Cognitive Psychology

What Is
Cognitive
Psychology?
Possible topics for cognitive psychology
 What Is Cognitive Psychology?
 The study of internal mental processes—all of
the workings inside your brain, including
perception, thinking, memory, attention,
language, problem-solving, and learning.
 allows psychologists to help people deal with
psychological difficulties.
 Cognitive Psychology
 the study of how information is processed by the brain.
 It includes the study of
 Perception
 Learning
 Memory
 Thinking
 Language
 Attention
 Problem Solving
 Topics in Cognitive Psychology
 Attention--our ability to process information
in the environment while tuning out irrelevant
details.
 Choice-based behavior--actions driven by a
choice among other possibilities.
 Decision-making
 Forgetting
 Information processing
 Topics in Cognitive Psychology
 Language acquisition--how we learn to read,
write, and express ourselves
 Memory
 Problem-solving
 Speech perception-how we process what
others are saying
 Visual perception--how we see the physical
world around us
 History of Cognitive Psychology
 a relatively young branch of psychology
 grew into prominence between the 1950s and
1970s.
 holds that we learn all our behaviors from
interacting with our environment.
 focuses strictly on observable behavior, not
thought and emotion.
 researchers became more interested in the internal
processes that affect behavior instead of just the
behavior itself.
cognitive revolution in psychology
 During this time, a great deal of research on
topics including memory, attention, and
language acquisition began to emerge.
 In 1967, the psychologist Ulric Neisser
introduced the term cognitive psychology,
 he defined as the study of the processes behind
the perception, transformation, storage, and
recovery of information
Source: https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-psychology-4157181
 Ulric Neisser (Father of Cognitive)
German-American psychologist
 He presented the first unified cognitive theory
in 1967. Neisser’s research was centered on
human perception, memory, learning, and
intelligence.
 What is Cognitive Psychology?
Cognitive psychology uses scientific methods to study
the human mind as an information processor.
1. Input – During this stage people need to receive
and encode information from the environment
and then process it before they can respond to
the information in an appropriate way.
 A number of mental processes are involved such as
perception, attention, and short-term memory
 Cognitive psychology uses scientific
methods
2. Storage – During this stage the information is
transformed by the mind’s processing systems
and stored in long-term memory.
 It is retrieved, processed and used by short-
term memory as needed.
 For example, information from perception
and memory may be used to reason and
make decisions.
 Cognitive psychology uses scientific
methods
3. Output – This stage focuses on producing an
appropriate response to the information that
was received.
 For example, once thinking has occurred,
decisions need to be expressed via speaking,
writing, or other forms of communication.
 The Influence of Schemas
 Cognitive psychology suggests that the way a
person processes information may be
influenced by his or her schemas.
 A schema is a mental framework that
develops from an individual’s past
experiences and helps him to organize
categories of information and the relationship
between them.
 The Influence of Schemas
There are many types of schemas, such as:
1. Self-schemas – what a person knows about himself and
what he thinks about his future self
2. Object schemas – what a person knows about an
object’s appearance, where it is from, and what is it used
for
3. Person schemas – what a person knows about someone
else’s appearance, personality, behavior, and preferences
4. Social schemas – what a person knows he should say or
do in a specific social situation
 Neisser’s Research on Perception
 Perception is the result of how schemata and
available information work together.
 Perception also involves the use of cognitive
maps.
 he schema tells us where to look, and the
cognitive map tells us where to go and what
to do next.
 Neisser’s Research on Perception
 You're going on vacation to your favorite
location, and your cognitive map is preparing
you for the information you'll receive
 when you arrive, which is referred to as
spatial anticipation.
 As you anticipate, you create a mental image,
which Neisser defined as an information-
gathering strategy, which is also a part of your
spatial anticipation.
 Neisser’s Research on Memory
Flashbulb Memories
 This concept suggested that
impactful, highly emotional events
may cause people to have very vivid
and highly accurate memories of the
event
 Applications of Cognitive Psychology
 Medicine – to help people to recover from brain injury
 Counseling – to help individuals with mental or emotional
issues through the use of talk therapies such as cognitive
behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based cognitive
therapy (MBCT)
 Education – to develop strategies to assist students with
learning disabilities
 Criminal Justice – to evaluate the reliability of eyewitness
testimony and recovered childhood memories
 Moral Development – to help children to increase their
level of moral reasoning