...Cognitive Psychology Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology studies how people think. It also studies how people remember, perceive, and learn. It focuses on how humans store information. This fairly new branch of psychology is set up to establish ways to improve memory and increase the ability to make accurate decisions. It is also used in education to develop curriculum that facilitates learning (Cherry, n.d.). Understanding cognition has many implications. In education, it can improve the retention of information and thus place more value on learning. In the work place it could potentially improve efficiency and productivity. Jean Piaget was the first psychologist to systematically study cognitive development, especially in children. He developed many tests to expose various cognitive abilities. Through these tests, he was able to put to rest the assumption that children are less competent thinkers than their adult counterparts. In fact his research showed that children think in ways completely different than adults (Jean Piaget, n.d.). Noam Chomsky argued in the 1950’s that linguistics should be seen as an extension of cognitive psychology; however, he opposed the traditional learning theory of how language is acquired. According to Chomsky’s views, aspects of knowledge and ability in linguistics are a direct result of one’s innate ability to use it. This is termed language acquisition device, or LAD. Language acquisition devices enable children without developmental...
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...length and type of stimuli relate to our recall accuracy shall also be provided in order to establish whether findings on previous research were conclusive. Introduction The study of the human brain functions has been in existence for many years. As a result, psychologists and behavioral scientists have over the years developed various theories such as Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, which aim at explaining how the brain works in regard to how it receives, processes and stores information during various stages of development (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2009, p.111). These theories have been directed by research conducted on various branches of psychology. Of particular interest is cognitive psychology, which can be defined as a branch of psychology that studies mental processes that facilitate learning, remembering, thinking and perception among other processes (Brown, 2006, p. 6). Previous studies on the different types of memories indicate that various parts of the brains have the ability to store different memories. This is further supported by a number of cognitive theories that discuss the presence of short term memory stores, which temporarily holds information before it is processed into long term memories. Despite the...
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...1 Cognitive Psychology Dustin Finn PSY/360 September 20, 2015 Melissa Jackson 2 Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology can be defined as the study of the mind and mental functions. Some of these functions include learning, memory, and perception. Other functions are reasoning, language and decision making. Cognition has been studied recently as being a complex computing system. However, scientists began studying this form of psychology as early as the 1800’s. While it contains some flaws, it did create some milestones for cognitive psychology. The Beginning of Cognitive Psychology Back in 1868, a scientist named Franciscus Donders became interested in determining on how long it takes to make a decision. He used reaction time to try and formulate decision making. We learned from Donders studies, that mental processes cannot be measured directly. In, fact we base our findings from certain behaviors, biological changes and behavioral changes as they are affected by biological differences. In 1879, we saw the beginning of structuralism. Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Tichner focused on the conscious experience. They tried to find a “periodic table” for the mind and used an analytic introspection method. In regards to cognitive psychology, they emphasized a systematic, controlled observation. Wundt and Tichner emphasized the importance of understanding the structure of the mind and higher ...
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...Cognitive Psychology Definition Cognitive Psychology Definition (Scholarpedia, 2007) states “Cognitive psychology is the scientific investigation of human cognition, that is, all our mental abilities – perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and understanding. It is closely related to the highly interdisciplinary cognitive science and influenced by artificial intelligence, computer science, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, biology, physics, and neuroscience” (Dosher, Lin-Lu, 2007, p. 2769). Cognitive psychology uses experiments and the scientific method to establish how humans transform sensory input into one’s own thoughts, which in turn becomes the individual’s actions through the intricate series of one’s cognition (Willingham, 2007). In the beginnings of the 20th Century cognitive psychology declined, because of the rise in behaviorism. In the mid- 1950’s the cognitive revolution developed because of the lack of behaviorism ideas and understanding “between memory and performance, and complex learning” (Dosher, Lin-Lu, 2007, p. 2769). Cognitive psychology began to come into play with the support of brand new technology, concepts that were abstract, and neuroscience (Willingham, 2007). Milestones in the Development of Cognitive Psychology As mentioned earlier behaviorism begin to accumulate problems around the mid- 1950s. One of the considerable problems was...
