Description
Introduction:
Cognitive psychology explores functions, such as learning, memory, thinking, and decision-making, whereas affective psychology concentrates on mood and emotion. These have been researched as independent domains of investigation; however, research has revealed that they are interdependent in many important ways.
Two pervasive topics in all the assessments in this course are:
Historical perspective on the origins and evolution of cognitive and affective psychology.
How neuroscience can shed light on these fields.
For context on these topics, read the following:
Introduction to Cognitive and Affective Psychology and Related Neuroscience [PDF].
As a professional psychologist, you will need to review theory and research and use it as the basis to develop best practices. For this assessment, you will focus on the following topics:
Perception.
Consciousness.
Attention.
Preparation:
This first assessment focuses on visual perception, attention, and consciousness. For context on these topics, read the following:
Introduction to Visual Perception [PDF].
Introduction to Attention and Consciousness [PDF].
The following resource is required to complete the assessment.
Presentation Template [PPTX].
Note: Do not submit a paper for this assessment. Papers will not be graded.You will complete this assessment by replacing all language that is enclosed within brackets [. . .] in the Presentation Template with your own words.Imagine you are now a professional psychologist working in the specialization that you aspire to. You are charged with creating professional development for an interdisciplinary team of professionals in your workplace on how theories, principles, and evidence-based best practices of cognitive and affective psychology can be used to help people in your work context.For this assessment, you will create a PowerPoint presentation focused on the following topics:
Perception.
Consciousness.
Attention.
As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.
Where do our thoughts come from? How is it that physical processes in the brain cause consciousness?
What determines how perception or information enters into consciousness? Is there a gatekeeper that lets only some information through?
Why do you find it easier to concentrate on some things or in some situations, rather than others?
Can we process information even if we are not aware of doing so?
Is it time to give up the Cartesian dualism for a more integrated understanding of the relationship between the physical brain and the mind based on the research since the time of Descartes?
How do brain physiology and neuroscience help to explain normal and abnormal perception, problems with attention, and issues related to consciousness? Does science point toward interventions that could help persons with issues in these areas? Does it point toward ways to enhance capacities?
Do culturally diverse populations experience perception, attention, and consciousness differently?
How do emotions impact perception and attention?
Guidelines for the Presentation:
Number of words: The number of words on each slide should be cut to the bare minimum without losing meaning. Instead of crowding slides with words, it is better to use more slides. Think of the entries on the slide as headings. In an actual presentation, the presenter would deliver details and support information verbally. All details and supporting information should be entered in the notes area below the slides.
Design: You may wish to enhance the design of the presentation to make it more effective. For guidance on PowerPoint design, you may review the documents PowerPoint Presentation Design Suggestions [PDF] and Guidelines for Effective PowerPoint Presentations.
If you feel that any aspect of the Presentation Template can be improved, you are encouraged to design your presentation as you see fit, as long as the required information is complete, clear, and well organized.
Language: Remember that your presentation is for an interdisciplinary team, so it will be important to communicate in a manner that can be understood by those not trained in psychology. Be sure to include plain language definitions of psychological terms used in the presentation in the notes section.
References: Remember to cite references just as you would in a written assessment.
Title Slide: On the first slide of the PowerPoint presentation, enter the following:
A descriptive title of approximately 5–15 words. It should stir interest while maintaining professional decorum.
Professional development for [enter the type of institutional context your presentation is designed for].
Your name.
Your specialization.
Course number and title.
Capella University.
Faculty name.
Note: If this presentation was made in an actual professional context, the entries under your name would be replaced by your job title, the name of your organization, and perhaps your contact information.
Topic Introduction Slides
Present each of the three topics in a separate section that begins with a slide naming the topic and concisely introducing it.
Theoretical Background Slides
Use one or more slides to briefly analyze the origins and evolution of each theory that you will reference in relation to each topic.
Application Slides
Use slides as needed to explain how theories, principles, and evidence-based best practices related to each topic can be used to explain behavior and help people. Remember, these factors should be relevant to the context your presentation is designed for. For each of these:
Analyze how and to what extent brain physiology and neuroscience can provide an explanation of relevant phenomena.
Analyze how affect may impact cognitive performance in this area.
Evaluate how cultural diversity should be considered in relation to at least one of the topics in your presentation.
Conclusion Slide
Conclude your presentation with a succinct statement that sums up the utility of what you have presented.
