Psychology by Gleitman: Chapter Summaries

Psychology is sometimes defines as the science of the mind, sometimes as the science of behavior. The phenomena that psychology deals with cover an enormous range. They include such things as: electrically triggered images, which arise when a brain exposed during surgery is electrically stimulated; ambiguous sights and sounds, such as paradoxes and puzzles; the perceptual world of infants; displays, which are instinctual signals of emotion; and complex social behavior in humans. As an example of the kinds of approaches psychology can take, Gleitman here considers dreams: as mental experiences, as behavior, as cognition, as social behavior, in terms of human development, and in terms of individual differences.

This first part focuses on overt behavior and its physiological basis, answering the question, ôHow do humans act?ö It begins by considering the biological underpinnings of human and animal action, leading to a discussion of the nervous system and its operation, and some phenomena of motivation. It then asks how organisms can modify their behavior to adapt to new circumstances, and goes on to discuss classical and instrumental conditioning, modern behavior theory, and more recent approaches that take a more cognitive slant.

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hierarchical organization, skills, differences between masters and beginners, and automatization. Next he deals with obstacles to problem solving and how to overcome them, by working backwards, finding an appropriate analogy, or changing the representation. Under restructuring, he deals with creativity and humor. He concludes by considering artificial intelligence, that is, problem solving by computer, including algorithms, heuristics, and expert systems. Next he turns to reasoning and decision making, and discusses deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and decision making, including cognitive shortcuts for estimating probabilities, biases, and irrationality. Finally, he deals with ôCognition and Consciousness,ö considering mental processes that go on below the surface, including perception, memory, understanding, and action that occur without awareness. He concludes with philosophical comments on what consciousness is good for. 9. Language Gleitman begins by discussing the major properties of human language, which are that language is creative, structured, meaningful, referential, and interpersonal. He then turns to the structure of language, describing phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences. Under the to
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Approximate Word count = 4143
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)