PSYC 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter Week 1: Wilhelm Wundt, Optical Illusion, Cognitive Revolution

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

How can the mind study psychology when it itself is using the mind? itself. Newspaper article: psychology comes to halt as weary researchers say the mind cannot possibly study. Structuralism: knowledge through reduction into elements: wilhelm wundt sought to identify mental atoms and used reaction time and introspection. Empiricism: knowledge through sensory observation: behaviour is measurable, mind is not, do people and animals associate predictive stimuli with food? (pavlov) What you see and perceive is what is out there = is that true: what you see is not exactly what other people see (ex. Optical illusions: these illusions were influential in hammering the conflicts in psychology. Hypotheses: educated guess , specific testable situations, concern observable processes. Theories: describe a body of data: not all theories are equal, good theories explain many observations, good theories generate new predictions, theories must be falsifiable, parsimonious (simple) theories win.