PSYC 213 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cognitive Ethology, Donald Broadbent, Folk Psychology
16 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
Cognition is presented as the study of processes, or as the act of knowing. Aspects that are related to the subject of information processing include: awareness, comprehension, intelligence, intuition, personal acquaintance, recognition, skill, and understanding. According to information processing, uncertainty can be decreased with the acquisition of information. Information theory maintains that the less likely a signal is, the more information it contains (conversely, when a signal is more probable, the amount of information it contains is reduced). Furthermore, when a signal is less likely to occur, people seem to respond more slowly to it. On top of the nervous system dealing with time limitations, it has also been demonstrated that it shows signs of capacity limitations (amount of information handled at a given time). Capacity limitations do not signify that simultaneous tasks are impossible to complete, rather that impairment of simultaneous tasks depends on the information load.