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...Cognitive Psychology emerged as a reaction to Behaviourism. Discuss Cognitive psychology is the school of psychology that studies mental processes including how people think, perceive, remember and learn. As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy and linguistics. Whereas Behaviorism suggests that all behavior can be explained by environmental causes rather than by internal forces. Behaviorism is focused on observable behavior. Theories of learning including classical conditioning and operant conditioning were the focus of a great deal of research. Cognitive psychology began to emerge during the 1950s, partly as a response to behaviorism. According to Anderson (1996), cognitive psychology first emerged in the two decades between 1950 and 1970. The modern development of cognitive psychology was due to the WWII focus on research on human performance and attention, developments in computer science, especially those in artificial intelligence, and the renewal of interest in the field of linguistics. Critics of behaviorism noted that it failed to account for how internal processes impacted behavior. This period of time is sometimes referred to as the "cognitive revolution" as a wealth of research on topics such as information processing, language, memory and perception began to emerge. One of the most influential theories from this school of thought was the stages of cognitive development...
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...Cognitive psychology is the study of the mind. To be more specific, it is the study of how one thinks, remembers, learns, and perceives; the mental processes. It shows us how a group of people can view the same object and yet form different conclusions on what the object is. Cognitive is one of the newer fields of psychology. It is only 50 years old (Willingham, 2007). It was finalized as its own branch in response to the lack of information provided from previous branches psychology. No other branch truly dealt with how and why a person thought or was able to learn and remember. Two keys components of the workings of the human mind. Granted these two key components helped open the door for cognitive psychology, several key milestones helped get cognitive psychology’s feet through the door. These key milestones include the missteps of behaviorism, information processing and the computer metaphor, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. The Missteps of Behaviorism Behaviorism came into the world of psychology and appeared to the solution for it all. The key was to study the actions of a person. The mind was of no consequence. For quite a few years, there were not any doubts about behaviorism. Behaviorism had a good run but it could not answer questions about a human’s mind. After all, to behaviorists the mind was not important. Behaviorists believed that everything they learned from experiments on animals, applied to humans. Questions were now being asked about how humans...
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...Cognitive Psychology Psych 560 May 20, 2013 Prof. Pitt Cognitive Psychology The brain is one of the major faculties that provide sense to human life. The numerous and various abilities of the human brain are truly amazing. However, although it is a common thought that man may think extraordinarily, human emotions have great influence to how human beings think, and use his brains. It is the reason why any activity facilitated or performed by the brain is called a mental processes or cognition. Cognition refers to the process that involves mental or cognitive ability such as in learning, comprehension, judging, thinking, problem-solving, remembering and recalling (Kendra, 2011). Neisser (2009) defined cognition as the “act of knowing, and cognitive psychology is the study of all human activities related to knowledge”. (Page 1) Cognitive psychology is a part of the larger field of cognitive science and is related to various disciplines in psychology such as neuroscience, linguistics, and philosophy. The main thrust of cognitive psychology is how the people acquire, store and process information. Compared with other dominant approaches in psychology for example, the behaviorism approach which is concerned with the observable behaviors, the cognitive approach focuses on internal mental states. Unlike psychoanalysis which is focused on subjective perceptions, the cognitive psychology...
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...Cognitive Psychology Known as one of the fastest growing and most interesting subfields of psychology today, cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies the mental processes of learning, memory, perception, as well as problem solving. The study includes analyzing the step by step process in the manner in which a person moves, talks, thinks, and remembers, or how the brain acquires, processes, and stores information. It is crucial to understand what cognitive psychology is and how it pertains to the field of psychology as a whole. There are four key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology as a discipline which will be discussed further in this paper. Of the various milestones present in the development of cognitive psychology, the process of introspection; the method of study in which people have attempted to follow their own thought processes, usually as they performed a simple task (Willingham, 2007). For example, while brushing his/her teeth, an individual may be reminded of being taught how to brush their teeth. This simple task may bring joy to someone as they outwardly smile as their memory brings them back to a simpler time. Functionalism is another milestone worth mentioning as this process is where there is a purpose; they must be for something (Willingham, 2007). For example, an individual may be inspired to obtain a higher education in an effort to obtain knowledge which leads to career opportunities and financial opportunities...
