A Braitenberg vehicle is a concept presented as a thought experiment by the Italian cyberneticist Valentino Braitenberg in his book Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. The book models the animal world in a minimalistic and constructive way, from simple reactive behaviours (like phototaxis) through the simplest vehicles, to the formation of concepts, spatial behaviour, and generation of ideas.
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which held from the 1920s to 1950s that unobservable mental processes were outside the realm of empirical science.
What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect is a book by psychologist James R. Flynn which outlines his model for an explanation of the eponymous Flynn effect. The book summarizes much of the work of Flynn in this area, as well as that of his colleague William Dickens of the Brookings Institution.
An impossible object (also known as an impossible figure or an undecidable figure) is a type of optical illusion that consists of a two-dimensional figure which is instantly and naturally understood as representing a projection of a three-dimensional object but cannot exist as a solid object. Impossible objects are of interest to psychologists, mathematicians and artists without falling entirely into any one discipli
In psychology, ironic process theory (IPT), also known as the pink elephant paradox or white bear phenomenon, suggests that when an individual intentionally tries to avoid thinking a certain thought or feeling a certain emotion, a paradoxical effect is produced: the attempted avoidance not only fails in its object but in fact causes the thought or emotion to occur more frequently and more intensely. IPT is also known
The psychology of eating meat is an area of study seeking to illuminate the confluence of morality, emotions, cognition, and personality characteristics in the phenomenon of the consumption of meat. Research into the psychological and cultural factors of meat-eating suggests correlations with masculinity, support for hierarchical values, and reduced openness to experience.
The region-beta paradox is the phenomenon that people can sometimes recover more quickly from more distressing experiences than from less distressing ones. The hypothesized reason is that intense states trigger psychological defense processes that reduce the distress, while less intense states do not trigger the same psychological defense processes and, therefore, less effective attenuation of the stress occurs.
The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being. In 1999 Trapnell and Campbell explored the self-absorption paradox in relation to private self-consciousness or attention to internal aspects of the self.
The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less is a book about overchoice written by American psychologist Barry Schwartz and first published in 2004 by Harper Perennial. In the book, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers.
The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics, psychology and artificial intelligence involving stylized ethical dilemmas in a scenario of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a scenario in which a runaway trolley (tram) or train is on course to collide with and kill a number of people (traditionally five) down the railway track, but a driver or by
Twin Earth is a thought experiment proposed by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his papers 'Meaning and Reference' (1973) and 'The Meaning of 'Meaning'' (1975). It is meant to serve as an illustration of his argument for semantic externalism, or the view that the meanings of words are not purely psychological.