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What are the various roles learning plays in psychology?
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Learning impacts developmental psychology (neonates), the assessment of neurological disorders (DRL and Korsakoff's) immunology (associations), drug addiction (conditioning), behaviour modification, pain control (reinforcement), stress (acquired coping mechanisms), biological limits, and special education (errorless discrimination process)
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Epistemology
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Theories of knowledge - how do we know things? where does awareness reside? what is the mind? etc.
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Two alternative theoretical approaches to epistemology
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1. empiricism, 2. rationalism (also called nativism)
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Empiricism
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All knowledge is acquired through experience (experience = the sensory impressions that we get + the brains ability to intellectually reflect and create relationships between these sensory impressions)
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4 main features of empiricism
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1. sensationalism, 2. associationism, 3. reductionism, 4. mechanism
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Sensationalism (empiricism)
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All knowledge is derived from simple sensations and these simple sensations lead to simple memories
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Associationism (empiricism)
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All complex knowledge is formed by the association of simple experiences - in order for an association to occur the two events have to have 1. spacial contiguity and 2. temporal contiguity (they must occur in the same space and same time)
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Reductionism (empiricism)
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All complex knowledge can be reduced to a basic stock of simple ideas - every complex human experience is best understood when reducing it to some simple element
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Mechanism (empiricism)
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The mind is a machine with simple structures - there are no mysterious components
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Empirical basis of learning
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Internal representations of simple external events
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Reverberating circuit of neurons
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(empiricism) when external events occur they are laid out as a cell assembly within the brain - when the external event has come and gone, the neurons continue to fire in the brain and an internal representation is made
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Phase sequence
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(empiricism) when 2 cell assemblies fire together and form 1 unit. this is how associations are made.
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Factors effecting the degree and strength of an association (empiricism)
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1. spatial and temporal contiguity, 2. duration, 3. vividness, 4. frequency, 5. recency
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Rationalism
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The basis of all knowledge lies in our ability to reason - some knowledge you're born with (built-in and pre-wired biology) - sensory data is not enough since it's so chaotic and there's too much to make sense of, what's really important are the interpretive mechanisms built into our brains that allow us to make sense of sensory info and allow us to reason and think effectively
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According to rationalists, how do humans make sense of the world and acquire knowledge?
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Sensory data + thought
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