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...On Applying Cognitive Psychology In the article “On Applying Cognitive Psychology”, Alan Baddeley recounts several research experiences in which he yielded applicable results. His main purpose in writing this article is to demonstrate the ways in which cognitive psychology could be applied beyond the lab to ultimately create a link between theory and practice. In this article, Baddeley’s emphasis on the interplay between theory and practice can be understood through several of the research examples he wrote about. An example is Ivan Brown’s study in which he combined telephoning and driving to “demonstrate the practical importance of our limited attentional capacity (Baddeley).” Baddeley believes that concepts that are established in the lab could pave way to new theoretical insights that in the end yield a more profound understanding. The main idea overall is for researchers to come up with ideas for research that could be of practical use in the real world. I found this article to be fascinating as well as thought provoking as it gave insight to how research psychologists go about conducting experiments. One of the many things I found interesting was how Baddeley went about constructing a new visual recognition test called Doors of Dublin. I found it surprising that doors could provide more variety of realistic material “that in contrast to faces is unlikely to reflect a highly specialized anatomical system (Baddeley).” The results were shocking as there were some exceptions...
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...What is Cognitive Psychology? Basically, it studies human cognitive processes - acquiring, storing, transforming and using knowledge to make decisions. From all of the lessons we tackled in this class, I consider memory as the most important. If you notice my concept map, I used the term memory as a link with all the other terms we discussed in COGPSYC. It is because for me, everything is linked to it and impossible without it. We cannot learn without memory; we cannot solve problems without memory; and we cannot have emotions without memory. It starts with the concept of schema. It is said that schema is where information is organized to form concepts using our mental network (Woolfolk, 2007). It acts as a baseline where all the new information a person gets from the external stimuli is organized. This process of organizing is then adapted until it balances with the other cognitive schemas. Memory can be classified into three categories: sensory, short-term, and long term (Baddeley, 2004). In the process of sensory memory, a person see, hear or touch the information using his attention and perception from the external stimuli. From that, the information which is successfully monitored is then transferred into the short term memory. Information in short-term memory needs to be rehearsed. This is called maintenance rehearsal which involves process of repeatedly verbalizing or thinking over specific information (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). One needs to repeat words or concepts...
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...Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mental processes that underlie behavior. There are many mental processes comprise a number of areas including attention, memory, perception, thinking, reasoning, problem solving, decision making, language, and knowledge. This focus on mental processes contrasts with behaviorism which studied only behaviors that could be directly observed. The areas of interest in cognitive psychology are: Attention- this area of research looks at an array of topics that focus on our ability to pay attention to specific stimuli while excluding other stimuli (selective attention) or to pay attention to 2 stimuli at the same time (divided attention). Memory- A area of research that focuses on the encoding, storage and retrieval processes involved when one remembers information at a later time. Perception- is the use of previous knowledge to gather and interpret stimuli registered by the senses (Matlin 2005). Language- A area of research focuses on how humans and (nonhumans) acquire and use language. Thinking- A area of research includes various topics such as, problem solving, decision making, mental imagery, and logic. The main focus is on the internal thought processes. Cognitive psychology flourished at the beginning of the 21st century, and its principles have been applied to clinical and counseling psychology, personality theory, developmental psychology, social psychology, comparative psychology forensics and legal psychology, and...
