Major flaw of the schools of thought that predated cognitive psychology
The functionalists and the structuralists school of thoughts experienced a major flaw. Both schools of thoughts depended on the technique of introspection despite its weaknesses. Psychologists criticized the definition of “function” as it remained vague. Moreover, the functionalists and the structuralists hurled verbal attacks against one another, and this resulted in the end of both schools of thoughts. The school of thoughts might have made significant contributions to the field of psychology but failed to put into consideration a fundamental influence on thought and behavior (the unconscious state of the mind).
How does cognitive psychology improve on their approach to explaining how the mind works?
Cognitive Psychology uses psychological experiments with human beings as specimen to collect information on how the mind operates. The experiments aim to determine how the human mind gather information, process it, and acts upon inputs received from the external world. Cognitive psychology helps to illustrate the functioning of the mind because it analyses how mental processes affect human behavior. The mental processes studied in the experiments include attention, memory, perception, language, and metacognition.
Describe one experiment that proves mental activity is occurring inside the proposed 'black box.'
Tolman and Honzik (1930) experiment proves that mental activity is occurring inside the proposed ‘black box’ (The maze). In this study, the researchers investigated latent learning in rats (Tolman, 1948). From the experiment, it is evident that rats are capable of processing information instead of relying on a stimulus-response relationship. The first group of rats was rewarded from day 1-17 as they were given food after finding the end. The 2nd group experienced a different situation since, from day 1-10, the rats that found the way at the end of the maze were taken out. Nonetheless, day 11-17 entailed rewards and cats that found the way were given food. The last group of the rats got no reward as they were taken out of the maze after finding their way to the end.
How did this study 'observe' evidence of the mind at work?
The second group of rats developed a cognitive map of the maze during the first ten days. It was difficult for them to move faster to the end of the maze because of lack of motivation. The rats reached the end faster after a reward was introduced. This illustrates that a mediational process occurs in the mind as rats’ process information on their brains by applying the cognitive map in the mental process.
Method used by psychologist for measuring mental activity
Psychologists use the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) to measure mental activity (McLeod, 2009). In this method, an individual is exposed to an ambiguous image and expected to interpret it. The TAT method penetrates the unconscious mind of a person with an aim of disclosing the inhibited aspects of their personality. The picture, image, or the illustration should be vague in a way that it will not directly reveal the information presented. At the same time, the image must be attractive to embolden discussion.
How does the method help illustrate the dissociation of different mental tasks?
The TAT method demonstrates the disassociation of different mental tasks performed in the brain. It can be used to measure different reactions and perspectives. By observing the presented image, a person can narrate the story in a unique way.
References
McLeod, S. (2009). Attitude Measurement | Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/attitude-measurement.html
Tolman, E. C. (1948). Cognitive maps in rats and men. Psychological review, 55(4), 189.
