Introduction To Psychology

Ilona Roth

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781317716563
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

First published in 1990. This is Volume 2 of the Open University's Introduction to Psychology. Following on from Volume 1, Part 5 looks at Cognitive Processes, Social Dimension, Application to Problems and Review.

Contents of Volume 1

Preface vii

Part I   Introduction 1

Chapter 1
What is Psychology?  Ilona Roth 2

Part II   The Developing Person 27

Introduction to Part II 28

Chapter 2
The Self and the Social World  Dorothy Miell 30

Chapter 3
The Development of Children’s Understanding  Paul Light and John Oates 79

Chapter 4
Psychodynamics: The Freudian Approach  Kerry Thomas 131

Overview of Part II 185

Part III   The Foundations of Behaviour 189

Introduction to Part III 190

Chapter 5
Biological Perspectives  Frederick Toates 191

Chapter 6
Behaviourism and its Consequences  Frederick Toates and Ingrid Slack 250

Overview of Part III 314

Part IV   Individual Diversity 319

Introduction to Part IV 320

Chapter 7
Aspects of Intelligence  Andrew M. Colman 322

Chapter 8
Dimensions of Personality  Kerry Thomas 373

Chapter 9
Humanistic Psychology  Richard Stevens 417

Overview of Part IV 470

Acknowledgements for Volume 1 ix

Name index for Volume 1 x

Concept index for Volume 1 xiv

_____________PART V_____________

Cognitive Processes

Introduction to Part V

The chapters in Part IV were mainly concerned with theories about people as whole individuals, investigating the factors that account for intelligence and personality, and exploring the full range of personal experience. In contrast, the chapters in Part V focus on certain specific aspects of human functioning: the ability to perceive the environment, to attend to what is going on around us and to remember events. Attempts to identify precisely how these processes work will be described in the following three chapters.

Chapter 10 introduces the area known as perception. This term refers to the process by which people become aware of the environment through their senses. It may seem obvious that objects and events exist ‘out there’, but we can only become aware of them through our ability to see, hear, touch, taste and smell. There have been many approaches to studying the way we perceive the world, ranging from investigations of the physiological functioning of sensory systems to studies of the knowledge which enables us to identify objects. Chapter 10 will be concerned mainly with vision, but it is recognized that other senses play an equally important role.

Chapter 11 outlines theories of attention. Although people are capable of perceiving a wide variety of things, on the whole they are more likely to concentrate on those aspects of the environment which initially catch their attention. Psychological studies of attention have therefore investigated people’s ability to focus attention on particular activities, such as, for instance, reading a book or listening to music. Equally important is the ability to attend to two or more things at once. It is possible to drive a car and carry on a conversation at the same time, for example, until circumstances arise in which driving should necessarily become the main focus of attention.

The theme of Chapter 12 is the importance of memory in everything we do. Without memory, it would be impossible to learn anything or to profit from experience. Psychologists have mainly been interested in the way memory works in general. For example, they have investigated the role of ‘short-term memory’ in the learning of such things as lists of words. They have also investigated the way in which information is stored more permanently in ‘long-term memory’. This concern with memory processes has been typical of psychological studies of memory. There has, however, recently been a revival of interest in memories for natural events in everyday life.

chapter 10

Perception

Judith Greene

Contents

• 1 Introduction: what is perception?
• 1.1 Perceptual experiences
• 1.2 Perceptual processes
• 1.3 Perceptual representations
• 1.4 Why do psychologists study perception?
• Summary of Section 1
• 2 The physiology of the visual system
• 2.1 Sensory receptors
• 2.2 Measuring activity in the visual system
• 2.3 Feature detector cells in the cortex
• 2.4 What have we learnt so far?
• Summary of Section 2
• 3 Psychological studies of perceptual experiences
• 3.1 Psychophysics: the study of sensations
• 3.2 Gestalt psychology: global properties
• Summary of Section 3
• 4 Basic perceptual processes
• 4.1 Size constancy
• 4.2 Distance cues
• 4.3 Illusions and conflicting cues
• 4.4 Perceptual hypotheses
• Summary of Section 4
• 5 Theories of object recognition
• 5.1 Mental representations and sensory cues
• 5.2 Feature detection theories of object recognition
• 5.3 The influence of context in object recognition
• 5.4 Bottom-up and top-down processing
• 5.5 Neisser’s cyclic model of perception
• Summary of Section 5
• 6 Perceiving the natural environment: an overview
• 6.1 Bottom-up models
• 6.2 Perceptual hypotheses and perceptual models
• 6.3 Gibson’s theory of direct perception
• 6.4 Do we learn to perceive?
• 6.5 Lack of visual experience: a case study
• 6.6 What is perception?
• Summary of Section 6
• Personal acknowledgements
• Further reading
• References
• Answers to SAQs

1 Introduction: what is perception?

This may seem an odd question to ask. If perception is defined as seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling, what more is there to explain? We experience the environment around us, seeing walls and trees, hearing birdsong and speech, touching a cup or crushing a flower, tasting a lemon or a well-cooked dish, smelling perfume or escaping gas. In all these ways we perceive the environment.

1.1 Perceptual experiences

Everyone perceives an environment full of objects. We know what things are and how they are likely to behave. Some remain much the same size; some are constantly changing, like water turning into steam; some move about of their own accord; some try to communicate with us. The desk I am writing on is a continuous surface, even where it is hidden by papers. A friend looks the same person whether she is smiling or frowning. Desks do not suddenly leap out at us, dogs often do. Because we have a reasonably accurate picture of the world, we can move confidently around in what is normally a very predictable environment.

Activity 1

Stop and think of all the ways in which you have perceived the I environment in the past hour. Those of you who have a visual handicap I or a hearing impairment, or suffer from some other sensory deficit, will be even more aware of the importance of using other senses to experience the I environment.

In doing Activity 1, you may have thought of many different kinds of perceptions which occur throughout your daily life. In this activity, you were asked to reflect about your conscious awareness of perceptual experiences. Most of the time we do not think consciously about what we see a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Introduction to Psychology Course Team
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contents of Volume 1
• Part V Cognitive Processes
• Part VI The Social Dimension
• Part VII Applications to Problems
• Part VIII Review
• Acknowledgements for Volume 2
• Name index for Volumes 1 and 2
• Concept index for Volumes 1 and 2