of thought shave been prospered, except that of the psychoanalysis, ultimately becoming the main stream psychology's main part. Each of these schools suffered objections. When there was no need to proof anything, the movements and the revolutions were stopped and the new school of psychology became an established order.
To the evolution of the psychology, each school contributed a great deal of factors. Even the structuralism has also contributed much to the psychology's evolution, even though; only a little imprint of structuralism is left on the psychology. However, the structuralism was the first school of thought and was an evolutionary school in itself, facing much opposition from the different individuals.
Functionalism too was not considered as the separate school of thought, until and unless it affected the American thought of psychology. In today's date, like science, the American psychology is much like a profession. Its findings can be applied to all the modern life activities. The researchers of the Gestalts' school were not able to convert the psychology in the way they thought.
However, it was considered as great success; since, it had a great impact on the psychology. The ability of individuals to gain and preserve the valid perceptions in the world evidently full of chaos is described by the Gestalt's psychology. After the establishment of various schools, various conflicts arose within the members. It is clear how the psychoanalysis and the behaviorism got broke into two after their founders, Freud and Watson, respectively.
None of them won votes from all the members of their school. Each of the school was then divided into the sub fractions, having a state of competition to prove the facts. In the American psychology, by the end, two more movements were joined, namely the evolutionary psychology and the cognitive psychology.

Question 2

What were the precursors of cognitive psychology?

Answer 2

A glance at the evolution of the cognitive psychology provides a feeling that it might have undergone a quick transition over a short duration of time to transform the primitive psychological thoughts. The movement was, however, very quiet, the changes occurring slowly in about 15 years. There were no drum beating; in fact, one of the psychologists claimed that the term revolutionary is very improper for this change.
Also, the cognitive psychology was not developed single handedly, by only one leader, and that too overnight. It took a long time and involved many researchers. These researchers did not have any intention to carry out a movement, but they wanted to just redefine the psychology. Ulric Niesser and George Miller were considered as the great contributors to the development of the cognitive psychology. George Miller got his masters degree in the year 1941.
Once, he gave a speech on psychology in Alabama University, and there he was appointed as a professor, to teach introductory psychology. He said that teaching the subject 16 times, developed more of his interest in the subject. At the Howard University, he worked in a psychoacoustic laboratory. After studying the models of minds, based on computers; the information theory, the statistical theory of learning and others, he learned that the behaviorism is not the same as he perceive.
He then started to focus on his own concepts of psychology and got baffled when he noticed the similarity between the functioning of human brain and the computer. This all became possible because of the revolutionary nature Miller. In 1951 Miller and his colleague Bruner established a laboratory, where they investigated about the human mind. Ulric Niesser was the student of Miller and studied cognitive psychology with him.
He described that to achieve academic degree he could not escape from the behaviorism. This happened because each and every theory has to be proved on rats. Hence, after sometime he wrote a book, which was somewhat personal about his own behavior and his objectives. After sometime he wrote a book, cognitive psychology.
Then, a few years later he wrote another book, cognition and reality. He proposed that the psychology must not be limited to the laboratory settlements, but must be applied in the real world. In addition, he also insisted the psychologists to apply their findings in the real world, so that the common people could get benefitted to tackle their day-to-day activities.

Question 3

How did the changing Zeitgeist in physics influence cognitive psychology?

Answer 3

The physics has played an influential role in the establishment of the present day psychology; hence, one must focus on physics to get the idea of moods or the spirits of that it has provided to psychology. In the earlier 20 th century, work of, then famous scientists, such as, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg, provided a perspective, which got evolved within Physics.
Universe's mechanistic model that has been emerged from the time of Galileo and Newton was rejected by these scientists. The preliminary version of reductionistic, mechanistic and deterministic aspect of the nature of the human beings, which has been adopted by the psychologists, such as, Skinner and Wundt among others, have also been rejected by the famous physicists.
The need for complete objectivity was discarded because of the new viewpoint that physics has provided. It also ditched the idea of complete separation of the observer from the external world. Physicists claimed that a disturbance would be caused in the Natural environment because of any inspection that we make. They had to construct a traverse to connect the artificial gap between the observed and the observer.
The gap between the inner and the outer world and between the material and the material had also to be built. Thus, the scientific exploration moved from an individualistic and the unbiased realization of the Universe to the individual's view point of that universe. The scientists did not separate themselves completely from their scientific view points, but they become the participant-observers.
Physics change the way the knowledge of universe has been perceived. The main feature of the physics was that it has shifted the objective view point of the universe to the subjective. It also proposes that the knowledge could only be subjective, because no one could produce an exact replica of the world.
For example, the world, as it seems cannot be exactly copied and be presented. Only, a painter could paint it, as he perceives it. The subjective nature of the physics was rejected was the Psychologists for a great amount of time. However, Physics was finally accepted as a transformant, making the consciousness as an authorized part of the psychology.

Question 4

What were the early signs of a cognitive revolution in psychology?

Question 5

What personal factors motivated Miller and Neisser?

Question 6

In what ways did cognitive psychology differ from behavioral psychology?

Question 7

What does the term "ecological validity" mean?

Question 8

Discuss the shift from clocks to computers as metaphors for the mind.

Question 9

What practical need in World War II led to the development of the modern computer? What was ENIAC?

Question 10

What did the most famous chess match of the twentieth century tell us about the ability of machines to think?

Question 11

How are the Turing Test and the Chinese Room problem used to examine the proposition that computers can think?

Question 12

Discuss three ways in which cognitive psychology differs from behaviorism.

Question 13

Describe cognitive neuroscience and the techniques used to map the brain.

Question 14

How does cognitive neuroscience relate to earlier attempts to explain brain functioning?

Question 15

What is neuroprosthetics and how does it involve cognitive neuroscience?

Question 16

What are the limitations to the use of introspection in cognitive psychology?

Question 17

In what ways does the current version of the cognitive unconscious differ from the Freudian view of the unconscious?

Question 18

Describe the current view of animal cognition.

Question 19

In your opinion, are animals capable of cognitive activities, or are we attributing human functions to them that they do not really possess?

Question 20

How does evidence favoring the existence of personality in animals support Darwin's notion of evolution and the field of evolutionary psychology?

Question 21

Describe what is meant by the terms "embedded cognition" and "cognitive overload."

Question 22

What is the present status of cognitive psychology?

Question 23

Describe the relationship between evolutionary psychology and cognitive psychology. Which one draws upon the other?

Question 24

In your opinion, has psychology reached the stage of a unified paradigm that unites all the different approaches to psychology? Do you think evolutionary psychology is likely to be the final stage in the fractious and fragmented history of the field?