References Slide
Cite references using current APA style and formatting guidelines.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
PSY-FPX7421: Cognitive/Affective Psychology
Introduction to Attention and Consciousness
Attention and consciousness are two of the most difficult concepts to provide an operational
definition for in the field of psychology. Everyone seems to intuitively understand what they are,
but if you had to measure attention or consciousness—it would be a very difficult task.
Some years ago, Chalmers (1996) observed:
Consciousness . . . is as perplexing as it ever was. It still seems utterly mysterious that
the causation of behavior should be accompanied by a subjective inner life. We have
good reason to believe that consciousness arises from physical systems such as brains,
but we have little idea how it arises, or why it exists at all. How could a physical system
such as a brain also be an experiencer?
In recent years, scientists and researchers in myriad disciplines—for example, Francis Crick,
Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose, and Steven Rose (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2017)—have
addressed this question of consciousness: How is it that physical processes in the brain cause
consciousness?
Michael Gazzaniga (2008) in his book, Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique,
discussed the relationship between Consciousness, Perception, and Attention:
One of the mysteries of consciousness is how a perception or information enters into
consciousness from the nonconscious depths. Is there a gatekeeper that lets only some
information through? What information is allowed through? What determines that? What
happens after that? How do new ideas form? What processes are contributing to
consciousness? . . . The question of consciousness has been rather like the holy grail of
neuroscience. If you tell me you are interested in knowing just exactly what parts of the
brain are active when you are conscious of something—a flower, a thought, a song—
what you are asking about is known as the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC).
You are not a lone coyote on this request. No one knows exactly what is going on, but
there are plenty of suggestions. (Gazzaniga, 2008, p. 278)
Schwartz, a research scientist and practicing psychiatrist, explains:
The power of attention not only allows us to choose what mental direction we will take. It
also allows us, by actively focusing attention on one rivulet in the stream of
consciousness, to change–in scientifically demonstrable ways—the systematic
functioning of our own neural circuitry. . . . Neuronal circuits change when something as
gossamer as our thoughts changes, when something as inchoate as mental effort
becomes engaged—when, in short, we choose to attend with mindfulness. (Schwartz &
Begley, 2002, p. 367)
New technology such as PET, MRI, and MEG scans show that therapy utilizing mindfulness and
images can teach clients to alter response habits wired in the brain. Patients can learn to
willfully change the amount and quality of attention that they focus on feelings of anxiety and
stress. There is much to be gleaned from understanding the importance of attentional
processes.
References
Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
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PSY-FPX7421: Cognitive/Affective Psychology
Gazzaniga, M. S. (2008). Human: The science behind what makes us unique. New York, NY:
HarperCollins Publishers.
Schwartz, J. M., & Begley, S. (2002). The mind and the brain: Neuroplasticity and the power of
mental force. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Sternberg, R. J., & Sternberg, K. (2017). Cognitive psychology (7th ed.). Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
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PSY-FPX7421: Cognitive/Affective Psychology
Introduction to Cognitive and Affective Psychology
and Related Neuroscience
Consider the following everyday scenarios:
•
You are in a meeting trying to concentrate on a presentation, but a conversation in the
hallway outside the conference room threatens to distract you.
•
You look up a phone number and repeat it to yourself while you go get your phone so
you will not forget it.
•
You are driving in an unfamiliar city and consult a street map to find your destination.
•
You always associate a particular piece of music with a particular girlfriend or boyfriend
with whom you had a bad breakup, and every time you hear that music, you feel sad.
Each of these familiar situations illustrates some aspect of cognitive and affective psychology:
attention, short-term recall, visuospatial problem solving, and the role of emotion in memory,
respectively. In fact, these examples involve the study and understanding of day-to-day
functions such as memory, language, and other similar processes that are usually transparent
to us because our brains mostly carry out these processes automatically.
Cognitive psychology, which explores functions such as learning, memory, thinking, and
decision making, and affective psychology, which concentrates on mood and emotion, have
been researched as independent domains of investigation. However, research has revealed that
they are interdependent in very important ways.
Origins
Historical perspective is important to recognize how dynamic the evolution of cognitive/affective
psychology has been, and in all probability, will continue to be in the future. It is also important
for professional communication because it introduces a shared vocabulary used to reference
fundamental disciplinary ideas.
Cognitive and affective psychology can trace roots back to ancient Greek thinkers such as Plato
and Aristotle; philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Hume; and neuroscientists such as
Broca and Lashley, as well as the influence of giants of psychology such as Sigmund Freud and
William James.