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...Cognitive psychology is figuring out what makes an individual tick and understanding the internal process of their mind. Cognition literally means “knowing”. In other words, psychologists from his approach study cognition which is ‘the mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired (cognitive psychology). This type of psychology focuses on how we as human process information, and how we react to this information. When studying cognitive psychology it basically means the studying of the mind. Cognitive psychology is one of the most important schools in psychology. This paper is discussing the history and milestones made with cognitive psychology. William Wundt is the individual who gets the credit for founding modern psychology in 1879 even knowing he was the not the first to publish psychological work. The reason it is told he was the first because Wundt was the first to establish a laboratory just for psychology. In the course book written by Willingham, D.T it states how this is not true. Wundt started his lab in 1879 and William James started a lab in 1875. But it does not count because James used his lab for teaching Wundt did what was necessary to get science going. In 1913 John Watson Published a paper titled “Psychology as the behaviorist views it”. Watson made it clear in that paper that he plans to overturn psychology. Wundt had train many students who remained introspectionists. Watson challenged their assumptions with his four basic principles of behaviorism...
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...Cognitive Psychology Definition Psy 360 June 6, 2011 Dr. Felix Montes Cognitive Psychology Definition Cognitive psychology has a different approach than that of previous psychologies. Cognitive psychology accepts the scientific method and introspection as a method of investigations. Introspection is the self-observation reports of the conscious inner thoughts, desires, and sensations. It is the oneself (Wikipedia, 2011). The other way cognitive psychology is different is in the way it acknowledges the existence of internal mental states like beliefs, desires, ideas, and motivation (Wikipedia, 2011). The definition of cognitive psychology is described as the study of mental processes and how a person thinks, perceives information, remembers the information, and learns from the experience. In the larger field of cognitivism, neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics play a role. Although this science stems from behaviorism it is its own science. The core of cognitive psychology is how to acquire, process, and store information (Willingham, 2007). Most of the famous psychologists and philosophers somehow relate back to Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt is credited with the founding of the first lab back in 1879. There was a lab at Harvard University before this in 1875 but because William James used this lab as a source of teaching and for experiments, he is not credited for the first lab. Wundt did the necessary steps to have cognitive psychology sighted as a science...
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...Cognitive Psychology Paper PSY 360 What is Cognitive Psychology? Cognitive psychology addresses the mental processes responsible for understanding why an individual does the things he or she does. These primary principals are: a person’s perceptions, attention, learning, memory, conceptualization, reasoning, judgment, and problem-solving. Perception is the way a person understands and forms judgments and opinions about the environment he or she resides. In point, perception is unique in each individual. It varies based on a person’s experiences and environment. Another key factor is attention. This is based on how a person processes and sorts information he or she gathers. Not all information is retained, and this is how memory comes into play. Information important is stored and can be retrieved at a later date. Information unnecessary is not stored and may not paid much attention to because it is not pertinent information. How a person learns and processes information is based on his or her learning style. Conceptualization is important because it categorizes information and determines what is to be stored and what is to be used and disposed of. Additionally, reasoning, judgment, and problem-solving are large...
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...Cognitive psychology Psy/360 April 13, 2012 Cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the area of psychology that evaluates the "mental processes including how people think, perceive, and even learn. (Van Wagner, 2009)." Cognitive Psychology is a psychological perspective that addresses mental processes such as thinking, problem solving, perceiving, remembering, believing, and speaking, and seeks to identify behavior by characteristics other than its obvious properties” ("Cognitive psychology," 2009). Cognitive psychology is often compared to behaviorism because of the sharp contrast of the perspectives (Willingham, 2007) Cognitive psychology is used the most when someone is evaluating patients for different types of mental disorders and diseases. The principles that have evolved from the founding of cognitive psychology from the early times starting from the Greek philosophers to modern day psychologist it has greatly affect how people around the world think about the psychological processes of the human mind. Greek philosophers were the first people to start looking into the human mind and how it works. Plato and some of the other early Greek philosophers started creating the foundation for what would be known as today as cognitive psychology (Anderson, 2005). Plato's principles of rationalism described how reality should be viewed, stating that "reality resides not in the concrete objects we perceive but in the abstract forms that these objects represent...
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