Cognitive

Processes
FATHIMA HASNA CHULLIYIL
 cognition
Cognition The mental activities associated with thought, decision making, language, and other higher mental processes.
It simply means how we perceive, think and transform or manipulate events and information in our life.
Thinking:
It is the internal representation of an event or problem. In thinking we
will mentally manipulate or transform information to reach conclusion.
It will shift rapidly. It’s conclusively a mental process not a motor
process.
Basic Elements of Thought

Concept

Propositions

Mental images/ Visual images

 What is Concepts are mental categories for objects,

concepts
events, experiences, or ideas that are similar to
one another in one or more respects. They allow
us to represent a great deal of information
about diverse objects, events, or ideas in a
highly efficient manner.
 Types of
concepts
 Propositions

sentences that relate one concept to another and

can stand as separate assertions. Propositions such
as “Ramesh greeted Salman” describe a
relationship between two concepts—in this case,
affection expressed between two friends. Others,
such as “Polar bears have white fur,” describe the
relationship between a concept and its properties.
 03 Mental images

Mental representations that stand for objects or

events and have a picture like quality. Scene or
object perceived by the brain, even though it is not
actually present in the environment of the perceiver.
 What is
Reasoning
 Language
Language in psychology is a system of
communication that follows rules (grammar)
to convey meaning (examples include English,
Spanish, and American Sign Language).

linguistics is the scientific study of languaage

and it's structure.
 Q.1
A
Language uses symbols for communicating
information.

Language

B
words and sentences must carry
meaning

A system of symbols,
plus rules for combining them, used
C
number of separate sounds or words in a lan�guage

to communicate information. may be limited, it must be possible to combine these

elements into an essentially infinite number of
sentences.

D
, the meanings of these combinations must
be independent of the settings in which they
are
used.
 STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE
Zenith Central Bank

Morpheme
This smallest unit of meaning is known as a
morpheme. Consider the word 'dogs. ' It is
composed of two morphemes: 'dog' and 's'
Semantics
understanding of the meaning of spoken or
written language.
Grammer
rules of a language governing the
sounds, words, sentences, and other
elements, as well as their combination
and interpretation
Phoneme
smallest units of sound that are
recognizable as human speech and
make words distinct from one another
syntax
Syntax is the set of rules and process
that govern sentence structure in a
language
Pragmatics
pragmatics studies the way people use
language. It's involves contextual, social
meaning
 Sapir-whorf
Role of Language in Hypothesis
thinking
linguistic relativity hypothesis, suggests
that language shapes or determines thought (Whorf, 1956).
Accord�ing to this view, people who speak different
languages may perceive the world in different ways,
because their thinking is determined, at least in part, by
the words available to
them.

*Language does not completely determine our thoughts—

our thoughts are far too flexible for that
 1

Problems Solving:
Efforts to develop or
choose among various
responses in order to
attain desired goals.
 ment problems
Arrange

Inducing structure

Transformation
Arrangement problems: Arrangement problems require the problem solver to rearrange or recombine
elements in a way that will satisfy a certain criterion. Usually, several different
arrangements can be made, but only one or a few of the arrangements will produce
a solution. Anagram problems and jigsaw puzzles are examples of arrangement
problems (Coventry et al., 2003).
 problems of inducing structure, a person must identify the existing relation-
ships among the elements presented and then construct a new relationship among
them. In such a problem, the problem solver must determine not only the rela-
tionships among the elements but also the structure and size of the elements
involved.
 problem— transformation
problems—that consist of an initial state, a goal state, and a method for changing the
initial state into the goal state. In the Tower of Hanoi problem, the initial state is the
original confi guration, the goal state is to have the three disks on the third peg, and
the method is the rules for moving the disks ( Emick& Welsh, 2005; Majeres , 2007;
Van Belle et al., 2011
 PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
We must recognize that a problem EVALUATE
exists and then figure out just what
Evaluate each alternative forms of the
issues, obstacles, and goals are
solutions based on their pros and cons
involved
or benefit and cost

FORMULATE POTENTIAL
SOLUTIONS
Solutions do not arise out of a cognitive
vacuum; they require thinking critically
about a problem, and they depend
heavily on the information at our disposal
IMPLEMENT
must try potential solutions and evaluate them
on the basis of the effects they produce. All too
often, a potential solution is only partially
effective: It brings us closer to where we want to
be but doesn’t solve the problem completely or
finally

Stages of
Problem Solving
 #1 Mental set
1. The impact of past experience on present
problem solving
2. Tendancy to retain methods that were
successful in the past
3. Abraham Luchin- water jar problems
 #2 -Functional fixedness

1. A block to a problem solving that comes

from thinking about objects in terms of
only their typical functions or it's most
common use.
 #3 - Confirmation Bias
1. Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias that
favors information that confirms your previously
existing beliefs or biases
2. Confirmation biases affect not only how we gather
information but also how we interpret and recall it
 #4 - Irrelevant information

1. Irrelevant information often acts as a barrier when

you get anchored to all ofthe irrelevant information
and lose sight of the real problem. A classic example
of irrelevant information is the seven wives problem.
 “As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had
seven sacks, every sack had seven cats, every cat had seven kits. How many
were going to St. Ives?”
In order to solve this problem, you must disregard all the information about the
number of wives, sacks, etc. Once you do, it is easy to see that just the
person talking is going to St. Ives. The man and all his wives are going in the
opposite direction.
#5- Unnecessary constraints

1. when individuals assume that there are rules that don't

actually exist
2. a barrier that shows up in problem-solving that causes
people to unconsciously place boundaries on the task at
hand