Given its broad scope, cognitive/affective psychology is perhaps the most integrative of
subdisciplines within the field of psychology. It arose from three major streams of influence—
philosophy, neuroscience, and the larger field of psychology itself—and it also draws on
disciplines as diverse as linguistics, computer sciences, and anthropology. The intersection of
these and other fields results in complex and overlapping relationships that touch on virtually
every other area of psychology as well as the other disciplines involved and most facets of daily
life.
While Ulric Neisser is usually credited with coining the term cognitive psychology in his book
Cognitive Psychology, published in 1967, the so-called cognitive revolution in psychology had
been developing since the 1950s. Noam Chomsky’s critique of the behaviorist approach to
language (Chomsky, 1959) and Donald Broadbent’s seminal Perception and Communication
(1958) were already challenging the behaviorist orthodoxy that had determined what material
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PSY-FPX7421: Cognitive/Affective Psychology
was acceptable for the field of psychology to study throughout the middle part of the twentieth
century. Cognitive psychology’s influence grew throughout the 1960s and 1970s as it drew on
the growing fields of computer science and neuroscience to develop more powerful and
persuasive explanations of cognitive phenomena. And in the 1980s and 1990s, the growth of
positive psychology and the therapeutic approach of cognitive behavior therapy moved the field
of cognitive psychology to include the role of affect in its understanding of cognitive processes.
As you explore the history cognitive and affective psychology, it might be helpful to keep the
following questions in mind:
•
How did the study of human cognition originate?
•
Why do cognitive psychologists study errors (in speech, language, and decision making)
as much as they do, when these errors are relatively uncommon in real life?
•
How did the historical link between cognition and emotional processes originate? How
has this relationship evolved over time?
•
How do the disciplines on which cognitive and affective psychology draw influence the
research questions and the methodologies it uses?
•
What are the current issues and questions within cognitive and affective psychology,
and how do cognitive and affective psychology affect other disciplines with which they
come into contact?
Neuroscience: Questions of Nature and Nurture
One fundamental question of cognitive psychology is: Where do our thoughts come from?
Perhaps, they are byproducts of brain activities, somehow electrically and chemically
manufactured in the gray matter and then exported to the mind. This answer seems unfulfilling
given the general uniformity of the human nervous system and the vast differences in
cognitive abilities and affective responses. Maybe, would another approach include
environmental factors that shape our cognitive patterns?
As you explore the complex and varied structures of human nervous system that are involved
with human cognition and emotion, you will see that the answers to what biological factors
shape these functions is not simple. The answers are a mix of innate biological structure,
mechanisms, and processes. For example, most psychology students have heard of HM; he
had severe epilepsy and underwent brain surgery to stop the seizures before they killed him
(Worth & Annese, 2012). Unfortunately, the surgeons removed HM’s hippocampus, the brain
structure that is primarily involved with the creation and storage of new memories. Following the
surgery, HM was largely unable to form new memories for the rest of his life, over 40 years
(Worth & Annese, 2012).
The answer of localization of function (that different brain regions are solely responsible for
cognition) is not complete, however. Our environment influences the chemicals in our body—
and that too greatly impacts cognition (and affect). For example, being under stress releases a
variety of chemicals, through the endocrine system, that alter our cognitive abilities (Carlson,
2017). In turn, those chemicals alter how humans process decisions—making people focus on
different aspects of risk and reward (Mather & Lighthall, 2012).
The answer is also that environment and early experiences shape the development of our
brains and biological responses. Epigenetics is the study of how life experience can alter our
brains and how they function (Carlson, 2017). Thus, our early experiences actually shape our
brain and its chemical responses. Epigenetics is most commonly associated with the stress
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PSY-FPX7421: Cognitive/Affective Psychology
response, but we also see that early experience can alter cognition and affective responses
(Miller, 2010).
•
What are the fundamental structures and processes of the brain?
•
How do researchers study the brain? What are their findings?
•
How does neuroscience explain the relationships between and among the brain,
cognition, and behavior?
Can neuroscience explain such complex human traits as love and hate, selfishness
and altruism, or an appreciation for music or art?
•
References
Broadbent, D. (1958). Perception and communication. Pergamon Press.
Carlson, N. R. (2017). Physiology of behavior (12th ed.). Pearson Press.
Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior. Language, 35(1), 26–58.
Mather, M., & Lighthall, N. R. (2012). Risk and reward are processed differently in decisions
made under stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 36–41.
Miller, G. (2010). A role for epigenetics in cognition. Science, 329(5987), 27.
Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. Meredith.
Worth, R., & Annese, J. (2012). Brain observatory and the continuing study of H.M.:
with Jacopo Annese.” Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 8(2), 222–230.
Interview
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PowerPoint Presentation Design Suggestions
A PowerPoint presentation should communicate the lesson information as effectively as
possible in visual as well as verbal terms:
•
•
•
Ensure the number of words on each slide is cut to the bare minimum without losing the
meaning.
o
Use a heading at top of each slide, 36–42 points in size, which tells what the
subject of the slide is.
o
Use bullet entries instead of continuous text. It would be ideal to have no more
than six bullet entries on a slide and no more than 10 words per entry. Instead of
crowding slides with text, it is better to add more slides.
Be sure to use only typefaces that are easy to read.
o
Do not use more than two typefaces of different names (such as Helvetica or
Times).
o
Do not use different typefaces that are similar in style. However, it is very helpful
to use some appropriate contrasts of sizes and weights of type to focus the
viewer’s attention on the most important content within each slide.
Consider using pictures and diagrams, in addition to words, as it may be useful to
convey relevant information visually. However, minimize the use of decorative elements
or effects that distract from meaning.
o
For any visual material within your presentation that you did not create yourself,
cite the source.
o
For presentations in a professional context:
If you use pictures or diagrams that you did not create yourself, you must
seek out, and abide by, applicable copyright restrictions.
If required by members of your audience, you should be prepared to
make appropriate accommodations. Write concise notes in the area
beneath each slide provide supporting information for the points
presented on the slide.
Note: In the Resources under the Suggested Resources heading, you will find tip sheets by
Microsoft and Capella’s guidelines for designing effective PowerPoint presentations.
1
[Title of Approximately 5−15
Words]
Professional Development for
[Institutional Context]
Your name.
Your Specialization.
Course number and title.
Capella University.
Instructor’s name.
Introduction to [Topic]
• [Copy this slide to introduce each of the 3
topics of your presentation.]
• [Use these introduction slides to begin each
section of the presentation devoted to each
topic.]
Theoretical Background of [Topic]
• [Briefly analyze the origins and evolution of
each theory that you will reference in relation
to this topic.]
[Applications of Topic]
• [Explain how theories, principles, and
evidence-based best practices related to the
topic can be used to explain behavior and help
people.]
• [Remember, these factors should be relevant
to the context of your presentation.]
• [Consult the assignment instructions for other
information you should provide.]
Conclusion
• [Succinctly sum up the utility of what you have
presented.]
References
[Comply with APA style for References.]
PSY-FPX7421: Cognitive/Affective Psychology
Introduction to Visual Perception
Picture in your mind someone you love very deeply. Imagine the person’s hair, facial
expressions, and perhaps, even picture in your mind his or her favorite outfit or the way his or
her smile looks. For most people, this is a relatively easy task. Humans have evolved a highly
complex and detailed visual system. Nearly a third of the human brain is devoted to visual
perception (Carlson, 2017). In fact, the primary way that we gain information from the world is
through our visual system.
To be able to successfully perceive something (irrespective of modality), our sensory systems
must covert a physical energy from the outside world into an electrochemical message than can
be understood by the brain (Carlson, 2017). The physical energy stimulating receptor cells (in
vision: rods and cones) is called perception. Transduction occurs when the physical energy is
transformed into an electrochemical energy. Perception refers to the more cognitive task of
organizing, processing, and interpreting the information that is processed through the sensory
input.
It is often in the perception step where information can go awry. Essentially, our perceptions of
things in the visual world may not always reflect the physical reality of these objects. These
discrepancies are called visual illusions (Carlson, 2017). For example, perhaps, you have seen
the Spinning Dancer illusion—where a ballerina image appears to rotate one way—then
suddenly appears to rotate in the opposite direction (Bernal, Guillen, & Marquez, 2014). The
physical stimulus does not change, so why does your perception change? This assessment
challenges you to understand how visual illusions occur and how sometimes our visual system
is too smart for our own good.
As you explore perception, consider the following questions:
•
What two fundamental approaches explain perception?
•
Can we actively process information even if we are not aware of doing so?
References
Bernal, B., Guillen, M., & Marquez, J. C. (2014). The spinning dancer illusion and spontaneous
brain fluctuations: An fMRI study. Neurocase, 20(6), 627–639.
Carlson, N.R. (2017). Physiology of behavior (12th ed.). Pearson.
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