PSYC 2260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Monism, Decision-Making, Template Matching
Document Summary
Lecture & chapter 2: overview of the brain. It is a guide for making sense of behaviour as it can have diverse and multiple causes, provides history and context for the study of psychology, and different perspectives enrich our understanding. A method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of the mind in terms of its basic elements such as sensations (the basic elements of consciousness). A strength of introspection is that its an easy and simple method that provides direct observation of mental processes. Shortcomings of introspection can include, people who report on their own mental activity may not be certain. Observers trained to be sensitive to their reactions to stimuli had subtle changes in the duration, quality or intensity when stimuli were changed slightly (having a different shade of colour or tone). Also, mental images do not always accompany mental activity and mental experiences can be distorted.
