Some philosophy, in particular naturalistic philosophy of mind, is part of Cognitive Psychology. But the interdisciplinary field of Cognitive Psychology is relevant to philosophy in several ways. First, the psychological, computational, and other results of Cognitive Psychology investigations have important potential applications to traditional philosophical problems in epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Second, Cognitive Psychology can
Gestalt psychology or gestaltism (German: Gestalt – “essence or shape of an entity’s complete form”) of the Berlin School is a theory of mind and brain positing that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies. The Gestalt effect is the form-generating capability of our senses, particularly with respect
The investigations developed at the beginning of the 20th century, based on traditional scientific methodology, divided the object of study into a set of elements that could be analyzed separately with the objective of reducing the complexity of this object. Contrary to this methodology, the school of Gestalt practiced a series of theoretical and methodological
The key principles of Gestalt systems are Emergence, Reification, Multistability and Invariance. Emergence Emergence is the process of complex pattern formation from simpler rules. It is demonstrated by the perception of the Dog Picture, which depicts a Dalmatian dog sniffing the ground in the shade of overhanging trees. The dog is not
The idea that mental states are influenced by many interacting processes, such as bodily processes, personality dispositions and life events, is a very old one. It was well articulated by the early Greek physicians over 2000 years ago and has existed in many cultures old and new Oackson, 1986). Early forerunners of the modern biopsychosocial
Evolutionary psychology (EP) examines psychological traits — such as memory, perception, or language — from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection. Adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system, is
19th Century After his seminal work in developing theories of natural selection, Charles Darwin devoted much of his final years to the study of animal emotions and psychology. He wrote two books;The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex in 1871 and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals in 1872
Evolutionary Biology Middle-level evolutionary theories are consistent with general evolutionary theory, but focus on certain domains of functioning (Buss, 2011) Specific evolutionary psychology hypotheses may be derivative from a mid-level theory (Buss, 2011). Three very important middle-level evolutionary theories were contributed by Robert Trivers as well as Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson
At a proximal level, evolutionary psychology is based on the hypothesis that, just like hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, and immune systems, cognition has functional structure that has a genetic basis, and therefore has evolved by natural selection. Like other organs and tissues, this functional structure should be universally shared amongst a species, and should solve
One of the major goals of adaptationist research is to identify which organismic traits are likely to be adaptations, and which are byproducts or random variations. As noted earlier, adaptations are expected to show evidence of complexity, functionality, and species universality, while byproducts or random variation will not. In addition, adaptations are expected to manifest
Problems of survival are thus clear targets for the evolution of physical and psychological adaptations. Major problems our ancestors faced included (a) food selection and acquisition, (b) territory selection and physical shelter, and (c) avoiding predators and other environmental threats. See Buss (2011) for descriptions of various psychological adaptations that have evolved to deal with
Consciousness is likely an evolved adaptation since it meets George Williams’ criteria of species universality, complexity, and functionality, and it is a trait that apparently increases fitness. In his paper “Evolution of consciousness,” John Eccles argues that special anatomical and physical adaptations of the mammalian cerebral cortex gave rise to consciousness. In contrast, others have
Many experts, such as Jerry Fodor, write that the purpose of perception is knowledge, but evolutionary psychologists hold that its primary purpose is to guide action. For example, they say, depth perception seems to have evolved not to help us know the distances to other objects but rather to help us move around in space.
Motivations direct and energize behavior, while emotions provide the affective component to motivation, positive or negative. In the early 1970s, Paul Ekman and colleagues began a line of research that suggests that many emotions are universal. He found evidence that humans share at least five basic emotions: fear, sadness, happiness, anger, and disgust. Social emotions
Cognition refers to internal representations of the world and internal information processing. From an EP perspective, cognition is not “general purpose,” but uses heuristics, or strategies, that generally increase the likelihood of solving problems our ancestors routinely faced. For example, humans are far more likely to solve logic problems that involve detecting cheating (a common
Evolutionary psychology is primarily interested in finding commonalities between people, or basic human psychological nature. From an evolutionary perspective, the fact that people have fundamental differences in personality traits initially presents something of a puzzle. (Note: The field of behavioral genetics is concerned with statistically partitioning differences between people into genetic and environmental sources of
According to Steven Pinker, who builds on the work by Noam Chomsky, the universal human ability to learn to talk between the ages of 1 – 4, basically without training, suggests that language acquisition is a distinctly human psychological adaptation (see, in particular, Pinker’s The Language Instinct). Pinker and Bloom (1990) argue that language as
Given that sexual reproduction is the means by which genes are propagated into future generations, sexual selection plays a large role in the direction of human evolution. Human mating, then, is of interest to evolutionary psychologists who aim to investigate evolved mechanisms to attract and secure mates. Several lines of research have stemmed from this
Reproduction is costly. Individuals are limited in the degree to which they can devote time and resources to producing and raising their young, and such expenditure may also be detrimental to their future condition, survival and further reproductive output. Parental investment is any parental expenditure (time, energy etc.) that benefits one offspring at a cost
Inclusive fitness is the sum of an organism’s classical fitness (how many of its own offspring it produces and supports) and the number of equivalents of its own offspring it can add to the population by supporting others. The first component is called classical fitness by Hamilton (1964). From the gene’s point of view, evolutionary
Although interactions with non-kin are generally less altruistic compared to those with kin, cooperation can be maintained with non-kin via mutually beneficial reciprocity as was proposed by Robert Trivers. If there are repeated encounters between the same two players in an evolutionary game in which each of them can choose either to “cooperate” or “defect,”
Evolutionary psychology incorporates insights derived from other disciplines about how cultural phenomena evolve over time. Theories that have applied evolutionary perspectives to cultural phenomena include memetics, cultural ecology, and dual inheritance theory (gene-culture co-evolution). Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish
Evolutionary Developmental Psychology In evolutionary theory, what matters most is that individuals live long enough to reproduce and pass on their genes. So why do humans live so long after reproduction? Many evolutionary psychologists have proposed that living a long life improves the survival of babies because while the parents were out hunting, the grandparents
A basically evolutionary understanding of the foundations of human psychology has been part of psychology since Freud. The relative contribution of biological-hereditary and cultural-environmental factors to human social behavior is the topic of the classic nature versus nurture debate. Early understandings in differences in human behavior as being based in biological differences resulted in ideologies