INTRODUCTION -
PSYCHOLOGY
LECTURE 2
Mgr. Tereza Škubalová, Ph.D.
COGNITION
 Cognition is described as the mental process of
acquiring knowledge and understanding through
thought, experience, and the senses.
 Cognitive processes (perception, attention,
memory, learning, thinking, decision-making)
 developmental changes
 state of the organism
 environment
SENSATION AND PERCEPTION
 Sensation - input about the physical world
obtained by our sensory receptors.
 Perception - brain selects, organizes, and
interprets sensations in order to give meaning.
 Gestalt – good form -> bias of perception
 Sensory adaptation, habituation
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ATTENTION
 Attention is a process/state of mind in which
consciousness is focused on particular stimuli
 levels of awareness - humans fluctuate between
the high and low thinking states (focused x asleep)
 Attention
 unintentional
 intentional
 involuntary
 objective x subjective determinants of attention
STATES OF AWARENESS
MEMORY
Memory is the ability to take in information, store it, and recall it at a later time.
Hebb’s Axiom: „Neurons that fire together, wire together.“
Traumatic forgetting
Wrong reproduction
Motivated forgetting
Spontaneous extinction
Interference
Confusion